Last.fm—freeing the music

The Internet radio site Last.fm announced last week that songs and albums may now be played on demand for free. Until now, most songs could only be played in their entirety when they were part of a randomized playlist. According to the Last.fm blog:

Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any track for free—is now possible. With the support of the folks behind EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner—and the artists they work with—plus thousands of independent artists and labels, we’ve made the biggest legal collection of music available to play online for free, the way we believe it should be.

That they have the support of these large music labels is amazing. The fact that Last.fm is owned by CBS probably helps, but even still, this is indicative of changing winds in the music industry, and the entertainment industries in general. It's nice to see these companies starting to take steps into the modern age—even a few months ago it seemed that they never would.

Another exciting aspect of Last.fm's expanding service is that they will be paying artists directly for songs that are played—including independent artists.

We already have licenses with the various royalty collection societies, but now unsigned artists can put their music on Last.fm and be paid directly for every song played. This helps to level the playing-field—now you can make music, upload it to Last.fm and earn money for each play. If you make music, you can sign up to participate for free.

For now, full-length tracks are only available in the US, UK, and Germany, though they are working on expansion. According to Last.fm, during this initial beta period you can only play songs for free up to three times before being told about an upcoming subscription service that will allow unlimited plays.

A tech-supportish note: for now, you can only play full songs in the browser, as opposed to playing them through the Last.fm software. If you currently have the site configured to play samples in the software, you'll have to change that setting in order to play full songs in the browser.

For more details, check out the full post in the Last.fm blog.