Article: http://blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-music
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, everyone knows how acquisition of music has been a hot legal topic for the past several years. In the "old days," people had to buy CDs. I hated forking over $15+ for a CD, only to find that there were only 3 songs I liked on the whole thing. Then Napster came along and my world changed. But the downloading phenomenon spun out of control as CD sales declined. The RIAA had to butt in and start slapping people with lawsuits and fines to discourage illegal downloading, but that really didn't do too much good. Then the user-friendly, inexpensive iTunes store was launched, which helped decrease illegal downloading but still left people unsatisfied. iTunes only offers 30 second previews of songs, and sometimes a short preview just doesn't cut it. Some songs sound totally different in their entirety. Other services similar to iTunes have the same problem. This problem has led many audiophiles to bypass iTunes and continue to download music illegally.
Last.fm's announcement is certainly pleasing to the ears. Now people will be able to stream tracks in full for free. Free accounts have a 3-play limit, meaning you cannot stream a track more than 3 times, so they can't just leech off the site whenever they want to hear a song. Not only that, but artists get paid for each time someone streams a song. Which means that independent artists trying to break into the music scene can make some money off their music as well. This leaves artists, record companies, and music-lovers happy. Sure, there will still be some people who will preview the song on Last.fm and then go download it for free somewhere else. But there will be many who will go purchase that song or CD after hearing a full preview.
Last.fm has a large database as it is, but they will certainly expand it even more with this new program. I imagine it will hold even more music than before. It must also store information about each artist, each user, how many times a user plays a particular song, etc. The new program will require a more advanced database now that artists will be paid per stream. Independent artists could easily make multiple accounts, maybe with slightly different names, so as to avoid the 3-play limit (users could play the same song 3 times on each account, which cheats more money into the artist's pocket). This brings us to security. If Last.fm wants to make sure fraudulent accounts are not made, they will need to have a tracking system, perhaps utilizing cookies or IP tracking. If they see more than one account on the same IP address, it will put up a red flag for them to investigate.
Last.fm has made a revolution in the music industry. Not only with the full streams, but with the concept of paying the artists for each time someone listens to their music.
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1 comment:
Your points are very well analyzed. I was not familiar with this company. I believe you are absolutely right, they have found a very important niche. I short preview is very difficult to use in making a decision about a future purchase. Thanks for sharing this information and your point of view.
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