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Last year saw the launch of Spiral Frog, an ad-funded online music service that forces users to listen to an ad before being able to access the music track. He added that the company had always enjoyed 'good industry relations' and had been paying artists and licence fees since 2002. The new service will launch in the UK, US and Germany today and into all other markets internationally 'in the coming months'.Įarlier this month US-based internet radio station Pandora shut down its UK service after claiming it could not afford to pay licence fees being demanded by music industry trade bodies.Īsked how Last.fm was able to make its ad-funded operation economically viable, Jones said that Pandora operated purely as an internet radio station, while his company had a diverse offering including social networking and music recommendation. 'People love our recommendation service but they also want to cherry pick songs and now we can offer both.' 'We have created the world's biggest free jukebox,' said Richard Jones, one of Last.fm's three founders. The royalty scheme is based on a revenue share of advertising that runs onscreen while users listen to tracks. Last.fm is also launching a new artist royalty scheme so that artists who are not signed to a label can receive a payment every time one of their tracks is played. However, tracks will not be offered as downloads to own by Last.fm, which means users cannot put music on to an MP3 player.Īfter listening to the streamed version Last.fm users will be given the option of buying the track as a download through partners such as iTunes, Amazon and 7 Digital. Last.fm users will now be able to listen to any track as a stream up to three times. Until now Last.fm has based its model on providing either a linear listening experience via deals with radio stations or through its much-publicised music recommendation service.

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