The enemy of my enemy, right? Pandora, the Internet darling that lets users stream music for a newly nominal fee, has teamed up with record labels to get Congress to pass a law that would require regular radio stations pay the same music rights fee as that it has to pay. The labels want regular radio to pay up to help offset the losses connected with the industry’s transition from a pre-Internet music business to a decidedly post-Internet music business. (Maybe stop employing untold numbers of lawyers to go after mothers, hmm?)
So it’s pretty simple, actually. When a regular radio station plays the latest Katy Perry single, she and her record label (well, mainly her record label) get zero dollars and zero cents. When that same song is played on Sirius XM or Pandora, or any non-regular radio format, a nice bag of money shows up at the record labels’ headquarters. To that effect.
Regular radio, which isn’t doing too hot either, claims that it should be exempt from such fees because it is the primary conduit of mass popularity. You know, because your average 16-year-old stays glued to his boom box making All Request Lunch requests.