TechCrunch reports that Pandora will be blocked to non-U.S. residents starting tonight.
Canadians Shut Out of Pandora
3 Comments
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Tim Westergren
hi MIchael –
Thanks for posting on this. It’s actually going to stay on for listeners in Canada! We’ve made enough progress there that we’re hopeful of some kind of solution.
This overally situation is truly heartbreaking for us. We have been trying as hard as we can to get the proper licenses, and will continue to do so, but for now we need to abide by the applicable laws.
Regards,
Tim (Founder)
Same thing happened with the MusicMatch Radio service. The pay version was originally open to all, but eventually subscriptions for non-USA addresses were not renewed. So much for a global economy.
It looks like Canadian Pandora users will be cut off after all. My girlfriend, who uses the service frequently, just received a message from Pandora admins:
“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.
…
We show your IP address is ‘x.x.x.x’, 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.”
ETC.