The International Business Times is reporting today that rising royalty costs will cause the free music site Pandora to limit free listening to 40 hours a month. That works out to a little more than one hour a day. Pandora is lobbying Congress to pass the Internet Radio Fairness Act which would change the way that royalties are paid to artists.
Listeners will have alternatives to the 40-hours-a-month program–99 cents for unlimited listening for the remainder of the month, a subscription to Pandora One for unlimited listening and no advertising.
The article concludes:
“The streaming business is obviously growing and booming. It’s north of a billion-dollar business now,” Alex Luke, executive vice president of A&R for the Capitol Label Group, whose artists include the Beatles, Katy Perry and Coldplay, told RS (Rolling Stone) in a previous interview. “But it’s still in its infancy.”
I enjoy Pandora and hope they will continue to provide free Internet music.