DMCA forces Pandora to ban Canada
p2pnet.net news:- “We have a single mission,” says Pandora Media. “To help you discover new music you’ll love.”
That’s great. Or it or it was great. We say “was” because a major problem has cropped up. It’s called the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and thanks to its constrictions, Pandora’s audience has now become so limited as to be almost non-existent.
Now Canada has been added to the growing list of countries, Pandora can no longer reach.
“We’ve now created an interface to make this available to music lovers so they could use this musical ‘connective-tissue’ to discover new music based on songs or artists they already know,” states the Pandora ‘about’ page, continuing:
For almost seven years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It’s the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound – melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics … and more – close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.
We’ve now created an interface to make this available to music lovers so they could use this musical ‘connective-tissue’ to discover new music based on songs or artists they already know.
Pandora is the doorway to this vast trove of musical information. With Pandora you can explore to your heart’s content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings – new and old, well known and completely obscure – to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.
You an create as many “stations” as you want. And you can even refine them. If it’s not quite right you can tell it more and it will get better for you.
The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help YOU connect with the music YOU like.
We hope you enjoy the experience!
But at the beginning of the month, “Tonight we began the heartbreaking process of blocking access to Pandora for listeners outside the US,” said the site continuing, “While the DMCA provides us a blanket license in the US, there is no equivalent in other countries. After a year of work, only the UK and Canada have shown enough progress for us to feel comfortable allowing continued access.”
But now, “Much to our chagrin, on the heels of our being forced to block virtually our entire international listening audience, we now have to add Canada to the list,” says Pandora.
The Canada ban went into effect on May 16.
The post goes on, “after a tough week, and in the wake of the substantial attention the blocking has clearly brought to this issue, it’s been made clear to us that we cannot continue streaming into Canada,” and the founder, Tim, adds, “I’ll reiterate our commitment to fighting as hard as we can to fix this absurd problem – we only hope that reform will come soon so that we can get back to the business of listening and discovery. My sincerest apologies.
Says a comment post:
Well… I don’t know what to say… Real sad to see this happen… The fact that pandora made me start listening to legit music, and not pirated tracks…
Well i guess i will need to revert to the old ways i had, so really i dont know how this will help the record companies make more money, since the only CD’s ive ever bought were because of pandora… Well you can be shure ill be here everyday until its back up for us canadians.
Says another:
I hate to say this, but you guys are getting ripped off by the government. If this is a matter of licensing and royalties in Canada we already pay a hidden tax on all media storage devices (cd’s, mp3 players, hard drives, ect) that goes directly (supposedly) to recording artists. So in reality every Canadian that buys a hard drive, or cd (blank or not) already pays this royalty to those poor old starving artists. So keep our streaming going!
Says a third:
Bullshit…total bullshit…and the music industry wonders why people just end up downloading everything for free. The lack of flexibilty and vision among the mainstream music industry just astounds me. I loved Pandora while it lasted and even bought several CDs based on artists the service introduced me to. A Sad Day for sure.. Good luck getting it up and running again though I imagine a small American company will have the time or the financial incentive to enter the Canadian market if it is too difficult or onerous.
And says a fourth:
The recording industry is doing it’s level best to make it harder and harder for the listenning [read buying] public to get at product we might like to add to our collections. They have cowed radio so badly as to reduce it to an unlistenable advertising medium that squeeze music only 15 year old would like and I’m starting to doubt even they like it. Pandora gave bands and artists a place to be heard, without having to sign some onerous recording deal or concern themselves with having to worry about charing air time with another cheese dick Beyonce tune. What is most appaling is the royalty collectng agencies are driven by and for artists. Having been around some hit makers from days gone by I can tell you from experience they are not interested in the health of music as an art form but are keenly interested in maintaining their market share and failing misearbly to recognize the new reality and exciting possiblty that is the internet. We have a chance here to disentangle music from it’s corporate task masters and SOCAN, BMI and ASCAP are blowing it. Young bands know that CD sales are not the way to make a buck, downloads and live dates are where the money is now. This makes the band exciting and scares the crap out of the labels as they see their grip slipping. The labels, like the dinosaurs they are, will die out if they don’t evolve. Instead of evolving they do things like this. They are killing the weeds by burning the lawn all together.
Also See:
Maka Kotto – Media blitz on camcording, May 11, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by goverment restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 18th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
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http://www.anonymizer.com/
May 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
If the SoundExchange thuggery is not revoked Pandora (and most other US based net radio) will most likely be forced out of business or face being turned into an advertising poisoned or subscription based service that will gut their listener base.
Big media hates Free media and will try to crush it at all costs. You and I being able to listen to music programming that isn’t peppered with obnoxious advertisements or paid for via subscription just chaps those good ol’ boy’s a$$e$. “It ain’t right. Next thing you know they’ll start thinkin’ for themselves!”
May 20th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Funny thing. I am in Japan and received as message that started
Dear Pandora Visitor,
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most 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 other alternative.
We believe that you are in Japan (your IP address appears to be 138…..)
I wonder why Japan is banned also.