US media giant CBS Corporation has bought Last.fm, a British online community-based music network for 280 million dollars in cash. The London-based Last.fm currently has more than 15 million active users in more than 200 countries.

"They have a great management team that understands how to build an engaged and passionate community where users learn, discover and share music globally," said CBS in a statement, adding that Last.fm's demographics supported the US company's goal to attract younger audiences.

"Last.fm adds a terrific interactive extension to all of our properties and also is a huge step in CBS Corporation's overall strategy of expanding our reach online to transition from a content company into an audience company."

The Last.fm team will continue to independently run the online network.

Launched in 2002, Last.fm creates communities around music by bringing together listeners, artists and music through its unique "scrobbling" technology and social recommendation engine to build a global social music platform.