Screaming Out My Dismay

The first e-mail in my inbox this morning was a polite, apologetic missive from the founder of Pandora, telling me that international listeners will no longer be able to access the Pandora service due to licensing issues - namely the licenses needed to provide the service are too expensive to be obtained at this time.

For those who may not know, Pandora is a kind of internet radio station.  The service works by recommending and playing music based the listeners preferences.  What sets Pandora apart from other internet radio services is that Pandora makes recommendations based on artists rather than genre.  Pandora uses software generated by the Music Genome Project to determine selections.

Pandora also lets users set up stations and groups that can be shared with other users.  In order to provide these services legally, Pandora pays for several blanket music licenses.

From the e-mail:

Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music - we have always believed in honoring the guidelines as determined by legislators and regulators, artists and songwriters, and the labels and publishers they work with. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world. Other than in the U.K., we have not yet been able to make significant progress in our efforts to obtain a sufficient number of international licenses at terms that would enable us to run a viable business. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.

At the moment, there is a campaign to save internet radio from a dramatic hike in the licensing rates charged by music associations like the RIAA. 

From the website:

Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date.  H.R. 2060, The Internet Radio Equality Act was introduced by Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL ) to save the Internet radio industry.

In light of this, I find I cannot be angry with the providers of Pandora's service.  They are only trying to protect themselves by making sure that they are on firm legal ground and have the financial ability to continue to provide service in their key market.

However, I do feel that this is one more example of how the RIAA is destroying the very industry it is meant to protect.  Higher licensing fees means one less area for me to find new music.  One less way for me to support artists and services I enjoy.  One less way for me to exercise any positive choice in the market.

Wil Wheaton has put it very well in his latest column for Suicide Girls:

I fired up last.fm as I sat down to work, and it started playing a station "based on music similar to Belle and Sebastian." After a few songs I already knew and loved from Flaming Lips and New Pornographers, it played Sleeping Lessons off the new album from The Shins, followed immediately by Neighborhood #2 by The Arcade Fire...based on hearing these songs, I plan to buy both these albums now, because I really, really liked them. The Shins and The Arcade Fire just made sales, earned themselves another unpaid marketer, and probably sold at least two concert tickets, all because I heard them on the Internet.

Where Mr. Wheaton uses last.fm, I have been using Pandora.  However, I have opened a last.fm account in the hopes that I can continue to listen to some form of internet radio, internationally, until Pandora is once more available to me.

I have tried very hard to be a good digital citizen.  I do not download media that can be purchased legally.  I belong to one music service (eMusic) on a subscription basis and I am quite happy to buy from the iTunes store.  I have made it a point of self-interest to listen to internet radio to find new artists to enjoy and support, and yet, once again, the big business attached to music has conspired to find a way to limit my choices and force my hand.

With any luck, congress will see the potential for damage in this issue and will do something to prevent the demise of internet radio.  But I'm not holding my breath.

More coverage on Pandora from Mashable.com here.