The free and highly entertaining online radio website Pandora.com -- one of the most readily accessible portals to music you'll probably enjoy, but never heard before -- needs help from all listeners to pressure the Senate to pass a bill supportive of its continuance. At issue is the backbreaking level of royalty payments being urged on this site and others like it by lobbyists for the National Association of Broadcasters, those giant broadcasters (think Clear Channel) who would monopolize the airwaves with formulaic playlists promoting a … [Read more...]
Pandora radio on deathbed?
The wonderful web radio giant Pandora.com -- and lesser web radio sites, too -- are reportedly about to be done in by per-song performance royalty rates doubled last year by a federal panel. Pandora's founder says he'll have to shut it down soon if the terms can't be changed. Read the whole story in the Washington Post, and wonder who has it in for the free dissemination of music that we don't know but might like anyway. … [Read more...]
iPhone + Pandora = open sesame
According to Slate (formerly, Salon's) tech writer Farhad Manjoo, reviewing the iPhone makeover and cool third-party programs that optomize its potential, the expense and hassle of securing the new device is worthwhile if only for mobile access to Pandora.com. The personally-programmed radio site has captivated me, too -- Pandora's Music Genome Project reliably streams known and unknown music I like -- jazz-beyond-jazz -- on my B **tches Brew "station" in surprising juxtapositions and … [Read more...]