crashingly bad judgment. but not surprising. sadly, not surprising at all. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Coxe" To: Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:26 PM Subject: Dumbest Record Industry Action of the Week > http://techdirt.com/articles/20080109/032038.shtml > > Sometimes You Wonder If The Recording Industry Is Purposely Destroying > Itself > from the no-more-pandora-in-the-UK dept > > Back in May, we noted that the recording industry, in a > shooting-itself-in-the-foot method, was demanding that music discovery > site Pandora block all non-US listeners, over an argument concerning the > exact licensing terms of the music that Pandora streams. The recording > industry has been demanding that Pandora sign separate licensing > agreements in every country, or it must block them. Now, for anyone who > has actually used Pandora, it takes all of about three seconds to > recognize that it's the type of service that should be the recording > industry's best friend. You put in songs, musicians or even styles of > music that you like, and Pandora finds you new music that it plays in a > stream, like a personalized radio station. Pandora makes it incredibly > easy to both discover and buy new music. If I worked for a record label, > I'd be running around the world heavily promoting Pandora, and working > with it to promote new artists. Yet, instead, in true RIAA fashion, it's > demanding a tithe instead. While Pandora has been blocked in many > countries since back in July, it kept going in the UK, believing that it > would work out a reasonable solution there. Apparently not. As countless > UK-based Pandora fans have been submitting over and over again, Pandora > is now shutting off access to UK listeners. What does this accomplish? > As far as I can tell, all it does is take away a wonderful music > discovery service that helped push people to actually buy music. Only in > the minds of recording industry execs would a company doing free > advertising for you be seen as something that needs to be shut down. > ======================================================================= > Detailed Audities-List information: > To manage your Audities List settings or unsubscribe: > >