Pandora to cut off UK listeners

Pandora said it was being forced to stop streaming music to British users of the service thanks to an unresolved royalty row.

The argument hinges on the rates Pandora pays to UK music rights groups to stream music to British users.

In an e-mail sent to UK listeners, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said he was "very, very sorry" for the abrupt end to the service.

Switch off

In the US net radio services are licensed under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but any company wishing to stream music overseas has to negotiate deals on a nation by nation basis.

In May 2007, Pandora cut off all its listeners who were not based in the US but kept streaming music to UK users while negotiations over a licensing deal for Britain continued.

At that time Pandora began tracking users via the unique net address their computer is using which can be used to reveal the geographical location of that machine.

In the e-mail sent to all those reaching Pandora via a UK net address, Mr Westergren said efforts to negotiate an "economically workable license fee" had proved "impossible".

The rates demanded per track by UK licensing authorities were too high to support, he wrote.

Wrote Mr Westergren: "We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable...so that is what we are doing."

He added: "We're going to keep fighting for a fair and workable rate structure that will allow us to bring Pandora back to you."

Pandora works by building personal radio stations for users based around their individual musical tastes.

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