The End of Last.fm

[@?,*???&?]

http://www.themusicvoid.com/2010/04/las ... d-parties/

This is a direct move away from their business model. Pandora wins again.

[hiddendriveways]

How is this the end? It's just a retooling. Sounds like a smart move to me.

[andreanjos]

Last.fm has been on it's way down for a while.

They haven't paid my artist royalties for over half a year. I'm only owed something like 50 dollars, but it really gives me the impression that things are falling apart.

My requests go unanswered and I've stopped uploading stuff there.

[@?,*???&?]

Last.fm has been on it's way down for a while.

They haven't paid my artist royalties for over half a year. I'm only owed something like 50 dollars, but it really gives me the impression that things are falling apart.

My requests go unanswered and I've stopped uploading stuff there.

WOW. Good for you, according my calculations from these stats:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2 ... rn-online/

That means your songs got played 15,466,670,000 times.

That's INCREDIBLE!!

[andreanjos]

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2 ... rn-online/

That means your songs got played 15,466,670,000 times.

That's INCREDIBLE!!

Hah... well, actually more like 200k plays. They have all these different pricing schemes for different functions. For ex: on demand radio pays more.

The whole thing is a mess and I'm kinda glad to not have to deal with them anymore. I would still like my 50 dollars though. It can't really buy much gear, but it would always be good for beer money.

[@?,*???&?]

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2 ... rn-online/

That means your songs got played 15,466,670,000 times.

That's INCREDIBLE!!

Hah... well, actually more like 200k plays. They have all these different pricing schemes for different functions.

Cool, you got my point. That's still a significant spin count, the question remains how many unique listeners there actually were.

[Gorilla]

It does all come down to unique listeners.

If almost all 200,000 were unique -- well then be happy with $50 because they listened and then didn't listen again.

But let's take the more likely scenario that 50,000 listened on average 4 times... even if you only sold the song for a penny, you'd make 10 times as much.

Can last.fm generate more than a penny of ad profit for every song streamed? I don't see why not... I've seen that chart posted above, but I'm not familiar with the variances in online mechanicals beyond stuff like that.

[chorga1]

licensing for tracks that are not on-demand is less than 10 cents per hour.

[Gentleman Jim]

licensing for tracks that are not on-demand is less than 10 cents per hour.

Your post reminded me of a thread from some time ago that I contributed to. It had something to do with the Copyright Royalty Board. So I did a search and found it:

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=57515

There's a working link in the thread so you can read the Washington Post article that inspired it. Here's a quote that I pulled nearly two years ago:

Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post wrote:

...The Copyright Royalty Board last year decided that the fee to play a music recording on Web radio should step up from 8/100 of a cent per song per listener in 2006 to 19/100 of a cent per song per listener in 2010.

Multiplied by the millions of songs and thousands of listeners Pandora serves, that means the company will have to pay about $17 million this year, Westergren said.

The weird part to me is that not only did you contribute to this two year old thread, you also said the following:

I gotta chime in here about some Pandora info for y'all. I know, cuz I work here...

...

2. Ever since we began our internet radio product we've been paying licensing fees. The main issue is that the FCC wants to raise the rates that we, and other internet broadcaster pay, over 300% from 2007-2010.

3. We pay for millions of listener hours each month. Multiply 50 million listener hourse by 1.9 cents (the rate the FCC wants for 2010 I believe) and crunch the numbers. Not cheap...

So you know that it's not a simple "less than 10 cents per hour" royalty payment. It's "less than 10 cents per hour" per listener. Big difference there.

[chorga1]

You're right - I should've said


licensing for tracks that are not on-demand is less than 10 cents per "listener" hour



happy?

[hiddendriveways]

Until users can upload their own songs, I will continue ignoring Pandora's existence.

Long live Last FM!

[Gentleman Jim]

You're right - I should've said


licensing for tracks that are not on-demand is less than 10 cents per "listener" hour



happy?

Ok, I didn't mean to come off like as much of an ass as I did; that post of mine sounded like a prosecutor's cross examination. I apologize for that.

And thank you for the clarification.

[chorga1]

All good Jim - no worries


Just tryin to contribute my small amount of info to the community



cheers!