Pandora would win that battle, but in doing so, it also found itself stuck with a business model that could not evolve alongside the streaming space.
The solution was the radio model of music licensing, a brilliant strategy at the time, but one which would be the subject of a long fight between Pandora and the recording industry.
To take on this legal and lobbying juggernaut, Pandora needed a clever strategy to avoid the kind of head-on fights that had sunk Napster. It was, however, an innovator in digital music at a time when the major labels were hostile to the entire concept and would fight on every front to preserve the lucrative of the compact disc era. It's not that Pandora was oblivious to its competition, or complacent about its place in the industry.
