Last.fm now pays for plays

Create Digital Music has an article about a new announcement from last.fm. Basically last.fm will now pay royalties for songs that are played through their website.
This means that independent, unsigned artists can earn money (not a lot!) every time their song is played via last.fm.
The article references some other articles on the subject and highlights the key issues that raises for the "standard" arrangement of royalties.

Another advantage of using last.fm as a means of promoting your music is that you have access to a wealth of data anaylsis tools, the ability to organise events and the fact that listeners can almost become an "army of promoters" for your music as they add to your artist details, etc.

This could be quite a development for the music industry (if it works, continues and spreads to ther outlets...)


Update:
It turns out that the amount offered through this new strategy is not really that impressive - apparenty it equates to about $0.0005USD per play!!
see this article from CDM, and the links associated with it for more info...

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta)

The Guardian has an article discussing the newly propsed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which in theory oculd allow customs officers to stop you at border control and search your laptop / music player for illegal files (either music or video).
The article highlights some of the key issues of this agreement, plus another law currently being discussed in the Eruopean Parliament which could result in users being kicked off the internet if they violate copyright laws.

I would have thought that these laws are really to catch the "big boys" who are ripping CDs and DVDs on a large scale rather than the occasional downloader - but you never know!