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.
What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:5, Funny)
Hope.
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:5, Funny)
Trust a slashdot user to logically connect my post to the GP in CLEARLY the wrong way. I love it! I tip my hat to you sir!
That whooshing sound you hear is available to listeners inside the U.S. only due to licensing restrictions.
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:5, Funny)
Trust a slashdot user to logically connect my post to the GP in CLEARLY the wrong way. I love it!
I tip my hat to you sir!
That whooshing sound you hear is available to listeners inside the U.S. only due to licensing restrictions.
aw, crap. Please don't tell me we've patented stupidity.
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Tor (Score:5, Informative)
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Given how slow Tor is (for me anyway), it's hard to imagine anyone listening to Pandora that way. Heck, I suspect even lynx would be annoyingly slow over Tor!
Re:Tor (Score:5, Funny)
*sigh*
I see similar posts frequently.
Okay, here's how its done:
You have to bypass the Heisenberg Compensaters to create an inertial sump, then reverse the polarity on the Warp Field Generators, then combine the streams(yes, this time you do!) and reroute the output to the deflector dish to emit a focused tachyon pulse that has to be synchronized and modulated with the inertia compensator's artificial gravity generator, pipe your Tor proxy through that and Lynx then flies at near light speeds down the 'tubes'!
*disclaimer:you can exceed ISP 'bandwidth' caps in milliseconds this way, so type FAST!*
[end sarcasm]
I feel your pain.
Tor is handy, but is far from 'the Silver Bullet' it is claimed to be.
I also see streaming something like Pandora over Tor as problematic at best.
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You have to bypass the Heisenberg Compensaters to create an inertial sump, then reverse the polarity on the Warp Field Generators, then combine the streams(yes, this time you do!) and reroute the output to the deflector dish to emit a focused tachyon pulse that has to be synchronized and modulated with the inertia compensator's artificial gravity generator, pipe your Tor proxy through that and Lynx then flies at near light speeds down the 'tubes'!
Like putting too much air in a balloon! Of course, it's so simple now!
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Heck, I suspect even lynx would be annoyingly slow over Tor!
With slow enough incoming data, all browsers are fast.
Re:Tor (Score:5, Insightful)
Weird, yes. But this is how it works. The page is very slow to load through TOR, but the music plays perfectly once it finally does load. I don't know why they did it this way, but it's certainly helpful for all us non-Americans.
P.S. Why is this news now? Canadians have been locked out of Pandora for at least a few years.
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Re:Tor (Score:5, Insightful)
TOR is NOT a proxy. It can be proxy like, but it is most certainly not a proxy.
First and foremost, TOR was designed to create Anonymity through reasonable doubt. That's its primary goal above all else. As a consequence of it's method of achieving Anonymity, it must act as a proxy for other connections.
Why the anal retentive distinction? Too many people are trying to use it in ways it was not designed too. It's ridiculous, but it's still in it's testing phase at the moment. People keep recommending TOR for one purpose or another, and then inevitably someone comes in and bad mouths TOR, which has already happened to your post and many others.
Well of course it's not going to perform up to anybody's expectations at the moment. With the bandwidth that is actually allocated to TOR through it's members (the exit nodes) it can barely keep up. Most people seem to install TOR and never choose to be an exit node for the rest of their peers. It's like have a torrent system in where only 1% (I admit I am pulling that number out of my ass) ever seed a single kilobyte.
If one does not need anonymity specifically, one can just look for regular proxies. There are plenty of free proxies, both anonymous (they don't send your IP through, but probably log) and paid proxies. A VPN to a system in the U.S with a hosting company is another solution too. Something in one of the "clouds". The choices are endless for this specific "problem".
I only recommend TOR when the purpose is to be completely anonymous, or to an extent in which it is extraordinary difficult to identify you even with participation of some of those involved. Most, if not all, of those purposes involve small amounts of data that the TOR network can handle.
It might be a little more work, but your friend could do a lot better than TOR, and it would be a good idea. At that very least he should at least be an exit node. I appreciate people who run exit nodes outside of the U.S.
I may sound a bit touchy on the subject, but I depend on TOR. Anonymity is very important to me and TOR is a fantastic tool to that end. I just wish the network was not slammed so hard with trivial high bandwidth applications and people that have no intention of ever contributing back.
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If Tor wasn't designed taking human nature into effect-- well, it was designed wrong. How come they didn't learn the lessons of email?
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?
Re:Tor (Score:4, Informative)
Absolutely. TOR achieves anonymity through reasonable doubt as to who is responsible for the packets. You are going to be sending out packets on behalf of someone else, and therefore you will be the one they look at, not the originator. The whole point is that they can never prove it was originated by YOU.
It's a better defense then you give it credit for. Terrorist manuals are not illegal. It's ridiculous to say that the possession of information is illegal, and it's a very disturbing trend to see people thinking they can get in trouble for it. Bestiality is not illegal either, the pictures I mean.
Consider this:
After the 300th arrest of a TOR exit node provider, prosecutors start realizing that there is never any forensic evidence collected off the systems showing actual guilt. The *only* thing the prosecutor has is an expert to call to say the "bad packets" came from the suspect's network. The defendant brings in experts on TOR and explains the "bad packets" never actually originated from his network, but were proxied through from another node and there are no logs.
Prosecutors are not stupid, and they are most certainly not interested in guilt or innocence. They are whores of the highest degree. If they feel they cannot win a case, they don't even try. They are not like Level 80 Paladins that are going to pursue justice at all costs.
I am willing to bet that after awhile they will begin checking people to see if they are an exit node FIRST when they suspect them based on "bad packets". If so, they are going to need on heck of a lot more evidence before busting down their doors and seizing equipment when 99.99999999999% of the time they never succeed in convicting anyone. It would not be smart to continue doing that, would it?
Don't forget the BEST defense of all.............
"The packets could have never originated from my actions your honor. All of MY packets go through someone else's exit node. 100% of packets that leave my network are originated from other TOR nodes, as that is how it is designed."
Re:What's left for users outside the U.S.? (Score:4, Funny)
So you're going with Change, then?
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http://spotify.com/
After that, pandora feels kinda crappy...
spotify (Score:2)
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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.
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Spotify Free is available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain.
There are a few more countries where Spotify Premium is available.
IMO, what makes it great is:
* 3.5M tracks in the library, growing each day.
* Slick, easy to use UI
* 160Kbps Vorbis for users of the free product, 320Kbps Vorbis for premium subscribers
Another thing you might be interested in is that every once in a while, Spotify gets to release upcoming albums a week or two in advance of retail.
Their execution up to this point has
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Spotify works fine under Wine, so it's available to Linux users, too.
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So why don't you quote the whole line?
On what platforms can I use Spotify?
Mac OS X 10.4 or later and Windows XP or later. You can also run Spotify in Wine on Linux.
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Old news ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought they shut down listening to non-USA last year ?
Re:Old news ? (Score:5, Informative)
Pandora has been dead outside the US for some time. I was just getting into using it when they shut down access outside the US. I'm sure it was at LEAST two years ago this happened.
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Although this is old news it brings to light again the growing trend of limiting content based on location. I am an American living in a foreign country and there are a lot of sites that I cannot go to because content is limited to US IP addresses.
Sites such as cbs.com have content only available in the US. Youtube also has some videos only available in the US. Now, it seems from the discussion, that most music sites have also turned that way. Our globalized world is getting torn apart again by content
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I was talking with a friend in South America about that, and decided to send him a link to Michael Jackson's Billy Jean. Turned out that while I was able to watch the video, he had an error message saying the video was not available anymore due to copyright issues.
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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.
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They blocked Canada a while back. 6 months? Maybe longer - I can't remember the exact date it first came up.
Re:First post! (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. This is the primary reason I have never used Pandora and why I did end up using Last.fm. Pandora has never been accessible to me from where I've been in the world. With Last.fm no longer being free to listen on, options are limited, though, if you continue using scrobbling, you can still use Last.fm to find some decent recommendations to check out. Then you can turn to other sources to sample that music.
Though it isn't the same thing, in that you have no control over what you listen to, I'm going to go ahead and give a shout out to Triple J Radio [abc.net.au], a radio station out of Melbourne, Australia that plays a wide range of music and very little top-40 crap.
If anyone is looking for legal free music, it is worth surfing around Archive.org [archive.org] and/or LegalTorrents [legaltorrents.com]. There are a lot of good independent artists out there giving their music away.
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Though one can still listen to previews of tracks, that's often enough when checking recommendations.
And adding here another thought that I have after my previous comment to the story - does it all show disconnect of Americans from outside world? ;)
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minor correction, triple j is an australian national non-commercial radio station, with most of the shows broadcasting from melbourne and sydney, but in no way restricted to just those cities
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Yes, very old.
BTW, that's why I prefer Last.fm - its recommendation engine works with local files, so it doesn't even really matter that I can't stream anymore (not living in Germany or UK...)
Plus the idea of impartial algorithms of Last.fm worked for me better than "experts" of Pandora - the latter played either things I don't like, or...ones that I already know; it couldn't make the jump to music that perhaps isn't very similar to what I'm listening to, but one that I would probably like (because it's lis
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Yes it is. Also put me down as another Last.fm user. Their engine isn't as detailed but it is good enough. Also the service does a good job of letting you know about local concerts for bands you like or might like.
Get a cheap VPN with a US server (Score:3, Informative)
Just pick a VPN provider with a server in the US and location-based discrimination is a thing of the past.
Here's a decent list:
http://en.cship.org/wiki/VPN
It's funny how "content rights" holders complain about all those evil people copying, when you cannot even do it their-way(TM) if you want to.
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.
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People who rent certain kinds of web hosting, or dedicated servers, on which they can run their own proxy, could rent them in the country of the music source they are interested in. Just be sure to do it in a way that doesn't append an extra header exposing your real IP address (they might check that). Squid appends one by default but it can be overridden in the configuration. Other methods include doing a VPN or TCP redirection. Shell accounts can be used for the latter via SSH if they allow enough ban
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You need `Freedom IP` new from Halliburton.
Can't access Hulu, Pandora etc on your world travels? Log in using our sooper duper Web proxy. Soon to be available all across Iran and the free middle east. Our US Gov approved UAV's will broadcast wi-fi 24/7
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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.
IMHO, it has less to do with copyright law, and more to do with USA advertiser's dollars, and their perceived markets as targeted by the adverts.
Why fund content with advertising fees(targeted to your market) for those outside of your market?
Short sighted? You bet!
*I am not justifying this mindset, nor agree with it-just offering an explanation for you*
They seem to be missing out on a global market potential in this digital/internet age. The internet has already 'shrunk' the globe, and could shrink it furth
Jango (Score:5, Informative)
Try finetune (Score:2)
It seems like there's a billion of these companies now. All of them somehow able to create a playlist based on your previous likes or dislikes.
Finetune from what I've heard is a ton better than Pandora, but I don't keep track of either of them.
As of 2007, Finetune was available outside the US where Pandora wasn't. http://lifehacker.com/234553/finetune-pandora+like-internet-radio [lifehacker.com]
Things may have changed though.
ip law (Score:5, Insightful)
does not foster technological and cultural innovation
ip law is an impediment to technological and cultural innovation
it has hopelessly been compromised by government agendas and corporate greed, and no longer serves individual innovators and creators
it is your moral duty to ignore ip law, or better, destroy it
i hope to see in my lifetime the complete neutralization of any effective ip law in this world. the internet makes it possible to route around the damage that is ip law, things like the pirate party in europe gives us hope as social opinion moves in line with obvious morality on the issue of the complete bankruptcy of ip law
Re:ip law (Score:4, Insightful)
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Don't waste your breath on these miscreants. These people create no artistic works, they make nothing of artistic value, they simply believe they can take what they want when they want it. They believe © means they have a right to copy and give away anything they please.
I personally believe IP law needs serious reform, but you have to draw the line someplace.
And least you forget, all record companies are evil ( even though they lay out huge sums of money and make a suckers bet every time they back a
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That's right! 18 years..max! Take it or leave it. And record companies can become simple hired press agents without no exclusivity and can get paid a small commission AFTER the creator gets paid. Real competition..the horror! I don't suppose you could ever get used to the idea that recordings are promotional material to entice people to pay for a performance as opposed to the recording actually being the performance. That's like the dummies who pay to receive a pho
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And what hat did you pull that number out of? I think the copyright term will have to be an arbitrary number but just curious how did you come up with that and not 25 or 50 etc.At least the lifetime of the creator of the work (but not his/her children) would make slightly more sense to me than just picking a number.
And record companies can become simple hired press agents without no exclusivity and can get paid a small commission AFTER the creator gets paid.
They can but tha
Radio is not a free market (Score:2)
I hope artists can get a better deal for themselves and increasing availability of channels apart from traditional record companies may give them a better negotiating position. Free market will take care of it.
Radio is not a free market; it is monopolized by FCC licensees. The major record labels have the advantage that they can promote their works on FM broadcast radio. Mobile Internet radio is still cost prohibitive: a typical mobile Internet plan costs $719.88 plus surcharges and tax per receiver per year.
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There are other, potentially better, ways to fund the arts. I'm sure you are probably correct, but as a patron of the arts (mostly music, yes, real money), and someone who loves PirateBay, I can say your overgeneralizing. Some people believe good artists should have a living wage AND copyright should be abolished (or at least massively reduced in duration).
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Software - Open source, custom software and software as a service are all doing fine.
News - We have the internet and bloggers to inform us. If all major news stations die overnight, we'll have free services popping up to aggregate and filter crowdsourced news.
All this is assuming, of course, that no one continues paying fo
Re:ip law (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to elaborate a bit on the world without IP laws? How will musicians, writers, movie studios, news organizations, software companies etc even approach covering the costs of producing their work if the first person who buys it can make infinite number of copies and share them with the whole world?
Care to speculate on how artists, musicians, writers, etc. managed in a world that not only lacked IP law, but also lacked the ability to reach anything approaching the kind of widespread audience that's available to modern artists?
Creative artists have survived far longer without so-called Intellectual Property protections than they have with them. And they've done so under far, far less salubrious circumstances.
Seriously, think about it: If strong copyright laws had existed in Elizabethan times, we'd probably have a much smaller Shakespearian canon than we do today. The Folios were compiled after his death by a couple of people who just happened to love his work. They collected partial manuscripts, interviewed actors, even worked from memory. And they did so not out of any particular desire for profit, but because they loved the man's work and wanted it to be remembered.
Tragically, we call these people 'fanbois' today and ridicule their efforts - when we're not busy making them outright illegal. Thank the heavens for simpler times....
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I was just thinking the same thing. Musicians still can make money from live performances and movie producers still make a profit from the cinema even without the dvd sales. Many software authors have already adapted: some pursue an open source model for the core and then charge to customise it for businesses, others provide regular updates as an incentive, and Valve has even manage to make DRM appear acceptable with Steam. I notice a lot of product placement these days in TV programmes.
Not that I'm suggest
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Can you find a citation for this? Seriuosly, among the many people I disagree with in meatspace about IP laws, this would stop most of them in their tracks, if I could docum
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I carefully draw a line here between artists and artisans. I see artisans as people who create something that is needed, useful, or functional with great skill and artistry. I view artists as those who produce art only for consumption (i.e., viewing or listing) on its own merits (i.e., there is no requirement that art be needed, useful, or functional).
In the days before IP law, artists earned their living by sell
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"I'm just trying to make it clear that IP law is what allowed for the proliferation of art we have seen in our modern times."
This is the common assumption, but there is no evidence for this! It's just as empirically supported to say that the proliferation of art in modern times is what got us stuck with the IP law, not the other way around.
Elaboration? (Score:3, Interesting)
You wanted to know how artists are supposed to support the
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I work in an IP heavy profession - Software Engineering - and the funny part is that directly (and usually also indirectly) I make no money out of the IP of what I make: companies hire me and pay me to create and maintain software solutions to serve their specific needs.
I'm not even an employee: I'm a freelancer.
Like me, there are millions: the truth is, the vast majority of people employed in IT are not in any way whatsoever making their money directly or indirectly from IP.
I all my 12 years of professiona
creative people: ancillary revenue streams (Score:2)
free music over the internet is simply nothing but advertising. this radical system brought to by emulating the almost century-old practice of radio play. money is made in concerts, advertising. for writers, its merchandicing tie ins, book signings, speaking engagements, movie deals, etc. movie houses, btw, survived tv, the vhs, dvd, and the internet, and are stil gaining in profits, and no one is saying you should be able to sneak into a movie theatre for free. hollywood producers just lose their aftermark
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How will musicians, writers, movie studios, news organizations, software companies etc even approach covering the costs of producing their work if the first person who buys it can make infinite number of copies and share them with the whole world?
You mean, how do they make money today?
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Care to elaborate a bit on the world without IP laws? How will musicians, writers, movie studios, news organizations, software companies etc even approach covering the costs of producing their work if the first person who buys it can make infinite number of copies and share them with the whole world?
There are many models, but here's one: Consider that on a given $16 CD [rollingstone.com] at Walmart, the artist is getting about $1.60. In a country without copyright, a CD price would be based on the cost to manufacture, advertise and sell a CD. Since anyone could do it, I can guarantee you it won't be $14.40/CD, probably more like a couple dollars. Implement a $1.60 sales tax on music sales that goes directly to the artist and you have $4 CDs where the artist gets funded and music is much more accessible. This model works
Re:ip law (Score:4, Insightful)
Why pick on entertainment? There is nothing wrong with exchanging your work for money, I bet you do it every day. Why do you feel its ok for you to be paid for your work, but its somehow wrong for artists, musicians, writers etc to demand be paid for theirs?
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Paying artists is alright. Cut out the parasitic middlemen though. The artist can't expect me to pay fifteen middlemen just to hear his song, which I may or may not like. Stop signing those moronic contracts that give the parasites the right to suck the blood out of the industry.
Re:ip law (Score:5, Insightful)
It should just work just like any other job: artists should get paid for the work they do (like a performance) once and that's it.
If a plumber comes over to install a new toilet at my place, he gets paid once, not every time anybody flushes it.
Why should I pay Paul McCartney when I get a copy of a Beatles track and then again if I give a copy to my mother and then yet again (to his descendants) when in (say) 20 years time I give a copy of a Beatles track to my grandson?
I don't see why the money I pay in taxes should be propping up a system where some people are by law privileged above all others.
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But that logic don't work for most jobs. Let's look at cpus.
Most of the cost of a cpu is research and development. Either direct (Someone from Intel/Amd/Freescale/IBM/Whatever had to design the cpu) or indirect (Most of the cost of a cpu factory, is really the cost of development of the equipment in the factory, not the building itself).
So each time you buy a cpu you pay for a little part of the research done on that cpu. If you buy 100 cpus you pay 100 times as much for the research as the guy who only bou
TPB...torrents...etc... (Score:5, Informative)
Link? (Score:2)
Does anyone have a working link, for those of us who are in the US?
The doesn't affect me much, really -- Pandora still works fine for me as long as I'm in the US. But it's inspiring to me to read about the new and interesting in which American companies find to conspire against other countries.
So - I want to read the note. Someone post it, archive it, or something, so we USians can start arguing about who to boycott next.
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Here you go - this is what displays if I go to www.pandora.com. Only modification is removing the last 2 octets from the IP address.
* * * * *
Dear Pandora Visitor,
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 U.S. 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
l'histoire passée (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this isn't news. I haven't had access to Pandora since I can't remember. It's amazing how licensing only works in their favor. I have 200 CDs in America-- which according to the RIAA I only license-- and yet can't listen to them here because somehow it's illegal. Sigh...
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According to RIAA you only have a license to listen. Not to criticize (in Amazon), not to sing-along and certainly not try to create mixtapes.
Inspite of paying $29.99 for a CD.
This is not new.
When the Telegraph first came out, newspapers sued them non-stop. Slowly they realized that they could create Reuters which would disseminate information froma single source to all newspapers.
Similar was the case with Gramaphone and Telephone. Telephone was used to pipe music to homes. Something that Edison strongly o
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That is why iTunes can't sell me Akon songs with an non-US indian credit card.
You'll not hear much praise for the RIAA around here, but it sounds like they're doing you a favour in this instance.
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 qu
Restrict and kill. (Score:3, Insightful)
More to the point, the headline should be "Record companies seek to club to death yet another new technology they are scared of, rather than try to embrace it".
In the UK, Spotify is a reasonable alternatiev (I think, never got to use Pandora, but this does much the same thing)
Bad in any region (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm surprised at how many people are missing the point here. Pandora (and Hulu, for that matter) is blocked outside of the US. A number of /. readers are responding with, "Oh, if you're in the UK go here." "In France, you can listen on this site."
It's not (or at least shouldn't be) about what works in this region or that one or the other. It's fundamentally about the misapplication of national boundaries to an international (and nation-neutral) system. The internet restricted by borders is silly and wrongheaded.
How to use Pandora full speed outside the US (Score:4, Informative)
Get Firefox.
Get Tor.
Get the FoxyProxy FF add-on.
Go to Torstat [xenobite.eu]. Select the US CC and click Search. Click the sort buttons (the >) for Running, Fast, Exit, Stable, and Valid. Note down the nodes that come up.
Open your torrc file. At the bottom, add the line
StrictExitNodes 1
And then a line that begins with the word 'exitnodes', a space, and then a comma-separated list of the nodes found earlier. Save. Restart Tor.
Open up Firefox. Click the FoxyProxy status bar in the lower right. Make sure it's on "patterns" mode (the mode selector is at the top). Click the Proxies tab. Double-click the Tor proxy. Click Add New Pattern. For Pattern Name, type Pandora. For URL pattern, type this:
"http://www.pandora.com/*"
Without the quotes. Make sure it has Whitelist and Wildcards selected. Click OK and OK again to get out of the Pandora config.
Access Pandora.
You're welcome.
Re: (Score:2)
For those people in the US who don't want their exit node slammed, please do the following:
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FYI, this doesn't put audio data through Tor, just the website, so we're not slamming you. For whatever reason, Pandora doesn't check the GeoIP on the audio servers, just the interface.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Very little bandwidth is being "wasted" here since audio isn't being piped through Tor (note that I specified www.pandora.com as the server to proxy; audio data is piped over subdomains of pandora.com, so they get sent directly and not over Tor).
And frankly, I think this is within the spirit of Tor. I'm using the system to access information that's being denied to me because of my origin. How is this not "anonymization"?
Pandora v. MeeMix (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't make sense (Score:5, Informative)
I thought the whole beauty and logical design of Pandora to make the streaming legit was the idea of the played music being based on the donated full, legit, and tangible music CDs they received from the community or public domain?
Um, owning a CD is a far cry from having the rights to publicly exhibit/distribute it.
Re:Doesn't make sense (Score:4, Funny)
It's not the public, it's just a few million of my close friends.
Re: (Score:2)
No, ownership of a CD absolutely implies that you have all the rights to do whatever you want with it. The problem is under current laws, no one really owns anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Different owners of copyrights in the given region.
Also, difficulty with extracting profit via ads (that's why Last.fm now streams full songs only in Germany, UK and US; at least the rest of its funtionality works)
Re: (Score:2)
Different owners of copyrights in the given region.
In the modern 'wired' world, this does not make sense at all. The copyright owner might license various companies to create and distribute copies in different parts of the world, but how can they sell the copyright more than once? Once they have sold it once, it is no longer theirs to sell again.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is not true, the copyright owner can license as many people as he or she wants to distribute their work. It's just in most situations a recording artist will grant exclusive rights to a record label hopefully to get a better deal since exclusive licensing is worth more.
Think of it this way, if I write software using a closed license like Microsoft does I may wish to license the code to both IBM and Novell so that they can use it too. A lot of this muddied the waters for the SCO debacle.
Re: (Score:2)
Deezer is seconded.
It's setup / owned by Free.fr (big ISP here) - runs very smoothly, and is at a high quality.
It's genre / song matching / similar artists radio is fantastic - always plays something I'd like to hear.
Re: (Score:2)
You're on Internet or in front of your computer?
Re: (Score:2)
So for 2 years you haven't found a proxy?
Re: (Score:2)
It is a cool service, but is in no way a replacement for Pandora.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe if they bought something that played video they wouldn't have so much trouble.