Internet Radio Severely Threatened

i-0a4c9aa7453edcbdedea503fffd10482-savenetradio.jpgI'm a big fan of Pandora.com, a smart on-line radio station. It first asks you to name a number of songs, albums and artists that you like -- you can actually start with a single song. Then it figures out (with the aid of a huge database where music has been classified in detail according to a large number of parameters) what other stuff you might like -- and plays it to you. As you rate the songs it throws at you, it gets a better and better idea of what to give you next.

But us Swedes are out of luck now. Because of a huge and sudden increase in the licencing rates Pandora has to pay, they're forced to limit their availability to the US. Their very survival, as that of internet radio in general, is threatened. 15 July may be the end.

Read more at SaveNetRadio.org and 10 Zen Monkeys.

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Aaargh! It was working for me yesterday but I got the "We're sorry but you are in fact a stinken foreigner - so bugger off" front page tonight now that I've tried to log in.
At least last fm is still working .
http://www.last.fm/

Sooner or later we will have that functionality again. But it's a drag to have to go over bumps like these. Thanks for the tip about Last FM!

Magnatune.com bypasses RIAA and their government toadys: You can listen for free without "stealing" a single electron.

By Matt Platte (not verified) on 06 May 2007 #permalink

Even better, cheat by using someone else's proxy.
A whole list for proxy ip's throughout the world will let you into any foreigner-closed site :)

http://www.proxy4free.com/