Limitations
To comply with the requirements and protections offered by the DMCA, Pandora only serves users in the United States, New Zealand and Australia. Initially this was enforced lightly, by requiring a U.S. ZIP code at registration, but since May 3, 2007, Pandora has used IP addresses filtering.
Rewind or repeat is not permitted. Until May 2009, six skips per station were allowed per hour, further limited to 72 skips every 24 hours; giving a "thumbs down" response, or a "don't play for a month" response, count as "skips". On 21 May 2009, the skip limit was altered such that it counts total skips from all stations with the limitation of twelve total skips every 24 hours. If a listener gives a song a thumbs-down or "don't play for a month" after the limit has been exceeded, the song will continue to play; it's only after the song has completed that it becomes subject to the listener's restrictions. This limit was not applied to the Vista gadget. Play of a single artist is limited. Pandora provides similar music, not a play-on-demand service.
As of 2009, the mini player is only available with Pandora's subscription service. Free accounts include advertising. These include simple interruptions, with the ad listed on the stream; advertising skins, which do not interrupt the stream; and popup ads. The Vista player had no advertisements.
Initially, users with free accounts could listen to 40 hours of music a month, and could pay $.99 per month for unlimited streaming. In September 2011, Pandora removed the 40 hour listening limit. This 40 hour limit on free listening was re-introduced in March 2013 for mobile devices.
Due to licensing restrictions, only one track per album can be played at a time (exceptions include much of 2112 by Rush, in which much of the album is one track). As certain albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd were designed to have each song segue into the next, this results in abrupt endings for the tracks.
As of November, 2012, the Vista gadget is no longer supported, and cannot be downloaded due to Microsoft discontinuing support for sidebar gadgets. A desktop gadget can still be acquired through Pandora One.
There is also a ninety-nine station limit which you cannot exceed, even with Pandora One.
Read more about this topic: Pandora Radio
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