October 14, 2012

That’s according to Pandora founder Tim Westergren, who was stumping for lower royalty rates on Tuesday in San Francisco. And part of his complicated pitch was that successful artists are making a lot of money off the Pandora platform.  ”There are artists making more than $2 million from Pandora,” Westegren told attendees at SF Music Tech Summit during a morning discussion.  ”And, many artists are making more than $100,000.”

“You’d be surprised at how many artists are making more than the average household income in America.  We’re talking about making a living on Pandora alone.”

Westergren estimated an ‘average household income’ at $50,000, enough the pay the bills in many cities.  But outside of those details, the underlying message is this: please don’t kill us, labels, SoundExchange and publishers, because we’re good for artists.

So, ugh, lower rates so they can pay more?  Westergren noted that Pandora is now spending all of its resources on advertising products and advertising sales to satisfy royalty obligations, not on programs that would empower struggling artists.  ”The prospect exists for Pandora to actually activate fans for bands traveling around the country trying to bring people into clubs,” Westergren told interviewer Jon Healey, an LA Times journalist.

“But the development on that kind of technology is suffocated, because we spend every last penny trying to develop yet another ad product.  And one of the invisible consequences to this kind of rate is that it stifles innovation, and a big piece of that innovation could directly impact the plight of the working artist.” [DigitalMusicNews]

Add Live Nation chairman Irving Azoff to the list of people who think it’s harder, not easier, for artists to make it in the music business these days.  And according to Azoff, part of the problem is that it’s easier to make music than ever before, with less monetization, a stark contrast to the ‘golden age’ of the 60s and 70s.  ”Basically then versus now, you’d have one hit record and you could come to Los Angeles and sell out three days at the Staples Center – then it was the Forum, but now it would be Staples Center,” Azoff recently told interviewer Jude Apatow at the ‘Grill’.  ”Now, one you can’t get a hit but if you do get a hit, you get to open up for somebody at a club.”

“I regularly tell people that it’s way different, way more difficult now.”

“So that just tells you that even with the massive exposure of network TV, how hard it is to make it in the music business.” 

But what are the culprits?  ”Theft and choice, and also, it used to be very expensive to record a record, now you can do it at home,” Azoff said.  ”Music is now the soundtrack of people’s lives, but it has way less monetization.” [DigitalMusicNews]