Last.fm Strongly Denies Sharing Data With RIAA 122
bonch writes "Last.fm and CBS vehemently deny sharing any user data with the RIAA, contrary to previous reports. One anonymous party calls it 'irresponsible journalism,' and Last.fm goes so far as to suggest it is a target of slander. Carla Duckworth of the RIAA confirmed, 'We've made no such request for this information.'"
Perhaps a form of... (Score:2, Interesting)
Many users may not trust Last.fm after this, regardless of its validity. And we know that many more people have no trust for the RIAA. All things considered, this may have driven much traffic to other similar sites (even with the Streisand Effect) thus providing other sites a chance to increase revenue.
While this may not be the most likely cause, it is something to consider and contemplate, while making sure one doesn't go too far down the tinfoil hat road.
For further reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage [wikipedia.org] .
Who cares what they say? (Score:1, Interesting)
The reason this story is so hurtful to them is because the ONLY thing keeping your privacy safe is them deciding whether or not to violate it.
They do not deny having all of this information, or being owned by someone you dont want to have this information. Whether or not they've yet to breach that tiny little divide is irrelevant as long as the potential is there.
Hmmm, Credibility.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, who do I trust more:
1. The RIAA PR person, the CBS PR person, and the Last.fm PR person.
-- or --
2. A completely unverifiable source who may have an axe to grind or other nefarious motive for completely fabricating the story.
Frankly, it's a tough call.
Re:RIAA also says (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm actually siding with Last.FM here, just for the reason that TechCrunch deleted mine and many others comments if it was about *anything* against their view or if you defended last.fm. The most recent article about last.fm downtime [techcrunch.com] was also hilarious try to make bad comments about them (and see the writers comments in that article :). Now, I do not know anything about which side is valid. But by far last.fm has answered questions and what they have been accused of, while TechCrunch keeps removing comments that dont side with them. For me that says something.
Re:From the Article: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention that the RIAA's wording "We've made no such request for this information." means precisely squat as to whether they have that information.
Sure....they didn't ask for it. But that doesn't mean they didn't receive it.
Don't think about what PR departments say; think about what they _don't_ say. Why exactly did the RIAA word it that way? If they didn't have that information, they would say: "We don't have that information, and never did."
Yes, I'm cynical. But with an organization like the RIAA, what reason do I have to be otherwise?
As to Last.fm's statements that they've given that information to noone? Well...noone that the president knows of. Maybe one of the few people that have access to that "tightly controlled" information is a malicious insider. Wouldn't be the first time it happened....
Re:RIAA also says (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to note, his comments are with green background and by Michael Arrington (@arrington)
Here's some of them:
- Any idea who is hosting their servers ?
Michael Arrington: the RIAA?
Michael Arrington: Iâ(TM)ve found itâ(TM)s best to be careful when it comes to last.fm and the truthfulness of their public statements.
Michael Arrington: iâ(TM)m not even sure where central time is.
in reply James Wheare: Are you drunk Mike?
Michael Arrington: i have a special place in my heart for last.fm
Well, for me these comments sound really unprofessional.
Re:So, did they get the data? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/8#f9525592 [www.last.fm]
* We've been in communication with CBS and they deny that they gave any third party any of our user data.
Also note that a lot of "user info" has always been available through feeds.
TechCrunch and Pandora (Score:5, Interesting)
Pandora's main competition for mindshare is Last.FM. There's also a bit of a US/EU rivalry, with Pandora so strongly identified with the US and, with the Valley in particular, while Last.FM came out of a Euro milieu. I think I've noticed a very pro-Pandora coverage pattern at TechCrunch. Lots of the "Web 2 - Me Too" AdSense spam sites, sorry, gadget/tech blogs, take cues from TechCrunch, and among the iPhone-toting, US-centric crowd, Pandora is a darling.
Before I'd believe anything TechCrunch said about Last.FM, I'd want to know more about the personal and financial connections between the people running TechCrunch and the people running Pandora.
Personally, I've tried Pandora every years and it fails, epically, to even know about many of the artists I am interested in hearing [www.last.fm]. Plus, Pandora's Flash interface is just aggravating, user-hostile, and screams hipster-designer-marketroid-douchbags-in-control.
Re:You& Fai7 It (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess you haven't noticed the influx of spam? That message isn't a real message, is some computer generated spam, probably some sort of megahal like bot that combs slashdot and tries to post comments to see what kind of score it can get. Having played with megahal quite a bit, I'd say that it actually probably isn't megahal itself as megahal would have done a better job of forming sentences, but someone elses attempt to do the same thing. Probably some PhD student or something using other peoples resources to do his research, lazy bastage. He'll make a perfect professor though, since about the only reason they are 'professors' is so they can get paid to do research they want rather than thier jobs, and get cheap ass labor from the students, which you and I pay for in taxes.
Every story posted will have multiple messages like this if you notice them before they drop below your viewing threshold.
Frankly I'm surprised you are the first person I've seen mention it.
Re:From the Article: (Score:5, Interesting)
So, Last.fm have denied it. CBS have denied it. The RIAA have denied it.
TechCrunch have provided no evidence of any kind. What they have come out with is a long-running stream of unsupported, often transparently vitriolic whinges, whines and allegations about Last.fm with never a scrap of evidence or a hint at how they'd have access to it if there ever were any.
Add to that the fact that the original allegation makes no sense anyway since scrobbler data (containing a list of the track- & artist-name ID3 tags of the media files you've played... tags which are freely editable) would seem to be of no value as either evidence of "theft" or probable cause for further discovery of evidence. This data doesn't say where the track name came from - only that you played a media file with that label. Bought/resold/leant/borrowed/mislabelled... the genuine explanations are endless and nothing in the data should be grounds for any suspicion of "piracy".
What you end up with is a picture that seems to suggest there's whilst there's definitely a lying douchebag of RIAA-standard involved in this story... it's probably not the RIAA for once.