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Re: Last.fm = Free Music <3

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:06 pm
by John Cartwright
I don't get it..it only plays first 30seconds of the song? This site is good how? :banghead:

Re: Last.fm = Free Music <3

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:35 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Jcart wrote:I don't get it..it only plays first 30seconds of the song? This site is good how? :banghead:
It plays 30 seconds of most songs if you directly request the song. This is because it would be illegal to play the full song. What you have to do is add it to your playlist, then when you have over 15 tracks in your playlist you can play the full tracks. Reason: It plays them in a random order and won't play the same track more than once within a 15-track time frame due to radio licensing laws. I suspect any websites which just give you the full track are breaking such laws.

Selected tracks which have "full track" next to them will always play the full track however since the record companies have come to some sort of special arrangement for them.

Re: Last.fm = Free Music <3

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:38 pm
by Weirdan
Jcart wrote:I don't get it..it only plays first 30seconds of the song? This site is good how? :banghead:
It seems they stream full versions for those in UK and USA - thus the fuss =)

[edit]Ok, I found how to make the last.fm player play full versions... does it have to be THAT difficult?[/edit]

Btw, what I find to be funny and annoying at the same time about last.fm is that they prohibit player plugins from scrobbling any streamed content (they say it's not what people chosen to listen to - it's just radio) yet they own player does exactly that - it scrobbles content it streams in random order.

Re: Last.fm = Free Music <3

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:32 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Weirdan wrote:
Jcart wrote:I don't get it..it only plays first 30seconds of the song? This site is good how? :banghead:
It seems they stream full versions for those in UK and USA - thus the fuss =)

[edit]Ok, I found how to make the last.fm player play full versions... does it have to be THAT difficult?[/edit]

Btw, what I find to be funny and annoying at the same time about last.fm is that they prohibit player plugins from scrobbling any streamed content (they say it's not what people chosen to listen to - it's just radio) yet they own player does exactly that - it scrobbles content it streams in random order.
You can turn that off, and/or you can change the amount of time a track has to play for before it scrobbles. The default is 50% of the track length but it won't scrobble at all if the track is less than 60 seconds long.

It's not just the UK and US niether. I'm in Australia and I get full track *but only if I'm playing in radio mode*, with the odd exception that there are selected full tracks to listen to immediately. It's quite cool that you just add things to your playlist to get full tracks. You could easily add all the tracks from one album to a playlist (provided there are over 15 tracks in the album) and then play the full album. I haven't tried it but if I understand correctly it's possible.

~Weirdan, when you say you figured how to get the player to play full tracks, do you mean as part of a playlist, or by direct request to a track? If you mean the latter, do tell :)

Re: Last.fm = Free Music <3

Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:53 am
by Weirdan
From playlist, yeah.

Re: Last.fm = Free Music <3

Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:53 am
by Kieran Huggins
I just found Rythmbox's Last.fm plugin and I'm totally digging the similar artist's radio (built-in!)

Last.fm FTW!