Dear Listeners –
Tonight we began the heartbreaking process of blocking access to Pandora for listeners outside the U.S.
It’s hard to think of anything more anathema to who we are than turning off someone’s radio, but the current legal realities leave us no choice. While the DMCA provides us a blanket license in the U.S., there is no equivalent in other countries. After a year of work, only the UK and Canada have shown enough progress for us to feel comfortable allowing continued access.
For those of you around the world who received our early warning emails, thanks so much for your kind and understanding replies… humbling. It really means a lot to us (even though it makes it doubly hard to do…)
Trust that we will continue working as hard as we can to obtain the licenses we need, and to push for the establishment of effective, centralized licensing bodies around the world. Hopefully this kind of development will add some urgency to the need for reform in the administration of worldwide copyrights.
We will all eagerly await the day when we can turn this back on, so please stay close. To quote our CTO, Tom Conrad: “we’ll take good care of your stations in the meantime.”
Keep the faith…
Tim (Founder)
Update: For those of you that were impacted by the IP blocking change, we’ve restored your access to the Pandora Backstage universe. Once again you’ll be able to access your profile and search for artist, album, and song recommendations. We know it’s not a substitute for the full version Pandora, but it’s a small token that many of you told us you wanted. We’re very happy to be able to give it back.