UK listeners are about to find their choice of net radio being narrowed, after the announcement that Pandora will no longer allow British users to tune in from January 15th.

The licensing issues surrounding net radio have made it increasingly tricky for US based streaming service to justify allowing non-US based listeners from tuning in. The UK was actually saved from the cull experienced by the rest of the world, when Pandora cut off all users outside of the USA due to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Pandora was negotiating over a separate deal for UK listeners, but it seems now that those efforts were in vain, and the record companies just wanted too much money to make it financially viable.

Pandora founder Tim Westergren explained the abrupt decision to all UK based subscribers via an email earlier this week, saying:

“Both the PPL and the MCPS/PRS Alliance have demanded per track performance minima rates which are far too high to allow ad-supported radio to operate and so, hugely disappointing and depressing to us as it is, we have to block the last territory outside of the US.”

“The only consequence of failing to support companies like Pandora that are attempting to build a sustainable radio business for the future will be the continued explosion of piracy, the continued constriction of opportunities for working musicians, and a worsening drought of new music for fans.”

“We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable…so that is what we are doing. We’re going to keep fighting for a fair and workable rate structure that will allow us to bring Pandora back to you.”

Pandora is based in California, and allows users to build personalised stations according to a particular artist’s or genre’s sound. For the 6 months I have used the service, I have found it to be a great way of hearing new music which fits in to the style I prefer. But alas, being a UK based radio freak, that choice to use the streaming service will now cease to be.

Obviously fees paid by online radio stations are a controversial issue, but the people who license them around the world, have got to realise that streaming service such as Pandora are the future, and are only likely to increase as more people gain access to fast broadband connections.

Surely having some kind of deal in place is better than having none in place. Again, the music authorities seem to be looking for short terms gains, and therefore missing the bigger picture.

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Entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 6:07 pm under Internet, Music, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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