Yesterday Pandora announced that it would no longer accept open submissions for unsigned artists (one used to simply be able to send in a burned CD for Pandora submission). Now, in order to be considered for airplay, bands/artists must have their music available for sale as a physical CD on Amazon.

Naturally, this was greeted with some outrage. Words like “Payola” and “Back-scratching” and “Major-label exclusivity” (no one actually used that, but as the new restriction specifically barred unsigned music, it’s a fair summary of many sentiments) were thrown around. People thought everything from Pandora being in bed with Amazon, to Pandora being in bed with the majors, to Pandora just plain shitting the bed with regard to independent music. Check out the full story with comments.

Being the warmy communicative Web 2.0. executive that he is, Pandora founder Tim Westergren took the time to respond to his dissenters. An excerpt from his statement:

Pandora remains intensely focused on providing a level playing field. Our aim is to find the best music we can – indie, major or otherwise – and to add as much of that as we can. Given our sole focus on quality, we’re looking for folks who have a demonstrated seriousness about their craft. Just as investing the time and money to create a professional sounding CD is a strong predictor of quality, having invested or being willing to invest in an online distribution mechanism is another signal.

What exactly does it cost to register physical CD’s with Amazon, and therefore be eligible for Pandora? A whopping 29.95 PER YEAR. So Westergren has a point in arguing for a sense of financial proportionality among musicians- why invest countless hours and considerable expenses in the studio, rehearsal room, and on gear, and neglect to spend a nominal fee to complete the final phase to deliver your musical product? In the case of Pandora, and judging by many of the user reactions, many feel some sort of righteous indignation towards the alleged cohoots with Amazon, refusing to pay the fee out of principle. But why doesn’t this same shrewdness apply to my broke guitar player friend, who feels perfectly comfortable buying his 10th effects pedal (~$100), but refuses to foot the modest bill for online distribution of his music?

But that’s not the point. Besides, we are finding the new generation of internet-saavy, DIY industrious musicians to be more than willing to pay a fee to utilize worthwhile services. Look at the success of fantastic artist-enabling digital tools such as Tunecore and Sonic Bids. If us musicians see these services as worthy of our buck, than we will pay for them. So back off.

The curious thing about the whole situation is not the price, it’s the PHYSICAL CD qualifier- you don’t just have your tracks registered with Amazon (again, a service Tunecore can perform), you have to physical distribution set up. Westergren makes a obscure and incomplete attempt to explain this by saying that “not all downloads have a UPC (barcode)- so it will be a lot more hit or miss”. Last time I checked, barcodes track purchase routing and history. Don’t we have analytics for digital transactions that far exceed the days of UPC barcodes?

Additionally, why is Pandora getting behind Amazon’s edict for a physical CD, when it knows that the industry is moving away from the album/CD concept of musical delivery to the CONSTANT STREAM of artists delivering tracks to their fans? Why, oh why, Pandora, keeper of the most robust music discovery technology, once-hailed as the great mediator of the music industry, are you moving backwards rather than forwards?

Because Pandora is a venture-backed enterprise. The same VC cats are behind Topspin Media, an incredibly saavy and promising digital music service (they would disagree with this terminology, but I don’t have time to explain their nuanced services). The goal behind Pandora is to make money. It’s easy to lose sight of this, given the heady musical association and discovery one undergoes listening to Pandora Radio. It really is a fascinating service. To his credit, Westergren in forthcoming in such intentions:

“We believe it’s very important from a user-experience standpoint to have functioning ‘buy’ links… It’s clearly the right choice from the product/user experience perspective.”

Pandora is attempting to monetize something that may be lucrative in the temporary (though I doubt anyone will actually opt to buy the archaic physical CD, when a digital Itunes download is most likely available as well). They are neglecting the way we consume and distribute music in the here and now, which, for a service as preeminent in its technology as Pandora, is upsetting.

To read Westergren’s full letter, click here