Foreign Stations Gone From TuneIn & Sonos

DECENT RADIO GONE FOR UK LISTENERS

TuneIn is no longer legally allowed to serve links for foreign radio stations for those of us in the UK following the loss of a court case in 2019, the ruling of which came into effect in September 2020.

The following is a quote from reedsmith.com and this text summarises the legal issue much more succinctly than I can.

On 1 November 2019, the High Court of England and Wales published its decision in the case between Warner Music and Sony Music (the claimants), and the radio app provider, TuneIn (the defendant). The case, which threatened to “break the Internet” (according to the defendant), hinged on the interpretation of the copyright law concept of ‘communication to the public’ in circumstances where online radio streams licensed locally are made available globally by way of an internet link. The Court rejected TuneIn’s defence that it was simply a sophisticated search engine for radio streams, and found that both the tech company and the radios were communicating music to the public. With no licences covering streams beyond each radio station’s home state, TuneIn was found to have infringed the rights of the two major record labels.

If you’re someone who enjoys listening to foreign radio, things might have just become a lot more difficult for you. With much of UK radio being the mess that it is, it’s no surprise that many people opt for something outside of our borders.

It’s not a problem for you to ‘tune in’ through the station website, it’s just TuneIn can’t serve it to you. But what about if you’re using a Sonos system?

This video discusses workarounds for people using the TuneIn app or who listen to foreign radio through the Sonos platform.

As a foreign language speaker and a huge fan of stations such as NRJ Paris, NRJ Sweden, Sky Radio, Radio 538, Radio 100 and Veronica, this will hopefully continue to work into the future otherwise I will have lost 50% of my listening on my Sonos devices!

If you have been impacted by this, let me know your thoughts in the comments. Also, if this helps you or you know of a better method, please include that below. Thanks for watching and enjoy your radio!