New York - Last.fm, the social music discovery service acquired last May by CBS (NYSE: CBS), announced on Wednesday that it has launched a new free service that allows anyone to listen to songs on-demand -- from all four major labels and more than 150,000 independents. The company claims 20 million unique monthly users in 240 countries, and said the new service will be available worldwide in the coming months, after a limited launch in the U.S., U.K. and Germany today.

Each track will be free to listen to up to three times, after which point the service will direct users to purchase the song via affiliate partners like iTunes and Amazon.

"We acquired Last.fm because music is one of the best ways to build communities on the internet," said CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves.

"Adding such a tremendous collection of content to Last.fm will help it grow by leaps and bounds. The skill set that we're learning along the way will be very important as we build additional online communities around our other world-class content as well."

The company also announced a new program that allows unsigned artists to receive payment directly from Last.fm every time one of their tracks is played.

"We're building a platform to help redesign the music economy, enabling artists and labels to earn revenue according to how people listen, rather than how they buy," said Last.fm co-founder Felix Miller.

"For the first time, anyone can upload tracks and get paid when those tracks are played."

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