As the New York Times reports, John Simson, the executive director of SoundExchange, still argues that the original rates would have been "appropriate and fair," but he admits that these new rates will give "webcasters the opportunity to flesh out various business models and the creators of music the opportunity to share in the success their recordings generate."

Tim Westgren, Pandora's founder, points out that this is not an ideal solution, but that this deal "still represents a thoughtful and reasoned outcome under the circumstances."

Some Changes for Pandora

At least for Pandora, however, this will also mean that a small number of users who stream more than 40 hours of music per month will have to pay 0.99$ if they want to hear more music on Pandora during that month. Pandora says this will only affect about 10% of its user base and those users, of course, could also upgrade to Pandora's desktop player, Pandora One.

Until yesterday, for example, users could just re-download songs they purchased from the service (quite useful when your hard drive or MP3 player dies on you). Now, however, most likely in order to combat fraud, eMusic has put some restrictions on the number of downloads it permits per song.

Also, while even long tracks (often in the classical or electronic music section) used to cost just one credit (users get a certain amount of credits per month, depending on their subscription plan), a lot of albums now cost 12 credits even when they only feature four or five tracks. The 12 credit idea was actually sold as a positive by eMusic, as it would allow users to download any album without having to pay more than 12 credits. That's great for albums with lots of short tracks, but now, for a lot of users, this actually brings down the value of their subscriptions and raises prices significantly.

There is also some inconsistency here, as some albums don't yet feature the 12-credit price. According to eMusic, only about 50% of all albums have transitioned to album pricing so far.

Some songs are now also only available when users purchase a complete album, whereas before, any songs could be downloaded individually.

The Good

Of course, there are also some positive aspects to the new eMusic. A new feature, for example, now shows users which tracks from an album they have downloaded before and allows them to complete this album.

EMusic also still offers all of its tracks as DRM-free MP3s, and some albums are now a real bargain, as you can often get albums with far more than 12 tracks for only 12 credits, and while taste is obviously debatable, we have to admit that there is also some interesting music in Sony's catalog.

Is the Customer Still King at EMusic?

Where eMusic failed though, even though we have to acknowledge that it tried to communicate with its customers, is in preparing its users for these changes by being completely transparent about the updates. It's no secret that most users don't like change, and while there is a lot of talk on the eMusic forums about unsubscribing from the service, we will have to see how eMusic's subscriber stats develop in the next few months. While some of eMusic's loyal subscribers might indeed leave, having the Sony catalog in its repertoire might actually attract quite a few new users as well.

According to Google, GEMA's prices would be more than fifty times as high as those that PRS for Music was looking for in Britain. According to Google, GEMA's prices would mean that Google would have to pay the equivalent of about 500 Euros for one traditional CD - without even knowing which songs it would be getting on that CD.

YouTube, according to Heise Online, would also prefer to pay a flat rate, though the German music rights association would prefer a more nuanced payment model.

Controlling Costs at YouTube

Fighting these music rights organizations is also clearly a sign that Google is trying to keep the costs of operating YouTube under control. After all, it still hasn't found a way to monetize the service to the point where it would break even.