Tag: pandora

I don’t know how Pandora works. I just know it does. Pandora is an online music service I’m sure most of you have heard of if not used. I started using it last year and I absolutely love it. It learns what you like as you use it. You pick a single song or artist when starting up and it selects songs that it thinks you will enjoy based on some algorithm that is beyond my comprehension. I have been listening to Pandora since I sat down in front of my computer today and have heard about 2 songs that I was not crazy about and zero that I hated. That is a pretty good music service in my opinion. I hate fm / am radio because of the commercials. I have no time for them. That is why I like podcasts because most have no commercials. Even the live reads on some podcasts like Todd’s are fine because they take up less time and I think they sound more authentic because they are coming from the mouth of someone I trust for information.

I think it was the last podcast when Todd mentioned that Pandora might have to go to a subscription model since they are having to pay so much to some group (RIAA I assume) to play the music. If I were in front of my computer all day I would gladly pay a reasonably price but I work outside everyday while playing podcasts / music on an mp3 player. I think they will survive if they go to that model but I wish it did not have to come to that. I have heard songs that I either have never heard or did not know the details on and now love. How stupid is it for the RIAA & music artists to stop a service that puts music that they want to sell in front of millions of potential customers? I could easily download a program to record the music that is streaming through Pandora or I could keep track of the data for the music I like then go get the music through bit torrent. And I could get this music for free without Pandora but I don’t. I want musicians I like to make a great living & get rich. And it is just as easy to get my mp3’s from Amazon’s DRM free music service with one click purchasing as it is to steal it. The people who download for free are mostly younger people who don’t have the money to buy all the music they want. So the artists would likely never see any money from these people anyway until they were able to buy instead of get it free.

The RIAA is doing a disservice to musicians everywhere. Whether you agree with my logic or not the fact is that music is available for free and it can be gotten anonymously. So musicians better get with the program or become extinct. This is not 1985 so you better adjust to the marketplace. You cannot sue your clients and became profitable. I don’t know how the RIAA backs up their lawsuits but I want to see people just ignore the lawsuits & see what happens. Can they garnish wages, etc? I am not advising this action I just want to know how they plan to deal with people who non cooperate. If I were in charge of Pandora I would move my operations overseas & do like the Piratebay & keep my server locations secret. They have played by the rules and still have been attacked. They need to fight fire with fire.