[wordup] Pandora: Change to Availability Outside the U.S.

[Adam Shand]

This is slightly old news but I still think it's great when "the  
system" works the way it's supposed to.  Stupid happens, people  
complain about stupid to their representative, representatives act to  
undo stupid.

Yay.

Via:  "Shannon Murray" <shannon at earthlight...>
Source: http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2007/04/ 
legislation_to.html
April 26, 2007

Legislation introduced to Save Internet Radio!

What a week! The outpouring of public support for internet radio over  
the past seven days has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Following our outreach to Pandora listeners, every congressional  
office was flooded with constituent phone calls, emails and faxes -  
literally hundreds of thousands in just 5 days! The entire fax system  
on the Hill was brought to a standstill. We had to hand deliver the  
faxes!

The response in DC has been dramatic and immediate. A bill was  
introduced today to reverse this terrible ruling and bring  
rationality to bear on this issue.

The bill is called the Internet Radio Equality Act, HR 2060 and is  
being introduced by Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald  
Manzullo (R-IL). For more info go to SaveNetRadio

Please take a moment to call your congress person to voice your  
support for this legislation and urge them to sponsor or support the  
bill. It's very important the we keep pressure on the legislators to  
ensure that this bill is passed quickly.

If you need help determining who your member of the House of  
Representatives is, go to www.house.gov where, in the upper left hand  
corner, you can enter your zip code and get the corresponding  
Congressperson. Click on their name to access the main phone number  
of their Washington, D.C. office.

Also, a heads up that I'll be hosting a town hall next Monday evening  
in the capital. We'll be on the Hill meeting with representatives and  
are having a special meetup. It'll be followed by an evening of music  
and a party hosted by the SaveNetRadio coalition. It's a free event -  
and friends are welcome. Come join the army of webcasters, musicians,  
politicians and others that are driving this campaign for a night of  
music and conversation. Details:

Where: Be Bar , 1318 9th Street NW
When: Monday, April 30th @ 6:30 PM
RSVP: Send email to tim.westergren at pandora.com

Hope to see you there...

Thank you again for all of your support.

Tim (Founder)

----------------------------------------------------

From: Tim Westergren - Founder, Pandora [mailto:pandora- 
support at pandora.com]
Sent: Thursday, 3 May 2007 10:25 AM
To: pandora.com at pizza.co.nz
Subject: Pandora: Change to Availability Outside the U.S.
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)