Licensing Issues Shut Down Pandora Outside US 248
randalotto writes "I'm in France for the summer and have been listening to Pandora at work. I tried logging on tonight and was greeted with a surprising message: 'We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the US. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative. ... The pace of global licensing is hard to predict, but we have the ultimate goal of being able to offer our service everywhere.' I'm not sure what the deal is or what licensing requirements suddenly changed, but Pandora in France is no more..." Note: the above link redirects to the main site, for those inside the US.
First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
...err, I mean. Isn't this old news?
I though Europe was blocked 2 years or so earlier. Didn't know that France was an exception. Or he was lucky with his IP block being considered American.
Pandora not accessible for years here (Score:3, Interesting)
So you could listen to Pandora in France until just recently? Interesting. I haven't been able to access Pandora in close to two years (I'm in Australia). I thought they barred all other countries simultaneously several years ago. But apparently not ... they must have been able to reach some interim agreement to continue to operate in France/EU that they couldn't do here.
Anyway, I recently started working at a company with US-based offices, which allows me to choose to VPN in to the US. Pandora works for me via that method, which is nice. But prior to getting that job yeah, I had to do without Pandora for 18 months which made me sad :(
The whole thing doesn't surprise me though. I'm not familiar with how copyright law in the US works, but it seems that virtually all US-based streaming media sites do this. E.g. most American TV stations websites have streaming video, but if you try and access it outside America, you get a "sorry, cannot display this content to IPs outside the US" message. Same with services like Hulu.
By comparison though, when I travel overseas I can access most Australia streaming radio stations/TV sites (for instance, JJJ radio, ABC's downloadable shows, my local commercial radio stations) from outside Australia. Must just be a difference in the law I guess. It must piss off Americans who are abroad though, when they try and tune in to their local stations over the net to get some news from home, and get denied.
Re:spotify (Score:3, Interesting)
The OP was about 'what's for outside of US' and Spotify it is, won't work over there.
http://www.spotify.com/en/help/faq/
What countries is Spotify available in?
Spotify is currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain.
I guess they'll add rest of the Europe and Nordic countries later.
Commissions (Score:1, Interesting)
It used to be that a musician would either play on the street corner for tips, be hired to play live, or would be commissioned to compose a piece of music. Mozart never policed his fans to make sure they didn't hum his tunes without tossing him a few coins.
Moot point though, it's the recording industry who isn't being paid here, not the musicians. I know plenty of musicians who make a fine living playing gigs, and from what i understand most rockstars make more money on concerts anyways.
Re:ip law (Score:1, Interesting)
Pandora's a tease and so is Hulu - rant (Score:2, Interesting)
They did this like two years ago! Either none of the /. editors knew or they forgot about it entirely.
Yeah it sucks to live in Canada for some things, Hulu too is happy to laugh in our face along with pretty much any 'convenient' or 'desirable' online method for watching TV shows. Pandora was GREAT while I was able to listen to it, very cool way to find new music, then I'm not allowed anymore because someone in a suit figured it wasn't a good idea to let Canadians (or anyone else) keep the happy status quo and that music was a bad thing to share.
Such a frustrating state of affairs for U.S. Citizens alone having to deal with complicated or over-the-top IP law in their own country let alone other people in other countries having to deal with the shitstorm that Copy"rights" are and Digital "Rights" management are as well.
When the technology exists to do something, people are going to want it and are going to take advantage of that new opportunity. Years ago back when dinosaurs ruled the land and the idea of a flat screen TV was still the twinkle in some engineer's eye... the only way to watch a show was to be there when it was on TV. That was it. Oh I guess you could buy the VHS box set but that would just be throwing money away. Nowadays I can click about a half dozen times on two websites and an hour later I can watch an entire series at exactly the pace I want to. This sort of on-demand service is already here and it's ridiculously easy. I can't think of any service or organization in history that, after making things *harder* to do would move on to success and glory.
For some reason I keep thinking about how the Gutenberg printing press made it easier to get a hold of a bible... that didn't exactly make it easier for the church to possess the hearts and minds of their followers, despite insisting that good Christians should not read a now easily accessible bible and instead leave the hard work of figuring out when and where the bible should be read to you to the goodly priests who knew better. After all, free access to knowledge* and information could be *dangerous* (but for whom?)
*Yes yes, I know that free access of information and pirating the latest episode of Desperate Housewives are not exactly the same thing... but I just wanted to rant about Pandora, that was awesome while it lasted :( (After all, we canadians need some hot music to stave off the cold and polar bears. Polar bears hate Queen, did you know? I do.)
Elaboration? (Score:3, Interesting)
You wanted to know how artists are supposed to support themselves without copyrights? Consider that the "First Mover" advantage can be a serious money maker, even without copyright protection. Take the 9/11 Commission report. Before publication, several publishing houses angled for exclusive rights to be the *first* printer and distributor of the book. The text of the report is not copyrighted, yet someone could see the profits waiting for them as the first printer of the report.
To put it entirely differently, copyrights and patents create a tendency for artists, inventors and the corporations that support them, to sit on their laurels instead of finding ways to stay ahead of the pack with innovation. For a book that provides a lucid description of what life could be like without IP, check out "Against Intellectual Monopoly." [dklevine.com] It's an up to date analysis of how artists and inventors can still make money without intellectual property rights. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a way to entertain debate on this issue.
Oh, did I mention that the book is free to download?
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tor (Score:5, Interesting)
The big problem with being an exit node is a legal one. Specifically the Cease and Desist notices from the RIAA/MPAA.
I had an exit node with 2mbps bandwidth DEDICATED to TOR. Not too long later, my service provider started getting the copyright infringement emails. Even though I handled them all myself, and sent replies, called people, showed my service provider the TOR page about legal threats, and even promised to cover any legal costs *IF* it did ever get that that, eventually my service provider just got sick of receiving and forwarding the emails.
Now I don't specifically blame my service provider for this - it IS a potential legal exposure/battle they just don't need. Now you could blame the people using TOR for P2P, but they're doing it for exactly the reason TOR was created - to avoid detection of who they really are. Now you can't tell people TOR cannot be used for illegal activity, because the very reason TOR was CREATED was to facilitate illegal activity (eg. dissident speech in China). So what is illegal or not is a judgement call.
Therefore the blame ends up being on the RIAA/MPAA - but even there, they are legitimately trying to protect their rights. As unpopular as it sounds, and annoying and ineffective as it may be, there IS a reason they are sending out emails of the like. It's cheap for them to do it, and the threat of legal action is usually enough for ISP's to yank someone's pipe.
So my TOR node was, in the end, turned into a non-exit node. Until this kind of problem is solved (for which I don't know what the solution would be), then exit nodes on TOR will be a rare commodity, and as such, bandwidth on the TOR network will be limited because it is being constrained to very few eligible pipes.
Re:Tor (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there a way to clearly PROVE that it was a request coming from the TOR node, and I'm not a violent revolutionary furry pedophile?