So, due to extensive lobbying and their own dirty greed, the RIAA has forced certain legislation into law that places higher fees on internet radio services. This means that one of my favorite internet sites, Pandora, will be forced to shut down.

For those of you that do not know what Pandora is (or was, depending on when you're reading this), here's a brief explanation: Pandora is a free internet radio service that helps listeners find new music by asking them what songs or artists they like and playing music that is similar to that song or artist. They define what is "similar" by carefully analyzing each and every song and breaking it down into over 400 genes. It builds your stations around the songs you give, playing songs that share genes with the song you entered or the library of the artist you entered. It really is both a beautiful idea and a flawless service, playing all nature of music with no critical judgment and the world's most polite flash application ("I'm sorry, but I couldn't find the artist you were looking for. If it's not too much trouble, could you either check your spelling or please try a new search?").

Fighting the RIAA's decision seems idiotic on the surface (like those nuts that tried to argue Napster was legal). However, on Pandora (and others like it like Last.fm ), the RIAA actually recieves a unique service. Pandora allows listeners to listen to full songs, but they cannot choose which songs they want to hear (for example, if you wanted to hear "Machinehead" by Bush, you couldn't, but you could hear songs like "Machinehead"). Pandora is not attempting to let listener's hear the same songs they love, but rather introduce them to new artists and songs. They offer links to buy the songs on either Amazon or iTunes, as well as a place to order the physical CD itself.

This is free advertising for the RIAA, and they're attempting to shut it down. Pandora introduces millions of people to quality artists on RIAA labels. The normal RIAA business model (that of constant touring, plays on the radio, and music videos) is stupid in comparison. Here, Pandora is allowing free advertisement for both popular artists and obscure artists. The RIAA is spending money on obsessively-corporate advertising when Pandora is reaching millions of listeners for them for free.

Why would the RIAA do this? Are they really that stupid that they would deny themselves free advertising?

Of course not.

The real problem the RIAA has with services like Pandora is something called EPT, or Equal Playing Time. Corporate terrestial radio gives very little playing time to independent artists. For example, the radio station around my town, 105.7 The X , only gives two hours a week to independent music on a program called the Sunday News. Every other time of the week, every song they play (and I do mean EVERY SONG) is owned by the RIAA. The RIAA has a monopoly on rock music for that market.

Services like Pandora, however, replace the need for terrestial radio by offering listeners free personalized stations. The only problem is that they give EPT to both independent and major labels. This is a real threat to the monopoly the RIAA has struggled to build. If people hear as much independent music as the major-label-music, they might start buying independent albums and going to independent concerts, taking away business from major labels. By forcing legislation that shuts down these services, the RIAA isn't protecting its own rights. It's protecting its own monopoly.