RSSUS Internet Radio Providers Forced to Restrict Streams to US Listeners
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 3, 2007, 1:11 PM
Forced to comply with US federal statutes on providing music to foreign listeners without a license, Pandora and other American streaming Internet radio services began actively enforcing restrictions on streaming to IP addresses outside US boundaries this morning.
As a result, Pandora listeners in Canada and elsewhere began receiving apology notices instead of music, including a description of efforts Pandora and others are making to secure international performance rights - a topic to which countries elsewhere have apparently not assigned a very high priority.
"Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music," wrote Pandora founder Tim Westergren in a message to international listeners. "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...Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the US and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world."
Pandora is not alone, as Canada-based BetaNews reader Hall9000 informed us yesterday in a comment for our story on the performance back-royalty due date postponement. Talk-radio station KFI in Los Angeles, he told us, began posting a notice directed to Canadian listeners yesterday, including a request for a listening license.
"Due to licensing restrictions," the notice reads, "we are not able to allow access to the content you are requesting from outside the United States. We are sorry we can no longer provide access to Canada. If you currently reside in the United States, please select one of the options below to process your request. Please allow up to 60 hours to process your request." Whether KFI - owned by Clear Channel Communications - would respond to that request with an invoice for a fee is unclear.
"I've been listening to a program for years now and now I can't?" wrote Hall9000. "Talk about killing a market and shooting themselves in the foot while it's in their mouth."
As far back as October 2005, the Future of Music Coalition called upon the Senate Commerce Committee to begin consideration of legislation that would amend US copyright law to allow for international licensing - in effect, US stations paying US-based performance rights organizations directly, rather than through international agencies that would then repay those same US-based PROs.
"The lack of a performance right in the US confounds international licensing and royalty distribution mechanisms," the FMC's directors wrote. "As the music industry continues to expand on a global scale, and as the purchase and enjoyment of music is controlled less and less by geographical borders, having copyright laws that align with worldwide standards is more important than ever. Modifying the US Copyright law to include a performance right for sound recordings will bring us into harmony with the rest of the industrialized world."
It gets worse, Often US companies consider places like Alaska and Hawaii not to be a part of the US for internet radio. and now many of them are starting to restrict access to the internet airwaves for these citizens as well.
Importantly Proxies still work to bypass this issue in most cases. I fully anticipate a HUGE bump in proxy business models both in the US and the UK in order to provide access to what is demanded...
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Hey, I'm in Canada on a Canadian ISP and I can listen to all of the stations mentioned in this article, not that I'm complaining.... Did they change this this week?
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I just double checked and I still get the same result. No access for Canadian listeners. I use Shaw Cable for my internet.
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"Pandora is not alone, as Canada-based BetaNews reader Hall9000 informed us yesterday in a comment for our story on the performance back-royalty due date postponement. Talk-radio station KFI in Los Angeles, he told us, began posting a notice directed to Canadian listeners yesterday, including a request for a listening license."
Just to make things clear, and the mistake was on my part for forgetting to post more information about this, they have been blocking Canadian listeners( I'm on the west coast, don't know about the rest of the country) for more than a week now.
As for Pandora's Box, don't tell anyone but because someone from the U.S. gave me a U.S. zipcode I'm able to listen to their stream. :P Yes, they refused my Canadian zipcode.
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I have a question. What if a radio station is on the regular airwaves and on the internet do they have to pay double?
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Tor
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Probably too slow.
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unfortunately true.
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As we all know, this is just one of hundreds of similar legal spats between companies and individuals going on all over the world in regards to copywrite, patents, entertainment licensing, and all other areas of "intellectual property rights".
At the end of the day it will all be irrelevant because it's the public - especially that portion of the public with technical know-how - that decide what does and does not happen on their PCs and devices in their homes, and if enough people do what the hell they want DESPITE what the law says (and they ARE), then that law is unenforcible by definition.
This has been the case for about 10 years now, since the first days of Napster & co, yet still the suits and moneymakers think they can regain control! Idiots.
More and more unenforcible laws and irrelevant court decisions have do nothing more than waste time and money that would be better spent on innovation.
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Hey, Lawyers have to feed their young too... or maybe they feed on them!?
Really, at some point in time the music and film industry zombies have to wake up and join us in this century. They need a new business model that deals with globalization and new technology.
The CD is dead, long live the CD. The same applies to terrestrial radio broadcast. I still listen to it in my car, though.
These idiots should really go back to their business manuals and have another look at the supply and demand chapter and especially focus on the what-to-do-if-there's-a-demand explanation...
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