It was January when Last.fm first mentioned a business model that would allow independent artists unassociated with a label or middle agency to establish direct relations with the music service to generate royalties. Today the Last.fm marks the official launch of the effort.
Dubbed the Artist Royalty Program, participants can sign up for the program upon upload of their music, and whether their material is broadcast to a listener on-demand or through a radio shuffle, royalties can be collected. Last.fm says that it first began allowing artists to join back when it was first introduced, and has so far tallied some 450,000 tracks. Now that it has made the option official, it is perhaps safe to assume hundreds of thousands more will join the fold as a result.
Last.fm made news recently when it lost a partnership with Warner Music Group about 16 months after it had signed a deal with the content owner. The split was blamed in part on Last.fm’s royalty distribution. Suffice it to say that the ARP will almost certainly encounter no trouble to that effect.