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Can I listen to last.fm without subscribing?
Hello!
I know there are some topics about recent (well april ones) last.fm changes but there seems to be no activity.
Why do I have to subscribe? I know that you have to pay for last.fm when you are NOT coming from within the US, UK or Germany, but I do.
I CAN listen to last.fm with Firefox's fire.fm addon - so I guess it should be possible to listen with songbird, too.
Is this kind of a bug or due to technical limitations? Am I missing a point?
There are many threads like this where "Michael Pursues" is stating that you have to be a subscriber.
According to this official blogpost the three countries above are excluded (I know - it IS unfair!)
Fire.fm shows that it works with an external application - I think you could do this for Songbird, too.
Thanks!
Attached image from here.
I know there are some topics about recent (well april ones) last.fm changes but there seems to be no activity.
Why do I have to subscribe? I know that you have to pay for last.fm when you are NOT coming from within the US, UK or Germany, but I do.
I CAN listen to last.fm with Firefox's fire.fm addon - so I guess it should be possible to listen with songbird, too.
Is this kind of a bug or due to technical limitations? Am I missing a point?
There are many threads like this where "Michael Pursues" is stating that you have to be a subscriber.
According to this official blogpost the three countries above are excluded (I know - it IS unfair!)
Fire.fm shows that it works with an external application - I think you could do this for Songbird, too.
Thanks!
Attached image from here.
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Inappropriate?hey tonyp,
It is because last.fm does not allow you to stream radio to non-subscribers from external applications. If the Songbird devs could implement streaming to non-subscribers, they would, but it is against last.fm's policy and not supported in their Radio API anymore. And frankly, I have no clue how fire.fm is doing it because the old radio API is already broken - The previous version of the last.fm add-on for Songbird does not work anymore and apps such as Banshee on Linux have broken last.fm radio support because they haven't updated to the new API. The only way Songbird could stream to non-subscribers is if they made a deal with last.fm in the future(a.k.a. Songbird giving them money)
You can read information on last.fm's side on this blog post(second bullet) and this forum post.
If you are still confused feel free to ask any other questions.
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Thanks for your fast and explaining reply!
Songbird paying for last.fm is no option, of course.
I tried to find out (w/o looking in the code) how fire.fm is working and I found this in their FAQ: "Fire.fm loads a local Flash player in the background to play tracks from Last.fm (...)".
I guess fire.fm is not using the Radio API to play the stream but just using the "normal" flashplayer in the background.
Maybe we can hope to see this "workaround" in future Songbird, too? I think you can even use parts of fire.fm code because it is under the BSD license? Or the fire.fm author(s) could help the Songbird-last.fm-addon coders to get this working on Songbird, too. I would try it myself if I'd have the knowledge... But if i CAN do something feel free to contact me.
Haven't found a point in last.fm's TOS that tells you "you mustn't load a flash player in the background" :)
Songbird in connection with last.fm was just PERFECT! Currently I use the fire.fm firefox addon but it's not that cool, missing the automated songtext showing for example. -
Also just as a heads up, marking your question as answered doesn't make it go away, it will still show up in search and remain active for other people interested in joining the conversation. :0)
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Inappropriate?Just don't want that my comment gets lost - somebody already marked it as answered.
Are you going to implement the way fire.fm handles listening to Songbirds last.fm addon someday, too?
I (and many other US UK or German citizens I guess) would love it!
Maybe some developer could add this to your to-do/buglist?
Thanks in advance.
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Inappropriate?I don't think the Songbird dev's would implement it the way fire.fm does, and I think you would more likely see a deal struck with last.fm in the (maybe distant) future personally. But maybe an outside developer could create an add-on that works like fire.fm(or maybe even a quick port over so you use it just like firefox does in the toolbars). But you can always file a Feature Suggestion over at bugzilla to get the ball rolling if it is doable.
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this answers the question
CHAMP
