Some sad news for Canadian fans of Pandora today. Tim’s email makes it official:
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 from Canada. We began blocking
access from almost all countries outside the U.S. last week and had originally
hoped to maintain access to Canada. However, it has become clear in the last
week that we just haven’t been able to make enough progress to continue
streaming.
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.
We show
your IP address is ‘——’, which indicates you are listening from
Canada. If
you believe you are seeing this by mistake, we offer our sincere apologies and
ask that you please reply to 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 any
webcaster to legitimately offer its service around the world. 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 last week, 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 16th, we will begin blocking access
to Pandora to listeners from Canada. 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)
Tags: streaming audio | Pandora | Music | internet | Tim Westergren | Culture
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