Pandora stays alive by reaching workable royality rates

There's been a lot of news about the stalled negotiations between online radio providers, artists and record labels, but that seems to have come to an end, and at least one online music site is very happy about it. Pandora, a popular music player and recommendation service, was at the top of the list of possible casualties in the royalty battle, but thanks to the new agreement - which requires Pandora to pay out 25% of its U.S. revenue to SoundExchange in exchange for a whopping 40-50% reduction in royalty rates. According to the company, this means a fighting change to turn a profit in the near future.

The effect on listeners is going to be fairly small. If you listen to over 40 hours a month of Pandora, there'll be a 99 cent charge that buys you unlimited listening for the month.If you're a Pandora One subscriber, you still get unlimited listening with no new charges. This agreement is in place until 2015. Other "pure play" music services like Pandora will be operating under the same deal, but there are carve-outs for small webcasters.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: music, pandora, radio, royalities, soundexchange, streaming, webcasters