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[Lucky Rathen]

Everybody might be aware of this already (I do tend to be about 6 months behind everyone else when it comes to discovering things) - if you go to Pandora Radio - Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music it's a kind of radio station of sorts - you type in the name of a band you like and it will play you their songs interspersed with other bands you might like (you can even skip the shit ones). A great way of discovering new bands. In one afternoon I've downloaded (legally) 4 albums from artists I've never heard before that popped up when I created my Weezer channel - Ben Kweller, Nada Surf, Apples in Stereo and Plain White T's.

After an hour it asks for a zip code as it's for US residents only - just make one up and they believe you. (I used 90210!)

Happy listening.

[Larsen B]

You are a bit behind I'm afraid. I'm sure there have already been two threads about this before.

You know, I just discovered this today. I'd heard about it before, but I couldn't be bothered checking it out. So the link you posted has saved me the work!

It hasn't really put a foot wrong yet so far (although putting Teenage Fanclub on immediately after the Cure was a bit questionable).

Brilliantly, it stopped working just as the Killers came on, sparing me from having to listen to "Mr Brightside".

Then I entered my 'zip code' as 90210, and got to hear "the Killing Moon", so all's well that ends well.

[Nicolaaar]

Lastfm is better.

[Lucky Rathen]

They're shutting this down in the UK as of Monday :-(

I just got this email from them.

Pandora
Created by the Musical Genome Project

hi, it's Tim,

This is an email I hoped I would never have to send.


As you probably know, in July of 2007 we had to block usage of Pandora outside the U.S. because of the lack of a viable license structure for Internet radio streaming in other countries. It was a terrible day. We did however hold out some hope that a solution might exist for the UK, so we left it unblocked as we worked diligently with the rights organizations to negotiate an economically workable license fee. After over a year of trying, this has proved impossible. Both the PPL (which represents the record labels) and the MCPS/PRS Alliance (which represents music publishers) 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.

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

It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music. I don't often say such things, but the course being charted by the labels and publishers and their representative organizations is nothing short of disastrous for artists whom they purport to represent - and by that I mean both well known and indie artists. 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. As a former working musician myself, I find it very troubling.

We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable...so that is what we are doing. Streaming illegally is just not in our DNA, and we have to take the threats of legal action seriously. Lest you think this is solely an international problem, you should know that we are also fighting for our survival here in the US, in the face of a crushing increase in web radio royalty rates, which if left unchanged, would mean the end of Pandora.

We know what an epicenter of musical creativity and fan support the UK has always been, which makes the prospect of not being able to launch there and having to block our first listeners all the more upsetting for us.

We know there is a lot of support from listeners and artists in the UK for Pandora and remain hopeful that at some point we'll get beyond this. We're going to keep fighting for a fair and workable rate structure that will allow us to bring Pandora back to you. We'll be sure to let you know if Pandora becomes available in the UK. There may well come a day when we need to make a direct appeal for your support to move for governmental intervention as we have in the US. In the meantime, we have no choice but to turn off service to the UK.

Pandora will stop streaming to the UK as of January 15th, 2008.

Again, on behalf of all of us at Pandora, I'm very, very sorry.




-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

This is a one-time account message

[Chris]

2 sides to every story:
Don't shed any tears for Pandora | The Register

[Lucky Rathen]

I don't particularly feel bad for either of the two, I'm just pissed off that a really great service that I use every day is going to be switched off. I've discovered so many new bands using Pandora.

[Tubthumper]

There's always Last.fm.

I never really had the time to use the damn thing, but I did like it.

But that whole argument that Chris put up there is not entirely to my liking.

I'm not saying I've got anything against bands being paid for their music (although I sort of feel a bit weird about it for personal reasons...) but I viewed Pandora as a resourse tool for people who didn't know an awful lot about music and wanted to get into new stuff. It was fairly accurate most of the time, and exactly the kind of thing I could have done with when I was a kid (would have saved me a lot of money spent on magazines, Martin C Strong's discography books and rubbish albums).

So I see it as a bit of a shame.