US Internet Radio Providers Forced to Restrict Streams to US Listeners

By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews

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."