Last.fm: Free the Music

Last.fm has announced that they will offer full-length tracks and albums for users to play through their site. For now, each track can be played three times before a notice pops up describing the subscription service to come. This noteworthy for several reasons: first, the major labels have all made deals with Last.fm to allow this; second, Last.fm will accept submissions from independent artists and will pay the artists directly. This creates yet another avenue for up-and-coming artists to make money off of their music without having to sign to a major label.

From the blog post:

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.

From AFP:

"We're building a platform to help redesign the music economy, enabling artists and labels to earn revenue according to how people listen, rather than how they buy," said Last.fm co-founder, Felix Miller.

"For the first time, anyone can upload tracks and get paid when those tracks are played. It's a whole different model."

It looks like there is some confusion about what this means for current subscribers. This is a different service so it will be interesting to see how the pricing works out for unlimited monthly access. Furthermore, will there be support for devices? How will the access to the major label music be any different than Yahoo! Music Service or Rhapsody? Will it play directly through the website or a proprietary player like the other two services (Last.fm radio already has its own player)?