Posted:03/28/07

Legal matters
New Web sites provide Internet users with free music and videos

Ryan Lowell | fact checker
rlowell@smcvt.edu

Pandora.com is the latest in a line of Web sites that offer free music to the masses. But there is one significant difference that sets Pandora apart. It’s 100 percent legal.

According to Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, the site has been online since November 2005, and it functions as a customizable online radio station.

What music is made of

Buying all of your favorite music can be expensive, and compact disc collections can become cluttered. But Pandora streams thousands of songs by popular and developing artists for free every day. (Ryan Lowell, photo)

Although the site has been up for just over a year, Westergren says he has been working on it for the past seven years, by compiling the music genome project, a program that analyzes similar traits in songs.

“The genome itself is a very large collection of musical attributes that go into a song, its sound, melody and harmony,” Westergren says. “When you type a song into Pandora, the music genome project compares it with everything else in its collection based on musical similarity.”

Ashlee Flagg, a St. Michael’s College junior who is currently studying abroad in London, says the site makes it easy to discover new music by typing in the genres you enjoy.

“I like how the site asks you to give a favorite band or song name, and it finds similar music that you may be interested in, based off your choice,” Flagg says. “It also lets you rate the songs it plays for you, so if you like a certain song, it will play more like it.”

Flagg says she doesn’t mind not being able to download the music, and that she can go out and buy the music she likes the most.

“It's actually kind of nice that Pandora doesn't let you download music, because I already have a lot of music on my iTunes that I don’t even listen to anymore,” she says. “This way I don't have to clutter the memory on my laptop with a bunch of music I don’t listen to often.”

Flagg says she thinks the site will catch on especially with college students, and that its legal status will help it survive longer than most free music sites.

Westergren says the site has been growing quickly, and he is hoping that it will more permanently fill a void that is left every time an illegal music downloading site is shut down.

“One of the main things that has caused piracy to sprout up is that there hasn’t been a good source that makes music consumption easy and allows us to find it at the right price,” Westergren says. “I think Pandora solves that problem. I think the ease of use of Pandora and your ability to play what you want is going to gradually move people off illegal stuff.”

Take a peek

Junior Greg McLaughlin says he discovered Peekvid at the beginning of the semester, and that he uses it about once a week. (Ryan Lowell, photo)

As legal music is streamed around the country, it’s no surprise that video would not be far behind. Peekvid.com, is a site that provides links to free movie and television clips online. Although the content Peekvid links to is not always legal, the site itself remains safe from prosecution since it contains no material other than a list of links to other sites.

Junior Greg McLaughlin says he has been using Peekvid since the beginning of the semester, and says the site is relatively unknown, but is a great source to watch movies for free.

“I don’t think that many people know about it, because lots of people use Youtube and Google video,” McLaughlin says. Web sites like Youtube and Google video only offer short clips, whereas Peekvid offers entire show episodes and movies.

Junior Andrew Urquhart says he uses Peekvid because it is free and convenient.

“I don’t go to the movies much,” Urquhart says. “So I like watching new movies online. Why go out and pay eight dollars for a movie when you can watch it online for free?”

Even though Urquhart enjoys using the site frequently, he still says there are disadvantages to watching a movie on a computer screen. Most students would rather watch a movie on a television screen if they have the opportunity, he says.

Although the site hasn’t faced legal difficulties yet, McLaughlin says he doesn’t think the site will be able to stay online forever. The site has a disclaimer at the bottom of its homepage, describing how it only provides links and not content, but McLaughlin says he still feels the site could be shut down even though it doesn’t directly host illegal content.

“It will probably be shut down like Napster was,” he says.

Problems of their own

“We had profitability in sight, but a couple weeks ago there was a ruling that hiked the performance fee we have to pay to artists. It tripled the price. It’s a really devastating ruling; if it’s left unchanged, it will end Internet radio.” -Pandora founder Tim Westergren

Pandora pays royalties for all of the music it streams, meaning it isn’t subjecting itself to potential legal woes like Peekvid. Westergren says being a legal site has its own set of challenges, as the site is still losing money in its development phase.

Westergren says the site is gaining advertising sponsors all the time, and it also receives commission from iTunes and Amazon, as Pandora directly links to those sites, allowing users to buy the music they hear. He says 40 percent of the people who use Pandora have bought more music since they registered, and with six million registered users, they are accounting for a lot more music purchasing.

Flagg says she agrees that Pandora is helping the other sites’ business.

“I think I’ve actually spent more money on iTunes because of Pandora,” Flagg says. “If it plays a song I like, I will immediately search for that band on iTunes and listen to the rest of the album and buy it.”

But Westergren says a recent ruling by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is hurting their net profits.

“We had profitability in sight, but a couple weeks ago there was a ruling that hiked the performance fee we have to pay to artists,” Westergren says. “It tripled the price. It’s a really devastating ruling; if it’s left unchanged, it will end Internet radio.”

Westergren says Pandora plans on protesting the RIAA’s decision, but it is still trying to figure out the best way to handle the situation, since they are a relatively new and unknown entity. He says the site will attempt to push its grassroots quality, seeing as one of the main purposes of the site is to promote developing artists who may not be heard otherwise.

“Our mission is to help create a musicians’ middle class,” Westergren says. “As part of that, we get 15,000 independent songs a month. It’s a very democratic environment. We’re selective about what we put in, but you can be a garage band, and if you’re good at it you’ll be playing right next to big groups like Coldplay, REM and U2.”

Flagg says she agrees the site targets a more independent, underground music audience.

“Kids will always go to Limewire so they can download the new Fergie song for free,” Flagg says. “Pandora is more for people who are looking for new, underground bands who they wouldn’t have known about if they were listening to America’s Top 40.”