

After 4,175,149 Plays, Pandora Pays Bette Midler $144.21 - Jupe
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/04/06/bettemidler

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brownbat
UPDATE: Pandora's response:

"We love Bette’s music and certainly respect her advocacy for fair
compensation for artists," a Pandora spokesperson said in response to this
story. "But we must clarify an important fact: Pandora paid more than $6,400
for those 4+ million plays, based on our 2014 rates which are published
publicly. In terms of compensation to the creative community Pandora remains
by far the highest paying form of radio. Pandora pays songwriters a greater
percentage of revenue than terrestrial radio. And Pandora paid 48% of our
revenue in performance royalties to rights-holders in 2013 – more than $300
million – while terrestrial radio was required to pay nothing."
[http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-
mobil...](http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-
mobile/6039697/bette-midler-disparages-pandora-spotify-over-artist)

Older rebuttals during the original Thom Yorke / RIAA campaign:

Forbes estimates Spotify royalties per listener are almost double those of
terrestrial radio:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/17/spotify-r...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/17/spotify-
royalties-appear-to-be-awfully-high-despite-what-thom-yorke-says/)

The artist doesn't see most of the royalties, the payouts from Pandora /
Spotify can be orders of magnitude larger than the check the artist sees:
[http://theunderstatement.com/post/53867665082/pandora-
pays-f...](http://theunderstatement.com/post/53867665082/pandora-pays-far-
more-than-16-dollars) (This is a problem worth examining too, but it's a
different problem.)

Tim Westergren makes some additional points, like Pandora's value for
promotion is higher than terrestrial radio, and how many artists actually
support Pandora's model: [http://blog.pandora.com/2013/06/26/pandora-and-
royalties/](http://blog.pandora.com/2013/06/26/pandora-and-royalties/)

