I’m still concerned at the way the partnership was publicised (e.g. from the Guardian report – “A spokesperson for Last.fm said the deal was a powerful marketing tool for Sony”). And the fact remains that the sort of deals last.fm has struck with Sony (and Warners) will inevitably put strains on the integrity of the system.

Major labels expect a return on their investment and (while I’m aware that last.fm is more than a radio station) you have to admit that there is potential for a serious conflict of interest when labels (or their representatives) strike deals with radio stations.

Since our recommendations are built on huge amounts of scrobbling submissions for tracks we don’t necessarily have for streaming, quite often we want to play someone a certain artist or track but don’t have the audio files to do so. Our deals with labels, whether big (like EMI and Warner, who we signed with way before we ‘went corporate’) or small (the vast majority of the labels we work with are small indies) are central to our mission of having the largest collection of music ever. Cause then our recommendations and the radio will *really* rock. And it will always remain community-driven. That’s what we do, cause that’s how music should work.

All best, Matt @ Last.fm