In a message dated 8/17/2008 6:20:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
audities@gmail.com writes: 
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503367_pf.html
> 
I have read this article and am pretty bummed about the whole thing. I have 
purchased many albums (CDs) from artists I first heard on Pandora, most of them 
indie artists or even major label artists who pretty much fly under the radar 
in most cases. I have a couple "soul stations" (among others) and the amount 
of rare soul and (for other stations) very obscure music played on Pandora is 
incredible. What other R&B station that you can name plays Don Covay or Howard 
Tate or Eddie Hinton, even Lewis Taylor and other artists like that? Mixed 
with even more obscure artists! I have often spent time searching this stuff 
out, not knowing it ever existed previously or, in other cases, available in 
print. Lewis Taylor was a find for me from Pandora. I have since bought everything 
I could get my hands on that he's done. There have been many others.

Sounds like indie artists and labels need to band together to save Pandora. 
Sign a contract for a smaller pay rate. I am in favor of artists making their 
just due but I can't see anyone winning if Pandora and stations like it close 
down. Sure, the playlist will be small for awhile, but they said it: 1 million 
listeners at any given time and 40,000 new listeners every day. Does any other 
marketing plan reach that many people? If bands and artists aren't sending 
Pandora their music, they are crazy. I could type that out with CAPS and it 
would sound like that tool Lefsetz but it would still be true.

Probably a stop-gap would be to charge for the service. Since it's better 
than Sirius or the other satellite radio network (if you don't believe me, try 
it) I think it will be worth the money and I would pay for it if necessary.

If Pandora goes down I know I will be spending less on music. Does the music 
business not care?

Scott Homewood