Internet radio buffs will now have to pay a fee for extended use of the popular Internet radio service Pandora.Last week, Pandora’s founder announced that the service would begin charging a 99-cent fee for users who want to use the service for more than 40 hours per month.Pandora is an Internet radio Web site that allows users to create stations based on their musical tastes. A statement posted by Tim Westergren — Pandora’s founder — cited recently revised royalties laws for the change. The service remains completely free until users reach 40 hours of listening time in a month. At that point the user must pay 99 cents to unlock unlimited service for the remainder of the month. The change affects 10 percent of Pandora’s heaviest listeners, Westergren said.Westergren said the company regrets making the change, but it was necessary because of the new royalty rates imposed.”99 cents is not much for as much music as you get on Pandora, said Renaldo McClinton, theatre junior. “99 cents is not that much … Anybody who listens to it 40 hours a month — it’s likely that valuable to them.”McClinton said Pandora is also invaluable for finding new music.”The thing about Pandora is when you type in whatever kind of music or artist, it’s amazing how they can link the various tunes together and are accurate to what I listen to,” said McClinton.Psychology junior Wyatt Chandler said he uses the old-fashioned way of buying CDs to discover new songs.”Most of the time when I buy a CD instead of downloading just a particular song I want, I find that on the CD there are songs I didn’t hear before, and I end up liking them better than the song I bought the CD for,” Chandler said.Pandora has become an increasingly popular source of music after the end of Ruckus and as the University continues to crack down on illegal file sharing.Ruckus ceased to exist earlier this year leaving users with a simple message, “Unfortunately, the Ruckus service will no longer be provided.””We are still not really sure what happened to the service except that they went out of business,” said former student body president Colorado Robertson.Current student body president Stuart Watkins said there have been no decisions made on the University sponsoring a new music service.—-Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]