In a case of should have been done a century ago, Last.fm now plays full songs from thousands of major label and independent artists.

Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any track for free—is now possible. With the support of the folks behind EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner—and the artists they work with—plus thousands of independent artists and labels, we’ve made the biggest legal collection of music available to play online for free, the way we believe it should be.

Artists collect royalties for each time a song is streamed, either through various royalty collection societies or directly. Pretty sweet setup.

However, how long the songs will remain really free is a mystery. The announcement says royalties will be funded by ad revenue, but also mentions an upcoming subscription service. Right now, each track can be played only three times, with unlimited plays a feature of the subscription service, but (again) more specifics are unknown. Three times per day? Per week? Per year? Three times ever?

Though I am hesitant to be too much stock into Last.fm “redesigning the music economy” … sometimes I worry about the future of (commercial) radio. Thankfully, video has yet to kill the radio star, but I worry the internet may deal the final blow. Those legally easily-filled iPods are everywhere, making a huge assortment of music just a reach away. And satellite, commercial free radio? And never-far-off national wireless? Having music anywhere you go is no longer such a draw for radio.

But what of discovering new music? The thousand of ways to do so online (from Pandora.com to Shoutcast stations to mp3 blogs) tend to be labor intensive at best (mp3 blogs), or offer more trash than treasure at worst (streaming radio). Now that Last.fm has filled their coffer with millions of tracks from major and minor labels, discovering new music online has become easier and better. Throw some news with it and push it into the car, and commercial radio is a dead dog.

(Then again, separate the music listening from the web viewing, and you lose the all the ad revenue for the venture. Oh commercials, you tenacious bastards.)

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