
Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA? - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-over-user-listening-data-to-the-riaa/
======
sh1mmer
Last.fm utterly refutes this story from Techcrunch.
([http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-
ov...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-over-user-
listening-data-to-the-riaa/#comment-2632012),
<http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/506518/1#f8660996>)

To quote:

 _Hi from Last.fm, I’m one of the founders (and the original founder of
audioscrobbler, the music tracking plugin).

I’m not going to write much right now because i’m rather pissed off this
article was published, except to say that this is utter nonsense and totally
untrue.

As far as I can tell, the author of this article got a “tip” from _one_ person
and decided to make a story out of it. Techcrunch is full of shit, film at
11._

~~~
catone
That was my first thought -- not that the rumor was untrue, but that it was an
exceptionally weak basis for a story, and possibly bordering on irresponsible.
A tip from a random person via email that starts off with "I heard from a
friend..." is hardly the type of thing you go to press with.

~~~
jackowayed
To be fair, he didn't say "Last.fm Just Handed Over Listening Data to the
RIAA."

Several times he says things like "supposedly" and "assuming."

While this might be a little weak to go to press with, he at least did not
present it as fact but as a possibly-true rumor.

------
anuraggoel
_"Incidents like this highlight how the social Web can sometimes bite back if
you are not careful"_

Incidents like this highlight nothing but the need for 'a cure for the disease
of which the RIAA is a symptom'.

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

------
madmotive
Last.fm staff are denying this:
<http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/506518/1#f8660996>

~~~
madmotive
From the comment: "I'd like to issue a full and categorical denial of this.
We've never had any request for such data by anyone, and if we did we wouldn't
consent to it.

Of course we work with the major labels and provide them with broad
statistics, as we would with any other label, but we'd never personally
identify our users to a third party - that goes against everything we stand
for.

As far as I'm concerned Techcrunch have made this whole story up."

------
jackowayed
I don't think that the RIAA can really win any lawsuits based off of this.

1) They have to figure out who the people actually are, either through adept
mass-Googling of the usernames or getting IPs that the users log in from.

2) There's only a small portion of the music that they can figure out is
illegal from this--stuff they played before it was released. Even though they
like trying to charge 10x for such songs in lawsuits, 1 or 2 albums won't be
worth much.

3) I don't think that that's sufficient evidence to win a lawsuit (though
maybe sufficient evidence for them to bully people into settlements as they
often do.) I could have found the track list for an upcoming album and tagged
any songs I have with the artist and titles of those songs.

Still, CBS definitely shouldn't have done that.

~~~
antiismist
It sounds like enough to win a lawsuit. The burden of proof is more likely
than not. If they have software that tells them the names of the songs that
were playing, then that is pretty damning evidence.

Sure, you could have renamed your songs, but who is going to believe that?

I've thought about using last.fm but didn't for this very reason. Wasn't it
obvious to everyone that at some point CBS would avail themselves to the
information that their subsidiary was collecting?

------
chris11
This is going to be a pr nightmare if it is true. They are basically attacking
their user base. Even if a user doesn't pirate music, nobody would want their
information handed over to the RIAA.

------
tmilewski
I don't think that any of Last.fm's data would hold up in court. As far as I
know Last.fm just records the artist and track names.

In this case I could rename a track to say U2 when it is actually some other
artist and Last.fm wouldn't know the difference.

------
kragen
Flagged because HN is not intended as a forum for distribution of
unsubstantiated libels.

------
trezor
I see techcrunch is getting desperate for stories.

~~~
sounddust
I seriously doubt that Arrington would have allowed this story to be published
if he was around. I know that a lot of people here dislike him, but even when
he published controversial stories, he generally got the facts straight. I
find the quality of the others' writing at TC to be of much lower value. The
site is really suffering without him.

------
villageidiot
This is a story that potentially hundreds of thousands of U2 fans would be
interested in emailing to each other. Not to mention anyone who has ever
downloaded music illegally. Sound like linkbait?

