This weekend struggling streaming music site Pandora urged its users and fans to contact their congressman to support a bill to help internet music providers. The result was a success, as the bill was passed in the House of Representatives and is now headed to senate.

Pandora is a free Internet radio which allows you to listen to streaming music (whole songs as opposed to sample) and also find related artists and discover new music. Despite a large audience, it was struggling with and apparently was almost ready to shut down because of growing tax problems as they have had to pay more than 70% of their profit in royalties for streaming music.

The company and others fought back however, and pushed for a piece of legislation that would allow SoundExchange, which represents music copyright owners to negotiate directly with internet radios to agree upon royalty rates.

The bill was passed through the House of Representatives last night with minimal opposition, and has moved through senate, where largely the same outcome is expected. This is in no small proportion thanks to the large number of Pandora.com fans who called their representatives and urged them to support the act after being rallied to do so by a post on Pandora’s blog.

Some believe that the piece of legislation is only a short-term solution and that if internet radio services are to thrive, both they and copyright holders may have to be more willing to compromise and co-operate.