Starting from January 15 2013, radio function will be unavaible in most countries due to expired licensing agreements.

http://www.last.fm/announcements/radio2013?setlang=en


Life is a bitch.

Hmm streaming online will still be there, just you'll have to live with the ads - at least for the USA, UK and Germany.

Don't know if it works outside US, but: http://grooveshark.com/

I remember that they had had problems with that awhile back, but I haven't seen any real notices about going away.

If it does...

Well, we lost this service, as free, many years ago.... be welcome... ;p

It works .

It works!

ha, ninja'd ;p

Yeah, grooveshark works. So there is hope.

For now. Music industry will kill that one down too probably... Because they don't understand how many music buys they get because of people who discover new music via services such as this.

At least I hope they won't shut that one down. I typically buy on iTunes out of convenience (and since I had an account there for the last eight years), but I use Grooveshark to listen to albums I'm interested in to see whether they're worth the purchase. It beats having to hunt down some silly torrent to do the same.

Yeah the big industry types in Music, Games, Movies, et al really seem to fail at basic math and market observation. Seemingly they're more interested in what percentage of the total market and projected sales they're dominating rather than attempting to cultivate an actual increase in total sales and revenue as well as grow the interest in the creative market with which they are associated.

It's why I've started to avoid most of their 'offerings' as a general rule.
Games I get from GOG or direct from the Indy Devs
Music Pandora(+other net radio) and buy direct from the musicians.
Movies I'll buy either from Indy studios or wait until they're streamed via Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

The point is that these big industry groups will continue to push for draconian limitations as long as they possess the resources (i.e. our purchase money) to do so. Only way to make the behave in a reasonable manner is to simply cease all purchases from them until such time as their polices become reasonable.

It's a pity they keep smothering services which people enjoy and which actually make the given market they're associated with more profitable, but hopefully enough people will get sick of being treated so poorly and will simply take all their money elsewhere.

It was through last.fm and youtube that I discovered many of my favorite bands:
The Birthday Massacre, Machinea Supremacy, Two Steps From Hell, Epicam Blackmore's Night, and Tristeria

And all because I was not restricted to listening to the radio or taking a chance on some CD's (which I wouldn't have bought new unless for a cheap price). Heck, I even bought a Blackmore's Night CD just last week because I wanted to show my support even if I could listen to their songs for free on Youtube. Those morons do not understand the importance of free marketing here, and I really don't comprehend why they like restricting their markets. I know why they do it, but their logic does not compute.

I believe that most people like to do the right thing and prefer to get their items legitimately (just look at Steam and this site) but if they aren't supplying the pirates will. I'm going to avoid going any farther on this tangent we all heard the rant before. But I believe the old guard is afraid of what they are unwilling to understand and seek to smoother that which loosens their control.

Viva la Revolution