Next stop, Canada!

Fantastic News! Congratulations and Thank You to everyone who made this possible!

I love Pandora I easily listen to 12 hours of music a DAY I personally wouldn't mind paying 36 dollars a year for Pandora one or the .99 vents my question is do you think access/play will exceed income forcing the service to close due to royalties?

This truly is a BIG DEAL! Congrats to you all and as a contributor I look forward to more music for many years

Tim, this is, indeed, excellent news! I have one suggestion: how about allowing any listener to put a buck into the tip jar whenever they feel like it? This way, casual listeners that believe in supporting Pandora can do so?

Just a thought. Keep up the great work and service.

Les

Great to hear that you've made it through this rather large bump in the road!

I am glad to see we can all rest easy. I moved to your paid service about a year ago, before we got much from it. I just wanted to put $36 towards Pandora's survival. I have used your service since it was first introduced and will use it for as long as it is around.

As someone who used to listed to Pandora all the time, I'm very glad to hear about you getting yourselves on firmer grounds. After attesting the amazing quality of your service, I can only give you my congratulations and hope for a long future to Pandora.

I just have one question: does this new agreement changes in any way the situation for other countries such as Brazil (where I live), or so far this only affects the US?

This is a great step forward for all internet radio programmers and providers. Thanks Tim for all your efforts, they benefit each of us who work in this business. As it is said a high tide floats all boats and now, here comes the flood tide!

Cheers!

Wow awesome

$.99 is nothing and well worth the service. I work in a small business and stream a lot of music (It will not surprise me to hit my 40 hours within 1 week), since it's generally nice to have something to listen to.

Congratulations... It's an interesting event that this occurred today. While music is a huge part of my life, I rarely tweet about it, but I find it no coincidence that this has happened. To repeat words that may not be immortal, but nonetheless, true...

"It's amazing what a little tune can do... I DEFINITELY believe that the Lord uses music... He often speaks to me there. Thanks Lord!"

Thank you PANDORA for being used in a great way! God Bless!

Hazzah!

How can listening 1.3 hours a day qualify as a "heavy" user? Not fair

Congratulations! I will gladly put down a dollar if I go over 40 hours a month.
This is a huge accomplishment and you guys deserve a pat on the back.
Thanks for everything you do to bring us this awesome music! you are greatly appreciated.

Good work just remember if you can do it in the US you now have the leverage to do it to the rest of the world. We still miss you over here in the UK

I thank you so much Pandora for all these years of giving me the way of listing to my kind of music the way it was supposed to be heard. I say this because my type of music is of a hardcore Hip~hop type which is mostly [Parental Advisory Explicit Content] therefore giving me the chance ti listen to my music as it is meant to be unlike most Online music where they give you only the clean version which infarct takes away most of the plot of the music.

Thanks
Benjamin Mejia.

Great work! I'm extremely happy to see that you guys have worked around all of this to continue streaming.

The unfairness of the royalty laws is absolutely baffling, but that's not saying anything new. It just stuns me that folks in charge of these things don't see how ridiculous they're being.

How about when a customer enters a movie theater, he/she just pays a price that scales with his/her height or weight or age? That's about as logical as the way they charge royalties for forms of radio...

Well...I knew it couldn't last long...I guess somebody's always trying to make a buck! It's not the price that bothers me, it's just the principle of the matter...I looked forward to enjoying free pandora while at work or home and I will now be limited to my own personal bliss and quite frankly....im pissed!!!

Congrats - I am very happy for Pandora! Yippee!

Sounds like a very reasonable resolution.

Would it be possible to add a way to view usage? This would allow users to see the 40-hour-mark coming.

Also, would it be possible to give users more control over when the "empty room" message shows up? The maximum could (should?) stay the same, but it would be useful to have the option to reduce it to, say, half an hour to avoid using up one's 40 hours when Pandora is accidentally left playing.

Lastly, what measures (if any) will be put in place to prevent people from just switching to another account at the 40 hour mark? Clearly, some users will attempt to use multiple accounts to bypass this restriction. When developing these measures, please keep in mind that some of us are in college and/or professional settings where external IPs are shared because of either dynamic allocation or proxies and where computers are sometimes shared in lab environments.

I assume the reason most people listen to this website is because its free. I am sure you are aware that as soon as people start getting charged to listen, they will just move onto another site. Sorry, but I may have to do the same if this happens to me.

Many props for this...
Supporting artists and listeners at the same time. Nice middle ground.
-Joe

Excellent news! I'd wondered what had happened to this news tidbit. And I'm glad to hear things sorta got ironed out.

Great work all around! The $.99 fee shouldn't be a burden to anyone, and I look forward to ordering Pandora One when finances permit; until then, I can forego a single soda to continue listening to Pandora.

I'm glad to hear that you've got a stable royalty level that allows you to continue to operate and grow.

Long live pandora.com!

It's a shame Pandora has been put through this situation at all, but I am glad to see a resolution has been reached.

I subscribed to Pandora One a few months ago and will gladly renew in the coming years. I love the service you provide and the way you enable us to listen to the music we love.

Keep doing what you do and I'll be a longtime fan.

free at last! holland (aka the netherlands; here is...pandora?)

Great news. I'll ask the hard question, though: Will Pandora be toning down the recent explosion of adverts?

Cheers! I've been eagerly awaiting news of the royalty resolution. I'm a Pandora One member. I love it. I actually started buying music after years of not being interested after finding stuff I liked on Pandora. Does it help you when I click on the buy from amazon through you versus just going through the site?

The only thing I'd seriously like to recommend is a sleep timer function in the iphone app. As it stands a LOT of money is being wasted on the bandwith for those of us that fall asleep to pandora. A sleep timer might save you some money from us... and maybe even a "wake up timer" so you could have it cut off during the night and start back up right before you wake up. Be slick for the 3.0 update that you should be releasing soon!

Still pandering to the man IMO. I totally would have joined Pandora One if it provided unlimited skipping. Not paying for the privilege of being the RIAA's tool.

Any updates for the service availability in the UK? I believe either the UK government or the EU have placed caps on the amount of royalties payable for internet radio/streaming. I'm sure they're still a rip-off for sites like Pandora to pay, but is anyone looking into this?

As a longtime Pandora user/fan, recent PandoraOne subscriber, and tech lawyer, I just want to say congratulations and thanks for your persistence in keeping internet radio alive. I followed this legislative battle with interest and supported the internet broadcasters' cause. I will continue to support measures to bring royalty fairness to all. Great work Tim!

This is fantastic news! I definitely fall into the "heavy listener" category, and don't mind giving a dollar to the cause--my friends and I love Pandora.

I just got an email about this. I listen to Pandora all day so I'm sure it would only take me 3-4 days to hit the 40hour mark.

I'm always hesitant to pay for online radio because I never know if I'll stick with the service long term. However, 0.99 isn't too bad so I may just end up paying. We'll see.

I'm glad the royalty crisis is over.

Will this translate to better user experience - repeat last song, play songs by an artist, etc. ? BTW I am a paying Pandora subscriber.

Affordable, but not painless. I have to wonder if I will bother any more, seeing as how 40 hours will pass in a week. The allure of Pandora was the ability to either guide my listening, or, to let it sit so I could enjoy my tweaking. The "Are you still listening?" reminders have become more frequent and more annoying, and the audio advertisements seem to be designed to be as jarring and obnoxious as possible. The alternative is to pay $36 for what has essentially been the same service for years, plus the ever-increasing bloat of social networking tie-ins. Greater control over seeds and musical direction (or at least a better interface for culling the herd) could win me over, but those features don't seem forthcoming.

Great news. It's heartening to see all the positive responses.

For those few complaining, understand that most people use Pandora because they love finding new music, not because it's free. It's a business, and as such follows some sort of business model. Musicians have to do this too, if they want to stay fed, clothed, married, etc. Far from being a "tool of the RIAA", Pandora is paying for the use of intellectual property they don't own. Kudos.

Most of (>50%) the property in question is that of independent artists and not giant corporate record lablels. I've always maintained that Pandora would still work great if it quit streaming major label works (they could still use their own intellectual property, the Music Genome Project database, to program your Billy Ocean station but you'd never hear Billy himself). But guess what? Pandora would still pay royalties in that case. God bless 'em.

Expecting that musicians could continue to be productive for free is just an extrapolation of the "I could do that, if I felt like it" attitude. For a crash course in capitalism, go ahead and try.

Great job on the pricing option. I hope that it will provide you with the right amount of income for such a small price to pay for us users. I appreciate you all. Go Pandora!!

As someone who easily uses Pandora over 40 hours a week, I'll be happy to pay to use the service to help Pandora thrive. Thank you for the great work!

Heh. I think I can pony up a little cash for that, after years of free music.

If I'm reading this right, though, why not have a space to let us pay in advance? I don't really want or need any of the things in Pandora One, but paying $5.94 for six months of music or something would interest me.

Any update for Brazil?

Regards.

And the MafiAA wins again...

WOOT!!!

Can we get pandora legally in Canada now? Surely now that the U.S. bit is a-ok you'll find time to get it working again for us Canadians...

I hate you and I hope you die-- bye pandora, last.fm, here i come! I hate you pandora for charging and I wil get my friends and family to switch and I wil not recommend you and I will say, pandora charges and last.fm is free! which one do you think they'll want? I wonder. I hate you tim.

I go over 40 hours in less than five days, since I listen to Pandora while I'm at work... We'll just have to see if I can find a way to cut that back or if I succumb and pay for unlimited access. I've been introduced to a lot of new music through this, and I am grateful for the discovery of some new (and not so new) bands. Hooray for a resolution, though!
I agree with the "pay in advance" thought. While I don't listen enough during the school year to justify $36 (I know, I know... but I'm a college student - $36 is more than I pay for my electric bill each month), I'd like to be able to pay for the summer, when I listen for nine hours a day, five days a week, well in advance.

This is great news. Keep up the good work Tim!

excellent news!

next battle .. bring pandora to canada!!!!

While 40 hours a month does not seem like high usage I if that is what you need to make the service work at $.99 then I will gladly pay it. I like the monthly buy in option since some months I might not be using much at all while others I will use it a lot. I am very hesitant to pay for music online (don't buy music offline either) since I am in college and really can't afford much. This I can and happily will pay a buck a month for.

As a student without a credit card and wary parents (forbidden to make internet purchases), and as a "heavy" user (seriously, 1.3 hours a day?), I'm a bit disappointed that I'll be unable to listen to Pandora as frequently. Well, I guess nothing in life is free.

I completely understand this isn't Pandora's fault, however, and they are just trying to pay for the high royalties imposed.

But on a positive note, kudos to the royalty agreement! I'll be happy to make the dollar a month purchase if I get a credit card in a few years. Until then I will have to sit in silence for 3 weeks. *cries*

Where is the counter you talked about in the email? It would be nice to track my hours...

In my mind you could easily and justifiably charge more than $0.99. Free is great, but if keeping Pandora alive meant everyone shelled out $4.99 a month, it would be WELL worth it!

This is great news and a big step forward. I loved Pandora since it launched-- unfortunately since I live in Japan now I can`t listen to it-- but waiting for the day when it's available around the world.

Thanks for all the great feedback, and support everyone. Couple quick responses:

This doesn't apply internationally. We can only hope that a hard fought negotiation might help dislodge the impasse overseas. We're more eager than anyone to expand.

Glad that folks are generally finding the pricing options to be reasonable. We did everything we could to create attractive alternatives for everyone. We really want everyone to stay, but don't want to squeeze people into a bargain that's not right for them.

For the folks who are upset - we totally understand the disappointment, but we have to face the economic reality.

Thanks again.

Tim (Founder)

Sucks you had to limit the amount of music each user can listen to. I'll definitely be going over each month and paying the dollar, which is fine. I might switch to Pandora One, mainly for more skips.
You have an amazing site, thanks!

While it sounds like a bit of a reprieve, it really isn't. You still have to fork over $25k a year for the privilege of playing the music in addition to the percentage.

I have one question ... what if NO ONE played any of the music that was out there? Who would know of the new artists or know that there were artists, now passed away, who had the music of their era?

Once again, the music industry is trying to qualify their existence, get their cut, and pat us on our heads for being willing to pay for something that isn't theirs in the first place. It belongs to the artists who created it, perform it, and live by it.

We are being forced to take this new offer, as was related in the story, because it's better than the original offer. Better than taking all your revenue, you get to keep part of it. Such a deal.

superb news. congratulations to all of us and thanks to Pandora for pushing this.

Interesting news.
I have used your service since it was first introduced and will use it for as long as it is around.

Pandora is a great service and I understand that delivering this service to consumers with the current ad supported model is not sustainable.

I would like to suggest giving the user some choice and control at the end of their 40 hours. SponsorSelect can enable the user to select their sponsor as thus increasing revenue for Pandora and complimenting the new monetization strategy. The selecting of a sponsor could extend the free hours of play thus monetizing every user that is reluctant to pull out their credit card. This will also eliminate churn and a mass exodus to other competitive sites such as Jango.com.

Let us help!
Shane Lundy
President and CEO
SponsorSelect Inc
slundy@sponsorselect.com

Great news!!
Does it mean that you are going back to play in the UK and the rest of the world?
I hate resorting to Last.fm and spotify.
Please come back!

Great work and congratulations. As a power user I'll gladly pay my $0.99. I've referred many friends to Pandora oer the past few years and I'm sure I speak for them when I say that they will also gladly pay. To be honest, for those of us in an office all day Pandora is a godsend.

I like Pandora, but I don't use it much so I probably won't have to pay. With that said though, I will be even less likely to use it now.

While I know that Pandora has to pay these royalties to stay in business, it really pisses me off that internet radio stations are being raped. Conventional radio doesn't need to pay these ridiculous per song per listener rate. The artists are not going to get anything out of this. So why are we feeding the machine and allowing them to continue to do this?

Bah. I'll just use other services.

Hope it won't be long before Pandora comes to the UK. We are able to get Spotify on line but it in no way compares to Pandora!
Well done to all at Pandora and every good wish for your future.

Pros: I still get to hear internet radio everyday at work which is awesome. I love the selection, introduction to new music, etc. Paying a buck a month isn't bad for unlimited listening.

Cons: Why are there more ads popping up as videos and interrupting the music? Advertising on the page is annoying enough. Are there honestly people who click on these ads or use these suggested services & retailers?
Why only 40 hours? Listening at work or college easily makes 40 hrs a WEEK, let alone a month.
Why punish "heavy" listeners? Isn't that who you want to listen the most? If the point is really about the music, and not about business and making money, than those people should be rewarded, not punished or forced to pay a fee. Luckily the fee is only a buck/month but I could see people leaving the site for the next guy out there creating something free & better.
And finally, what about the average poor person? What about making the fee or donations available to anyone so that poor people can still listen for free? At an economic time when people can't afford prescriptions or gas to get to their job, or college students, if they find free internet, why punish them by not letting them enjoy free music?

This should be about music and how it impacts our lives first - making money second. Then again, nothing in life is free so why should this site that used to be so awesome be different?

Similar to Victor's comment, I will sadly be unable to pay via credit card to continue my listening pleasure on my own... Perhaps if you had some form of automated checking system, though (ex. Amazon.com) it would allow people like me to pay =O. In any case, I'm glad I can still listen occasionally, though now I'll have to stop having Pandora on all day every day xD

To reduce costs you could consider adding a sleep function for premium customers. I often listen to Pandora as a way to fall asleep and having the client stream music for hours after I go to sleep wastes money for Pandora and bandwidth for both parties.

To the commentors moaning about the "1.3 hours per day" -- shame on you. If you can't fork up a measly 99c for PERSONALIZED, GREAT-QUALITY, LOW-AD music, maybe you shouldn't be on Pandora. Though you know, you'll spend more on a drugstore radio and batteries, or building a collection of music, than you will if you just pay the 99c every month for Pandora. Heck, a YEAR of Pandora is cheaper than a trip to the movies, or one of those froufy sandwich-and-latte dealies you get for lunch. So think a second of what you're complaining about. You're lucky it's been completely free this long!

Pandora is the soundtrack of the globe, it is for everyone. The situation in UK and Canada is now in focus. Who are these guys in the shadows who are stoping the music? Let's get some sunlight on this.

Well, this solution is ok to me, no big harm done to my pockets.
Still, I can't help thinking that 1) having to pay for the radio is just ridiculous 2) considering the big changes brought in by the internet, this measure looks to me totally anachronistic, if not another reason for illegal downloads, exactly the opposite of what music licensing firms should aim to.

Anyway, will this have any influence over the eventual re-airing of Pandora in other countries?

Congratulation guys (not without some acid stomach)!

Given my workplace restrictions I cannot upgrade to Pandora One. However, I know I will go over the 40 hours. Anyway of just paying the $12 a year up front?

Clearly this means Canada is next, right?

Even before this new pricing was put in place, it was well worth it to pay for a subscription. I think the new scheme gives new users ample chance to see how good Pandora is before they need to give money. Good job!

Will this new move give any more freedom in playing specific songs on demand?

What? You own a suit and tie?

Too bad they left on the $25K yearly min fee.. otherwise this would be awesome news. Still, I'm glad to see your efforts got anywhere with these greedy asshats.

I'm a 10-20 hour a week user and I'd gladly put $.99 in the tip jar.

There is an alternative to to paying high royalties or limiting users listening - PLAY MUSIC THAT IS NOT OWNED BY CORP RECORD LABELS! start including more independant bands that are not included in the corp RIAA world. You do a service to the bands and a service to the listener and you exclude the RIAA (which we don't need or want).

Now, why do I still get "Sorry, Pandora is not available in this country."?

I received the e-mail and would be happy to pay the $0.99 for overage. I'm also considering upgrading to Pandora One. Thanks for this great service!

I'm glad you got this sorted out. I'd be more likely to sign up for the paid service if there was a Pandora app for Android!!! You've got a Pandora app for the freakin Pre fer crine out loud. There's what 100k of those in use? (source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348369,00.asp). The numbers for the G1 are 10x that and the G2 is out soon. Get on it guys.

I'd like to see a counter that shows how many hours you have left in a given month.

Great! Now come to Canada :D

Thumbs up!

Also, as a more casual user, I'd throw in a buck here and there if you make the option available.

Awesome, I used to listen to Pandora all the time. I'm glad you guys are going to the next level!

-Kevin

That ain't bad, but I'm still looking for that counter so I can keep track of how much I listen!

Great news! $1 a month is nothing for all the exposure to new (to me) artists I get. Thank you for fighting so hard to keep this amazing service alive and affordable!

It's awesome to know Pandora is not dying. Something I think would be cool though is if you allowed for donations, so casual listeners can pay a little something or people already using pandora one can give a little extra if they want. Just an idea...

No wonder we can't skip over the crap songs the way we used to.

"There is an alternative to to paying high royalties or limiting users listening - PLAY MUSIC THAT IS NOT OWNED BY CORP RECORD LABELS! start including more independant bands that are not included in the corp RIAA world. You do a service to the bands and a service to the listener and you exclude the RIAA (which we don't need or want)."

Sorry, doesn't work that way in the US, you have to pay the same performance royalty regardless of the copyright owner. Technically you can reach an agreement with the rights holder outside of the SoundExchange arena but noone has been able to figure out how to actually do it and comply with all the paperwork requirements and even if they did they would have to keep the SoundExchange lawyers at bay. It's cheaper to just pay the statute royalty through SoundExchange.

The alternative to this is the situation outside the US which is that obtaining blanket coverage to stream music is so difficult and expensive that almost none of the online services are doing it, hence the complaints from abroad about not being able to use Pandora and other services.

I just wish the annoying audio advertisements would stop...they're absolutely horrible!!! Please stop the audio ads, they don't belong on such an awesome radio site!!

Also, $36 is absurd in an economy where people are losing their jobs everyday. I'm just trying to get through college, I don't have a job and probably won't have one for a while! How about a "Pandora 0.5" that costs something like $15/year. Lower Cost+More buyers = More money in the end/everyone's happy!

Don't let people discourage you. You provide an excellent service for a VERY affordable price. The people that are complaining about a dollar a month aren't the sort of people you want hanging around anyways...

I listen to Pandora for most of every weekday when I work, so I guess I'm in that top 10%. :) No problems there as I can definitely spare a buck. Now if only Ruckus had done the same thing back when it was in business...

all seems fair to me.

When does Pandora start counting the hours listened?

This is becoming the new internet business model: free service for 90% of users and a small charge for those who want premium content. Other online services have already moved in this direction (WSJ, Flickr, MegaVideo) and I understand it and prefer it over not having the service at all. TANSTAAFL.

When does Pandora start counting the hours listened?

Tim,

What do you think of the $25,000 minimum for small stations? Why was this put into the agreement?

One might easily assume that since the larger internet radio sites were part of the discussion, that it was placed in to eliminate any possible small competitors since they won't be able to afford the minimum.

Me and all my friends & family who I referred to Pandora are all heavy listeners. As far as I know, we are all going to be paying the $0.99/month, just one question though... can we pay the $0.99/month for the whole year at once? i.e. $11.88 all at once?

"We hate the idea of limiting anyone's listening, but we have no choice but to react the economic realities of the new rates"
I hope you choke on those words.

Spending $36/year for Pandora was about the easiest purchase decision I have made this year. In actuality, it has probably cost me about $200, as I have purchased many CD's from the artists I have heard on here.

T-minus 1 month until I can get Pandora on my phone. Can't wait!

I'm really happy for you guys. I miss Pandora since the first day it stopped playing in my country.

I'll definitely be willing to pay more than a dollar just for having the radio avalaible at my country...

It may be overkill but could you implement a countdown tracker that would display the number of hours remaining before we would need to pay? It would allow people to be more conscientious of their usage. I think the fee is totally fair and I might upgrade to Pandora One soon anyway, but for other users...

NO GIVE AND TAKE HERE!

Who are you people that think this is a step forward? It was a step forward when Pandora came out. It was revolutionary! Now it's just another program that will fall by the wayside as programers find another way to do this. This will be what Myspace is now. A distant second the new and better Facebook. Its too bad. I really loved this program.

40 hours of music is nothing. Now you're gonna punish people for doing what you wanted them to do in the first place, find new artists and listen to peoples music.

One solution: Folks on this blog had a lot of good ideas. One if mine is unlimited skips. If you're gonna make us pay, than don't limit our skips. If the consumer pays, than the consumer should have ultimate power on what they are paying for.

Also, if we're paying, get rid of the annoying ads! If it's free, it sucks, but I understand. If it's not free (which is not b/c 40 hrs/month is nothing), than get rid of the ads!

Hi Tim

> Please don't hesitate to email me back with your thoughts.

OK then, here goes, but I doubt I'll be getting a response to my questions.

Firstly I can not understand why the advertising dollars do not scale. The longer I listen the more ads I'll see/listen to. If this works for 40 hours for two users then why not 80 hours for one user? Are there not enough advertisers? Surely if somebody is on your site for longer then you should be making more money from that person, not less! Google's whole business model is around getting users to spend more an more time using their services which is the very reason they are building Chrome OS. The only way your business model would make sense is if you are losing money on the regular service which internally is just seen as a limited demo for the subscription service. I'm going to assume that is the case as it's the only thing that makes sense, I just wish you were more honest about it.

Ok, so onto your subscription service. I'm currently one of the many users who access Pandora from outside the US. This new limit is just one more pain in the ass for me, it's not the money, it's the hassel that is the problem. I love Pandora so much and would absoutly be willing to fork out for a yearly subscription if I could actually get your service without all the messing around. I don't see how my 36USD is any different to 36USD coming from somebody in the US. Yet even if I was to buy a subscription, I would still be blocked by default from using Pandora! You don't use ads on the subscription service so the idea that it's because the ads can't be localised is no longer relevant, so I really don't get it. Regardless of what the issue is, there should have been a solution worked out by now even if that is that for some reason people outside the US have to pay more for their subscription.

Really confused

Gerry

I am happier than words can tell! Congratulations - to you, to all of us, the supporting community!
This is what listening to one's favorite music is all about! I will continue to donate to a a number of listeners-supported radio stations for the non-musical programs they provide me, but I dream that the future of listening to favorite music and being introduced to NEW music in a similar veing belongs to PANDORA. With that in mind, I'd like to submit an idea: what's the possibility of "linking" PANDORA to something on the lines of Batanga (link attached), the idea being that one could listen to "foreign" music styles/genres and use the same fabulous Pandora formula?
http://radio.batanga.com/es/radio/merengue/listen
I hope to hear from you on this idea.
Regards and best wishes from a Florida, long-time listener.

I see many problems for Pandora and other "free" services. Let's face it, nothing is free!! Pandora listeners will approach their 40 hour limit and then switch to another site or user name or something. The notion that many will pay after listening for 40 hours is not realistic. What Pandora will have to do to stay alive is charge more money and make it a subscription service. This $.99 thing is just a way to ease the users into higher rates coming soon. Either that or they will just cease to exist! Did you really think free music was going to last forever? Artists and labels have to get paid, you want free go to am/fm hell!!

Tim:

I'm a Pandora addict. I'll admit it. I'm also a simple gal that doesn't want to pay once a month. Can't you let us pay our buck/month at once? I'll gladly pay 11.88 but I only want to pay once. Can you make this happen?

Pandora junkie:
Heather.

Radio, AM/FM or internet, shouldnt have to pay anything for playing the songs. It's radio that gives artists their needed exposer so they can sell there music. The artists should be paying radio to be honest. It's just like the TV station dont pay the comercial creators to hock their wares, the comercial creators pay the TV station.

Radio, AM/FM or internet, shouldn’t have to pay anything for playing the songs. Its radio that gives artists their much needed exposure so they can sell their music. The artists should be paying radio to be honest. It's just like the TV station don’t pay the commercial creators to hock their wares, the commercial creators pay the TV station.

Is this 40-hour limit in action right now?

Jay, I'm sure there are people who wouldn't pay to continue listening to Pandora, but I definitely would and I'm sure there are plenty others that would because Pandora is pretty much our entire life. Also, not many other free internet radio services are comparable to Pandora.

Pandora junkie:
Kevin

I am willing to pay for radio that doesn't suck. Broadcast radio is horrible and I recently tried Last.FM and the quality of their stream is so bad that its not listenable to me. I easily listen to Pandora 40 hrs a week at work and in the car and I will be getting the Pandora One subscription as soon as the limits kick in. I would like more control of the "genes", like a gui to pick and choose attributes and then see what you get back in songs and a tightness threshhold to control how wide or narrow matches are to what you have selected.

Why even charge users 99 cents? Aren't you getting enough advertising revenue? The site is now over-run by full page ads and other forms of advertisements.

You've ruined the site.

I've very sick of hearing the SAME advertisements over and over again!

Get some more ads. I don't mind listening to them every once in a while, but if I have to hear that horrible "Dark Blue" ad one more time, I swear I'll freak out.

Diversify your freaking client base for crying out loud.

Don't know how this relates to royalties but I've been disappointed when I set up a station and never hear the tune or artist that I based it on. Maybe you have to pay more royalties for the best tunes and therefore don't play them. I feel like it's a "bait and switch" game. Hope you can tweek this better.

For those of you who can, I would recommend you pay the $36.00 a year for unlimited use of this service. The ability to have streaming music that is both new and the style of music you like is awesome! Don't let Pandora go for $3.00 a month.

For those of you who can, I would recommend you pay the $36.00 a year for unlimited use of this service. The ability to have streaming music that is both new and the style of music you like is awesome! Don't let Pandora go for $3.00 a month.

Really people whinning about .99 cents a month if you listen for 40 hours. Really? Can you rent 40 hours of movies for .99 cents? Can you watch 40 hours of cable? Can you drive forty miles for .99 cents. NO. I have always heard "you get what you pay for" and if .99 cents is all I have to pay of all this great music then I am ready to pay up!!!!!

@Tim

You say: "We can only hope that a hard fought negotiation might help dislodge the impasse overseas."

I hope to be a millionaire one day...

Know what I mean? Hope is not enough? What's happening right now? What are you guys doing to get this done, and what are others doing?

Or is everybody just waiting for everybody?

I have recently come back to Pandora (I didn't use it for a while because I didn't have home internet service and only went online about once a week at a hotspot with my laptop), and I am once again enjoying molding a customized station to fit my tastes. In the future, I might even consider the unlimited plan that people are suggesting. In any case, this was a very well-written blog post: it was clear in stating exactly what was going on, so I wasn't left wondering what in the world the point was. Very informative!

does listening count towards the 40 hours if I have it on pause?
George D

Congrats.

On an unrelated note, I think Pandora should put a "Buy from Lala.com" thing in the menu. I don't buy much from Amazon and never from iTunes. For me, Lala complements Pandora.

In reply to the last poster, Marc: it should be clear that (1) it would benefit Pandora to expand overseas and (2) Pandora is willing to lobby for changes that benefit them. Ergo, they're working on it even if they're not expecting good things soon.

With these new fees is there any chance we can get a per station option for Thumbs Up to equate to only finding music of similar/narrowed qualities and not increasing the chances it will play?

Does it strike no one as odd that Pandora is going to start charging listeners for the privilege of hearing...ads?

While I've enjoyed Pandora in the past and discovered obscure artists I might not have heard otherwise, I've found that there are other music sites online that are happy to have one listen without looming penalties for going over 40 hours. My eyes/ears for their ads must be of value to them.

The .99 cent tax seems insulting because I feel it should a) remove the ads and b) be a tier of subscription that one pays up front, not a speed bump one hits after listening to ads for 40 hours. Heck, I should be rewarded with .99 cents for not hitting the mute button every time I'm repetitively told how to get a passport substitute.

This recent decision regarding internet radio royalties may have made Pandora pleased, but why does it feel like the revolutionaries have crawled into bed with the ruling r/i/a/a ilk?

I want to support artists, not repackagers, and Pandora, honey, you're starting to look a lot like another type of middleman that bundles the product and bilks the creative. Otherwise, you'd want to promote the artists and have people hearing new music without being slapped in the face for listening to the music *and* the ads for 40 hours.

Why not tie the listening of Pandora to the purchase of a mp3 once a month that one hears via Pandora? Same price, yes, but one gets an mp3, supports a band, and gives Pandora advertisers the good news that people who listen to radio also purchase based on what they hear.

Very poor implementation of a petty fee doesn't entice me to listen to Pandora any longer. There are other places to hear new music that treat their audiences with greater respect.

I wonder if Pandora has factored in the potential loss of revenue when they can't show their advertisers as many potential consumers listening in when their 40 hours are up, or the audience dwindles well before they reach the 40 hour mark.

Perhaps Pandora expects nothing of the sort to happen, but I doubt I'm the only one who's disappointed enough to take my ears elsewhere.

I've already broken the 40 hour limit in about 3 days.

Hoping this opens up more artists on the site.

Quick response on the advertising question. Although it may not seem intuitive, the longer a listener listens, the harder it is to pay for their listening through advertisers. That's because advertisers don't pay more to reach someone more times (or at least, they pay less) - ie they'll pay $1 to reach someone once, but not $2 to reach them twice. They want 'reach' not 'depth'. Hence our need to create an extra subsidy from listeners who listen a lot.

Hope this makes sense.

Tim (Founder)

Any chance we'll see Pandora back in the UK anytime soon?

I run a hypnosis site that deals in mp3 recordings and unfortunately many people now feel entitled to receiving people's hard work for free without giving anything back.

I hope you can find a way to make it all work for you without driving visitors away. It's a tricky balance to find.

I wish pandora would do a monthly version of pandora ONE, so I don't have to pay for an entire.

I also think pandora should do a prepaid skip feature, like $5 for 500/250 skips or something like that.

A "reduced ad" version might also be a good idea like $9.99/yr for unlimited plays. Then you can remove ads that the user has seen 5-10 times already which don't generate much for you anyway. The worst ads are those dell ads and those video player ads, please remove them or allow us to pay to remove them with a "reduced ad" version. The flash ads and the short audio ads are fine.

Awesome. I absolutely love Pandora, it makes finding new music so easy! I've bought many albums since finding them here on pandora. And I'm really excited to see that you will continue to be a huge part in my daily music listening =)

I'm already in for the premium membership - which in my opinion is worth every single cent of the $3/month it costs me!!

Wow! The horrible advertisements just sporadically got worse, i'm being bombarded all of a sudden! this isn't the pandora i used to know and love.

"Wow! The horrible advertisements just sporadically got worse, i'm being bombarded all of a sudden! this isn't the pandora i used to know and love."

Yeah I just signed up for premium I couldn't take the ads, the stupid limits on song skipping, and having to worry about some limit

"Wow! The horrible advertisements just sporadically got worse, i'm being bombarded all of a sudden! this isn't the pandora i used to know and love."

Yeah i know

I used to listen to pandora over 5 hours a day at home

I am very sad to see this company is going to let corporate run it and put all sorts of ad's and also TAX a user to listen more then 40 hours a month LOL

Well i will listen my 40 hours and quit listening from that point on

So much for a good radio site
This is absurd to limit users

There's 100's of other FREE radio sites and i will be switching once the 40 is over

I gotta say, I am not disappointed at the fees. I am however very upset that you have jumped into bed with the RIAA. I have heard nothing but complaints from my co-workers about Pandora lately and won't be surprised when Pandora loses market share and it's subscriber base from this action. Bad press always travels farther than good and now you're going to have the terrestrial radio lobby against you as well as other internet radio stations. Good luck competing with Jamendo, Slacker, Last.FM, Live365 and the multitude of other options available. I really mean that, you had something good and with your decision to side with the people who put the screws to you, you end up looking spineless instead of looking like an oppressed underdog.

I am fine with ads, but right now I only hear the same ad - over and over and over, which is driving me insane! Please find more advertisers! Or make up some ad. Listening to the same ad over and over is not going to wear me down into buying the product - in fact it will have the opposite effect.

I really dont get it.. I can listen to last.fm without commercials and get as many skips I want without ever paying a fee.. Sleeping with the enemy isnt pretty.. the RIAA is nothing but a mob.. They like going out and taking children and dead people to court. Im not saying paying a fee to keep things running isnt worth it, it is.. and like the previous post stated.. Good look competing with the compitition.. are they now telling you what songs are similiar too??? and what to play and what not to play.. I know they use to do that all the time with over the air radio...

It's a shame you have to do this, but I don't mind paying a dollar a month to keep you guys alive. You're doing a great job. At least your not on a sinking business model of CDs like the RIAA. Oh wait, their business model is lawyers, my bad.

Couple of questions though:
Can you implement other payment methods (i.e. Paypal?)
Can you offer a year-long subscription of the dollar a month charges rather than having to sign up for the $36 charge or 12x$0.99cent charges?

I must say that I will be done with Pandora as well when my 40 hours is over. There are Press Articles everywhere, about how you have sided with the RIAA, and how you are trying to make other forms of radio pay higher royalties as well. This was a bad move for you, and I like many will leave. You seem like you are a little kid who did not get your way, so you want to hurt others, instead of trying to make things right.

40 hours a month... is nothing. If you work 40 hour work week, this lasts... a week. That is ridiculously low. You seem to have given up your fight, and now you seem to want to go sit in the corner and pout.

Admit it, Imeem can, and would eat you alive if they knew how to manage a company worth a crap. They may have very poor marketing, and poor design, but they have a service that people like, and they do not limit a persons usage.

Man, I have spent so much money because of Pandora. At least 8 albums since I started listening regularly last year, plus individual songs and concert tix. Being able to design a station to fit your mood/taste is so valuable and ground-breaking, music companies should be paying Pandora instead of the other way around.

"Good luck competing with Jamendo, Slacker, Last.FM, Live365 and the multitude of other options available."

All of those services you listed have to deal with the RIAA just the same as Pandora did. If anything, you should thank Pandora, because if not for them, all of those services would be paying even more themselves for royalty fees.

Again, you're getting mad at the wrong people. The RIAA is the ones that have set the rates so high, Pandora was fighting to get them lowered so they could survive, AND THEY WON. Thanks to that, hundreds of webcasts are now able to continue webcasting and providing us all more options to listen to.

I see a bunch of whiners and freeloaders posting. Sure, go to other sites, you won't get the quality you get at Pandora.

I had a paid membership until recently due to the economy. I like the services Pandora gives. I will get a paid membership here, again. I'd do it even if I didn't get any bonus features.

Guess what, services cost money. Server time, employee wages, electricity... all cost money. However, idgets think they deserve services for free because, why?

Slacker full time here i come

Thanks for the continued feedback, everyone.

Regarding the ongoing rates issues. Pandora has always believed artists should be compensated for radio play. Our fight has been over how much. We continue to believe that, and further feel strongly that all forms of radio should be treated evenly. These two tenets seem reasonable and fair to us - hence our advocacy.

Tim (Founder)

A little more on this topic. It's true that we are advocating for an issue that is also being fought for by the RIAA. It is also being supported my innumerable musicians' organizations, like A2iM, AFM, AFTRA, and artists themselves. By law, 60% of the revenue from these royalties will go to artists and indie labels. Ultimately, these kinds of revenue streams are vital to working artists and the ecosystem that supports them. It's all about striking a fair and reasonable balance (which we've thankfully gotten much closer to as a result of the recent resolution).

Tim (Founder)

I just won't be listening as much now.

I want only free services frankly.

I do hope there's a big listening "counter" or GUI-display so I can know how many hours that I've used.

This is the nail in pandora's pine box.

You just punched your best customers in the face.

nagging me TO DEATH with ad after ad after ad, making me jump through "I'm still listening" hoops every 5 minutes, and now limiting my listenership..

ya know I could have been an exploiter.. I could have gotten open pandora and went around many of your ads.. I clicked on most of them if I thought it would help.. but then they started getting excessive.

I kid you not.. yesterday I was jamming along to my 80s/90s rock station when it starts playing some death metal garbage with some screaming troll..OBVIOUSLY not what I want.. pandora has forgotten apparently how to actually use the music genome project and now just plays crap that RIAA tells them to I guess..

anyway.. so I thumb it down immediately.. my reward? an audio ad.. that's fine.. sure I can respect that.. radio does this why not pandora? The next song? more death metal garbage.. I thumb it down.. another audio ad.. more garbage.. but this time... thumbing it down does nothing.. sorry you must have to have it.

so I change stations.. my reward? A VIDEO AD! followed by an audio ad, followed by A SONG I WOULD NEVER LIKE.

then last night.. I log into my email for the 1st time in forever and a day.. and find this nice little "you're running out of time for your free service and now we're going to punch you square in the face for being a good customer and tolerating 10000 ads a day and demand money from you."

let me say this.. I LOVE pandora.. I listen to it on my way to work every morning on my iphone, I keep a session open on firefox and listen all day at work, then I get back in my car and iphone it all the way home.. then when I get home I will put pandora on as I clean the house or cook dinner or do some after hours work. I was seriously mulling paying for the service.. but I'm not buying from a salesman who PUNCHES ME IN THE FACE.

for now I'm going to listen tot he existing songs on my ipod (many of which are thanks to pandora purchases) while I try to find another medium for my entertainment.

I'm severely disappointed.. it seems pandora has become the RIAA's puppet and no longer a service to the community like it was 3 years ago when I started listening. I can listen to FM for "free" with ads, there's no limit on how many hours I can listen either.. sure I dont have control over what I hear but with you giving me 1 thumbs down every 400 years.. I dont have control now either. I created a station based on michael jackson's "thriller" 8 months ago.. and yo know what? its NEVER been played.. so the argument that I have more control than FM is wrong..

I knew eventually pandora would fall.. everything worthwhile is corrupted eventually into a power hungry corporate minded organization that gives NOTHING but demands everything.

I've been silent until now.. I've put up with the ads.. but this is the straw that breaks the camels back.

As a musician for over 25 years, I'm against this type of stereotyping by the industry. The cost, otherwise known as a royalty, should be the same across all mediums, no matter how it's delivered.
It's then up to the seller to decide what the price is...
In the golden age of radio, this was the place to be heard & found, now that is spread amongst many areas as we all know. The recording industry has unfairly targeted the sites like Pandora and others and by charging them more money, they have to know this causes us to trust them "less". It's not the Pandora's, or LastFM's of the world we have issue with - it's the recording industry.
Make it simple and make it easy, for the royalty to be collected, and hopefully law will dictate that it's the same, no matter the medium -including the radio of today (Satellite & internet)

After all of these years of AT LEAST 5x8hrs listening you want me to support you?

would of should of ... been supporting you all along! Thanks for the service (and a bit more forceful reminding of just how much I do listen and should support!)

Pandora stand-alone application functional request:

1. Give me a pause button on the applications main screen! At least give me request two below so I can quickly pause without digging through hidden task bar icons (window7 can require multiple clicks to get to a pause).

2. Give me a left mouse click pull down menu on the main application screen that presents all of the options on a left mouse click on the task bar icon.

I have to be honest, I would rather choose a sponsor like Weatherbug uses and listen to/see their ads, or click through some ads to unlock additional listening time, than to pay out of my pocket.

I don't mind paying the 99 cents per month (such a bargain). But I was getting ready to pay the fee, and noticed that the payment page does not appear to be encrypted. It shows the Verisign logo, but I don't see the https in the url, nor the lock in the lower right corner. Can you verify that encryption is working?

people that are using pandora for background music such as massage therapists, will not use the service like they used to unless the ads are stopped. I'm sure most people would pay the difference in not having those annoying ads knock you down by surprise. King of takes the magic out of the moment.

i guess in life...nothing is free well at lease pandora was...i feel that the new people who sign up shoud have a limit of "X" amount, but for the old timers, there should be no limit, i alone have recuited about 50 people, and no i am not asking anytning back, but let us listen with no limits, get the new ones because they don't know better... there is two ways to go...listen for free with pandora or drop out and go to jango!!! we if i hit my limit, i will say nice know you, the memories were good, but i have to go to jango!!!!

luis

Its great to hear you've succeeded in the royalty battle in congress, however deciding that now you're going to take it out on the heavier listeners is unacceptable. First off, I'm just going to end up making several throw away e-mail accounts just to get as much Pandora as I'd normally listen to, which is far more than 40 hours a month. Instead of trying to force micropayments down the throats of your listeners, why not make the number of advertisements played between songs get progressively more often in relation to the number of listening hours? There are a multitude of solutions that could replace this silly system. I'm not creating a pay-pal account to give you .99$ a month, period. I've been a devout Pandora (nonmonetary) supporter, when I first discovered you guys a little over a year ago, I even tried to see if stock options were available and recommended you to everyone I know. You've lost a fan and a supporter with these restrictions and I'll be sure to spread the word that you screw your devout followers.

my co worker just hit 40 and paid for "One"
I am getting close, i think i might just pay the .99 this month.

I hope this give Pandora some needed income.

First off, I've really enjoyed Pandora since I began listening however long it was that I began listening. I completely understand the royalty situation. I don't, however, understand how the "heavy listeners" are forced to carry the burden of the not-so heavy listeners. I listen to Pandora all the time when I am at home and on the road. With the .99$ a month option, we are still paying to hear the music, yet we have to suffer through the same radio station centered commercials as before. So i ask: "Why the fee, still?" If we're still hearing the same commercials, the advertisers business goes up and their revenue increases reflectively. The business should be the one responsible for the listener's fee. Pandora started out as a free radio to young black adults and I don't see how charging young black adults any amount of money to hear their gangster rap is going to do anything to affect the crime rate in this city! What we need to do is just make pandora free again. Start at the beginning and don't let the music stop until somebody comes up with a good idea that doesn't affect the "heavy listeners." I certainly will miss the music that i seem to have run dry. I'll guess that I'll have to go on and complete my special scientific experiments with the human embryos. I hope their strong minds and courageous hearts are enough to defeat the community known as "the collective one." only good can become of this! start the music over, but only with those who care about music! for i want you all to believe that there is not fate, but what you make of your own!

I have to agree with Phynx. I've been a devout listener for almost 3 years and I get treated like trash for spreading the word and clicking the links.. demanding a sham of a nuisance fee AFTER I jump through your hoops just to keep listening with clicking this and that..

you seem to think you OWN your listeners and that they will do whatever you demand to keep them here.. they wont.. we listen at our convenience and our enjoyment.. and the less enjoyment you have in your system the less listeners you will have.

Frankly.. you're in bed with the RIAA and I can only hope you go the way of napster for your greedy efforts.

I wanted to pay the subscription.. I really did.. the big one, not this 99 cent garbage.. screw that. but now that I see what you're doing.. I realize that you're just going to slowly make that yearly subscription more and more and more expensive until its $50 a year, then $100, then it will be $20 a month, then $30.. and so on.. just for INTERNET MUSIC. I'm sorry but unless you plan to launch satellites and compete with XM you're not going to be worth a penny more than you charge now.. and your nag fee and stupid "be smart do your part" ad that you air every 10 minutes made me realize it.

I feel like I've been betrayed from a long term relationship.. you've been cheating on all of us with your new fling RIAA.. and you're crawling into bed with them and doing whatever they say.

Frankly its embarrassing. I thought you were better than this. Just like I recommended to my friends that they listen before.. I will recommend to them now that they DONT listen.

I don't see why everyone is getting upset about $.99. On iTunes that gets you only 1 SONG, this is for unlimited songs, nearly commercial free, and a great choice of music. Pandora creates the best playlists and frankly I think $.99 is too cheap. I'd be willing to pay $50-$100 a month; you guys need to stop being so damn cheap and start spending your money.

Well there's a bummer of a birthday present, my music up and shot itself in the foot.

Haven't yet decided what I'll do, but I must say it left a bad taste in the mouth.

Couldn't the 'reach vs depth of advertising' problem be solved by more variation in the ads themselves? What I mean to say is that over the past two weeks I think I've heard only two different adds (repeated, of course). From what I understand you'd be better off with more diverse advertising.

While music companies spend on fighting for royalties they are ignoring the listeners that truly enjoy music. A major revinue stream is being ignored. The music that is on Pandora is all comercial release, or only a single tract form a single artist although rare for example the Beatles Love album. If record companies were to offer a listen or to purchase the download at a reasonable price of 99 cents I would buy albums. As it is the $20 album is not afordable. A digital download album would not have any further manufacturing cost other than the compuers to serve them up, accountants to count the artists royalty, and other office personel. Of course there would be production costs for new material, arguably a wate of time and money, every thing that I would be interested in purchasing was recorded before 1990 (except for the Rolling Stones). I would be willing to subscribe to a chanel that allows for listeners to select to hear the entire album thata single is playing from. so that all of the artists in the stations play list have an opertunity to be played the album would have to be selected while the single is playing, during the album play there should be an opertunity to purchase a low cost digital down load. Record companies, artists, and pandora would enjoy a new revenue stream from digital album sales and asociated royalties. Please stop boring us with the same old commercial singles, or monotonus atempts at new music, by giving us LOW COST digital albums to stream or purchase.
Sincerly:
Toblas

Congrats, Tim! 40 hours for free is still a great deal!

this doesn't make sense at all to me. "heavy users" will listen to more ads. light users will listen to less ads. what difference does it make how long you listen if the ratio of ads to music stays the same?

also, i found this to be really frustrating because my wife and i share an account. now we both have access blocked at both our workplaces and at home.

we both agreed: BACK TO SHOUTCAST

Tim, you should be ashamed of yourself for caving in. It's people like you that are causing the problems in this country. Take it like a man, instead of caving in. Glad I gave up Pandora FOR LAST.FM a long time ago.

I don't see what everyone is complaining about... I'm not getting very many ads (Only every time I switch stations), the listening fees are completely reasonable ($1 for unlimited music that I like, and almost no ads? Sign me up!). I agree that Internet radio should not be subjected to more royalties and punishments than broadcast radio. The Music Genome Project is a great idea, and I hope Pandora will be able to continue offering its services to everyone.

Well, there it is. I have ante'd up my 99 cents & can have more ear candy (I've ante'd more for a bad poker hand). Sigh. & how does Pandora reward me? Huh? Huh? Only by playing Snookey Pryor, Blyther Smith, Canned Heat, Gwyn Ashton, & Christy Moore! Durned their flea-bitten hides. Lawd, There's Mark Knopfler! Gawd I love this Music Genome Project thang! Worth the Ninety & nine any time!

HR 848 is not correct. When I google it, I get a page that shows this resolution's topic as: "To amend the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 to authorize assistance to combat HIV/AIDS in certain countries of the Caribbean region." Any ideas?

Why doesn't pandora try using tribal fusion or another ad company to fill some ad slots for heavy listeners?

How can you not be set up with paypal? I'm ready to upgrade and that's not an option, and that blows my mind. Please look into it.

This is ridiculous. So I can only listen to music for 1.29 hours a day for free? My wife and I use the same account - her at the home business, me at the office. Now NEITHER of us can listen due to this restriction. And even if I pay, I have to listen to ads? What a joke. I am by no means a 'heavy listener' and refuse to pay you a cent until you at least get rid of the ads.
But by then, I will have moved on - see ya later Pandora! It was good while it lasted.

I do not get why everyone thinks Pandora has won. If anything they came to an agreement that is barely sustainable. By no means has Pandora won. If they had won, it would still be unlimited.

As far as thanking Pandora? I do not think people understand the business world. I do not think Pandora should be thanked for anything. They are a business, and are in it for the money. That is why they have made a 40 hour limit per month. That is basically because their business model has failed.

I will be going full-time Imeem from now on. While it will take more work, I can at least listen for more than 40 hours per month, with truly unlimited skips as you can make you truly build a play-list.

Uncle Tim,

I agree with Les on July 7th who suggested a "virtual tip jar". For many $0.99 is the equivalent to just one song download. For me it would be 100,000 Rp! Congrats Pandorians!

I have read through some of these comments and I agree with just about everything I have read. It sucks to be forced to pay for this great service that has been free for years. But as you can read....there are other sites that are about the same as this. Just not labeled the music genome project lol

You people are ridiculous.

"*wah* people who listen to 100 hours a week listen to more ads"
YES, you do. But you know what you don't do? YOU DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM THOSE ADS, you're just 100-hours a week in training better at ignoring them. You're not helping anyone out, so stop this illegitimate complaint.

"*wah* I'm entitled to free music whenever I want however I want"
NO, you're not. Shut up.

"*wah* I've been here 5 years and now I have to pay almost a dollar a month"
You made a dollar at work typing that stupid rant out. Shut up.

"*wah* I'm just going to go to $other_service instead"
You aren't helping Pandora in any way, outside of costing them money for bandwidth and royalties. Contribute something back, or SHUT UP.

The sense of entitlement among so many of you social barnacles is astounding. Tim, to support the service you've provided, I am (for the first time in years) going to pay for something music related: a premium subscription.

Hm, another disgruntled vote here. (Disgruntled enough to say something about it).

The joy of Pandora WAS being able to listen without commercials. But there are just far too many services out there who make it on advertisements. If Pandora can't, and has to limit us to 40 - ADVERTISED hours per month, then I'm off to those other services.

With all the changes Pandora has made, they are just no longer attractive.

Bye Pandora. We won't be back.

Just paid my $.99 and was glad to do so.

I listen more than 8 hours a day on average (have a job on the computer) and don't mind paying the dollar a month, but would prefer not to pay the 36 dollars because I don't really mind the ads much.

Would there be any way to have "credit"? i.e. put six dollars in the tip jar and not have to worry about going over the limit and then having to pay right then for six months?

sense of entitlement?

I've said several times I dont care about it being ad driven.. but I dont have my radio cut off on me in my car and say PLEASE DEPOSIT 25 CENTS TO CONTINUE do I?? no.. its ad driven.. even if I never buy anything from those ads.

Heres a tip.. you want me to buy something from the ads? try advertising something I might want.. maybe you could try parsing the music genres or artists I listen to and guess at what I may like? You could even GUESS at what I may like based on what other people who listen to those genres commonly do.

obviously.. someone who listens for a long time is at a sit down job.. how about you advertise to them something they would use? like desk accessories, or at work exercise videos (a co-worker does cubicle workouts at lunch.)

I dont feel ENTITLED to free music.. butI feel like if I have to jump through more hoops than a corgi at a dog run competition then I shouldn't then be cut off at last call at only 40 hours a month.

You want more money, try better ads.. you want better ads.. try looking at what we're listening to and how long.. google dose it.. I dont recall google charging me after 40 searches..

I'm happy to pay if you dont badger me.. but you treated me like crap cutting me off.. and thats not how you win business. I am a firm believer of voting with my wallet.. and you lost my vote when you insulted me.

You didnt even TRY to improve your ads either! you just ran "dark blue" TV ads.. like you're gonna know if I watch the show or not.. and then the "be smart do your part" commercial with these ugly actors or whatever on it wearing a Tshirt. I dont even know what they're advertising and its not going to get a "sale" out of me.. I dont want to listen to nike radio..

oh guess what else.. I have an iphone.. so DONT SHOW ME SPRINT ADS! I got an iphone for you pandora.. 99% for you. maybe take that into account.. if you see in your logs that I pinged from my account to an iphone.. advertise iphone accessories.. advertise iphone apps.. advertise Itunes discounts through pandora for listening for so many hours..

I've just given you more ideas in this one post to ENCOURAGE listeners to buy things than it seems you've ever thought of.

and if ANY of this is helpful.. I BEG you to consider trying this and removing/extending your "free" listener limit.

C'mon Tim, let us pay $10.00 a year, in advance! A single transaction has got to be easier for you as well as me, and you'd have my money up front to do with as you please.

My only peeve about paying at all is that even though I'll be buying into a service, I still won't be able to select a specific song. Not the end of the world, since the overall exposure to so many types of music and artists is the main thing I like about Pandora.

Personally, I have about 10 stations set up, and continually tailor them by suggesting seeds or marking a song I don't like. But I almost always use the mix function, and add and remove stations as applicable, such as my Christmas station. I really don't care for that in July!

Now, if you could just make it work in my car...

Please, consider the yearly $10 thing.

What about all the royalties that should be given to the independently funded bands published?

I listen all day every day at work. Pandora is the only way I can listen to exactly and only the music I want but still be exposed to new songs and artists. I'll be happy to pay for that.

I do have some operational questions about payment and Pandora One that I can't find answered anywhere else on the site. Could you put up some FAQs about this change?

1. Is there a $11.88/year option to listen unlimited with commercials?

2. I can't download applications on my work computer. Will I be able to use Pandora One?

3. What types of payments do you accept (Mastercard, Paypal, etc.)?

4. Do you have any sort of price guarantee? Is this an introductory offer or, barring unforeseen changes in legislation, do you intend these prices to be firm?

Wow. Just found out about the added cost of using your site and I am very disappointed. Radio is supposed to be free. If you want to stick more ads in then do so, but limiting my listening to 40 hours is a joke.

Up to this point I have enjoyed everything about Pandora, but you really need to rethink this business model. You're going to lose a lot of your customer base because of this change.

I wish you well, but I won't be back until you change this format/model.

If you want a "level playing field," then you should NOT support HR 848. As the sponsors of the bill clearly point out, the percentages in the bill don't come anywhere near those of Pandora and other internet broadcasters. A typical public radio station or small broadcaster will pay a flat $500 fee. Small internet broadcasters pay ten times that amount, and have smaller revenues. So it's NOT a level playing field.

A true level playing field would be all broadcasters paying the same rate. That won't happen. HR848 is a bad bill. Just because it imposes a royalty doesn't mean it's a good bill. It imposes an unfair royalty, and keeps the playing field unfair.

Also, a fair royalty bill would require labels and artists to provide something that would help broadcasters pay for the royalty. Perhaps give broadcasters certain rights to the music, as they enjoy in some foreign countries. But the RIAA doesn't want a fair royalty. They want to impose a new fee with no give-backs. That's not a fair royalty. A fair royalty would allow broadcasters to go to competing agencies to set rates, rather than creating a SoundExchange monopoly. A fair royalty would allow BMI and ASCAP to compete for this business.

This royalty fight brought Pandora and other internet broadcasters to the brink of bankruptcy. Bringing other broadcasters to the same brink is not fairness. It's a version of misery loves company. Fairness isn't bringing all broadcasters down to the same level of poverty. It is finding ways of bringing us all up to the same level of prosperity. THAT is the goal I encourage you to seek. In that way, you will find prosperity, happiness, and fairness.

If I were going to pay anything for radio listening why wouldn't I go ahead and find the best available?

Sorry to say for a paying service your not going to come close to those already out there..

I'd rather have a commercial here and there with unlimited access...

Reckon after two weeks and meeting my forty hours I'll have to leave.. :( Why would I sit around and wait another two weeks for you to come back?

Your payment page is not in SSL. I won't pay you a dime until that is fixed.

Very bad business.

The rate is fair and your service is great, but no SSL is an awful oversight.

I'm one of that 10% and I'm out. Don't care if it's only $0.99, the whole point was that it was FREE online radio. I personally will not be forking over my credit card number, and will find music elsewhere.

Best,
Paul

Thanks for your effort and success at keeping the music alive! As a jazz fanatic in particular and all around music lover in general, people like you keep sane spirits vibrating around this beautiful earth. Thank You! Your energy is extremely appreciated!

Thanks for the continued comments everyone. We're reading them all... even if much of it is hard to hear.

To those generally disappointed, angry, feeling betrayed or mistreated, I wish there was something more I could say than we have no choice. Choosing to just ignore this would just mean choosing to go bankrupt, and quickly. Although it may seem that there are viable free alternatives, this same reality will hit everyone eventually. We did everything we could to negotiate a lower royalty, but we were dealt a terrible hand by the copyright tribunal.

Capping listening is simply anathema to everything we stand for. It's absolutely the last thing we would choose to do. But it's unavoidable.

Regarding the one time $11.88 payment, we've definitely heard the feedback - and are heartened by the interest in that. To be continued...

On the Performance Rights Act, what we're seeking is parity in the language used to determined rates. It's unfair and untenable to hold that internet radio should be treated so much worse than other forms of radio.

Regarding using ad networks. We do some of that, but the value of that advertising is FAR too low to make an impact. The CPM required to make the ad business work are way above these rates.

Thanks everyone.

Tim (Founder)

Well, to be honest with you, $1 is not a big deal, per se, but why pay $1 (or anything) when you can get other internet radio for free (like via live365.com)? Granted, Pandora is much better, imho, but still. . . .

those are cool posters!!!!!!!!!!!

Clarence and others concerned about security:

The Pandora home page is a "mixed content" page. That means only part of the page is secured by SSL. The "tuner" part where the sensitive data are collected and transmitted IS protected by SSL. You can look at the page source and you'll see something like this

PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="https://www.pandora.com:443/radio/tuner_8_8_0_2_pandora.swf"

Notice the "https" on the url.

Our site is continuously assessed by security experts from the major credit card companies and has been approved in its current form. We display the Verisign logo and the gold lock symbol next to the tuner because that is the secured element.

If it makes you more comfortable, you can force the entire page to use SSL by clicking this link: https://www.pandora.com/

Alternately you can use this web form to subscribe. https://www.pandora.com/subscribe
I assure you the transaction is completely secure in any case.

i need from someone who knows alot about pandora. if i could i would pay the $36 but i cant so i have to listen for free. i only been on here for a month and i reached my time limit. it said it will reset the time next month but now its next month and i got the same note saying ive listen to it when i have not listened to anything. it says come back in september. i dont know why. but is that like the free trial or something? or is there a time in the day where it resets?

I too think the 99 cent option is a fair asking price. That is why I willingly paid the 99 cents only to have Pandora lock me out of my account 22 days later and I don't see a way to contact them.

I've been listening to Pandora for years now and although I have tried other sites like Grooveshark, nothing compares to Pandora. That being the case, I must say that I am a bit sad about the charging. Yes it isn't that much but it is still something. But its not Pandora's fault, I put the blame on the stupid greedy recording industry. And I feel bad for the artists that don't get anything out of this and are USED as poster heads.
Anyway, I'll be sticking around for the 40 hours every month and maybe when I can afford it I'll do the Pandora One subscription.

Good bye my sweet friend. You were fun, but you were also free which was why I was here. You're still basically just a radio after all. And a rather repetitive one at that. So I wish you success, but for me the fun is over. Good night all.

Again, the whole point was that Pandora was FREE RADIO. If you don't get this and can't find some other way to pay your bills, don't expect me to. No longer interested in this SCAM when there are so very many other totally free options. Friggin SAD!

Not sure if this has been asked or mentioned, but does the forty hours account for songs skipped? i.e. A song I don't care for is three minutes long, does this go to the forty hours of listening? Just curious...I am part of the 10% as forty hours goes quick...I might need to just pony up... Bummer, but understand corporate hands are tied. I will remain with Pandora, the other sites don't match their design, quality, and ease of use, it's the vimeo of audio, not the Youtube... keep rockin Pandora

I sense a mis-step, unfortunately: I'm looking at submitting work as an artist, to be played on Pandora. In all your otherwise very helpful literature on how to make that submission, there is no mention of royalties.

I.e. Pandora pays royalties to large labels, but not to small-time artists? Or what is the deal here? I find no obvious answer to this on your website.

hi george -

we pay royalties on every single song we play - the same royalty for each song, whether it's from a major label artist or a total unknown.

those payments go to the Performance Rights Organizations - BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, and Sound Exchange. It's their job to pay the royalties out to individual artists.

If you are signed up with the required PRO's, you will be able to receive any royalties due to you.

Awesome, I have been using your service for some time now (at least a few years) and have loved every minute of it. I even become a subscriber around a year ago (speaking of that need to renew I think...)

Keep up the great work and thanks for the T-Mobile G1 app (FINALLY!!!!)

I think this sucks. I bought an Ipod which i dont like because of pandora and use it on my computer every day. If I gotta pay which i wont I just stop using it. I shouldn't be limted to the number of song I can skip. Since if you listen to it as much as I do songs repeat.

Radio shouldn't be excluded from the royalties. They aren't any different from Pandora, except that they torture us with terrible mixes, horrible rap-rock fusions, heavy advertising, and annoying hosts.

Good job only a few other times have I seen something so amazing and revolutionary completely lose sight(I mean literally become blinded)to what there whole program was originally about. Being established for the sake of music and promoting artist and giving people what they have never dreamed of having before. Now its an advertisment engine who by some strange situation of events can't afford to keep itself running despite the fact that you hear and ad about every four songs, you see an ad whenever you look at the screen and every time you change the station you have to hear an ad with ever increasing play times. Now on top of that we have to fucking pay?! Great job you fucking sellouts. I was going to donate some cash to your cause but now instead of taking it as an offering to your program your basically demanding donations.You say its an economic decision but your not thinking about the people who don't have jobs or can't get them, I know you are not charging alot but it adds up and there are people who love your service but simply can't afford to pay for it all the time.I knew it couldn't last because it was about time that human nature kicked in and you stop being able to resist a chance to get even more money into the palms of your greedy little hands.

Its like if some theater was doing a free outdoor screening of a movie(a theater near me does)and they just suddenly started telling people they have to pay even though by name, the movie is free but you still have to pay for it. I can easily say most people would leave.Im not saying most people would leave because most people would rather pay than to give up the convenience and the people that do stay and have no problem with this are the people that like to take it for face value and can afford it.

I see, you hold comments for your own approval so you can censure out the people who would speak the truth about the bullshit your doing with the station. that's very american of you, you neo-music-nazis.

I am pretty upset about the 40 hours a month limit, I wouldn't mind paying the stupid dollar but its the principle of it. You should have just added more adds to pay for the extra dollar on the 10% its effects. Why do people always want to change a good thing. This sux.

It's odd to me that people are so completely upset about this. I get that some of these people are longtime listeners, and they don't like the change.

Hey, guess what? Tim said in his post that he doesn't like it either. But he's got only one choice if he wants to stay legal: pay the royalty fee. It's higher than before. So there's additional pressure on him. Can ads make up the difference? I've been watching, and ad revenue on the Internet is DYING. Part of the problem is people choosing to block the ads. Not all, but part. While this may not be something that happens with Pandora, it has the effect of lowering the value of online ads for EVERYONE online. Do you run Adblocker in Mozilla? You've reduced the revenue generation from ads. Found an add-on for IE that does the same? For Safari? For Opera? For Chrome? Same results. Every time ad "hits" drop away, advertisers are less willing to pay, or demand lower rates.

There are very valid reasons to block ads, I understand that. But that doesn't stop the revenue from dropping. And maybe it's not enough to cover the royalties that Pandora pays.

The Internet wasn't born for someone to just take what they want. It was based on SHARING. A two-way process. Our side of this, when it comes to Pandora, is to pay a pretty marginal fee.

A few people have accused Pandora/Tim of intended to progressively raise the fee over time. If you want to quit Pandora because of what MIGHT happen, you certainly have the right, but I find that kind of paranoia does more harm than good. Tim, if it starts to happen, I DEMAND you prove to us that it's necessary.

But as it is now? I understands the demands of trying to keep this site running. I can support this.

I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.

With the RIAA keeping an incredibly watchful eye on creations like Pandora, there is not much room for growth and creative development. Lessig states that, "intellectual property is an instrument. It sets the groundwork for a richly creative society but remains subservient to the value of creativity. The current debate has this turned around. We have become so concerned with protecting the instrument that we are losing sight of the value" (19). Again, Lessig demonstrates an understanding for a need for copyright law; however, he views the original focus of helping protect artists' works is shifting towards keeping artists from creating new works of art that are in-tune with technological advancements. Pandora is a great example of Lessig's argument: the idea of Pandora Radio and the Music Genome Project is revolutionary, but is severely threatened by being forced to go above and beyond in order to follow copyright law in order to keep the RIAA and other entities happy. Having a program that selects music you might like based on other artists you have been interested in is genius, and, in my mind, represents the future of music exposure for artists, especially those who are up and coming. Using Pandora has helped me find at least a dozen artists I probably would not have found otherwise because they are lesser-known groups/genres; by limiting those who can use Pandora and how often users can access Pandora would limit the exposure of bands/artists. It appears that AM/FM and Satellite radio (the past) may feel threatened by such a powerful, song-choosing online radio, which helps explain the extra restrictions that are being placed on Pandora (the creative future). Artists do not receive royalties from their songs being played on FM radio, so it seems unfair to expect that of an online radio. Theoretically, it would be easier to record a song off of the radio using a tape player than trying to find an illegal program that could "rip" songs from Pandora, especially considering the precautions Pandora has been forced to take due to RIAA regulations and years of loyalty battles.
We are experiencing a huge shift towards having practically all music accessed online, which with the creation of Pandora Radio helps demonstrate the move towards providing what consumers want--accessibility and convenience. As humans, we are competitive by nature, which is represented by the RIAA and FM and Satellite radio companies attempting to stay competitive in an ever-growing virtual world by putting added limitations on something like Pandora. Pandora does not mix music or allow its users to rip files; it pays higher royalties than it should have to, and yet, it is still in jeopardy. New ideas should not be threatened because of a concern for how their implementation will affect the current market--especially if they are not actively violating copyright laws.

Thank you! You often write very interesting articles. You improved my mood.

Great news. Thanks for sharing. Congratulations. I wish for the more success.

I don't think he'll make any money in a mutual fund if he only has a few months to trade. Have him learn about earnings and trade around earnings reports, I think he'll either hit or miss but thats a fun way to live "Go big or go home."

Hello! Thank you very much for that enlightening article

This is terrible. I will no longer use pandora anymore!! Thanks!

I will consider putting money into it when I get time, but right now I have other things I have to pay for such as.... groceries, health care needs, and other things I need. If Pandora cannot afford the project, then simply drop it altogether. And I feel bad for those not having any access to Pandora. http://www means worldwide web, not USA only access.

Wow. Pandora, wow. Thanks, Tim.