Some good news

Stealing the title from Pandora blog, but adding some real good news:

You can use OpenPandora even outside US. Thanks for the blog commenters for finding the solution.
You have to install Hotspot Shield and that all enter under proxy settings host 127.0.0.1 and port 895.

And back to Pandora with some new features:

• Volume normalization (finally!)
  
• Tune shared station for your taste using thumbs up and down
• Now you can move station even from shared station and QuickMix
• Backstage is available back for all users, even those outside US.
• and more
  

Enjoy your music.

Try alpha beta 3 [ad]

What's next?

Now that Pandora closed their gates and plugged out the cable for connections outside US, they simply made us search for an alternative.

Share the community with your alternatives. Just add a comment to this post.

Public Proxies

You can use public CGI-PROXY located in US to surf the net as if you was surfing in US.

Some random proxies can be found here: http://tools.rosinstrument.com/cgi-proxy.htm. Just type the site you want to reach, like http://pandora.com.

Use this trick to play Pandora outside US.

Pandora is closing

Pandora is closing the access for users outside U.S.

Form their letter:
"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."

and

"On May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country."

Sad day, but I hope this is only temporary. They do save user accounts, and promise to provide the service outside U.S. in the future. Time will tell.

Thinking positively, this may also help to web radio. New companies outside U.S. will emerge and provide similar service. In the long run, we will only gain.

I don't know how this will effect OpenPandora development, since I'm living outside U.S.
I'll post more later.

Version 0.6.8 is out - Solving control problem

Version 0.6.8 is available for download.

It fixes the problem with global shortcuts and playback control from menu that stopped working.

It is highly advised to upgrade to this version.

Release notes:

NEW: Ctrl+Win+Enter: Display again song notification window
NEW: Allow to disable new version popup
FIX: Support back non XP machines
FIX: Not reflecting pausing in title problem
FIX: Settings, About and Notification windows visible with Alt+Tab problem
FIX: Copy to clipboard without paused straing
FIX: Plaback control with global shortcuts and menu
UPD: Show settings window centered to main window
UPD: Copy to clipboard includes disc name

Enjoy your music! And check for more betas on alpha beta 3.

Copyright Ruling

On Friday March 2nd, the U.S. government (specifically, the Copyright Royalty Board, or "CRB") announced its determination of the royalty rates Internet radio webcasters must pay the owners of sound recording copyrights to license the music they play for the years 2006-2010. The owners of these sound recording copyrights are, in the vast majority of cases, recording companies ("labels").

While successful webcasters which have built loyal audiences can usually cover most of their costs from their revenue (and sometimes even make a little profit), these new rates will almost certainly destroy the Internet radio industry, as they amount to well over 100% of even the most-successful webcasters' online radio revenues. In other words, these fees are grotesquely disproportionate to any other expense a webcaster would normally face, and certain to bankrupt him or her. [via savethestreams.org]

As the Pandora blog post suggest sign the petition and check more about the issue.