Pandora saved, music lovers rejoice!
| by Shawn Brown on July 8th, 2009 |
|
It took a long time but Internet Radio has managed to pull through to live another day. For years Internet Radio sites including the ever popular Pandora have been hit hard by the SoundExchange campaign which would hike the streaming fees to a level where these services would have to either charge for services or give up altogether.
People have been trying to come up with solutions but there have been no substantial breakthroughs up until now. Time for the details on the squeeze that they are putting on Pandora. SoundExchange has reduced the per-song-per-listener rates by 40-50 percent. For this Pandora will either pay 25 percent of its total US revenue or the per-song-per-listener fee, all depending on which is higher. Now Pandora will be putting a 40 hour per month listening cap on streaming music after which users will have to pay just a $0.99 fee allowing for unlimited listening for the rest of the month. The change will not affect Pandora One subscribers.
Overall this is a really nice deal that they have managed to work out and now Pandora, one of the Pre’s highest rated apps, will not be getting the boot. What do you guys think about the new compromise that has been reached?
1. dartrax wrote on July 8, 2009
Sounds nearly as good as free.
Unfortunatly, Pandora is still restricted if you live outside the US. I wonder if this killing app will work when we get the Pre in germany from O2 in october.
2. Shawn Brown wrote on July 9, 2009
Yeah maybe $0.99 a month for unlimited streaming music is far from bad. Especially right now.
3. Kent Larson wrote on October 23, 2010
When will Pandora be available for Palm Pixi Plus users or will the Pre ap work for us too?