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Last.fm frees the music

blog.last.fm — As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website. Additionally, Last.fm will start paying artists directly for the music they stream!

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  • MarkRedden, on 01/23/2008, -4/+643Is it me or is this quite a big step forward? No more 30-second previews over iTunes, and no more flaky YouTube videos to hear new artists - you can now preview entire tracks and albums before you buy. I like it, looking forward to when this arrives on the client!
    • lozzd, on 01/23/2008, -1/+50Exactly. We've been very excited about this for a long time; especially for me, who started out moderating back when it was Audioscrobler. The biggest request was "So, you've got this track, how do I play it?". Now you just.. play it :)
    • pigfister, on 01/23/2008, -29/+6BURIED AS INACCURATE!

      it sucks as its just gearing up for a subscription service! lasts fm has sucked even since cbs acquired it last year

      FTA: each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things. We’re also working on bringing full-length tracks to the desktop client and beyond.
      • oddball, on 01/23/2008, -1/+10fire up your stream ripper and get it on the first play.......
        • nekochan, on 01/23/2008, -1/+2or just your Safari activity monitor.
        • fabianp, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2@ Neko. I didn't know that was possible, thanks for the tip!
      • mxcl, on 01/23/2008, -3/+3You're wrong mate, it will always be free.
        • bfrank72, on 01/23/2008, -4/+1This is where I grow a bit concerned. Sure it's a good idea (a great idea at that), but you can never be too sure if something will always be free. Take a look at the heaps of torrent sites that got nuked, sure that's a different situation, but the same concept of free stuff getting removed. Hopefully subscriptions won't start, but you can never be too sure, right? ;)
        • fkr3, on 01/24/2008, -0/+5@ bfrank - that's very different. Last.fm is doing this with the consent of the copyright holders, not without their consent and for profit.
    • mcgarry83, on 01/23/2008, -24/+2I like www.Slacker.com a lot. Check it out.
    • rpgmaker, on 01/23/2008, -1/+13How is last.fm profitable? I mean, despite the fact that CBS acquired them...
      • whoaohh, on 01/23/2008, -1/+29ads
        • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -18/+3I totally read that "AIDS."
          • bagboyrebel, on 01/24/2008, -1/+4Well I guess aids could be profitable if marketed properly.
        • kendawg, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2I really want to know if I should turn off ABP for last.fm. Would they make more money of we didn't block them? Or do they just get paid for clicks?

          If they get money just for showing the ads, we should all turn OFF ABP for that site. Let's help them stay alive.
      • Octanus, on 01/23/2008, -0/+11You can also subscribe for additional features.
      • saralk, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4it's a bit more complicated than that, they have the regular banner adverts on the site, but they also have PowerPlay, basically, all users can listen to radio stations, and artists and labels can pay to get certain songs played to certain users. (i.e. they can say, play this new Morrissey song to people who listen to The Smiths)
        • smacksaw, on 01/24/2008, -0/+6No, they'd just get sued for assisted suicide if they did that.
        • letitbleed62, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1holy ***** that was surreal i was listening to The Smiths when i read that
    • falkonv7l, on 01/23/2008, -9/+1how do I listen to it with Websense blocking all Internet Radio?
      • strictnein, on 01/23/2008, -1/+16Disable Websense.
      • falkonv7l, on 01/23/2008, -2/+1without my It dept. konwing?
        • bacchus101, on 01/23/2008, -1/+2I bet there is another gateway (non websense) that you just don't know about.....there always is.....
        • bsolidgold, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2SSH tunnel.
      • mrjit, on 01/24/2008, -1/+2What's more important to you, internet radio, or us IT guys sending our logs to your boss once you start attempting to circumvent our systems?
        • mrjit, on 01/24/2008, -1/+1This was meant for falkonv
        • falkonv7l, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Just want to listen to some music at work on my headphones, used to be able to, but every ricky bobby here kept using their computer to look at you tube and such, they are just trying to lower bandwidth usage.
      • bsolidgold, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2SSH Tunnel.
    • SpectralSounds, on 01/23/2008, -2/+4Too bad I tried this out on Last.Fm and the vast majority of what I want to listen to is still just all 30 second previews.
      • eatkitten, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2It's up to the label to determine what is a 30 second preview and what is full-length... which they could have done before anyway.
      • parasight, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4Response from a last.fm employee:

        Change your settings here: http://www.last.fm/settings/website

        Make sure your Music Playback settings are one of:
        • Play everything in the Flash player (in-page)
        • Play previews in-page and radio in the Last.fm software

        Full track previews only work in the in page flash player for now.
    • crakbot, on 01/23/2008, -12/+13You are all mindless idiots. This is still subscription based. Read the whole article, it's napster but with some trendy spin.
      • sldSquirrel, on 01/24/2008, -0/+10Who cares? Is anybody really going to pay for a subscription? You still get a database of 3-4 million songs that you can play 3 times to try out an album before you buy it.

        I doubt anyone is really looking forward to replacing their music libraries with... last.fm streaming music.
    • LifesBane, on 01/23/2008, -1/+1Okay... nifty change, but hopefully when it is out of its "beta period" non-subscribers can still play the full track, and not just a preview, at least once for free (to get an idea of whether its a song you would actually want to purchase or not). I would imagine this would HAVE to be the case... or else it pretty much would be like every other music service out there.

      "During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things."

      I just don't like the phrasing of "during this period"... what does that mean for users when Last is OUT of that beta period?
    • Ductapemaster, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1I really think that this is the direction the music industry needs to go to reduce the amount of music that's pirated. I know there will still be people who won't pay for their music, but at least give the people who download the music to try it out some way to do it legally.
    • szyzyg, on 01/26/2008, -1/+0"Is it me or is this quite a big step forward?"
      Only if you're a last.fm/iTunes/youtube user who's never heard or imeem.com which has bee doing the same thing with user uploaded mp3's, no listening limits and the all important blessing of the artists and labels.

      So, only a big step if you're still stuck in 2006
  • lozzd, on 01/23/2008, -13/+37We rule!
    • mxcl, on 01/23/2008, -2/+3Never go back to uni Laurie, never. We need you and your jovial chuckle.
      • thesmaur, on 01/23/2008, -2/+1We need him back at uni for epic BBQ's.
        • xe54, on 01/23/2008, -3/+2We need him at last.fm for pure awes0mesness I'm afraid. Try next year.
    • Adam420, on 01/23/2008, -10/+4This music Rules! http://www.last.fm/music/Slightly+Stoopid/?autosta ...
      • bryceman111, on 01/23/2008, -1/+3Shut up ya' god damned hippie.
      • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -1/+1Your mom rules!
        What? She does! She makes really good cookies!

        And she's damned wonderful in the sack.
      • Rowan187, on 01/23/2008, -2/+1hell yes, Slightly Stupid is the sublime of the next generation. at least in my eyes/ears...
    • sherbertbones, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2I remember you from back in the day. God audioscrobbler/last.fm is the greatest.
  • markey, on 01/23/2008, -2/+116This will truly shine once you allow playback from 3rd party clients, instead of just via web interface. Imagine being able to play any tracks from the giant last.fm catalogue with Amarok :)

    But this is already way cool, of course :D
    • RockMyPoodle, on 01/23/2008, -1/+15Hear, hear! Amarok streaming!
    • bowe, on 01/23/2008, -2/+13It'd be pretty easy to build it into songbird.
      • markey, on 01/23/2008, -0/+13I'm not talking about using the last.fm website in a HTML widget though.. that would be pretty lame. The real deal would be integration via an API, which isn't yet possible.
    • foreignwarren, on 01/23/2008, -0/+3you can play last.fm through FoxyTunes extension for FIrefox. I'm sure there'll be ways to set a playlist and then just play it through FoxyTunes...
    • shodanx, on 01/23/2008, -17/+0isn't there a Last.FM client in xbmc ? also WTF is Last.FM ? ;)
    • shodanx, on 01/23/2008, -17/+0isn't there a Last.FM client in xbmc ? also WTF is Last.FM ? ;)
      • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -0/+8Thanks for giving me the opportunity to bury your comment twice!
    • justinjacobs, on 01/23/2008, -1/+2I just hope that Last.fm actually works good in the next version of Amarok. After Last.fm made some changes to their site, 1.4.8 doesn't play well with it.

      http://www.last.fm/user/justinjacobs/
  • topcat31, on 01/23/2008, -5/+155This is huge!
    • fallenone05, on 01/23/2008, -10/+116stop staring at my penis!
      • IEatHamburgers, on 01/23/2008, -7/+41He was staring at your mom
        • Nougat, on 01/23/2008, -20/+6At your mom's penis? That doesn't make sense.
          • nova9, on 01/23/2008, -14/+2Y ou were dugg down cuz you are a retard.
        • Jarasmen, on 01/23/2008, -5/+3Hey, don't pick on his mom! She's awesome!
          • Jarasmen, on 01/24/2008, -1/+5I don't care if all of you people bury me! You can't bury true love!
          • taquitohater, on 01/24/2008, -3/+2I believe i just did
          • TomTruelle, on 01/24/2008, -0/+5lol@Jarasmens last comment

            that was awesome
      • Ireland, on 01/23/2008, -2/+26He was staring at your ego
      • Kumah, on 01/23/2008, -3/+34He was staring at America's deficit.
      • Tiak, on 01/23/2008, -4/+24He was staring at this comment thread in the future.
      • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -6/+2I think you're trying to overcompensate for some serious shortcomings.
      • TomTruelle, on 01/24/2008, -0/+5He was staring at Tyra Bankss forehead.
    • primetime75, on 01/23/2008, -2/+23that's what she said
    • Bilabrin, on 01/23/2008, -9/+1Yeah, pretty soon It'll be as good as Myspace Music!
  • Charbax, on 01/23/2008, -2/+21This would be cool on a WiFi or HSDPA connected Archos or mobile phone.

    I can't wait to also pay a subscription for unlimited streams (currently limited a 3 times per song) and DRM-free downloads.
    • avenu420, on 01/23/2008, -0/+6One solution is to have a 3g phone and use Orb... Instead of XM I have 100 gigs of FLAC songs to listen to!
    • Qumahlin, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4MobileScrobbler for the iPhone is nice as well :)
  • premasagar, on 01/23/2008, -2/+45Ironic that this should happen just a week after Pandora's international death - http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2008/01/l ...

    Well done, Last.fm! So the music industry does have a product still, after all? And they all thought that no one would pay for music anymore... Welcome to the long tail, future sound of decentralised music...
    • diggzoid, on 01/23/2008, -1/+6Currently it's only $3/month and you get no ads - well worth it! Hopefully it won't go any higher.
      • MattBD, on 01/23/2008, -0/+8I subscribe and it is worth every penny!
      • sparsely, on 01/23/2008, -7/+6I pay 0$ a month and get no ads. Thanks, AdBlock Plus!
        And ***** giving my money to CBS/RIAA for this.
        • FreDre, on 01/23/2008, -3/+5You're also ***** the indies that way. Good job!....
        • Bamborzled, on 01/24/2008, -1/+2Yeah! ***** the RIAA for finally allowing you to listen to all the music you like, legally, for cheaper (if not free). Sure, it's not comparable to downloading the files yourself, but it is a step forward.
        • sparsely, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1It's the same to them. You never actually get to own it, you just get to keep paying for it.
      • zspeed78, on 01/23/2008, -2/+1Wow, stealing someones bandwidth/time/energy/money is cool.
        • dbr_onix, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Ah, but he's saving them bandwidth by not transferring adverts!
  • transfuse, on 01/23/2008, -3/+24I don't understand why this hasn't been made popular... This is surely a huge step forward towards fairer distribution of music.
    • nmcvicke, on 01/23/2008, -2/+20But the record companies!!, WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE GIANT BIG LABEL RECORD COMPANIES??!!
    • sparsely, on 01/23/2008, -1/+12Last.fm IS OWNED BY THE RECORD COMPANIES NOW.
      • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4sigh, yes they are. I miss the little bitty start up called audioscrobbler.
    • stackered, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1last.fm is popular what are u talking about. its only going to get bigger now.
      the only drawbacks before were using their software, but i used a modded itunes instead.
      • transfuse, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1I was talking about the story, it had like 24 diggs when I was looking at it.
    • eyefork, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1He means made popular Digg-wise fyi
  • luke16, on 01/23/2008, -0/+25Wow, i was waiting for this but i thought it would never happen. Thank you LastFM crew!
  • UnderWaterman, on 01/23/2008, -9/+3woot!
  • Bonekhan, on 01/23/2008, -20/+5Living proof that music is meant to be free.
    • Awspire, on 01/23/2008, -0/+5No ones stopping artists from distributing their work for free. Commercial distribution Is a choice that most follow. Considering the lifestyle one pop hit can afford a person, I cant say as I blame them.
    • heartcoldfusion, on 01/23/2008, -2/+8"Additionally, Last.fm will start paying artists directly for the music they stream!"

      fail.
      • Awspire, on 01/23/2008, -4/+3Why fail? Do you specifically have something against Artist's receiving compensation for the works they produce?
        • spectecjr, on 01/23/2008, -0/+9Because the original poster said "Living proof that music is meant to be free", then heartcoldfusion says "Last FM will be paying them - FAIL!"
        • Awspire, on 01/23/2008, -0/+3My bad. I now see the read.
    • theblt, on 01/23/2008, -1/+6Your comment is living proof you're a moron as well. If music was meant to be free, would we have the variety we have today?

      http://www.jamendo.com
      • Phyltre, on 01/23/2008, -2/+3Music IS free, as in this model, because we still have the standard radio. And since it's been that way for a pretty long time...yes, we'd have the variety we have today. In fact, that's probably WHY. If you had to pay for a song every time you heard it, very few people would be discovering new music--would you pay someone for the privilege of "discovering" their band?
        • Awspire, on 01/23/2008, -1/+3Not quite sure what you mean by the "standard radio". Though if you think broadcast radio is free, then thats like saying Google is free, when its actually brought to you by commercial revenues. So, its not free without the support of commercialism.
    • Todash19, on 01/28/2008, -0/+1Free? i dont think so. But 15-20 bucks for a CD. ***** that! CD's should be 5 bucks. If Fugazi can do it, so can everyone else.

      Who said musicians need to make millions?
  • ieataquacrayons, on 01/23/2008, -9/+25This is huge, i've been a member since before it was last.fm...audioscrobbler days... anyway great job last.fm!
    • zongamin, on 01/23/2008, -7/+23an idiotic boast.
    • strictnein, on 01/23/2008, -2/+12I've enjoyed listening to sound waves for at least 27 years now! Awesome work Last.fm!
    • sparsely, on 01/23/2008, -3/+6That sucking sound has increased steadily with the progression of years, wouldn't you say?
    • Jarasmen, on 01/23/2008, -1/+3I'm still using the old Scrobbler winamp plugin... Heh, the new plugins suck
      • dbr_onix, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Does anyone know of a simple plugin for iTunes on OS X, that will scrobble songs played to last.fm?
        Every.. single.. last.fm client I've found for iTunes/OS X is a separate application, which takes up space in the menu-bar (not as bad as the official last.fm client, but still annoying)

        Ah how I miss the Foobar2000 last.fm plugin, that was completely invisible (aside from inside the preferences), and just worked...
  • weside, on 01/23/2008, -7/+93Last.fm rocks. They make it easy to keep track of your most listened music by week or even yearly, and to share it with others via an easy widget for a blog or social website. And on top of all that, it functions on its own as a social website since you can find others with similar music tastes to add as friends and see what they're listening to (even comparing your music compatibility).
    And if this sounds like a commercial, it's because it's that good that I feel I should share how awesome it is with others on here that might not know of it yet.
    http://www.last.fm/user/weside
    • Filipp0, on 01/23/2008, -1/+11Dugg you up for playing Weird Al Yankovich 15 times.
    • Ataxia2008, on 01/23/2008, -10/+2Buried for playing Weird Al Yankovich in general.

      Although my taste ain't much better:
      http://www.last.fm/user/pifko/

      edit - after looking at his top 100...mine *is* better...
      • weside, on 01/23/2008, -2/+11Yes digg someone down for a difference in musical taste! That'll show me! No more Weird Al for me!
        • Ataxia2008, on 01/23/2008, -3/+1now you're getting it. Well done.
      • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -7/+3Buried for having Radiohead in your top ten most listened to artists.
    • SuperSnake2012, on 01/23/2008, -1/+16Buried for having 600 plays on Insane Clown Posse... wtf.
      • weside, on 01/24/2008, -6/+4Yes digg someone down for a difference in musical taste! That'll show me! No more ICP for me - I might get dugg down!
    • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -2/+5You know, you can actually turn off the plug in that tells last fm what you're listening to. That way you don't have to have all these embarrassing tracks in your most played list and what not.
      • iofthestorm, on 01/23/2008, -1/+4Uhh, but that's the whole point of the site, to record what you listen to and find similar artists and people who like similar artists for you. Without it you might as well just listen to your own music.
        • edwartica, on 01/23/2008, -2/+4Well, firstly I was saying I would be embarrassed to admit it if I listened to half the stuff he had on his list.
          Secondly, don't tell me you don't turn your plug in off if you want to listen to something totally dorky and/or beneath you. ;)
          • weside, on 01/24/2008, -0/+3lol Thank you for taking the time to visit my Last.fm profile and peruse it, then come back here and diss me for my musical taste. Man, you definitely win. I am so embarrassed by our difference in taste!
        • Jarasmen, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4Not if you don't want anybody to know you listened to Celine Dion all afternoon...
  • bbqribs, on 01/23/2008, -15/+8They're freeing it by turning into a paid subscription service? Interesting.
    • zongamin, on 01/23/2008, -4/+16Shut up. They are allowing free streaming of whole albums and the ability to pay a sub for unlimited access. You're a *****.
      • my8bird, on 01/23/2008, -3/+8He made a valid point. Sure you can listen to it 3 times but then you need to pay for it. So yes its free and yes you need to pay for it.
      • bbqribs, on 01/24/2008, -1/+2And who the ***** are you? Being able to listen to a song 3 times isn't 'unlimited,' moron. *sigh*
      • bbqribs, on 01/25/2008, -1/+0Oh yeah, *you're* a *****.

        http://techdirt.com/articles/20080123/13594548.sht ...

        Pretty much everyone else on the internet has clued in. Last.fm isn't doing anything new at all. I can't believe that anyone modded your complete ***** up.
  • tdwester, on 01/23/2008, -1/+19This is one of those great sites that can introduce you to a whole bunch of music that you would never thought of listening to before. This is great news!
    • daborg, on 01/23/2008, -0/+10I just wish Last.FM recommendations actually worked for me. When I listen to the recommendation radio I get like 10 really bizarre messed up tracks that have nothing to do with my taste in music and then it runs out of ideas.
    • ChromeWaves, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4Try Pandora. I've discovered loads of great music through my customized stations.
      • strictnein, on 01/23/2008, -0/+10And Pandora doesn't run like a sick bear.
        Am I the only one who finds Last.fm to be one of the slowest media sites on the web?
      • dbr_onix, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1I would, but I live in the world outside of the US *mutters*
  • MikeinLoFi, on 01/23/2008, -4/+138Awesome. Now if only people had properly tagged music.
    • thelastcivilian, on 01/23/2008, -1/+27which is where the fingerprinting comes in. http://blog.last.fm/2007/08/29/audio-fingerprintin ...
    • triskele, on 01/23/2008, -2/+13Kinda like when those ***** hosting movies on Gnutella/Limewire relabel the Paris Hilton sex tape as a movie you're actually looking for?
      • eliteeggnog, on 01/23/2008, -0/+5You use Limewire? For shame.
        • triskele, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2Only as a last resort. It has happened with Torrents as well, but not as often as on the Gnutella network.
    • nonchai, on 01/23/2008, -0/+3agreed. its one reason i used to prefer pandora to lastfm - it was much more accurte in making reccomendations of new music to me. the lastfm categories tend to throw very obvius music or music in the same "era" to my "seed" list. i hope this gets improved.
    • Coolmatt49, on 01/24/2008, -1/+1*now listening to "Track 4" by "Unknown Artist"*
  • Zoophagous, on 01/23/2008, -4/+7I stream Last all day while I work. Love the service.

    http://www.last.fm/user/Zoophagous/
    • diggzoid, on 01/23/2008, -1/+2That's one scary avatar!

      www.last.fm/user/dubhead
    • falkonv7l, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2cant stream at work, Websense!
  • surf314, on 01/23/2008, -10/+5This is almost exactly what me and my friend were planning on doing. There was a couple of things we were going to do differently and we would have been targeting unsigned and independent artists. I'm not sure if we are going to do it now but honestly I'm glad someone realized that this is basically the way music needs to be distributed. Of course IMO the record labels need to realize that many of the services they provide are no longer necessary and the chunk they take out of the sales revenues need to reflect that.
    • lazyfisherman, on 01/23/2008, -0/+6Keep working on your project, this is a step in the direction for last.fm but there's still room for improvement. Nobody has figured it all out yet.

      Make sure you have a good brand. You won't be able to compete in the online music industry without a good brand that people and music fans will instantly relate to and understand.
    • Todash19, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3Woulda, shoulda coulda...
      You should look up the words almost and exactly.

      Gonna never did anything... :)
      • surf314, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Perils of working with a partner, need to agree on things to move forward.
  • Pos3idon, on 01/23/2008, -1/+4wohooo awesome!!!
  • parmethius2000, on 01/23/2008, -6/+32Anyone else feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Record Execs suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?
    • my8bird, on 01/23/2008, -0/+5Why are they crying? They make money from this not lose it.
    • sparsely, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2lol..fool.
      CBS/Viacom (RIAA partners) own last.fm now. You'll just be grabbing at scraps from the same old bastard master's table.
  • yagidem, on 01/23/2008, -2/+2It times out for me and the Coral Cache, Google Cache hasn't got it. Could someone please copy the text here?
    • yagidem, on 01/23/2008, -2/+7I'll help myself. ;)

      Full text from the site:
      A few days ago we sent out some cryptic invitations to a press conference in New York that Felix and Martin are presiding over. We’ve had fun in the office reading the rumors and speculation, but it’s time to spill the beans:
      As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.
      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.
      Full-length tracks are now available in the US, UK, and Germany, and we’re hard at work broadening our coverage into other countries. During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things. We’re also working on bringing full-length tracks to the desktop client and beyond.
      Free full-length tracks are obviously great news for listeners, but also great for artists and labels, who get paid every time someone streams a song. Music on Last.fm is perpetually monetized. This is good because artists get paid based on how popular a song is with their fans, instead of a fixed amount.
      We will be paying artists directly.
      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.
      We’re not printing money to pay for this—but the business model is simple enough: we are paying artists and labels a share of advertising revenue from the website.
      Today we’re redesigning the music economy. There are already millions of tracks available, and we’re adding more every day. We will continue to work hard to bring this to everyone in the world.
      Take it for a spin.
    • lozzd, on 01/23/2008, -0/+5Sorry, we had to bump up the caching and stuff... The poor small server that does the blog got a bit choked! Ironic we were monitoring everything else like hawks..
  • lofidan, on 01/23/2008, -9/+3Last.fm for the win!

    Now if only people could id3tag their mp3s correctly, stop lastfm-tagging their major label rock bands as "indie" and stop putting Radiohead at the top of near enough every group, that would be the bom diggy diggy diggy bom diggy bom!
  • BradMW, on 01/23/2008, -4/+15I like Pandora better since songs there tend to be tagged better and I can find new music I like faster, but this a huge step for last.fm and I might switch over.
    • petebot, on 01/23/2008, -1/+8And Pandora is ridiculously easy to use and you don't need to download anything.
      • triskele, on 01/23/2008, -1/+3You do know you can run Last.fm from your browser without even creating an account right?
        Pandora's library is a little limited though.
      • navilon, on 01/23/2008, -1/+2Try Pandora.fm, best of both worlds
        http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/
        • SlalomMan, on 01/24/2008, -1/+1Too bad you were about two hours later than MattDB down there....Nice attempt.
    • jordan314, on 01/23/2008, -6/+1Agreed, Last FM's library is seriously lacking if you want to listen to anything but pop
      • mxcl, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1You're just ignorant.
      • expat002, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1Agreed Pandora's library is far superior. Last.FM is just childish in comparison.
    • MattBD, on 01/23/2008, -1/+2Try Pandora.fm - it'll let you play things in Pandora but scrobble them to your Last.fm profile. That way you can get the best of both worlds! It's at http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/
    • mcduckov, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2This last.fm thing sounds like they want to rope you into a subscription. You get 3 plays of a song and then you're done. I'd rather listen on pandora and then buy tracks on Amazon as the mood strikes me. That way I have the tracks forever wherever I want them.
  • xe54, on 01/23/2008, -6/+1ZOMG! The end of the music industry...

    Now how can I get that on my phone???
    • lozzd, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1What kind of phone do you have?
    • dontaskagain, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2There's a native iphone app called MobileScrobbler available through apptap. Also works on the touch; http://dev.c99.org/MobileScrobbler/
    • triskele, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1You can get pandora on certain Sprint phones. Too bad Sprint sucks ass.
    • OpaqueMurdock, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1Don't you mean, the end of the music industry... as we know it? I don't think many people would be happy if the hard working people that make music all stopped because they had to get jobs at walmart. You have to think about all the people involved in music creation... musicians, producers, recording engineers, even the talented independent artist that has invested a huge amount of time learning the craft and money on decent equipment.

      The music industry is not just a few vastly wealthy jerks at the top. Any new model needs to consider how to compensate the "worker class" people that put themselves into bringing you music that doesn't suck. Hopefully Last FMs announcement is a step in the right direction.
    • my8bird, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1How does this hurt the music industry. People can listen to the song before they buy it this is the same as old school record stores.
  • shanghainobody, on 01/23/2008, -1/+4More power to Last.fm!
  • thejoshbennett, on 01/23/2008, -12/+1I think it's a great idea, but I can pretty much listen to all the music I want to either on my iTunes, or even on myspace. I also recall one company doing the same thing. BUT you had to download the client.
    We'll see.
    Good idea... Just a little late.
    • ers35, on 01/23/2008, -0/+12Can you listen to full song previews for free on iTunes? No.
      Can you easily search and listen to any song you want on MySpace without viewing a horrendously ugly profile? No.
      Can you listen to any song you want without downloading the client for that particular service? No.
  • ronaldinho, on 01/23/2008, -3/+71Take note, RIAA......this is what you should be doing instead of suing grandmothers for change. Embrace the new age of digital technology! Subscriptions, RIAA......subscriptions.
    • shark72, on 01/23/2008, -3/+2The RIAA has allowed subscriptions for a few years... Yahoo! Music and Napster tried it. Not only could you play any song you wanted, you could download them, too. It didn't work out so great. Yahoo! stopped the subscription service and Napster is flailing.

      More power to last.fm for trying the subscription model as well. What last.fm has over the Yahoo! and Napster subscription services is a wider selection of indie music (not the homogenous crap pushed by the big music services) plus, of course, the social networking aspects.

      Yahoo! and Napster *could* have done this years ago by focusing on indie and unreleased stuff. The RIAA's been letting them do subscriptions for years... it's Yahoo! and Napster who've ***** it up.
      • TTURabble, on 01/23/2008, -2/+1Actually, I still have a yahoo subscription service, of course, it doesn't work with my iPod, but some clever ingenuity fixes that problem.
        • bdbr, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Napster has indie. I've been listening to indie music on Napster all day today (getting ready to buy some stuff from eMusic).
    • mxcl, on 01/23/2008, -2/+7Of course the difference is that ours is free...
  • joerod, on 01/23/2008, -1/+3i like last.fm, i just wish they would make an office OS X scrobble widget so i can share what I'm listening to with my friends easier. The scrobbler for my iphone is sweeeeeeeeeet!
    • zongamin, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4What are you talking about - do you mean OFFICIAL?
      It exists.
    • mxcl, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1The Office OS X Scrobble Widget team at Last.fm was recently made redundant. Sorry about that.
  • narcofiche, on 01/23/2008, -1/+9Last.fm is so great. Not only is it great for discovering new artists based on the ones you listen to, but when my hard drive crashed in 2006 and i lost a lot of the new music i transfered, all i had to do was look back on my weekly artists and i just got all of those again. It's one of the internet's best treasures.
  • Jangles, on 01/23/2008, -6/+3I have streamed full songs forever from them, I don't understand how this is new. Full albums is new but singles? did I miss something?
    • zongamin, on 01/23/2008, -1/+13Yes. Most arstists had only a few full tracks available. Very few had whole albums.
  • knowtheledge, on 01/23/2008, -8/+2So in other news, Last.Fm will soon be full of

    All good things must pass
  • mrq8472, on 01/23/2008, -1/+16"We've just launched free on-demand listening in the US, UK, and Germany." ...... ONLY !!!
    • aliguana, on 01/23/2008, -1/+6only? thats two more countries than most places allow. Bring on the global interweb, I say ;)
    • FXPooky, on 01/23/2008, -1/+8Canada Canada Canada Canada pleeaaase Canada! :)
    • p4r4d0x, on 01/24/2008, -0/+3I'd love it to come to Australia, but like always I'm not expecting anything so I won't be disappointed.
  • Thomaschaaf, on 01/23/2008, -8/+3Love the fact that its not only US but also Germany :)

    But I would really want Pandora in Germany.. I dont understand last.fm which will get me buried
  • spiri, on 01/23/2008, -1/+7US, UK and Germany. Sucks to live in Denmark :( But still awesome! Hope they will expand it to more countries soon :)
    • Charbax, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1I want this in Denmark soon also.
    • lohikaarme, on 01/24/2008, -0/+0Why don't you use Deezer? It too allows you to listen full songs via stream, and they have quite large catalogs of songs too. I have been using Deezer for months and have totally fallen in love with it. It works and has just a good clean interface... http://www.deezer.com
  • cyberoidx, on 01/23/2008, -6/+1Anyone else thinking how quickly and lazily that last image has been done using Microshaft Paint?
  • yagidem, on 01/23/2008, -4/+29Hm, there is nothing "free" in "During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things."
    • form3hide, on 01/23/2008, -1/+15Exactly. So it's like every other subscription service available? I don't get what the big fuss is about. It's another revenue stream for the music industry masked behind last.fm.
      • yagidem, on 01/23/2008, -1/+4I think most people were mislead by the headline, me included, I dugg it when reading it but now buried it for inaccuracy. :
      • parasight, on 01/23/2008, -0/+6The difference to other subscription services being nearly everything else last.fm has to offer (such as scrobbling the tracks you play). I use last.fm all the time, so I'd prefer to subscribe to this than open yet another account at a different site, and having to install yet another player (that will probably put crappy DRM on my system). Yeah it's a subscription service but one well worth the money (provided the price is right, which we have yet to find out).
    • kjcdude, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1You can listen to the entire track, that's the difference. Where else can you listen to the entire track before you purchase it?
  • thegarner, on 01/23/2008, -0/+3Fantastic news - great job from a great bunch of guys.
  • gothicform, on 01/23/2008, -1/+1Brilliant. As a last.fm user this hasn't come soon enough. I've already bought plenty of music because of it recommending things similar to what I like... this means more :)
  • Kronos6948, on 01/23/2008, -1/+3This opens it up for a lot of undiscovered bands to get noticed, and compensated for it. It eliminates the middleman. I really like this idea.
    • OpaqueMurdock, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1From the view of a independent recording artist, it sure seems like its a positive step.
    • Kronos6948, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1It really does. I just uploaded my band's EP. Turns out there's another band of the same name, and you can't register it as a separate band. It wigged me out a bit, so I shot them an email. According to their site, they're working on "fingerprinting" technology to keep bands of the same name separate. My question would be how are they keeping the funds separate at this point. So, I'm waiting on their response.
  • mparker7410, on 01/23/2008, -7/+7Just tried to stream The Beatles Sgt. Peppers... still just 30 second clips. FAIL.
    • Viakenny, on 01/23/2008, -0/+5blame Jacko. or whoever has the Beatles rights.
    • sherbertbones, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1You can't stream them anywhere, even on paid programs/sites, idiot.
      • mparker7410, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Yeah, I know ...could stream Radiohead either.
  • kjoss27, on 01/23/2008, -0/+20Last.Fm hasn't crashed yet. Here is a link to the site instead of the blog.
    http://www.last.fm/
    and here is what was written in the blog
    A few days ago we sent out some cryptic invitations to a press conference in New York that Felix and Martin are presiding over. We’ve had fun in the office reading the rumors and speculation, but it’s time to spill the beans:

    As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.

    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.

    Full-length tracks are now available in the US, UK, and Germany, and we’re hard at work broadening our coverage into other countries. During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things. We’re also working on bringing full-length tracks to the desktop client and beyond.

    Free full-length tracks are obviously great news for listeners, but also great for artists and labels, who get paid every time someone streams a song. Music on Last.fm is perpetually monetized. This is good because artists get paid based on how popular a song is with their fans, instead of a fixed amount.

    We will be paying artists directly.

    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.

    We’re not printing money to pay for this—but the business model is simple enough: we are paying artists and labels a share of advertising revenue from the website.

    Today we’re redesigning the music economy. There are already millions of tracks available, and we’re adding more every day. We will continue to work hard to bring this to everyone in the world.

    Take it for a spin.
    • mcduckov, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1Is there an equivalent of this for JUST unsigned artists? I'm sitting here with my credit card...someone get on that. And remember, JUST unsigned artists. If they sign up with a label they are gone.
  • itux1985, on 01/23/2008, -1/+8"Additionally, Last.fm will start paying artists directly for the music they stream!"

    If this is true, then we will see the true dark side of record labels.
    • xe54, on 01/23/2008, -0/+6tell me more...
    • redog, on 01/24/2008, -0/+2It isn't true. It is fodder. They will pay artists who upload their songs directly. Artists who are being reamed by record labels will still get paid indirectly after last.fm pays the companies directly which is why they mention "permission".
  • jopjop, on 01/23/2008, -2/+6Just discovered last.fm today thanks to this. Very cool. Thanks diggers.
  • form3hide, on 01/23/2008, -4/+4...so it's a subscription service?
    • lozzd, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2No, its free, to stream 3 tracks. there will be a subscription service which allows more.
      • form3hide, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4"During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service."

        ...so during this initial public beta period, it's free... what's to say it's not going to turn into a full-fledged subscription service? I still don't get it.
      • mxcl, on 01/24/2008, -0/+1Blimey Laurie get it right. You practically can stream infinite tracks. Just no particular track more than 3 times.
  • FatPhizzle, on 01/23/2008, -5/+2free music zilla just got a lot more worth
  • pigfister, on 01/23/2008, -4/+8pandora was better but thanks to the RIAA/SOUNDEXCHANGE no longer is it in the UK!

    The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.

    The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.

    The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.
    • skyshock1, on 01/23/2008, -0/+1Just in the UK? Can't you not proxy then?
    • Bamborzled, on 01/24/2008, -3/+1CAPITALIZING words in the middle of your SENTENCE will really make me LISTEN TO you.
  • usrlocalbin, on 01/23/2008, -10/+7Now to find out how to rip those streams....
    • mmdieterich, on 01/23/2008, -0/+5Macheist gave out a nice program called WireTap Pro..it's only for Mac, but I'm sure there is a similar Windows version somewhere. Work's like a charm!
    • Ataxia2008, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2Audacity > Stereo Mix > Record > Export as mp3/wav
    • vandy, on 01/23/2008, -0/+4Pandorajam for those Mac users who use Pandora
    • roflcaeks, on 01/23/2008, -0/+0you can rip them straight out of your Firefox cache by using the "CacheViewer" extension
      • Jarasmen, on 01/23/2008, -0/+2Or by typing opera:cache in the adress bar if you use Opera. Then it's just ctrl+f "mp3" :)
  • omglolzhaha, on 01/23/2008, -7/+4This is huge. Bye bye iTunes.
  • mburgoon, on 01/23/2008, -4/+2Best music website handsdown. This is awesome!
  • holdencaulfield, on 01/23/2008, -8/+4An iPhone / iPod Touch interface would be delightful.
    • dontaskagain, on 01/23/2008, -1/+6http://dev.c99.org/MobileScrobbler/
      • c99koder, on 01/23/2008, -1/+4The on-demand tracks are only available through the Flash player, but supposedly they'll be available to desktop clients in the future. Once they're available I'll add support for them to MobileScrobbler. Thanks for the plug :)
  • thosemoose, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1site down. grr.
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