I’m starting to appreciate the irony of Pandora’s choice in brand.

Pandora is an online music service that has taken an interesting approach to personalized internet radio. They’ve identified over 400 attributes that capture the essence of a given piece of music. I don’t know exactly how this works, but I imagine some of these attributes must include aspects like tempo or major vs minor keys or which instruments were used to create the music. By mapping out the music genome of hundreds of thousands of songs, Pandora is able to create streaming radio stations tailored to your tastes.

Its a pioneering music service that does an incredible job exposing listeners to obscure yet relevant artists. Unfortunately for music aficionados, Pandora seems to be living up to its namesake.

While Pandora (the webcaster) hasn’t necessarily introduced new evils to the world, by attempting to create a truly innovative digital music service, it is calling attention to evils which already exist.

In this case, Pandora’s box is the music industry and when it was open, out came SoundExchange, the Copyright Royalty Board and international music licensing. Here’s a quick recap of two litigious events which have recently besieged this company:

  • SoundExchange is the branch of the RIAA which governs radio. They’ve gotten the Copyright Royalty Board to approve a request to increase the royalty which internet radio companies must pay by 300% - 1200%. This rate hike makes most internet radio business models completely unviable. The only option small companies like Pandora have for survival is to strike deals directly with the labels. This something which would almost certainly entail handing over programming control and ruin precisely that which makes Pandora so great. Major labels will either further line their pockets or gain enough control to promote their top 40 stable of artists.
  • The beauty of the internet is that it gives anyone instant global distribution for digital content. As word has spread virally about Pandora, listeners from all over the globe have begun tuning in and creating their own custom radio stations. Unfortunately, due to licensing constraints, Pandora is being forced to block access to their service outside of the US. Knowing how fragmented the international licensing landscape is, it could take years before Pandora is able to open its doors back to foreigners.

At the end of the day, its the small, innovative music services and ultimately music fans everywhere that lose.

Fortunately, the story doesn’t end here. House Representatives Jay Inslee and Donald Manzullo are introducing the Internet Radio Equality Act which if approved would neutralize the rate hike. SaveNetRadio is a newly formed grassroots coalition of artists, listeners and webcasters with the same goals in mind. Pandora is actively working on acquiring the licenses needed to operate outside of the US.

Much like the Greek myth, Pandora finds that in spite of the tragedy, there’s still something left at the very bottom of the box - hope.