Songwriter and artist backlash against Pandora quickly growing

By Jason Bookman

A few weeks ago, we gave you an overview of Pandora Radio’s ongoing quest for a lower royalty rate for streaming internet radio. Described by Pandora to be the way to “level the playing field” between the internet, satellite and terrestrial radio, the Internet Radio Fairness Act has been heavily criticized as a way for Pandora to inflate their bottom line by paying out fewer artist royalties and retaining the profits for themselves.

On Friday, the National Music Publishers’ Association, Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Church Music Publishers Association publicly criticized Pandora’s lobbying for this bill as a way to undercut the royalties owed to the musicians and songwriters.

In response to Pandora, the musicFIRST Coalition published a short letter sardonically congratulating Pandora’s “phenominal success as a Wall Street company” while criticizing them for belying their principle asset: the music and the musicians and writers who provide that music. The letter, urging Congress to ignore Pandora’s proposition, was co-signed by a genre crossing collection of musicians including Rihanna, Maroon 5, Robert Plant, Common, Sheryl Crow, Billy Joel, CeeLo Green, Katy Perry, Pink Floyd and others.

On November 6, Pandora filed suit against the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) demanding “reasonable fees and terms” from the storied performing rights society, drawing even more scrutiny from an industry that is becoming increasingly critical of Pandora’s practices.

Backlash against Pandora is quickly growing and these are just the most recent examples. As the story develops, more information is bound to come to light, but for now, we can easily see a mounting offense by a section of the industry against Pandora.