Pandora, the Music Gnome Project, is now restricted outside the US after the international licensing guidelines forced the producers to allow only local listeners. In an email sent today, Pandora informed me about the new limitation, sustaining UK might be the only country to be allowed to connect to the service. "Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S," Tim Westergren, Pandora founder, sustained in the email message.

Some time ago, the Pandora founder presented a new idea that will make the Internet radio station just like other subscription-based websites, requiring the users to pay a certain amount of money for the access to the page. However, the producer didn't offer more details, so today he officially announced the restriction of the service outside the US starting May 3. Although it's not confirmed, it seems like the main reason for the limitation is precisely the law that requires users to pay for the streamed content, the US residents being the only clients able to comply with the demanding.

"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," the Pandora founder tried to explain the limitation. "Consequently, on May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative," he added.

So, if you're a Pandora fan and you are currently living in one of the restricted countries, you should really hope the founder will manage to obtain an international license that will allow the Internet radio station to stream content for you.