There is one simple solution to the RIAA. Boycott. I could go a year w/o buying music, no problem. Unfortunately, the whole world just wouldn't do that. A year of no sells for all music labels would essentially put the big names out of business, and thus the RIAA. Lots of little labels would eventually pop back up after the boycott finished. Sure it would be bad for the artists, but in the long run it might actually help them out. There are so few labels now, that artist are and have been screwed out of percentage points on epic proportions. It was so bad that the Beatles made their own label, which saved them a bunch. It's a shame that this concept is completely unfeasible, and merely a thought game.

jkr's bold comment

eternal sadness

GC

@mplsboywonder: thats the spirit announce your illegal activity on a public forum. a plan so perfect you probably wont get caught.

im_back

One of the best apps......

Y2KGTP

Get uSirius when it comes out. I used Pandora non stop until I got into the beta for uSirius and am back to loving Sirius. Too much diversity on it for the price to not love it.

rochec

RIAA - pissing in YOUR bucket since 1952!

Hvedhrungr

Real shocker, they're in the biz of killing everything good about music. What to say about the RIAA that hasn't already been said? Meh.

Benjaminx

Wow,

I don't think they realize how much money I have spent on new music because of Pandora. It is an ultimate promotional tool. Pretty soon I think we should just say "F- IT" and just download everything and not give any of these bastards another dime!!!

If they take Pandora offline then I am downloading all of my music illegally F- em. I'm sick of this crap.

mplsboywonder

"What great idea do you have for us next, RIAA?"

RIAA: well, a whole lot of things now that you mention it. our next goal is to use mind reading technology, as well as big brother in order to charge you either think of or hum one of our songs. If you hum or think about music that doesnt belong to us, we will then charge you for going outside of you "plan" which will in essense a contract that you have never seen, signed, or even heard about.

RIAA's motto: because we love YOU.

jrghoull

RIAA you greedy bastards.
Fine, will have to do it in different way I guess...

dysthymia

That just sucks.
Not much else you can say about it.

K-SO

well, fire up the torrents, now a million people are going to be really pissed off

mjbyrne

when are they gonna realize that the music itself should just be promotional and money should just be looked to be made during concerts, performances and other merchandise

hellaBAY

this shit has gone too far...

510DustMite

noooooooo! I love pandora!

ppeetteeyy

How sad.

nicroma

That's it, something needs to be burned down. Something with the the letters RIAA on it.

triskuit

I have spent more money in the past couple weeks on new songs than I have in the past five years, thanks to Pandora. I use the Pandora app on my iPhone 3G all day at work, favorite new songs I had not heard of before, as well as those I had forgotten about, and then buy them from Amazon MP3 when I get home.

I think I spent $25+ just yesterday.

So good job RIAA, if this goes away, and it becomes harder for me to sample new music, don't expect me to keep paying.

VulnoX

I've discovered many new artists and have purchased music because of Pandora. Shutting it down is going to eliminate a method for artists to gain exposure, and thus reduce their fan base, which reduces attendance at shows, and purchase of music.

I'm still amazed at the amount of power that has been granted to the RIAA. Is this justice for the artists? I think not.

ttrimble

If copyrights lasted as long as patents this problem would go away.

GiltProto

i haven't bought a CD in years.

and i fully intend not to as long as the RIAA is around.

(yes i realize there are non RIAA affiliated labels... )

endless

Clearly the RIAA doesn't want people listening to music. Music is the work of the devil!

SirDrinksalot

@jrghoull: Don't give them ideas man! They'll really do that!

SgtToastie

I hate to say it, but their business is based upon material owned in large part by the Recording industry. No, it's probably not fair that the rates they pay are higher than terrestrial/satellite radio, but if they want to continue to compete and thrive, they need to evolve.

More Indie bands; they need the exposure as it is. Also, maybe users will have to deal with a few more ads. There are ways to survive, the good ones will.

Hilo

So, now I'm going to have to turn to completely illegal sources to listen to music that doesn't BLOW ASS?

Sweetness. Thanks RIAA. I'm never purchasing another product with your little swastika/emblem on it ever again ever. I'd give you ad dollars before, but now i'm actively going to fight doing anything that makes you any money what-so-ever.

way to piss off america.

nachobel

Oh WTF. I loved Pandora. I could use it to find other bands that I'd like. The funny thing is, the only people this will hurt, are the artists and the record industry. Without places like this, there are a lot of bands I won't know about, and a lot less music I'll be buying.

I don't see how artists can stand by and let their record companies do this to them. Especially the lesser known artists who might make it big, if only people could find out about them. That's what made Pandora great, finding new crap you would of never known of without it.

Darkest Daze

Damn you RIAA!!

Now where can i get my favourite DISCO-DISCO whilst munching Humus and sipping Fizzy Bubboleh?

alukard

Noooooo! Pandora is the best thing that has ever happened to my ears!

aaj111

Dear Pandora,

Your strength is not in serving up RIAA music. Your strength is in new music discovery. Cut off the RIAA and focus on independent artists and smaller labels who would be only too happy to give you their business.

And, in doing so, you can also start servicing Canada again ;)

phoomp

Noooo...!!! I found so many great bands through Pandora.
@Con Seannery: please calm down, First: life sucks, live with it, this isn't the worst of your problems, and if it is you have no right to complain about anything, Second: an act of violence is about all that will stop those dirty motherfuckers.

and, concerts = money, record sales = more concert tickets sold

mferrari

Its ok guys. The RIAA will eventually collapse. It just sucks that they are taking down so many wonderful things with them. If they were actually interested in making money, you'd think they'd find a way to keep Pandora alive and still get some green. Idiots.

ALT

I'm pretty sure it went down like this...

Stooge: Uh Gentlemen, we have a problem... someone is successful using the internet to promote music and people are enjoying it.

RIAA: WHAT!? This is madness!!!!

Stooge: Sir it's Pandora... and your 300 reference is terribly behind current trends.

RIAA: Well, if we get tribute from this Pandora enslave all who work there and if we don't launch a litigious assault the likes of which have never been seen!

Stooge: Yes right away Gentlemen, I will quadruple the royalty rates for Pandora....

and that's the latest day that the music died

The RIAA serving it's own interests since evil walked the earth.

Rususeruru

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! THESE BASTARDS CHOKE OFF ANY KIND OF ACCESS THAT THE CONSUMERS HAVE TO TEST DRIVE THE MUSIC, SO I SAY, ARTISTS BE DAMNED, NEVER BUY ANOTHER SONG, THEN LET THE ARTISTS AND LABELS KILL THE RIAA FOR IT! THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO DO IT SHORT OF AN ACT OF VIOLENCE!

Con Seannery

DAMN. I love my Pandora station -- ditto on finding new artists. I'd throw down a few bucks to keep it going if they asked.

Theravada

Way to fuck the music bussines RIAA...but hell the label records won't give a crap about this and probably are going to make things harder for another projects like this one...music just got fucked up since the creation of music BUSINESS

Mike918

Just another day in the RIAA vs. Music war.

Here's a hint RIAA... the idea of royalties is to get as much money as you can without putting the royalty payer out of business.

UnnDunn

NOOOOO!!! Pandoraaaa.......

smartboydan is actually a fairly arrogant screen name, now that I think about it

@greenwald3132:
heh that is funny, considering noone copies pandora music. Anywways, I loved listening to Pandora alot. I have also discovered some new bands while listening and subsequently bought their albums. Though one would assume that this is what the music industry would want. Sucks to have to see it go. Plus they also has the video series which focused on musicisans. Slacker just can't compare.

Sticky230

Just to play devil's advocate here, but look: You think shutting down Pandora is stupid, I think it's stupid, a lot of people think it's stupid.

But the basic fact is that the RIAA (or rather the companies that make up the RIAA) are in the business of making money. Record companies spend a lot of money up front for artists to record albums and then a lot of money to promote those albums. Like it or not, music sales have gone way down recently. At least part of that decrease is due to the distribution of material on the internet that the labels don't get paid for.

If the RIAA actually thought that Pandora was increasing albums sales, they'd most likely allow it to exist. If, on the other hand, Pandora users don't purchase more music in the aggregate (and my anecdotal evidence of people I know who use Pandora), the RIAA is losing money and it's in their best interests to shut it down.

The RIAA isn't evil. Admittedly, it's trying to prop up a music business model that is going out of style, but you can't really blame an entire industry for trying to keep itself afloat.

Guero

I guess its back to the torrents we go... real productive RIAA

greenwald3132

I can't think of a better, more RIAA friendly free service than Pandora. It's introduced me to lots of new artists and music. This would be their loss as much as it would be ours.

karmaghost

I'm VERY happy with Slacker.com

se7a7n7

last.fm is better anyway

Jerry

Well, the bittorrent site I use to download music has a really great system for discovering similar artists. So no huge loss.

anonymousryan

@hellaBAY:
Small artists can't live off of concerts and swag alone. I do feel music should rightfully be allowed to have a price tag, and artists should be allowed to take reasonable steps to protect their intellectual property.

The problem is that the RIAA and the US government are doing it all wrong. The user should rightfully have full rights according to what was laid out by the original Copyright Act.

DisposableInterloper

Can't really say I feel bad. Pandora pissed me off when they refused to develop a mobile app for windows mobile, focusing only on the wanna-be hipster segment instead (read: iphone), and I stopped listening to pandora. Last.FM FTW.

marm0lade

@s5: Jinx!

whootowl

Pandora has been the perfect way to discover new music that is compatible with my tastes, resulting in many music purchases that never would have happened otherwise. The recording industry should be paying Pandora rather than the other way around. Most of the music I've purchased is not found in normal channels.

whootowl

I hadn't purchased any new music until recently, when I installed the Pandora app. Since then I've been buying a couple of new albums every week. I set up a station on Pandora, and when something comes up that I like, I tap the "buy from iTunes" option and pay for it right away. Before then, I was listening to all the same music I ripped in 2002.

s5

See. the RIAA is putting legitimate companies out of business. They should be sued, shut down and buried.

Stacky Botrus

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

jonny

I had to take two glances at this article as the shop in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" is called Going Out of Business - I thought the picture was a frame from the film.

vee-media

I agree with one that said BOYCOTT. IF we dont buy music anymore we´ll have them in our hands. The will be crawling. Fuck u RIAA, Sony, EMI, WB.

stopitnow54

noooooooooooooooo I just recently discovered pandora and I absolutely love it!!!!!! It's really the ultimate radio station as far as I'm concerned. I've discovered new artists and purchased music simply because I heard it played on Pandora. I would honestly be willing to pay a subscription to their service, especially if it meant them not going out of business.

TheGeoff

I FUCKING HATE THE RIAA!!!!!!!!! I will never ever ever ever buy Music for reasons like this.

Boots_Mcoy

back to warez bb

rolfo87

It has been awesome on my iPhone 3G. One of the best Apps available. So sad......

OGHowie

This sucks, even my 4 year old daughter loves listening to Disney on Pandora. I'm going to stick it to RIAA as hard as I can, download time.

robpruitt

True story: The only albums I ever bought off iTunes were bands I'd discovered on Pandora.

@Boots_Mcoy: Seconded. The RIAA is THE reason I started pirating.

collider

@GiltProto:

That is the entirety of the problem in one sentence. As long as Congress is willing to pass draconian measures such as the DMCA, and extend copyright protections to protect Mickey Mouse (this really happened: [en.wikipedia.org] ) the RIAA and its spawn have little to fear.

Seriously kids: Write your Congressman -- that is what saved Pandora the first time.

DaveExile

@Czechxican: second that.

Ariel_Wollinger

@Guero: Or you can think about how instead of lowering rates to ensure they get paid at all, the RIAA is forcing a company out of business which means they won't be getting paid at all. Pandora stopped me from DL a lot of songs I otherwise would have, but now screw this.

Czechxican

Fuck the RIAA

Czechxican

Well if Pandora goes down heres another place to listen to the music that well be missing: Piratebay.com. Thanks RIAA.

atrusredtalon

If we want pandora to stay up, Disable ABP and click on ads everytime you get on pandora!!!!

tenio

damn. i've had pandora running all day, while working on my motorcycle. it's what keeps me from becoming homicidal at work. i mean, crap, how will i ever hear new bands if i'm forced to listen to the mp3s i've had for years? i haven't downloaded a single song since i started using pandora. :( such a sad sad day...

r0y

While Pandora may or may not be the single best thing that's happened to the music industry in the past decade or so, the RIAA is most certainly the worst. Ever.

Will Entrekin

Please, all of you, spread the following message to your friends, and on any forums you frequent.

The RIAA, known for its constant abuse of artists and consumers, has taken another move to secure its place as the one of the worst corporate alliances ever seen. Pandora, a widely popular internet radio station, is most likely about to close its doors due to excessive royalties demanded by the RIAA in the name of the labels. This flagrant disregard for the consumer must be stopped, so I call upon all of you to boycott the music industry. We must join together and stop buying music, as well as urge others to do the same. It's time for the consumer to take a stand against corporations that forget who pay their bills, and do what's best for the bottom line, rather than best for the buyer. If enough people stop their purchases, we can hit the RIAA where it hurts, in the wallet. Effective immediately, I implore all of you to join the boycott, spread the word, and continue to do so until this abuse of the customer is ended.

Con Seannery

:(

Strider-No.9

@jrghoull: no the RIAA motto is "Because there is money to be had"

taftsearlobe33

Damn. I love the iPhone app. That's too bad.

The Magnificen7

Man this blows. Pandora actually recommended some music that I hadn't heard of unlike Amazon and iTunes which seems to recommend stuff I already own, hate, or something out of the top 40 charts which I'd rarely buy anyhow.

Hopefully they can figure something out and keep pumping out the tunes. Or maybe one of the music stores out there will buy them up and incorporate their tech into their recommendation process.

:-(

BigPanda

I don't know if you can get more "shoot themselves in the foot/face" than this. Something like 95% of my music purchases over the last few years have been due to Pandora. How else am I supposed to find new music?

Pandora seemed to have the perfect win-win model: as a customer you get to listen to a bunch of good music for free, but if you want to add a particular track or album to your collection you are highly motivated to purchase the album. What's not to like, RIAA?

Ribs

That's a shame, it was a nice legal way to listen to music on the internet, but best of all, I liked it cause I found *new* music through it's recommendation engine, and that's why it was great. Go record labels, whoo, making my listening experience better. -.-

cmantito

If you set the business model of Pandora aside for a minute, you can see the great thing they are trying to do with the music genome project. Maybe they could stay around as a huge music-recommendation wiki, and we could use their brilliant engine to inform our bit-torrent downloads at least.

Or they could dig down into some emerging styles and culture and bypass the RIAA by re-inventing "indie." Just have to find the killer artists that can define the movement into whatever new music distribution age we are entering.

Musicians have to accept that they are back to days of playing on the street pro-bono at the mercy of the people passing by with their guitar case open. It's just the internet is the street.

araddatz

This is beyond bad, but I'm not sure the RIAA is the culprit this time round. Apparently senselessly unequal royalty rates, web radio > terrestrial radio, supported, of course, by terrestrial radio afraid of the web, may be to blame.

frigg

That really Blows for Tim Westergren and his posse... they're really a bunch of great people who believe what they do helps their users and who actually care about the people they're serving with Pandora!

slyseekr

@frigg: I'm not sure if the RIAA cares about any lobbying from the terrestrial radio groups. Bottom line is that the RIAA is setting the terms, and they've decided to charge more for Pandora and other internet radio. To be honest, the RIAA has a well known history of hating terrestrial radio as well, as little sense as that makes.

jkr's bold comment

I bet you'll see a rise in pirating again.

James

@Guero:
It's not that the RIAA is losing money.
It's that the RIAA is not making money.

If it's not making money when it could, it will.

tehdahl

i personally saw pandora as being more than a collection of music... it was human art... to "scientifically" pair songs based on acoustics and stuff like that made it possible for me to listen to people i had never heard of, and this is directly to the riaa and theyre supporters... you sons of bitches are evil and need to die... and your children too... piracy will exist for as long as copyright laws exist, and who the fudge coined us pirates.. i have two legs, two eyes, hate birds and get sea sick..maybe a butt pirate but thats a different post!

johnthevulcan

*hate you riaa

johnthevulcan

and since im already on a rant whats the point of giving laptops to poor third world children if they cant download beyonce!!!?!??! oh i fucking you riaa!

johnthevulcan

aw crap giz doesnt block curses, oh well i like the second one better

johnthevulcan

ok gizmodo blocks cursing so i gotta clean this one up... pandoras great...(i elaborated before but dont feel like it again)... the riaa and theyre supporters are evil and need to die, and theyre kids too, dont need those evil genes popping up in the phenotype 10 years from now... and who the fudge coined us pirates, i have two legs, two eyes, hate birds and get sea sick, a butt pirate maybe but thats a different post!!! i dare you bitches to sue me.. lets all get sued by the riaa and have em lock us up... let the jails fill up with drug dealers and pirates and put the pedophiles back on the block... c'mon america dont we need more pedophiles?

johnthevulcan

NOoOooOoOOoOooOOO!!!!!!
this cannot be! i neeeeed it! -writhe and sob-

nerdia314

Sigh..... and here I was hoping that they'd gotten back on their feet since the last close call. I'm with the others who have doubled if not tripled their music purchases because of the exposure Pandora provides.

I have to wonder at what point the RIAA will realize that this benefits no one. How many years? Here's hoping as many worthwhile artists as possible stay far away from RIAA affiliated labels, they're a cancer infecting the industry and it's baffling how many record labels are on board with them.

russtophiles

I guess it is back to stealing music.

Stephen-Bees

youve got to be kidding me.. I've been a pandora member for almost 2 years now, and now the goddamn RIAA wants to take my beloved pandora away from me? They won't get away with this.

theyre vultures. VULTURES, i say.

SleepingMartyr

If I still used Pandora that would make me upset I suppose. Moved onto Last.fm a couple years ago though. RIP Pandora (if it actually happens.) There's tons of great alternative streaming services out there though.

Ron-Mexico

@Guero: "Record companies spend ... a lot of money to promote those albums."

Well, it sounds like they just shot themselves in the foot by closing a great avenue of promoting new music.

Remember when radio used to play new music by new artists..? And record companies actually paid stations to do it?

If they just left the royalty rate low on Pandora, they would have free promotion and actually earn money for it instead of paying... Duh!

ideaman2020

I think the RIAA just wants to count the money made for them directly through Pandora (things like click-throughs from Pandora to Amazon or iTunes, etc). Since there is no easy way to tell that I bought a CD down at my local shop because I'd been turned on to that music from Pandora, it doesn't count. Typical corporate thinking: if you can't produce direct numbers to prove it's making money then, at best, it's not worth the effort/resources. At it's worst, it's losing money...forget the "intangible" benefits.

bobee

@im_back: -.- ok so i got 31.6GB on illegal music and i have 1 CD legal so .. who's gonna get me ?

zixyon

Noooooooooo!!! Pandooooooorrraaaaa!! :(

This will be an EPIC FAIL on the heads of the CRB...

richard8a

I listen to Pandora all the time, and I've found loads of bands that I love thru them that I never would have found otherwise (german metal rules!). This blows!

Lazarus511

All of the people saying:

"Oh, I like slacker better or last.fm better"

Tough news, folks. They will be susceptible to the same increase in charges aren't going to be able to weather this any better than Pandora.

Is there any group out there that is more out of touch with their customer base then the RIAA? What a piece of work they are...

archetype94306

Shame. I hope they pull through somehow because Pandora is the best app on the iPhone.

highfloydelity

@Jerry: That's what I use. I love it.

RE-L

@Theravada: They do ask, you can get a paid subscription for like $26 a year.

midwestkel

this is typical riaa bullshit. i have bought (as in paid for. with money) MORE music since listening to pandora than i ever did before.

tallboy

I love the talk of a boycott, but there is one thing I'd like to mention.

You can boycott the RIAA and still buy music.

I realize 99% of radio playlists are made up of RIAA music, but there really is a lot of good music coming from independent labels (Arcade Fire, The Shins, Spoon, and the Arctic Monkeys to name some more well known ones.)

riaaRadar.com is a good resource to discover if an album was released on an independent label. emusic.com has only indie music and runs at something like $13/month for 30 DRM-free mp3s (do the math vs. iTunes).

The RIAA is clueless, and I refuse to buy anything from them again, but I'm still going to give money to good bands if I can.

mvd77

I've been using the (free) iPhone app quite frequently in my car and noting its benefits to (paid-subscription) XM users that I know when they comment on my expensive cellphone plan. It can't be understated how many new artists I've found with music similar to my tastes.

Also, it's obviously just a coincidence, but the XM-Sirius merger did just get approved recently...

archd3

@araddatz:

Oh, man. I agree. It's too good a creation to let die. It needs to live on.

I've learned more about the bands I like (the past 4 months using Pandora) than I had my whole life.... *AND* I've probably increased my exposure to bands I'd never even heard of x100. No kidding. Pandora is the best thing that's ever happened to me as a listener.

RIAA, MPAA, FCC- fuck them. They don't evolve. They fester and overpower.

They need to learn to adapt and use the net the way it's being used by us.

[saying a prayer for pandora]

Plastic_Avatar

Not too smart on the RIAA's part. I found 4 artists I liked and purchased (with real money even) this weekend based on Pandora's suggestions.

BrianaAstyoche

I'm sad about Pandora. RIAA Sucks. I've bought more music since Pandora came out for the iPhone...

Lately I've been using LaLa.com. Actually like it better for discovering new music. Go get 'em RIAA. I think someone over there is actually enjoying music.

We need Google to start Google Music. Make it FREE for us. Google and the artists get rich. That would shut up stupid RIAA.

texasaggie1

The vast majority of the music I've purchased this year has been because of Pandora. In fact, just yesterday I was thinking that it was time to go and view the songs I've favorited so that I could buy more songs. What in the hell is RIAA's problem? Listen up, RIAA. Take down my name, assholes, because if Pandora is shut down by your greed, then I'm with all the others who will be looking to stick it you.

daniesq

First of all, the RIAA doesn't controll ALL music. I sell my music on all the big online stores and have nothing to do with the RIAA. I have my own small label, made up of two people. We are an LLC, pay taxes and all that. Digital distribution is a game changer that renders the RIAA nearly useless. They are trying to hold on to their reign desperatley. Now, on a new topic (sort of) I would love to see the government step in and save pandora. It should be a public institution like libraries. It's not content you keep, and music is an important (even educational) part of every culture. Everyone deserves the right to hear music, and pandora helps everyone involved. There truly are no negatives! Now since I've said all this, I'll give a shameless plug. If you liked what I had to say, listen to some samples of my music on your favorite digital music service (iTunes, AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, etc). I go by "Lunged" Long live Pandora. - Lunged -

CiroRockish

We're studying the RIAA's predicament in my MBA class. The music business has traditionally made its money by selling its ability to do three things: finding, producing, and promoting music. Technology has now made it easy enough for musicians to produce their own music, and the internet has made it possible for consumers to find bands for themselves. The RIAA no longer fulfills a need of much value.

And I must have found two dozen new bands because of Pandora. It'll be interesting to see what music will be like in the post-RIAA world - just sorry Pandora couldn't make it there.

adrenochrome

The RIAA is a disease to freedom and just another bunch of greedy old farts trying to stick it to the people again.

The artists must step up and favor apps like Pandora. What a great way to promote their music for free!

g33k80y

NOOOOOO... PANDORA!!

[tear] This SUCKS.

KStrike155