No Pandora in Canada, but Last.FM thrives?...

Just curious what the differences in licensing and delivery models is between Pandora and Last.FM that allows the former to not be able to distribute content in Canada while the latter seems unaffected.  Anyone know?

They are not identical, but obviously have a very similar vision.

I've had to stop using Pandora (and Pandora's Box which is/was great!) in favour of Last.FM (my profile here), but in a lot of ways I miss Pandora's simplicity to speak nothing of the accuracy of the underlying Music Genome Project's database of "genetically similar" music to find new artists.

(Note: Though there are workarounds to continue using the service through U.S. based network proxies, I've decided not to...)

My personal experience with Last.FM is that it is not bad, though I personally am suffering from some lag and too regular buffering (and I'm on a dedicated high-speed business cable connection).

It seems that founder Tim Westergren is genuinely upset about this, and not because of the loss of a market, loss of future revenues, etc. but seemingly because he just plain old believes in what he's doing (remember when that wasn't the exception?).

In a heartfelt letter sent to his Canadian and other international users a week ago he explains the decision:

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 from Canada. We began blocking access from almost all countries outside the U.S. last week and had originally hoped to maintain access to Canada. However, it has become clear in the last week that we just haven't been able to make enough progress to continue streaming. 

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.

...

Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music - 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. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable any webcaster to legitimately offer its service around the world. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.

Until last week, we have not been able to tell where a listener is based, relying only on zip code information provided upon registration. We are now able to recognize a listener's country of origin based on the IP address from which they are accessing the service. Consequently, on May 16th, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from Canada. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We will be posting updates on our blog regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding. 

-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

I've since subscribed to the blog in the hopes that a legitimate alternative or solution is found.