[img src="http://i43.tinypic.com/2u7qazt.png" caption="" credit="" alt="last.fm logo"]This week isn't going down as a good one in Last.fm's books. First, they announced that international users (those living outside of the US, UK, or Germany) will have to start paying for radio streaming, and now they've effectively banned all third party mobile clients.
In their own words:
"Last.fm has never had a public radio API, although we've tolerated third-party clients using the undocumented calls that our client uses. This is finally about to change - we're going to make a public, documented streaming API available to everyone who has an API account."
However, as they say, there are a few limitations, one of them being this:
"You won't be allowed to use our API to stream to mobile phones. This is unfortunately a limitation of some of our licensing agreements."
In a post on their official blog, Last.fm is stressing that "the mobile device restriction isn't set in stone" and that they "may be able to make an exception" if you contact them directly, but this new limitation still isn't going down well with the community, as you can see in the comments on the official blog.