Warner Music Group has pulled its content from CBS’s on-demand streaming music service Last.fm…and, of course, the disagreement is all about money. Warner Music Group was the first major music label to sign a distribution agreement with Last.fm back in February 2007, and has been letting the streaming service carry music from its catalog on a month-to-month basis.
Last year, broadcast network CBS purchased Last.fm for some $280 million. In a statement, CBS said, “We are currently negotiating a new agreement with Warner Music Group and are working hard to build the most comprehensive music service on the Web.” Last.fm still has distribution deals with EMI, Universal, and Sony BMG.
Now that Last.fm is owned by CBS—and ostensibly supported by the network’s much larger advertising and distribution network—Warner apparently feels that Last.fm’s compensation rates were too low compared to those of competing services like iMeem and those promised by the forthcoming MySpace Music joint venture with Warner, Universal, and Sony.
In the meantime, Last.fm has announced support for Logitech Squeezebox music systems: Squeezebox users will be able to connect to personalized Last.fm music streams at no cost in the U.S., UK, and Germany, and play back the streams through their home audio systems. “It’s something of a milestone to be offering the Last.fm streaming music experience for the first time on a hardware device, and we’re pleased to be reaching that milestone with Logitech,” said Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel, in a statement. “Last.fm is now no longer limited to your computer, and this marks another step toward giving music fans access to Last.fm’s unparalleled music services anywhere and everywhere they go.”
