14 DAY TRIAL // In case you're not familiar with Pandora, the United States-based 'personalisable' online radio station, I think that by reading the former description you've just been put in the loop on what it's all about. It's quite good, many say, but its users will notice a drop in numbers because of the never-ending problem with royalties being paid for the songs and so on and so forth, up to piracy and the likes.
Those are the official reasons that the site's founder, Tim Westergren, mentioned in his email to the UK-based listeners, in which he let them know that as of January 15th their access to the site is to be blocked. Apparently, the record labels in the US did not agree to a deal that would have the users across the Atlantic Ocean benefit from listening to the songs performed by the bands they have under contract.
The situation was made possible by the registration issue that the Pandora site had, users wanting to join having to input just a ZIP code, despite assumedly being just for US users, any random series of numbers being able to do the trick.
"It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music. The only consequence of failing to support companies like Pandora that are attempting to build a sustainable radio business for the future will be the continued explosion of piracy, the continued constriction of opportunities for working musicians, and a worsening drought of new music for fans", Tim Westergren said.
It's too bad to see this happen, but hey, there're always alternatives and you should try and take advantage of the ones offered by Yahoo! and AOL while they're still out there, because they will be gone pretty soon.