This article says free online radio, specifically Pandora, may be in trouble. I really hope this isn’t the case. I’ve found so much cool new music on Pandora recently, and it’s great to hear old favorites there too. I would think with the number of people using it they could become make some nice coin. Even though it’s free for listeners, they have ads and also let you buy music through iTunes and Amazon, which they get commissions for.  According to the article, it’s the heavy web legislation that’s giving them a problem:
Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies.
Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.
Let’s hope they’re able to stick it out. Pandora is the best thing to come along for music on the web since Napster in the late 90s.
