“Bette Midler is angry, and you won’t like Bette Midler when she’s angry. The singer lashed out at Pandora last month, after the streaming music provider paid her $114 in royalties for more than 4 million song plays,” Andre Mouton reports for Minyanville. “She’s not the first to complain; last year, members of Pink Floyd accused Pandora of ‘tricking artists,” while the Talking Heads’ David Byrne called Internet radio “unsustainable as a means of supporting creative work.'”
“The powers that be aren’t pleased either. After striking deals with the major record labels, Pandora spent 2013 undermining them by lobbying in favor of the Internet Radio Fairness Act, a bill that would have reduced streaming royalties by some 85%,” Mouton reports. “When the legislation failed, the company promised to take its case to the Copyright Royalty Board, a federal panel charged with setting royalty rates. And when ASCAP tried to negotiate a larger cut for songwriters, Pandora filed a lawsuit, kicking off off a legal spat that ended last March in a loss for ASCAP.”
“Pandora now has 250 million registered users, but few friends within the music industry,” Mouton reports. “So when Apple rolled out iTunes Radio last fall, it was a sea change. Tim Cook and Co. not only offered to pay more in performance royalties, they threw the labels a slice of advertising revenues to boot. Songwriters were offered a 10% cut from Apple — more than double what they receive from Pandora. This was in addition to less tangible benefits, like integration with the iTunes Store, independent licensing deals (not possible with Pandora), and the ability for artists to get paid directly and avoid large Performance Rights Organizations like SoundExchange. In return, Apple got exclusivity…”
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