Martedì 31 Mar 2009, 16:38

It's the idea that listening to streams is a lot easier than listening to songs separately. And by making free music in the streams not accessible to everyone by restricting the streams regionally to subscribers only last.fm is now taking this easy publicity away from the free artists atleast in countries that are outside the G3. No wonder so many of them are upset. That's where equal rights should come into play. If the streaming radio is to be regulated anywhere, regulate only the part that wants to be regulated (copyright industry) and keep free the part that wants to stay free (all the rest of the people). Otherwise you are promoting inequality between musicians and your customers.

While offering free downloads is good, in a way. It doesn't help the free musicians if their music doesn't first get heard any other way. I've noticed that I like to listen music more as a continuous fashion than downloading and checking the quality afterwards. I for one find it more comfortable that way, and I know there are more listeners like me around there. The impact of the radio in listening habits is tremendous and it benefits artists directly. More so than mere free downloads. Clicking things on the internet just gets boring after a while, that's why I think just providing links for downloading really isn't a working compromise for free independent artsts.

This is why I would urge Last.fm to implement a way for artists to mark their music freely streamable using their choice of free licenses. It might be their only way out of this mess. I have no idea how to address this issue straight to them, and if they will ever even listen, but I can hope they do, can't I?

(This journal post is part of my ongoing protest against last.fm practices.
I apologize if you think I am crossposting off-topic on your group, but I think this pressing matter needs to be addressed with as much visibility as possble.)