More Pandora

http://bit.ly/UEpe7k

He's at it again.

Tim Westergren is not running a music service, but a religion. He expects his flock to follow him blindly, leaving their minds behind, all with the goal of lining his pockets.

He owns stock worth double digit millions, yet he's complaining the company's getting screwed. Who does this resonate with? Certainly not artists or listeners.

And now in this latest blog post he raves about how much obscure artists are making on his service so he can rationalize paying them less. Huh?

What he's saying is if you let me pay less, the sphere will grow and you'll make tons more money! Never mind that this is anathema to Pandora's shareholders. You can only listen to one radio station at one time, whether terrestrial, satellite or Internet, people only have so many hours in a day, where are all these listening hours gonna come from? It's kind of like the Internet. If I'm surfing all night, I can't watch television. Hell, I oftentimes can't even listen to music! Market share is everything, and Tim Westergren seems to be saying here that he's willing to give up some of his. This is like Lucian Grainge giving away Parlophone if the European Commission would just approve the EMI merger... How duplicitous can you get?

If it's all about money, why doesn't Pandora add some commercials. That's what their main competitor, terrestrial radio does, you've got to pay the bills somehow, there's no free lunch. Just ask Facebook, we give up our data for that service.

As for Sirius XM, I love this e-mail I received:

"So, Tim Westergren doesn't own the pipeline, doesn't have to design and manufacture hardware (much less convince auto manufacturers to install it) and doesn't pay for upkeep on a network of satellites? Cry me a river."

Mojo Bone

Tim's got a fraction of the costs of his competition, but he wants the same deal. A level playing field? Tim wants full-blown TILT!

This is why the music industry hates technologists. Self-satisfied pricks like Tim Westergren who believe they're entitled to make a huge profit off the hard work of others, in this case the copyrighted material known as music. And he rationalizes it by saying it's good for the public. Isn't that like saying free food is good for the public? And free cable TV? But who's gonna pay to grow staples and lay the pipe?

Why are all these techies so delusional?

Yes, the music industry has been too slow to license.

Yes, it tends to extract its pound of flesh.

But your way into copyright holders' hearts is by proving you're going to make them more money. And that's not what Tim Westergren is doing here, he's just lobbying on behalf of his shareholders.

The road to the economic future of the music business is riddled with potholes and conundrums. But in order to succeed in delivering a better model, we must work together, all sides must be included, creators, distributors, exhibitors and the public. The industry lost credibility and revenue by refusing to put the public in its equation. Now Tim Westergren wants to push the creators down to help him, not even the public. This is not a solution, this is heresy!


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