last.fm streams full albums, pays artists

[idleberg]

"We will be paying artists directly.We already have licenses with the various royalty collection societies, but now unsigned artists can put their music on Last.fm and be paid directly for every song played. This helps to level the playing-field—now you can make music, upload it to Last.fm and earn money for each play. If you make music, you can sign up to participate for free."

blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-music

[Zane Tate]

I think it's great... now if they could just get the site to work all of the time, and a little more quickly...

http://www.last.fm/music/Zane+Tate

[Indelible]

Don't know what to think of this? Obviously it's the way everything is going, but at first thought it seems to benefit bands/ dj's with a larger profile???

[Zane Tate]

You're right... you'd have to get thousands of plays for this to really pay anything. It's progress though I guess...

[Gentle D]

Its certainly a good move in the right direction.

[Michael Cassidy]

How much per play?

[Zane Tate]

From: http://musicmanager.last.fm/help/faq/?category=Artist+Royalty+Program

How will royalties accrue?
You will accrue an amount each time one of your tracks is streamed on the Last.fm service. The amount will vary depending upon which Last.fm service your track is played. A brief rundown of the various royalty levels can be found below:

- If your track is played on our free radio service you will accrue a 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue (see the definition of “Share” and “Net Revenue” in the terms and conditions) from the free radio service.

- If your track is played on our personalised premium radio service, you will accrue the greater of either 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the personalised radio service, or US $0.0005 for each complete transmission on the personalised radio service.

- If your track is played on our free on-demand service, you will accrue 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the on-demand radio service.

- If your track is played on our premium on-demand service, you will accrue the greater of either 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the premium on-demand service, or US $0.005 for each complete transmission on the prepaid or subscription on-demand service.

If you have any questions regarding these definitions, please don't hesitate to contact us at [e-mail]

[Michael Cassidy]

So to clarify:

1. Free radio service = 10% of net revenue for label 90% for last FM
2. Premium radio service = $1 for every 2000 time the track is played from start to finish.
3. On-demand service (Track can be chosen by user) = 30% of net revenue for label 70% for last FM
4. Premium on-demand service = 30% of Revenue or $1 for every 200 plays start to finish.

Question 1

How much is Net revenue per track play on average. I guess you mean the money made from advertisting or licencing this service to mobile phone companies.

Question 2

How much combining all 4 revenue model do record label get as a % of net income. What I'd like to know is say forexample Last FM take £1million in revenue, how much will get paid on average to the record labels. My Guess is you will give the label less than 30% of the income generated, am I right.

This stuff is very important because you are going to be making by the looks of it a lot of money from the content independent record labels give you and it would be good in advance to know exactly how much of the money was going back to the labels to help them produce the music you are making money from.

Independent labels are starting to choose between service based on revenue, often selling tracks with a low return on one service or even streaming tracks on a service that provides low revenue can harm sales on another service that provide higher revenue.

Anyway I feel last FM are being very underhand by not having a clear income model that labels can understand.

What do you think Zane? Is it a good deal?

[Zane Tate]

For me the deal is ok... my music was already in rotation at Last.fm, so if I get paid for it then even better. I think the model could be a lot clearer, but it technically hasn't been launched yet. Hopefully at launch it'll make more sense.

[Michael Cassidy]

Yeah Zane,

I see what you mean, if you music is on last FM already then the money will be more than you were getting before, but it would be interesting to know what you were signing up for. The terms and conditions may enable Last FM to exploit your music in a completely different way. I will look into it and report back here.

I just feel the corporations that give 30% revenue share to labels and artists are taking the piss. It the music that makes services like last FM work, without music last FM is nothing and that got to be worth more than 30%....

[Mass Defect]

Absolutely, but still artists sign up for myspace.com which gives artists 0% of the revenue. In May last year imeem announced their 50% revenue share model for any music on their 'youtube for music' social media site, but they haven't been hugely successful in getting indie artists to setup pages on their site. They have managed to attract plenty of big artists who already had a lot of traffic - Radiohead, Britney Spears, Tiesto, Feist etc etc but for the little guys that 50% advantage over myspace doesn't make any difference.

And a couple of weeks ago IODA sent out a letter to its labels complaining about websites not sharing enough of their revenue with artists.

[Michael Cassidy]

Do you have a copy of the letter I'd be really interested to take a peak.

[JaWar]

Greetings Michael, I enjoy how you make it plain and simple for us to overstand. This is the type of transparency that is needed so more people can get into great situations and maximize off of their opportunities.

GOJAWAR.COM