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Last.fm To Start Charging International Users
tdobson writes "The popular online radio service Last.fm has announced that users outside of the UK, USA and Germany will need to start paying 3 Euros (about $4.40 USD/£2.80 GBP) per month to continue streaming music on their service. Last.fm doesn't offer much of a reason as to the change, other than writing on their blog that '[t]here will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio.' Already, there appears to be quite a backlash in responses so far, amongst subscribers and non-subscribers of all nationalities — has this killed Last.fm's appeal, globally?"
Pandora Radio is a good one.
Yes, it's a great alternative....
visiting the pandora.com homepage =
Dear Pandora Visitor,
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
We believe that you are in Australia (your IP address appears to be x.x.x.x). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com
www.spotify.com
www.spotylist.com
I was sickened when Pandora blocked non-US IPs (used to really enjoy that service).
Now this. Oh well.
Azural - instrumentals
There is a service that delivers you complete albums, for free, whenever you want - and works in any country.
Its called 'bittorrent'
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Perhaps advertising simply does not support Last.FM's licensing deals
Yes, it does. One of the comments there, by the same author of the post, says that the revenue from ads in USA, UK and Germany are enough to pay for the bandwidth and licensing fees they have to pay. Everywhere else, it's not enough and that's why they are charging other countries.
Well, not quite. It seems Spotify is available through Europe, but not much outside it (at least, it says it's not available in Australia.)
I was sickened when Pandora blocked non-US IPs (used to really enjoy that service).
Well, Last.fm will be available outside US, UK and Germany, you just have to pay a fee (or find a nice proxy to stream through it.)
I love Last.fm
I'm a regular listener and found many new interesting bands. Not only have I bought their albums, but also went to local concerts that I wouldn't have heard about otherwise.
I will NEVER pay for an internet service.
Remains the question: Are there any alternatives?
Last I checked, Deezer seemed ok. Not as many clients, but still fairly good. www.deezer.com
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Germany, UK and US are where they have their licensing deals, so they make advertising and referral money off streams within those countries.
Wes
Pandora and spotify.com both don't serve as far abroad as our unknown country of South Africa :p
I would gladly pay for this service, if only I could afford the bandwidth to stream the music in the first place, that would be grand...
He was talking about making *better* coffee, which includes grinding beans on a regular basis to ensure you have fresh coffee...
Is deezer available in Australia ?
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
I don't pay for the radio I listen to over the air. Why would I pay for it just because it comes from a web site?
Maybe because there aren't any adverts.
That's the reason Last.fm are giving for charging: they have advertising for British, German and American markets, so they don't need to pay. They don't have advertising for users in other countries, so they need to pay.
I have seen this line of reasoning a few times, and I think it is important to get it straight.
It is perfectly normal that the pricing for services and products is different in different countries. I mean, how retarded do you have to be to think that an item X should cost exactly the same in, say, the country it was produced and the country it has been shipped to after paying tolls?
And especially especially when we are talking about copyrights and international licensing, the matters are complex. Say, I had enough money *and* the juristic possibility to get a special kind of contract in two countries which allows me to play the music for free in these countries... am I obliged to pay -- possibly much more money -- to get the same type of agreement in all other countries in the world?
Nope. Look, I am living in Germany, but I'm not a German citizen. Last.fm is not free in the country of my origin. Discrimination / rascism would have been if they refused to provide me with the same service as German citizens. Or if the Germans living in my country of origin were allowed to listen to last.fm for free, whereas other people would have to pay. That would have been discrimination.
There was a similar discussion in regard to iTunes. iTunes music store is always national -- works only in one country. There are plenty of countries where you cannot buy music from iTunes (even within EU). Are they rascist? Nope. Neither is Walmart, even though there is not a single Walmart in Burkina Faso. Or an online pharmacy shop in London even though it does not ship certain drugs to the U.S. -- legal in London, illegal or not allowed for import in the U.S-
The fact that Internet brings different countries together, and allows you to communicate over juristic and national boundaries doesn't mean that these boundaries do not exist. Don't you forget this.
j.
I think they dropped the invites - at least I signed up without one.. just went to their page and selected sign up.
What makes it really sad is that even if you pay $3 you still don't get the on demand service that US, UK and Germany have.
Great thinking by the copyright holders.
Seems to get worse - they are about the change the API, and streaming to mobile phones will not be allowed.
2.You won't be allowed to use our API to stream to mobile phones. This is unfortunately a limitation of some of our licensing agreements.
I wonder what the rationale for that is.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
>>>online services already make their money - enough to cover costs and still make a profit - through advertising
Not anymore. Since the economy turned to crap, the advertising has dried-up. This is affecting not just websites but also newspapers (going bankrupt all over the place) and television. "They make money off advertising" is no longer a true statement, at least not in this year 2009.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
As an American, I want to point out that actually, Britain is currently in the lead in oppressive laws among nominally free nations. We're still in second place, but Australia is coming on strong.
Well folks, there is always the open source iRate Radio:
http://irate.sourceforge.net/
I've gotten tons of good music from iRate.
I use Pandora from Canada practically every day.
The solution is to use Tor, configured to only use US exit nodes, along with FoxyProxy, configured to run www.pandora.com through Tor. Because the audio servers aren't in www.pandora.com and don't do geolocation, as long as you connect to the website from a US host, you can connect to the audio servers directly, thus getting full speed audio.