To follow up on my previous post about a high increase in royalties for online radio, I just got this mail from founder Tim Westergren of Pandora:

Dear Pandora listener,

Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. 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.

It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.

Based on your email address, we believe you may be listening from a country outside the U.S. If you are in fact listening from the U.S., please disregard this email.

So, basically it seems the implications of an increase in US royalty fees will hit Europe and other non-American continents first. Read his letter here.

One can only assume that other (US based) online radio services soon will follow, as Pandora more or less is the mother of them all.

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