Music Ally

Last.fm’s three co-founders have announced that they’re stepping down. In a post on the company’s blog, they explain that “After two years running Last.fm within CBS we feel the time is right to begin the process of handing over the reins”.

They go on to point out that the site’s users have more than doubled in the last 12 months, to 37.3 million monthly unique visitors. “We’re confident the site will continue to go from strength to strength. Being a part of CBS, and the recently formed CBSi music group, continues to open up many opportunities for Last.fm. Recent product releases such as the new visual radio, and the Last.fm on XBox announcement, are an indication of how much more Last.fm will achieve.”

It’s inevitable that speculation around their decision to step down will focus around the recent spat with US tech blog TechCrunch, which claimed parent company CBS passed Last.fm user data to the RIAA without the site’s agreement.

All concerned have denied that this happened, so the timing of the founders’ departure may just be unfortunate. What may be more relevant is that CBS acquired Last.fm on 30th May 2007, suggesting that the three founders may have agreed to a two-year earn-out period.

This is a breaking story, so we’ll update this post with further details as they emerge.

This week has seen a revival in the spat between TechCrunch and Last.fm, over the former’s allegations that the latter shared user data with the RIAA following the leak of U2’s recent album. Now Last.fm’s parent company CBS has chimed in, once more slapping down the accusations.

“Both CBS and the RIAA have already stated quite clearly, for the record, that absolutely no individual user or listener information was supplied to the RIAA by Last.fm or any division of CBS Corporation in the past, nor do we plan to do so in the future,” says its statement.

“The story posted by the website was based on an unnamed tipster. No inquiry was made to CBS or Last.fm about the veracity of the anonymous source. Those who consult such blogs should be aware of the standard by which such postings are sourced and published.”

With TechCrunch having published a leaked email that it claims proves CBS did share data with the RIAA, this one could run and run.

We’re used to the likes of Spotify and We7 fighting over pre-release exclusives on new albums, but new band More Than Thieves are taking an innovative approach, recording exclusive live sessions for FOUR different services: Spotify, We7, Last.fm and Napster.

The four sessions, which each include four tracks, are being offered during the last two weeks of April, and include songs from the band’s upcoming debut album, as well as covers of Lily Allen and Kylie. Universal Music UK is running the promotion, which includes targeted advertising on each service.

It’s certainly an innovative approach, although labels are increasingly spreading exclusives around different sites – witness the campaign currently in operation for Bob Dylan’s new album. You can track the More Than Thieves campaign from the band’s own website.

It was announced earlier this year, but Last.fm has just actually introduced its new €3-a-month charge for its radio service in all countries bar the US, UK and Germany.

For now, people have to pay via credit card or PayPal, with the option to buy subscriptions for friends if they don’t have either. Other features on Last.fm remain free, including scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies and videos.

Co-founder Richard Jones has reiterated that the reason the US, UK and Germany have escaped the new charge is because “it’s feasible to run an ad-supported radio service” there. Judging by the comments on his blog post, many users are steaming mad.

Last.fm has announced that it’s delaying the introduction of its new €3 monthly subscription for its Last.fm Radio service, after feedback from users. The company announced the decision in a blog post today, while also giving more of its rationale for the change.

“We’re listening and we’ve postponed the date on which radio will become a subscription service outside the USA, UK and Germany,” says the post. “In the meantime we’ll be squeezing in some additional improvements based on your requests.”

These include gift subscriptions and alternative payment options, including SMS billing. The blog post says that as soon as these upgrades are complete, the new subscription model will come into force. Last.fm has also reiterated that economics are behind the decision.

“We simply can’t be in every country where our radio service is available selling the ads we need to support the service. The Internet is global, and geographic restrictions seem unfair, but it’s a reality we are faced with every day when managing our music licensing partnerships.”

Streaming music service Last.fm has announced plans to junk its ad-supported model in all markets except for the UK, US and Germany. Everywhere else, it will now charge €3 a month for its Last.fm Radio service, although features like scrobbling, recommendations and videos will remain free.

Plans to introduce just such a premium subscription model were announced more than a year ago, but it remains open to question just how much money it’ll generate, given that it’s not being deployed (yet) in Last.fm’s three biggest markets.

The price point does make Last.fm’s service considerably cheaper than Spotify’s premium version, although Spotify’s basic version and We7 remain free to access. And it’s not surprising that the US, UK and Germany have been left out – the risk of going subscription-only in those markets would be a huge drop-off in users.

The fallout from YouTube’s decision to block premium music videos from UK users continues.

Last night, PRS for Music issued a statement hailing “positive” discussions with Google, yet the same day, PaidContent UK published an interview with Google’s EMEA head of partnerships Patrick Walker where he seemed in no mood to compromise.

“To suggest that, because Google’s a big company, we should just suck it and pay a ridiculous rate is not something that we’re going to stand by,” he said.

“We’re not suggesting that we should pay rates in accordance with (traffic) that we had two years ago. We want to pay a fair rate, but we can’t lose money with every video streamed and that’s what they are proposing… The rates that they’ve put forward to us are many times more what we paid previously.”

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We reported yesterday on the controversy that broke this weekend, following a claim on tech blog TechCrunch that Last.fm had handed over user data to the RIAA relating to the U2 album leak.

Having denied the story in several places, Last.fm founder Richard ones has now unleashed his rage on TechCrunch in the company’s own blog, with a post headlined “Techcrunch are full of sh*t” (we’ve added the asterisk).

He slates the “vicious and completely false rumour” – and it does seem that TechCrunch is on exceptionally thin ice, given that the original piece was based on a single-source tip that said “I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that…”

If the story is indeed false, as it seems, Last.fm will surely take legal action.

It’s been an eventful week for U2 news, much of it stemming from the leak last week of the band’s new album on BitTorrent.

Fingers are now being pointed at their own label, Universal Music Australia, which reportedly made the album available to buy on Aussie digital store Getmusic last week by accident.

Billboard says several bloggers have posted screengrabs showing they bought the album, and the fact that it quickly appeared on P2P networks indicates that this was the source of the leak.

But the real controversy around the album leak came on Friday with a claim on tech blog TechCrunch that Last.fm and its parent company CBS had handed over user data to the RIAA, so the latter could identify users who’d been playing the leaked U2 album.

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We’ve been banging on about iPhone applications for a while ago, and in last week’s issue of the Music Ally Report, we covered some of the ways iPhone apps are coming onto the music industry’s radar. But which apps are we actually using on our iPhones, hmm?

We thought we should tell you. So, here’s a dozen of the best iPhone music apps, complete with links to buy them.

1. Guitar Rock Tour (£4.99 – right)
A music game that pretty much swipes the Guitar Hero formula and runs off with it cackling. You have to tap the frets at the bottom of the screen as notes travel down a guitar, with an array of proper songs including Beat It, Smoke On The Water, Heart-Shaped Box and – yes! – Rock You Like A Hurricane. Get it

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