Last.fm Goes Independent After Breaking Up With Paramount Skydance
Last.fm says it is independent again, while keeping accounts, scrobbles, privacy settings, Pro subscriptions, and billing info intact.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
Last.fm says it is once again an independent company, nearly two decades after CBS bought it and after Paramount Skydance became the parent company. The company says the service, team, and user data will stay in place.
Last.fm is like a notebook that keeps track of all the songs someone listens to. It just got a new owner, but the notebook itself is still the same.
The company says the person's account, song history, and privacy choices will stay saved. Paid plans and billing details will also stay in place.
Think of it like a house changing owners, but the furniture, the photos on the wall, and the locks staying where they are. Last.fm says the inside will keep working the same for now.
Analysis
What changed
Last.fm announced on its forum that it is becoming an independent company again. The article says this comes nearly two decades after CBS acquired it, and after CBS Interactive later became part of Paramount Skydance Corporation.
What users should expect
The company says the product will keep working as it does now. That includes user accounts, scrobbles, privacy settings, Pro subscriptions, and billing information. In Last.fm's terms, a scrobble is a recorded play of a song that gets logged when a connected service plays music.
Why this matters for the service
Last.fm has long lived by tracking listening habits across other platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music. The story is less about a product redesign than about who owns the service and whether users need to worry about their data. Last.fm's message is meant to answer that directly: ownership has changed, but the day-to-day product has not.
Background
The article notes that Last.fm started in 2002 as an internet radio station, later added scrobbling, and originally operated independently before being acquired in 2007 for $280 million. It later shut down its $3-a-month radio subscription service in 2014 and focused on tracking music across other providers. The company says it will share more about the transition in the coming weeks.
Key points
- Last.fm says it is independent again after years under corporate ownership.
- The company says accounts, scrobbles, privacy settings, and Pro subscriptions will remain intact.
- The service tracks songs played across connected apps and streaming platforms.
- Last.fm says its current team will stay in place and the product will work as it did before.
- The company plans to share more details about the transition in the coming weeks.
