blog.rastageeks.orgLastfm no longer free as in free beer
As I was trying move the code of ocaml-lastfm [1] from the unmaintained xml-light [2] to xmlm [3], I discovered that it now fails to request track in anonymous mode.
Then, I went on the lastfm [4] site, and discovered that now I cannot find any full content available for anonymous users. Some more researches and I found this [5]:
Today we are making the changes to the radio that were previously announced here.
This means that from today, listeners to Last.fm Radio outside of the USA, UK and Germany will be asked to subscribe for €3.00 per month, after a 30 track free trial period. In the USA, UK and Germany, where it’s feasible to run an ad-supported radio service, there won’t be any changes. Everything else on Last.fm (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) will remain free in all countries, like it is now.
- Alcool ! Voilà l’ennemi.
- Poster by French painter and missionary Frédéric Christol (1850-1933) warning of the dangers of absinthe and other alcoholic drinks.
Although I will not comment this with the same violence as in the comments of the above message, this is not a good news at all. I totally understand how it can be difficult to find financial resources for this kind of business, and how complicated it can be after few years to maintain an activity that initially was breaking new and attracting investors.
However, given the current global [6] propaganda [7] campaign [8] that is organized [9] by the major music companies, I do not believe this decision has only to do with lastfm’s financial resources. In particular, also the legality of Deezer [10] was challenged by universal [11] such that they had to require registration [12] and also limit drastically the available titles.
The current situation is now really becoming worse and worse. Not only the music companies are trying to push for dangerous laws for the civil rights while pretending to fight against illegal music sharing, but also they are trying to shutdown all the new competitors that were successful in doing exactly what they refused to do during the same time.
All of this is just simply pathetic, and I strongly hope there will soon be an end to this, which will surely mean for these companies adapt or perish.. Or perhaps they plan to impose their restricting and dangerous laws in any country in the world ?
Another remark about all this is that it clearly demonstrate the importance of having the right to copy and store for your own usage any copyrighted material. Indeed, these are not only products but also artistic productions, and for this reason it is important to be able to save them in some place in order to not loose track of it if the streaming company was to be shutdown, as it seems to be the trend now.
- Viktor Oliva: The Absinthe Drinker.
- The original painting can be found in the Café Slavia in Prague.
Moving from xml-light to Xmlm
The other part of this post is about moving from xml-light to xmlm. This is in fact very easy, and should only be a matter of adding a piece of code like this:
type xml =
| Element of (string * (string * string) list * xml list)
| PCData of string
let parse_string s =
let source = `String (0,s) in
let input = Xmlm.make_input source in
(* Map a tag representation in xmlm to
* (name, attributes list) where attribute = string*string. *)
let make_tag (x,l) =
(* Forget about the uri attribute *)
let l =
List.map (fun ((_,y),z) -> (y,z)) l
in
snd x,l
in
let rec get_elems l =
if Xmlm.eoi input then
l
else
match Xmlm.input input with
| `El_start tag ->
let elem = get_elems [] in
let (name,attributes) = make_tag tag in
get_elems ((Element (name, attributes, List.rev elem)) :: l)
| `El_end -> l
| `Data s ->
get_elems ((PCData s) :: l)
| `Dtd _ -> get_elems l
in
let elems = get_elems [] in
Element ("", [], List.rev elems)This is a very simple code that surely needs more fixes, but starting from that, you can parse a string into an equivalent representation of the xml data, and then use it as before in your code..
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