>> two former secretaries of states, condoleezza rice and madeleine albright and robert gates talked about foreign u.s.-russiading relations. here are secretary rice's comments. >> well, yes, it is serious. the crisis and to be and of the cold war in a large part because it has been a long time since a country, a big power in europe. powers start behaving badly, it gets really dangerous. malaysian plane that was shot down was shot down because the sophistication of the equipment. way up.eet is a long when great powers start behaving bad, it becomes a dangerous. vladimir putin never accepted the outcome of the end of the

cold war. he said the collapse of the soviet union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. they probably lost as many as 30 million people and ward were two despite a statement. and he said something that was particularly dangerous and that was that the reason it was a great tragedy was because 25 million russians were outside of the soviet union and other countries. ukraine.oland and i remember sitting with him at the nato in 2008 at his last talked to the nato council and he said something that everybody said, did we hear it right. he said ukraine was a made up state. going to seer vladimir putin and what my last encounters and have its own sake, you know us. you know russia has only been a great because it was ruled by

great men like alexander the great and alexander ii. i remember, is a vladimir supposed to be in that? for now i think a very dangerous, perfect storm between a leader who was unreconciled to the polls were a postwar and using combination of economic pressure and military and intimidation to get his way to undo the order. community thatal how tot times, uncertain respond. >> the former secretaries talked about iraq and israel and palestine and america's role on the global stage. you can watch it in its entirety tonight at 8:00 p.m. here on c-span.

created by the cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service i your local provider. >> our guest this week on "the communicators" is chris harrison, vice president of pandora media. mr. harrison, what is pandora and how does it work? >> peter, thank you for having me. pandora is a personalized radio service. what distinguishes pandora from other services is our technology. primarily our music genome project. pandora was founded by tim westergren , a musician himself. .e was working as a composer he grew frustrated because it was difficult for him to communicate with directors. they wanted music that sounded like x and tell the say this

sounds like x and the director would say this sounds like x. tim's idea was he the breakdown music into its constituent parts or its genes and map those genes up to 400 characteristics so you could create this commonality that looked at everything just by way of an example, think of vocalists, sick of nor a jones if you know her music. very light. compare her to someone like tom waits who feels -- who sounds like he is gargling gravel and compare that to somebody like bob dylan who has a distinctive nasal tone. that is one example of how our music experts will analyze. we use the music genome project as a starting point to analyze our music. we then use collective

intelligence. think of that as how a song plays. thatu have a station competed with the allman brothers for example, we can tell how well the marshall tucker band lays for every body who has similar. filtering which you can think of as the individual level of analysis. a you and i happen to like song by the allman brothers, did you happen to like this whole cowboy by the marshall tucker band, i am giving away my musical taste and if the examples. there is some statistical likelihood i will also like this "little cowboy." oftake those three ways

listening to music and listeners come on to the service and they are asked to give us the name of a song or artist or genre of music and they start the service and we deliver a personalized station for them. >> let's say you are playing a norah jones song. payn that context, we will 2 different loyal -- royalties. even more so.g when we played music on pandora, we are actually paying 2 different copyrights. one is the recording typically owned by the label. that is norah jones'. we are also paying the record company gets paid. about asitself, think

the physical world as a sheet of music. that is the songwriter who wrote the notes and those rates are controlled by the music publisher. >> how does pandora make money? >> we are primarily an ad supported business. we have a subscription service which allows listeners to pay a monthly fee and not receive ads. the vast majority of our listeners and revenue derives from our cell of advertisements. we are very good. we like to think at the delivering targeted ads. you may have read recently about our political segmentation and ability to target ads based on political party. our value proposition is there is again because we are a medium as opposed to a traditional a.m./fm radio where we play one

song to ever happens to be tuned in at the moment. we know what the song you are listening to and was a device you are listening on. for example, we are integrated in many car models. listening and in the car has historically been a place where a lot of people consume radio. we have about 4 million activations in cars and we can tell when you are in the car listening to pandora. we can target ads and make those relevant to the driving experience. >> let's talk about some the issues pandora will be facing. i want to redo this quote. hearing,congressional i think you were there. he said that "copyright, musical licensing is an antiquated and complicated and time-consuming licensing regime that must be fixed." do you agree?

>> there are certainly areas where we can approve -- improve the process. and/or operates under what is typically referred to statutory blanket. we can get the right playing, all of the music on our service from essentially to sources. ces.wo sour it is very simple for us. we follow certain rules that congress laid down in order to be entitled to use that license. as long as we follow the rules, we can play any music we want on the publishing side, it is similar. there are two organizations primarily that collect royalties on behalf of the songwriters. we can play any song that we want to based on those licenses. there is tremendous -- for us in

the existing system that facilitates innovation and allows innovators like us to enter the market relatively easily. >> to talk about some of the issues is haley of "washington post." >> you were on the hill to talk about -- [inaudible] what it is inbout the face of changing technology? were put in place many years ago by the department of justice which had filed antitrust claims against 2 performing rights societies. mitigate what is perceived as market power that derives from licensing and copyrights collectively. voicedlishers have all

some concern about current state of licensing and the department of justice is currently reviewing those and decrees. they have asked for public comment. i anticipate that when they come out, they will take an active role in reviewing those and voicing our opinions. -- speaking of royalties. the music industry has changed so much in just the way as consumers look at it. the way they get it. i think the system is so complicated. from a consumer point of view, how do you keep prices low? and in sure it can be [inaudible] i'm just interested in what you see as the pathway to doing that. >> pandora is radio.

that is how the service was inefficient when launched in 2005. ad supported radio has a long history in the u.s. very culturally significant because it allows the widest dissemination of popular music to listeners. they do not have to pay for it. we are primarily at supported. and view ourselves as an extension of that supported am/fm radio market. theuse we are ad supported, listener does not have to pay $10 a month for a subscription to the service. in the u.s., we are over 80% penetrated with internet access. are integrated in about 1000 different devices and not just mobile phone. you can listen to us on a refrigerator now. his ubiquity of access is a way to reach listeners really across

the socioeconomic spectrum and enabled them to listen to the music they love even if the local broadcast does not have a station that broadcast that music. chris just to follow-up on the question of the changing landscape of the music industry, how are you different from radio stations? are the rules different for you than traditional radio stations? >> there are different rules. licensingdifferent regimes that operates. fundamentally, the technology is different. is justast by its name that. you are playing a single song to all of your listeners. technology. specifically for you. that enables us to do some things that broadcast radio

cannot. we can be more personalized than broadcast radio. it allows us to really deliver hat might not be available in your broadcast market. if you happen to really like and music or bluegrass there's not a local station broadcasting the genre, you can still access it. >> when it comes -- what are ascap and bmi? >> they are the a-list -- biggest rights. krista do they support pandora? >> they understand it is the future. share look at pandora's of listening, it has increased steadily since our launch. we were north of 9% of already a listeners.

we are part of the landscape. the musical landscape. we provide a really valuable platform for artists and songwriters. >> weren't you recently sued by some of the big record companies for not paying licensing fees? a suit pending right now in new york city court over were recorded prior to 1972. the copyright act, we are in the complexity again. the copyright act did not recognize sound recordings. federal copyright at all. they were not recognized. they did not enjoy a performance right. not until 1995. congress made the decision after that time not to include for performance royalties those

before 1972. the copyright office and a late 2011, early 2012 concluded that are entitled to a performance royalty under federal law. >> elvis, the supremes, they can all be played for free. you can take their product and play it for free? >> we would still play the song -- we will still pay the songwriter. it is subject to copyright. the copyright act. there is a famous songwriter from the 1920's, handy, cool recorded very popular songs. was inhe wrote in 1920 the public domain. his estate when i received any royalties from pandora. one of his songs was recorded by stevie wonder in the 1980's.

stevie wonder is going to get a royalty because it was recorded after 1972. it is horribly complex. is.s what it congress sets out the rules. >> haley? >> we have seen with the rise of youtube and sites, people are putting their work out there now. if they want to make a big, what are your considerations? >> you are right. there are certainly many more platforms available for artists to be discovered fan in the past when artists relied primarily on broadcast radio. service, we play about 100,000 different artist every month. 80% are not played on any other formal radio.

there really is a value to these new platforms for artists to be discovered and to connect with fans that love their music. a great example, i do not know if you're familiar with the radio, from connecticut. they sound somewhat like mumford and sons. in 2000 and nine before mumford and sons launched in the u.s., this bronze radio had about 1500 stems on pandora. 2010 comes along and mumford and son breaks and they are on the grammys. feeding stations with a mumford and sons. with our music genome project and collaborative filtering, we are able to say, if you like mumford and sons you might like this new band. had 8.4r, that the band

million spins on pandora. it's a great example of the value of our platform. >> how do you balance? tom sure if people go pandora and say i want to hear norah jones, they will hear sounds of a no and a few they do not. how do you balance to make sure that people get what they want? sauce. of the secret you are absolutely right. we spent a lot of time analyzing listener behavior and are we playing enough new music? are we playing too much? signse lots of the data that spend lots of time doing that that i cannot understand. >> representative john conyers introduced a bill called the respect act.

get more music royalties. do you support that? what is the danger in that? it is unfairlyy, targeting internet radio. the only services that would have to pay the world team. we have talked about publicly we would support full federal is eight and pre-1977 -- federalization pre-1972. there are important protections into the copyright act. not just rights for copyright owners but their use and ability of libraries and actually write of transfers that artists have. all of those protections are built into the copyright act that -- if congress wanted to fully federalized and provide not just the rights to these copyrights but protections for

consumers and libraries and artists. it is new technology versus old. we have seen some of these battles in technology issues. there's always been a tension between content owners and technology. if you go back, there was a time when poachers were against the radio. -- publishers were against the radio. you look at beta and vcr and digital audio tapes, there's always a tension between new technology as the market tries to figure out our consumers going to like this? and if they do, what does it mean for the rest of my business model? beenngress has deliberating for quite a while on copyright law. what would like to see done? >> first of all, applaud chairman goodlatte for his

leadership after looking at these issues. i had the pleasure of testifying before the subcommittee. if they are taking what i think is the appropriate approach which is a comprehensive and full look at all of the issues associated with copyright. and hopefully, what comes out of this israel productive conversation of all of the relevant stakeholders including the consumers who benefit from innovating technologies like pandora. and we can find a way to improve the system. increasingandora is its presence in d.c. what are some the other issues you are looking at? and reformcensing its top of mind for us. we are clearly focused on issues that are of importance to technology companies. patent reform, net neutrality,

privacy issues. >> you have described or pandora dataeen described as a big company. what does that mean? track every have, we interaction with our leaders. if you log on, we know you have logged on. when you launch a station we know which station. summinga this feature up and summing down. it's a little icon on your screen and if you like a song, you can thumb it up. we have more than 30 billion of those captured since we launched the service. that allows us to do things like the political segmentation that i talked about earlier, where we can take the information we have arelook at what listeners

most likely to respond to. that is the real value add we bring to our advertisers. particular demographics. when a user launches a service for the first time, we ask them for their gender, age, and a zip code. that in combination with her listener behavior allows us to precisely target ads which we think will be more relevant to the listener and provide more value to the advertiser. one of the things and is really interesting for us and we started talking recently about how can we help the music industry in general with some of the information? our founder, tim westergren, talked about efforts we have underway to exposing that andrmation to record labels recording artist or song writers

in ways that will help them further business. like what we talked about with the montford and sons and bronze radio returns, this information we can bring to them can help them make marketing decisions. there's a band called fallout boy and they came into our howce and we showed them their visa was performing on the service. they were extremely popular in salt lake city and they never performed there. the next time they went on tour, they booked three shows at salt lake city. we can provide value back through the recording artist and labels and others and in the music industry. that is something we are really excited about. >> mr. harrison, to go back to the political side. if somebody is listening to fallout boy -- >> it goes back to some of the math i do not understand.

we look at what your zip code and gender and age and how is that all of manifested in the secret sauce, part of the reason it is sacred. who developed the secret sauce? it is all in house. chris how many employees? >> north of 1300. the vast majority involved in sales. withu guys later around looking at the mobile use and desktop use. as people rely more on their mobile devices, you have had to and just. -- adjust. can you tell about what you learned in changing these models? was -- it is fascinating to look at the change. we were just a couple of years ago and predominately listen to on the desktop. are on% of our listeners

mobile devices. it creates a lot of challenges for the service. you have a much smaller screen. how do you convey information and in a way that is simple? advertisers have not moved over to mobile as .apidly as the listeners have and so, the monetization of our mobile listeners is slightly behind where we are on the desktop. we are extremely proud of the efforts we have made around monetization. we are third behind facebook and google in terms of our ability to monetize our mobile listeners. adpioneered a lot of the new products for mobile listeners. reallydvertising is a new and exciting form of advertising. we do lots of research around

how well ads perform. asause we do not monetize well today on mobile as we do on desktop, the world is we pay are the same. last year, we implemented some slow theto try and growth of listening on the mobile device in order to give us an opportunity to have that monetization catch up with the desktop. we're able to do that. and to remove those caps. desktop when we had a big spike in listenership and we needed time to have the revenue and monetization catch up. , the larger problem you get the more royalties if you pay? is there a way to get a way from it? >> it is a positive problem to have. we keep growing listening --

listeners and listener hours which present more opportunities to sell advertisements. we focus on local ads. if you think about brock has -- if you think about brock has radio, the advertising is local cartilage ships. -- local car dealerships. so, that is where we see the biggest opportunity for us to increase. >> could congress destroy your business if it changes the laws? know about that. again, the music licensing is a very complicated set of rules. and we are excited to participate in goodlatte's

review of those. we are confident whatever comes out of this, the next congress, our voice will be heard. and congress will do the right thing. copyrightperceive reform and this congress? >> i am not a congressional expert. i know they have recessed coming up and the fall elections. it is hard for me given from the hearing themselves, i do not believe they have finished all of the hearings they want. >> we talked quite a bit about congress, how much time influence doesn't the fcc have on pandora? >> other than our acquisition of dakota, wein south are not fcc regulated. >> why did you buy a radio station?

>> we bought it for a number of reasons. we really view ourselves as radio. we consciously set out to create a real product. we deliver it over the internet and not fcc licensed spectrum. we see ourselves as radio. there are things that brought have ready old does well typically at the local level and we felt we could have some valuable learning. and this provided an opportunity for us to try to test some of it out. it happens to be that broadcast radio pays less in royalties. and owning a radio station was a vehicle for us to take advantage of a better licensing. >> chris harrison, vice president of pandora media and haley is with "the washington

post." thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> c-span brought as a public service. a three judge panel for the sixth circuit court of appeals in cincinnati heard oral argument on wednesday on the constitutionality of michigan same-sex marriage ban. this is one of four cases heard. the others were from kentucky, ohio, and tennessee. this particular case involved the same-sex couple who initially challenged michigan's ban against allowing same-sex couples to adopt children. they amended their suit to challenge the same-sex marriage ban. a lower court struck down the ban as a violation of the constitution's equal protection clause.

>> good afternoon, i'm here on behalf of the people of the state of michigan. may it please the court, justice kennedy explained just a few months ago, it is a fundamental premise of our democratic system that the people can be trusted to decide even divisive issues on decent irrational grounds. d w months ago, it is a fundamental premise of our democratic system that the people can be trusted to decide even divisive issues on decent and rational grounds. that's what this case is about. it's about to who gets to decide what the definition of marriage is and what that definition must be and it's about who gets to decide on two different levels, the judicial hierarchy has felt whether a district court can disregard a directly on point holding by the united states supreme court, namely baker versus nelson and the bigger picture, it's whether federal rights, if there is a creation of a new federal constitutional right if that should be done under the amendment process or by the courts under a doctrine.