Suzana Barbosa is a Canadian artist who walked from Los Angeles to the Googleplex (well…not inside the Googleplex) and used her #walkmilesformusic campaign to call attention to the absurdly low streaming royalties that are cannibalizing sales.  In a serendipitous coincidence, Suzana’s protest coincided with the release by the Copyright Board of Canada of its new statutory rates for Pandora in Canada.  Remember those really low rates that Pandora pays in the US?

The Canadians are now paying less than 10% of those rates for sound recordings thanks to Pandora’s lobbying efforts.

That’s right.  $0.000102 per play.  And of course the artist’s share is 50%–got your scientific calculators ready?–$0.000051.

So Suzana’s direct action couldn’t have come at a better time in both her home country and in the U.S. as Pandora is trying to do the same to artists in the U.S. in a rate proceeding with SoundExchange.

We were lucky…