MP3.com artists – moved to Last.fm
p2pnet news view P2P | Radio:- If you’re a CBS-owned Last.fm listener in US, UK or Germany, no worries.
But if you live anywhere else, you won’t be happy.
And if you’re an MP3.com artist, you, too, will find things have changed
Because:
a) Last.fm is introducing a premium subscription model (that means you’ll have to pay to listen); and
b) at the end of the month, all MP3.com artists are being moved to Last.fm, like it or not.
Subscription of €3.00 per month
Said paidContent in January:
“The company has signed deals with all four major record labels and 150,000 independents to offer free streaming of full length music.
But “free” isn’t “free”. It’s ad-supported, and after a user has listened to one track three times, he or she will get “recommendations” for other music, said the story.
Now, for everyone outside of the US, UK or Germany, “listening to Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription of €3.00 per month,” blogs Richard Jones.
All MP3.com artist pages
Not only but also, “Greetings MP3.com users and artists,” says MP3.com with “important news to share”.
No kidding.
“On Tuesday, March 31, 2009, we will begin redirecting all MP3.com artist pages and category doors to corresponding pages on our sister site Last.fm,” it says, going on »»»
If you are an artist, please note: We will not be able to save or transfer any content from your MP3.com artist profile pages to Last.fm.
Therefore, we recommend that you sign up as a Last.fm artist and transfer any content from your MP3.com artist page to Last.fm prior to March 31.
In some cases, “your artist page may already exist, due to our Scrobbling technology,” says MP3.com. “Once you register as an artist or label, however, you can gain access to this page to modify or upload content.”
And are you an artists with lots of links in lots of places?
Then, “once your Last.fm profile is in place, we suggest that you also modify any URLs that you may have on other sites — personal blogs or Web sites, and artist or label pages — to point instead to your new profile page on Last.fm,” says MP3.com.
“The sooner you make these changes, the less confusion for your friends, colleagues, and fans.”
Really.
Back at Last.fm, “There will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio,” says Jones.
“Everything else on Last.fm (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) will remain free in all countries, like it is now.”
Stay tuned.
(Thanks, catflap)
paidContent – Last.fm Announcement: Free On-Demand Music Platform, January 23, 2009
March, 2009
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March 27th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Last.fm has something like 25 million users, so it’s not really a bad thing. Yes, some will leave because of the removal of free radio, but then at least they give you the option to pay to use their service, unlike Pandora which shuts you out completely if you’re not from the U.S. Then there’s Spotify, though if you’re not from a select few countries then you’ll need to pay even more than what Last.fm’s charging to access their music. Oh, and the thing about tracks being limited to three plays each only applies when you stream a song on-demand, not on their radio streams, which you couldn’t do outside of the US, UK or Germany anyway.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:20 am
The reason you can only stream a full track 3 times I think has more to do with the labels. I just wish Last.fm would make the Last.fm softwear accessible to the jaws screen reader, and any screen reader for that matter. That’s kinda what has kept me from subscribing. I use SpeakOn, which is good, but I think the Last.fm softwear has more features.
http://www.last.fm/user/lionsworld
Enjoy the music.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Well, there goes another one!
What was I just saying about “lobotomized corporate crap?”
Lionsword:
Last.fm won’t bother to get their software accessible. Look at the record of these big companies in regard to accessibility issues: primary example, a good friend of mine (a blind guy) just recently “upgraded” to the latest version of Skype. I put the word “upgrade” in quotes because in doing so, he lost a good chunk of functionality simply because it no longer works with Jaws very well.
But seriously, if these companies gave a damn about accessibility, would frames and tables and all of that bullshit have been able to pollute the web? Look at the w3 reccomendations sometime — it’s really enlightening.
And yes, I’m visually-impaired myself (in case you were wondering.)
March 27th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
“The company has signed deals with all four major record labels and 150,000 independents to offer free streaming of full length music.”
BOYCOTT last.fm weither it is free or not!
Heel no! the recording parasites are not going to get one peny from me!
Why do we need last.fm anyway?
If you are an artist or a listener boycott last.fm! PLEASE!
If these parasites survive we will have to spray pest killer.
Not good for the planet!