Last.fm announced that they now allow users to play full-length tracks for free on last.fm website. The four major recording labels EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner are all supporting this with a new business model.
Currently full-length tracks are available in US, UK and Germany, and will expand to other countries later.
Users will be able to play any track for 3 times, after this they have to opt for a subscription model to play the track more. The yet to be announced subscription service will give users the ability to play the tracks unlimited times and some useful things according to Last.fm. The full-length tracks are not yet available in desktop client, but one can expect this in near future.
The new business model they announced will pay the Artists and Labels, who get paid based on the number of times a track is played on Last.fm. Music on Last.fm is monetized and this is used for paying for Artists.
There is a good news for Independent artists also, they can upload their music to Last.fm and get paid for the number of times the track is played.
This is good for users, the “biggest legal collection of music available to play online for free.”
