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January 23, 2008

Goodbye, 30-Second Song Clips. Last.fm Offers Limited Full-Track Streaming and Moves Towards Subscriptions

Erick Schonfeld

31 comments »

It is good to see some creative licensing finally taking hold in the music industry. Today, CBS-owned Last.fm announced that you can now stream the full track of any song up to three times for free, in addition to its regular music-discovery service which streams related songs you might like in a random order. This is also the first step towards a future subscription service, which will allow an unlimited number of plays. After the third time you listen to a song, listeners will see a promotion for the upcoming service.

Last.fm has signed deals with all four major record labels and most independents to stream their tracks in the U.S., UK, and Germany, with other countries coming soon. Instead of paying one-time fees per song that don’t make economic sense on the Web, artists and music labels will receive ongoing royalties based on how many times each song is listened to. The details of how much Last.fm is paying per song were not revealed, but moving towards a pay-for-performance model is good for both online music services and the music industry.

Music needs to be sampled before most people want to buy it. The current Web industry norm of the 30-second clip just won’t cut it anymore. Perhaps Last.fm will help to set a new precedent here with limited full-track streams. It might be difficult for iTunes or Amazon to abandon the 30-second preview, however, because neither one has an ongoing revenue stream from advertising or subscriptions with which to pay an ongoing royalty. At least, not yet.

Also see MOG’s recent integration of full-length tracks from Rhapsody.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. SwitchPlanet

    January 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 am

    Love me some FREE music!

  2. John John

    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 am

    This is awesome. check their blog for more: http://blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-music

    They’re also paying artists directly.

    Guess the acquisition wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  3. Nii A.

    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:04 am

    So everything you can do on imeem already except you’re restricted to listening to a song only three times. Looks like a step backwards to me.
    -N

  4. WebSideVentures

    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Awesome. I hope to see Pandora do something like this soon so I can stay loyal to them.

  5. Marc

    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am

    Why do iTunes, etc. need an ongoing revenue stream to support this? Why not just record how many times you preview a full track and only allow three previews before you must purchase the track?

  6. TechnoQ

    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:20 am

    Just on the lookout for some free songs!!!

    http://technoq.blogspot.com

  7. frogflight24

    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:46 am

    This is really good news. Last.fm has always been one of my favorite music sources, if not THE favorite.. Usually as I search for new music, I start there… then try to listen to something I’m interested in on myspace, then buy it on itunes (or borrow the cd from a friend, listen to it, then delete it and buy it myself).

    I won’t have to temporarily load music i don’t own onto my computer, and it’ll be a lot easier to find out I want a song for sure (becuase my money is SO limited, i really have to make sure i like it) if i can listen to it a couple times for free first.

    I think this is a fantastic way to start selling digital music. I’m not big on streaming though… It’ll have to be a really impressive deal for me to participate in streaming services…

  8. ely fall

    January 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    3 times for free wow. what about songza “93798430″ times for free

  9. Jack

    January 23rd, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    Good news. Smart move.

  10. david hyman

    January 23rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    napster has had the same offer for years now. so, good buy sound samples is somewhat of an inappropriate headline.

  11. ZOMGPWN!

    January 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    Cheers! to last.fm for paying indie artists directly and sharing the ad revenue pie around… to an extent.

    Jeers! to the backwards thinking and shockingly stultified brains of the paleolithic weasels who still infest the Industry of Music for imposing arbitrary limits on number of plays.

    It’s literally AMAZING that the Business Affairs crews are still clinging to some sort of antiquated concept that they can control how people consume music.

    I’m sure you think you’re taking a ‘hard line’ in your negotiations, but you’ve got no leg to stand on anymore. Three plays or thirty or three thousand - it doesn’t matter. If we’re going to buy it we’re going to buy it, dummies!

    It’s like saying “You can only open that birdcage THREE TIMES! No more!” Well, the bird’s not even in there anymore so… knock yourself out, I guess. I’m gonna just toss the cage in the dumpster out back, where it belongs.

    Sic Semper Tyrannis, biz-nizzle.

  12. Adriano

    January 23rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm

    Great, let’s use http://www.fridgesoft.de/harddiskogg.php to put the song into an Ogg file and then place onto a P2P network.

  13. ZOMGPWN!

    January 23rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    I <3 the Germans. Seriously I do.

  14. scratchiti

    January 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    yeah, free.napster.com has had this for a while now.

  15. noss

    January 23rd, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    @scratchiti: with all the big label’s content? I don’t think so

  16. scratchiti

    January 23rd, 2008 at 4:26 pm

    @15 noss, it’s live right now. It has been since about April ‘06. http://free.napster.com. I know, worst promotion ever since no one seems to know about it.

  17. önder

    January 23rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    thats a great news…

  18. ZOMGPWN!

    January 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    I didn’t realize that Napster had launched their quasi-free service. Why the flock didn’t that get as much press as last.fm?

  19. BigUser

    January 23rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    I’ve used StationRipper for a while, to record Last.fm - at work now, was wondering if anyone knows if can download these new songs???

  20. barbone

    January 24th, 2008 at 6:36 am

    The search result in skreemr is not 100% accurate all the time. Sometimes its very difficult to download songs from this site. So i recommand http://www.woonz.com for searching and downloading song. It’s a complete mp3 search engine. user can listen to online or can download from this site. it’s really amazing. U guyz can give a look in to it. U will love it! woonz.com rocks!

  21. Naren Pingle

    January 24th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    Cool !!! now I can easily download my favorites songs fully.

  22. scratchiti

    January 24th, 2008 at 7:30 am

    BigUser, the napster thing actually got MORE mention in the mainstream press for about a day. But the problem is they just didn’t know how to keep that momentum going - or how to direct people there. If you go to http://www.napster.com, it doesn’t even mention the free tracks. You have to know to go to free.napster.com, and even then it’s not clear off that bat that songs are free.

  23. Abhijit

    January 24th, 2008 at 7:50 am

    It’s really good job done by Last.fm by offering full track streaming. But, I don’t like the limited part and listening to a song only three times

  24. Adam Wexler

    January 24th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

    I’m actually a fan of snippets in certain situations…will those still be available? Some songs take too long to get going, and I’m trying to consume as much music variety and quality as possible. Both options can be useful!

    I love how Richard Jones mentions in his blog that they are “redefining the music economy.” Good for them. Good for artists. Good for everybody involved in music. We are finally discovering how to benefit from music consumption being as good as its ever been..

    As a related topic, I have begun to venture into the stock market of late and specifically stocks that I actually have a good feel for (I believe Amazon is a great buy right now..). On that note, does anybody believe CBS’s recent moves (riding on the strength of Last.FM’s apps) will lead to increased revenue/stock performance? Anybody have any clue what % of CBS’s overall revenue ties in with Last.FM?

  25. adair

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:55 am

    if you like a song enough to listen to it more than 3 times why not pay for it? would you eat at your favorite restaurant day in and day out without compensating the owners? that restaurant is only going to go out of business and you will be left without your favorite meal.

    songza is shit. imeem likewise. last.fm has done a commendable job by providing a legal service that actually strikes a balance between the business and consumer.

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