Popular internet radio service Pandora will not be transferring its services to the UK any time soon due to difficulties in agreeing rights. Apparently at present the move to the UK is almost impossible due to the music rights in place in the UK. The founder of the company Tim Westergren has stated he is disappointed that the Pandora radio service will not be able to move to the UK; at present the service has over 37 million active users in the US.

Talking at a recent summit the founder revealed that his ambitions for the company is for it to go global but at present it is not possible. The UK is especially notoriously for having difficult artist rights in place. This has brought great disappointment for many potential users in the UK.

Individuals had previously been able to access Pandora when it launched eleven years ago. Although the company was ordered to block the IP addresses of anyone from outside of the US as the company had failed to agree any rights with artists. This would mean that the music of artists would be played but they would not receive royalties for this.

The company and its officials had hoped that the artists and rights companies would push for a change of mindset needed to allow Pandora to operate. Apparently Pandora pays out massive amounts of royalties to artists that other internet radio services do not.

Whilst speaking at the summit it was stated by many individuals that the company was facing strong competition from other major companies. The founder stated that he did not find digital music streaming services such as Rdio or Spotify a risk to their business. Spotify has recently launched a service alongside Facebook and this is likely to change the industry majorly.