Jango: the vanity press of online music
p2pnet news view Radio | P2P:- “Is Jango based in Nigeria, home of 419 arteests, perhaps?” – p2pnet wondered yesterday. “Or are we being too harsh?”
Jango is one of the latest efforts to milk gullible independent musicians
“Pay this radio station a bunch of money and it`ll play your tunes,” we said, going on, “Remind you of anyone or anything? And there’s even a special introductory price! $30 for 1,000 plays, $50 for 2,000 and $100 for 5,000 plays!
“Wow!”
Yeh. Wow. That anyone would fall for it.
Fred Wilhelms is a Nashville, Tennessee, entertainment lawyer and p2pnet contributor of whom, “If the corporate music industry had any ethics, Wilhelms would be its ‘ethicist-in-chief’,” wrote CounterPunch’s Dave Marsh.
We asked him what he thought of the Jango venture, and here’s what he said »»»
When someone pays to have their music played on a terrestrial radio station, there are two major benefits to the payor; his music is heard, and someone else’s is not. Payola makes economic sense for the person paying it when access to music is limited, like on the FM band, because a radio listener has little choice in what he or she hears at a given moment, short of turning the radio off. In some places, at some times, there will be more options, but choice is still limited to what you can find on the radio dial.
Because of that, payola really shouldn’t work on the Internet. Listeners have too many choices, and they’re too easy to make, and, as Pandora has taught us, we can pretty much tell Internet stations the kind of music we want to hear, any time, all the time.
Besides that, if we don’t want somebody telling us what kind of music we’re supposed to like, because they say it is similar to stuff we say we like, we can always find another station that won’t have an agenda, or at least won’t be as pushy about it.
In essence, Internet radio is the ultimate democracy, because every artist can be king of his own domain (name) and Payola is ultimately undemocratic, because it isn’t popularity that creates access under pay-for-play, it’s just money.
So, into the wide open spaces of the democratic chaos of the Internet, here comes Jango.
For the great unwashed public, like me, Jango is an Internet radio station that, like Pandora, allows a listener to identify favorite artists and hear their songs and other artists Jango decides are ‘like’ your favorites. The available stations aren’t as extensive as Pandora’s. Five artists for whom I have Pandora stations don’t show up in the Jango database at all. And I don’t think a lot of the connections they do make.
I don’t think the Rolling Stones are ‘like’ the Velvet Underground, and I am even more sure the Beach Boys aren’t ‘like’ the Velvet Underground, but those we
re the first two non V.U. groups on my Janga Velvet Underground station.
So why build an inferior Pandora?
Because there’s money to be made from it.
Not from the listeners.
Not from advertisers.
From musicians.
That’s right. You’ve got a song you want the world to hear? Jango will play it, for a price. $30 for 1,000 plays, $50 for 2,000 and $100 for 5,000 plays!
That’s right, you PAY them to play the music you GIVE them for free.
And they promise to play it at least 1,000 times, although there’s no indication how long it might take to reach that kind of benchmark, or how you get to keep track of the count. And those folks who listen in, who say they like music by a specific artist, get to hear your song if you tell Jango your music is like that artist.
So if you say your music is like Velvet Underground, your record might just be the one sandwiched in between the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys tomorrow!
But the real kicker is that you really aren’t replacing anyone else’s song. Everybody who pays their $30 gets the same chance as you to have their music played 1,000 times, and the same guarantee from Jango that they will have that chance. Good, bad or indifferent, that song is going to be played 1,000 times, just like your song.
Your music isn’t displacing anyone else’s, you’re just moving it to a different play slot, just as someone else’s $30 is undoubtedly moving your music.
If you’re the only one who buys in, it’s not a bad deal, but every time another musician with the same ’sounds like’ buys in, your chance to reach a new audience is diminished. If you’re one of 1,000 artists that say you each sound like The Killers (and remember, I could have said James Blunt), how often do you think you’re going to make an impact, even for $30.
When everyone bribes the gatekeeper the same amount, even if it’s legal, it ends up just as if no one pays.
You don’t get any advantage, and your music probably ends up lost in the tidal wave of noise created by all the others that bought time.
It’s democratic payola, which means it isn’t going to be democratic, and it isn’t going to work as payola.
In book publishing, there’s a greatly undistinguished side of the business known as the ‘vanity press.’ It is where the author pays the costs to have his book printed, bound and marketed, and he pays for his copies of the book. Normally, he gives away more than he sells. The vanity press has been responsible a lot of bad prose and even more bad poetry. Jango is the vanity press of Internet music.
Jango is legal. Paying for play in this way is legal. I’m not going to argue the ethics or morals, because the more you think about the economics of paying to entertain people, the wisdom of the argument makes those loftier considerations moot.
If Jango is a great success, it will be so filled with ’sound like’ musicians that listeners may never hear the group they went there to hear in the first place.
It could be the Internet equivalent of the popular restaurant Yogi Berra complained about when he said ‘Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.’
You can contact Fred at fred.wilhelms @ gmail dot com.
p2pnet – New Radio Payola scheme, March 5, 2009
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March 6th, 2009 at 11:42 am
First – full disclosure – While I’m not an employee, I work with Jango, and it’s my name that appears on the bottom of the press release issued to announce the launch of Jango Airplay.
I read both today’s and yesterday’s articles with great interest – and while I can certainly respect the different point of view – I’m struck by the assumptions and misinformation that appear throughout. But what I find most surprising is that at no time was Jango contacted for comment. The simple fact that information from the website was posted completely out of context and many assumptions were made without any regard for accuracy is pretty sad. Further to that – commentary from someone not-affiliated with the service is posted as follow up -there’s no debate here – where’s the balance? Dan Kaufman, Jango’s CEO is available, and would be most interested in speaking with you to address the potential issues and questions your articles raise. I encourage you to speak with him so your readers get a full picture and can decide for themselves. We look forward to hearing from you.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
@ Deana:
Please tell Dan he’s free, and welcome, to join in the discussion with a comment post outlining his perspective on either or both stories [the other is here http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18700 ] in full, and at any length.
Cheers!
March 6th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
hey, same post as before…
Hi, Dan Kaufman, CEO of Jango here… just a few notes on how Jango Airplay actually works and why we think this is a great way for emerging artists to get guaranteed plays to people who like their kind of music – and for users to discover emerging artists they would otherwise never have discovered.
- Guaranteed amount of plays.
Fred Wilhelms seems to think that when we receive an Airplay song, all we do is put it into our system as a “similar artist” and if it gets played it gets played. That’s not the case, we pro-actively play it the exact amount of times the emerging artist has paid for â along with a display ad encouraging our users to tell us what they think of this emerging artistâs song and to support the artist by becoming a fan, etc if they like it.
- Results reporting.
Fred seems to think there’s no insight into how the plays are delivered. That’s not the case – emerging artists can log in and see exactly how many plays they’ve had – and they can also decide in what time frame we should play them (1 week, 1 month, etc). When their plays are up, they receive a report with the full breakdown by age, gender and musical taste of the people that liked (and disliked) their
song. In addition, they can communicate directly with all the people that choose to become their fans on Jango.
- Exact artist targeting
We only play Airplay songs to people who like popular artists the artist has chosen. If he/she wants to be played next to Velvet Underground, we’ll only play the song to people who like Velvet Underground – and NOT next to “similar artists” to Velvet Underground as Fred is suggesting (ie no sandwiching in between Beach Boys and Rolling Stones), so the targeting is both precise and relevant.
- Size & targeting
Fred also seems to think that there will somehow not be enough opportunities to play an Airplay song, and that the plays will never be delivered. With six million monthly uniques and 400,000 visits to Jango every day, there’s a tremendous number of songs being played every day and plenty of opportunities to play an emerging artist, so Fred’s point that it will all be diluted and never delivered isn’t correct.
- Quality review
We review all songs to ensure that they are of certain quality, and that the “similar artists” chosen makes sense – ie no song will be played next to any randomly selected popular artists like both Billy Ray Cyrus and Chris Brown. And you’d be surprised at the artistic
quality of the songs we’re getting. Just because you’re not established doesn’t mean you’re bad – and artists serious enough about their career to spend money on promotion are generally much better than you’d think. The fact that our users have really liked the emerging artists we’ve played so far totally supports that.
- Listener control
First of all, our listeners want to discover new music. And with “Jango Airplay” we give them an opportunity to discover emerging artists they would never be able to find otherwise. Also, we only play an “airplay song” every 20 songs or so – and never more than once a day to any given user. And if they don’t like it, all they need to do is skip.
So far, our users have reacted very positively. On average, 10% of users give an airplay song positive ratings, write a comment or even become a fan of the artist!
- Royalties
We pay royalties for every song that’s played – Airplay or not â so any artist signed up with SoundExchange will get their cut of that.
I hope this clarifies. We’re convinced that Jango Airplay is good for emerging artists AND users. With our quality review, infrequency of airplay songs (compared to established artists) and listener control, this is a way to help independents get discovered and help users discover independents – for a music discovery service like Jango this is a MUCH better experience for everyone involved than the alternative – which is a 30 second audio ad for Lending Tree every other song.
Thanks,
Dan
January 13th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Hi Dan,
when setting up my “Jango” radio, I would like to play an emerging artist as often as I like, and not only one song once a day with 20 other songs in between…
This is nowhere clearly explained when registering for jango radio.
And how can the emerging artist know exactly that his/her song has been played for good and for his/her good money – what way of controlling that? It seems that songs are played randomly picked by a computer program.
Couldn’t find any legal information on your company, what is your exact registered business name, your business registration number, your head quarters? It all seems a bit foggy to me, sorry! But I love music and I hate the idea of emerging artists being squeezed out of their money when they need it most, in the early stages! By the way, when do emerging artists get paid their first royalties?
Looking forward to your detailed reply,
Musically,
Peggy