Pandora Internet Radio: an internet radio service from the US told to stop streaming to Australia.

Last year we featured a story titled 'Pandora - a box you'll like opening' that provided users the ability to listen to streaming music over the Internet. The service was free, and provided suggestions of other songs and bands that were in a similar genre to your listening habits, and would stream all day similar streams of music.  Hence if you love clasical, your ears wouldn't get burnt with a rap song. 

It is convenient, it is free, it worked and it was great.   Members of the service in Australia would have receieved an email today from founder Tim Westergren stating that, due to licensing issues the service was being stopped internationally and only available to users from the United States.

Here is the complete email:

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Dear Pandora listener, 

Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S.

It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.

Based on your email address, we believe you may be listening from a country outside the U.S. If you are in fact listening from the U.S., please disregard this email.     

Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music - we have always believed in honoring the guidelines as determined by legislators and regulators, artists and songwriters, and the labels and publishers they work with. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world. Other than in the U.K., we have not yet been able to make significant progress in our efforts to obtain a sufficient number of international licenses at terms that would enable us to run a viable business. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.

Until now, we have not been able to tell where a listener is based, relying only on zip code information provided upon registration. We are now able to recognize a listener's country of origin based on the IP address from which they are accessing the service. Consequently, on May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We will be posting updates on our blog regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding. 

-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

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It only takes a quick look on Google News to see how much the licensing issue is back in the papers and being talked about.  With online video streaming of content becoming mainstream with YouTube, the networks and industry heavy weights are yet again trying to keep control of their material.

Review articles on the current legal battles occuring here...

Finally we wish Pandora well, you will be missed. Let's hope you're not gone for ever.