Pandora is Not Happy at David Lowery

Last month I covered another column by Dave Lowery in which he complained again about the small amount of money that plays of his music on Pandora were getting him. At the time I noted there were some problems with his arguments, not least of which was that he was blaming Pandora for a rate structure that it hadn't set up.

That same day (and I'm sorry it's taken me this long to blog it) Pandora's Tim Westergren took to the company's blog to respond at length. He sees his purpose as setting the record straight, responding both to deliberate misinformation (which he blames on the RIAA) and to understandable but misguided outrage from other working musicians such as Lowery.

He points out that people like Lowery are mistakenly comparing "plays" on Pandora - which are a single person listening - to "plays" on broadcast radio that reach many thousands of listeners or "plays" on a subscription station such as XM which also reach many listeners. If Pandora pays a sliver of the amount paid by XM it does so based on streaming to a proportionally smaller sliver of audience. Oh, and by the way, broadcast radio pays nothing per play. So this is not even close to an apples-to-apples comparison even though everyone uses the word "plays" as though they all meant the same thing.

Westergren also points out that while it has sought to get a rate comparable to other forms of radio it feels it has been targeted by organizations specifically trying to get Pandora (and only Pandora) to pay more. Whatever the rate is set, the argument goes, Pandora should pay rates that establish a level playing field among Pandora and other streaming Internet services.

There's also a good bit to read about Westergren's ongoing notion of what Pandora's mission is: founded by artists in order to be for artists. That includes playing and promoting artists who aren't getting exposure elsewhere, and Westergren talks about his commitment to various aspects of this mission. To me, though, this is beside the point: what matters is that Pandora appears to be the target of a singling out, and a deliberate distortion of the situation. That needs to stop, now.