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Amazing Iceman

macrumors 603
Nov 8, 2008
5,214
3,931
Florida, U.S.A.
Rise in Royalty Rates...?

"The change was made in response to a rise in the royalty rates that the company must pay to record companies."
"Desktop users can continue to listen to unlimited music."


Someone explain to me why the rise in royalty rates only apply to mobile users and not to desktop users....
 

TallManNY

macrumors 601
Nov 5, 2007
4,725
1,579
Completely reasonable pricing.

I get your point, that this is a bargain price if you are using Pandora more than 40 hours per month. But actually, this is ridiculously low pricing that Pandora can't possibly make any money on. And that is even with the royalty fees that it is paying are pathetically small. Yes, they've gone up. But when you take a song and deliver it as something like a custom product to a customer, you should pay a royalty. And currently those royalties are super small.

Pandora has no way to make money. And it has to compete against other competitors that also give away the product basically for free.
 

troy14

macrumors 6502a
Mar 25, 2008
773
130
Las Vegas (Summerlin), NV
No one has answered the question yet - I wonder how they would enforce this? If it's by account, maybe we could set up multiple accounts. If it's by device hardware somehow then hrmm..

But I also don't see myself listening to over 40 hours of music a month via pandora!

I shall not worry!
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
Blame this on politics.

Regular, terrestrial radio (like what you listen to in your car) pays NOTHING for royalties to play the music you hear.

But for some asinine reason, Internet radio is required to pay substantial royalty fees — that's why Pandora is the most successful out of all of 'em, because no one else could afford it. When Pandora lobbied to Congress to try and get the same opportunities as terrestrial radio, their efforts were torn apart. Lawmakers actually suggested increasing the amount Pandora has to pay.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Ziggy... try this... Google "do radio stations pay for the music they play". :rolleyes:
 

ProVideo

macrumors 6502
Jun 28, 2011
497
688
Won't affect me, because I moved over to Spotify.

Spotify's radio selections are not as good as Pandora in my experience. They seem to be dominated by more well known and popular artists and songs that I've already heard many times over or didn't want to hear in the first place. Pandora is better at finding artists and songs I haven't heard to add to my library.

Also radio stations cannot be deleted on Spotify once they are added or Spotify adds some crap station for you. People have been complaining about this and requesting this basic feature for over a year while Spotify's staff says they have no plans to work on it. Even premium members are forced to have these unwanted stations permanently stay on their radio playlist.
 
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ConCat

macrumors 6502a
"The change was made in response to a rise in the royalty rates that the company must pay to record companies."
"Desktop users can continue to listen to unlimited music."


Someone explain to me why the rise in royalty rates only apply to mobile users and not to desktop users....

It depends on what they mean. Their desktop app is part of Pandora One, so that could be what they mean

If not though, it does sound like something government-related. Things that make this little sense tend to be.
 

MacDav

macrumors 65816
Mar 24, 2004
1,031
0
Oh, the horror of it all! ... The people in North Korea don't know how bad we have it here in the free world. :rolleyes:
 

crisss1205

macrumors 6502a
Oct 7, 2008
930
267
NYC
Something needs to scare XM and Sirius for their horrible 50 kbps sound quality. They need to get rid of channels and up the bitrate for better sound quality.

I never have any problems with SiriusXM. I don't really use their iPhone app that much, but I do use their website and Pulsar every day and sounds fine.

I like Sirius for music discovery, and some songs are not on iTunes or Spotify, especially from DJs (Channel 51 "BPM" is my go to channel).
 

ConCat

macrumors 6502a
Oh, the horror of it all! ... The people in North Korea don't know how bad we have it here in the free world. :rolleyes:

I know, right? People whine about "Greed" and not being able to listen to Pandora as much as they like... Newsflash people: We are blessed to have what we do have. They could take away half of what the average american owns and we'd still be better off than those in North Korea. For example...
 

alent1234

macrumors 603
Jun 19, 2009
5,688
170
"The change was made in response to a rise in the royalty rates that the company must pay to record companies."
"Desktop users can continue to listen to unlimited music."


Someone explain to me why the rise in royalty rates only apply to mobile users and not to desktop users....


mobile is where you make your money today, desktop you give away for free to entice people to spend money
 

thefourthpope

Contributor
Sep 8, 2007
1,391
738
DelMarVa
I didn't realize mobile had been unlimited. Before I upgraded, I hit my 40 hours on my computer easily; guess I could have just switched to iPod and speaker set. Ah well, it's a solid service to pay for.
 

soundr

macrumors newbie
Mar 27, 2012
22
0
I think this sounds worse than it is. How many people really listen to Pandora that much (I know the article says 4%)
 

shoulin333

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2007
700
21
California
Does this affect my phone when in WiFi or only when using Verizon's data?

I listen to pandora all day every day while programming away at work, but always over wifi.
 
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