Comments on: Road to Pandora now goes through Amazon

Independent acts now have to be selling physical CDs through Amazon before Pandora will consider them.

[EarthMatters]

So much for Pandora being inherently about Music. IMHO, this cheapens the whole concept of the Music Genome Project, who will now need to change their mission statement slightly to read as follows: "capture the essence of commercially profitable music at the fundamental level". What's next? Seems to me they'll now add new genes/attributes into the genome to recommend songs based on profitability. This destroys the credibility of the whole genome concept. What a shame.

[El_Segfaulto]

Well I'm going to stop listening to Pandora. What a sad state of affairs.

[wskidm]

As an independent musician, I don't see this as a problem - rather, it simplifies the process from my point of view. Instead of sending a physical package and hoping I hear back sometime soon, I now have an easy place to check on the status of my music request. I am already using CreateSpace, an Amazon subsidiary, for my physical CD manufacturing - a free service, by the way - which gives me an Amazon-sanctioned barcode, and manufacturing on demand, so I don't even have to put up the cost of a CD pressing if my music is accepted. Other bands could easily do the same, and still continue to sell their CDs through CDBaby, if that's what they want to do.

As far as the fee for the Artist Advantage program goes, that's pocket change - so much in the world of music costs, and most of it costs more. Want to get your music on iTunes? Pay a yearly fee to someplace like Tunecore, or a monthly fee to another label. $30 is nothing, and not even required.

[rhetrx]

Pandora isn't the only online game in town -- Magnatune.com will also pick up music by unknown artists. I'm sure a lot of people have gone there to listen to the _Braid_ soundtrack and been pleasantly surprised by the range of music available at the site.

[sadchild]

i just looked at createspace. what a RIPOFF! if you sell a Cd for $10 on amazon through createspace, you only get 45 cents! did universal music come up with this scheme? what a joke!

do the math:

Our Share
Fixed Charge $4.95 / unit*
Share for sales on Amazon.com +45% / sale

that's 4.95+4.50 that goes to createspace!! double-you, tea, EFF?!

You need a way to reduce the volume of submissions. Just because you are independent does not make you good. Seems like raising the bar is a good way to exclude the non-serious band. If you think Amazon's fee structure is too high, you can roll your own and risk sitting on your CDs. I know more than a few indie band member's closet with a box full of unsold CDs.