Lets look at this a different way because comparing to broadcast radio is dicey.
I pay for Pandora One. It costs me $36 dollars a year. Assuming all songs are exactly 3 minutes long & I listen 24/7 for an entire year...
((42 U.S. dollars) / (1 million * 3 minutes)) * (1 year) ~= $7.36
That doesn't seem like a bad deal, 1/5 of my yearly fee going to the artist, the rest to operation and profit of Pandora.
... the thing is, I don't listen to Pandora 24/7. At best I listen a few hours a day, on average for a whole year maybe an hour a day. With that, the ratio drags down to 1/100 of my yearly fee. Once cent of every dollar I spend on a music service ends of going to the actual musicians? That sucks.
Maybe the license fees go more to groups above the artist that don't deserve it, maybe Pandora's operating expenses eat up most of the pie... I don't know who to blame for the situation, I just know it's rigged against the people actually creating the music.
And this is why pirates don't feel bad about copying music. When it is damn near impossible to consume music without 99% of the cost going to the distributors, why should anyone feel bad using distribution systems which don't charge?
Buy physical music from local shops and go to shows and buy tickets from local distributors. (I'm lucky to live in a place where I _can_ see top shelf music without paying the Ticketmaster ransom) Especially buy swag at these shows if you're really interested in your money getting to the people who deserve it. Otherwise, it seems pretty clear that any other way of 'legitimately' buying music pays nearly everything to the middle man.
I pay for Pandora One. It costs me $36 dollars a year. Assuming all songs are exactly 3 minutes long & I listen 24/7 for an entire year...
((42 U.S. dollars) / (1 million * 3 minutes)) * (1 year) ~= $7.36
That doesn't seem like a bad deal, 1/5 of my yearly fee going to the artist, the rest to operation and profit of Pandora.
... the thing is, I don't listen to Pandora 24/7. At best I listen a few hours a day, on average for a whole year maybe an hour a day. With that, the ratio drags down to 1/100 of my yearly fee. Once cent of every dollar I spend on a music service ends of going to the actual musicians? That sucks.
Maybe the license fees go more to groups above the artist that don't deserve it, maybe Pandora's operating expenses eat up most of the pie... I don't know who to blame for the situation, I just know it's rigged against the people actually creating the music.
And this is why pirates don't feel bad about copying music. When it is damn near impossible to consume music without 99% of the cost going to the distributors, why should anyone feel bad using distribution systems which don't charge?
Buy physical music from local shops and go to shows and buy tickets from local distributors. (I'm lucky to live in a place where I _can_ see top shelf music without paying the Ticketmaster ransom) Especially buy swag at these shows if you're really interested in your money getting to the people who deserve it. Otherwise, it seems pretty clear that any other way of 'legitimately' buying music pays nearly everything to the middle man.