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Last.fm User Data Was Sent To RIAA By CBS
suraj.sun sends in an update from TechCrunch on a story that generated a lot of controversy a few months back, "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?" "Now we've located another source for the story, someone who's very close to Last.fm. And it turns out Last.fm was telling the truth, sorta... Last.fm didn't hand user data over to the RIAA. According to our source, it was their parent company, CBS, that did it. Here's what we believe happened: CBS requested user data from Last.fm, including user name and IP address. CBS wanted the data to comply with a RIAA request but told Last.fm the data was going to be used for 'internal use only.' It was only after the data was sent to CBS that Last.fm discovered the real reason for the request. Last.fm staffers were outraged, say our sources, but the data had already been sent to the RIAA. We believe CBS lied to us when they denied sending the data to the RIAA, and that they subsequently asked us to attribute the quote to Last.fm to make the statement defensible. Last.fm's denials were strictly speaking correct, but they ignored the underlying truth of the situation, that their parent company supplied user data to the RIAA, and that the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users."
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/23/another-blanket-denial-by-lastfm/
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
No, its perfectly legal to listen to Last.Fm, they are simply a radio service. Thats the reason why you can't listen to certain artists too many times, etc. The problem is if you use the Scrobbling (sp?) feature and that data gets sent to the RIAA. For example, it might say that you have a large music collection that includes various RIAA affiliated artists. They then figure out what IP you have been using, and could put it under increased scrutiny.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They requested info on who played a leaked album, which at the time could only be acquired through piracy.
Kill all hipsters.
Libre.fm for the win. It's compatible with Last.fm.
Put identity in the browser.
I believe last.fm gets file hash information along with the tags of the song you're listening to so they can ID untagged songs with the same signature or something. Combine with watermarking and you have a serious concern.
links ftw
http://www.jamendo.com/en/ (integrated with amarok2)
http://www.magnatune.com/ (integrated with amarok, found brad suck's here)
http://blip.tv/ (out of office)
http://libre.fm/ (pretty meh atm, but i appreciate the fact its agpl)
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
If you read the Terms of Use when uploading, you basically give Last.fm the right to do ANYTHING:
"When you upload Your Upload Information via the Website, you irrevocably grant to Last.fm, its parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, and partners, without any credit or compensation to you, a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, unrestricted, irrevocable, royalty-free and fully transferable, assignable and sub-licensable right and licence to use, reuse, modify, adapt, alter, display, archive, publish, sub-license, perform, copy, reproduce, disclose, transmit, communicate to the public, post, sell, translate, create derivative works of, distribute, make and export Your Upload Information (in whole or in part), or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now known or developed in the future, for any purposes whatsoever including, without limitation, for advertising, marketing, publicity and promotional purposes, such as developing, manufacturing and marketing products and targeted advertisements using such Uploaded Information. You hereby waive any moral rights (or any similar rights in any jurisdiction) you may have in and to any of Your Upload Information, even if such material is altered or changed in a manner not agreeable to you."
No they don't, I implemented a last.fm plugin, so I know what I'm talking about.
The only data sent are : title, artist, album, length and track number.
And of course, the data we send doesn't prove anything, as we can put whatever data we want.
Wrong. Columbia Records is not part of CBS any more: they are owned by Sony.
Sony, well that fixes everything. ;)
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
"Last year, the company took in $25 million in revenue, but it has the page views to earn much more. Craigslist is the seventh-most-viewed site online, according to Comcscore, yet it only makes money from fees for posting some apartment listings in New York and job listings in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York."
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
You're not uploading music files unless you're a musician. Users are primarily 'uploading' the song play data that their media player generates. This is not entrapment.
http://transformativeworks.org/
Who do you trust more... Michael Arrington, or Russ Garrett?
Russ' rebuttal is here. He's no PR flack... he's one of the founders and one of the original developers of Audioscrobbler.
It's very interesting that so many Slashdotters are taking the Techcrunch report at face value. Given Mr. Arrington's history with regard to responsible journalism, I'm with Russ on this one.
Arrington has last.fm in his sights for some reason. Somebody pointed out that TechCrunch takes advertising money from a last.fm competitor. I don't think it's as simple as that, but Arrington has an agenda here, and I don't think it's the noble pursuit of truth.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
The official last.fm Scrobbler can fingerprint music. This feature analyzes the way the music sounds to help identify untagged and inaccurately tagged tracks. Presumably it only allows one to identify what music is in the file, not what file you have, so for example they shouldn't be able to tell the difference between an MP3 you ripped and encoded yourself and one that came from a release group.
Sorry, guy, but legal acquisition of U2's No Line on the Horizon WAS THE SOURCE OF THE LEAK.
Universal Australia flipped the buy switch two weeks early. A buyer leaked the MP3s. Universal Australia stopped buyers 2 hours later, but they couldn't revoke MP3s already sold.
However, since they were MP3s, there is no way to tell a legal customer from someone who pirated.
While I disagree with the handing over of information, I fail to see what the RIAA will be able to prove with it.
Prove? They don't need to be able to prove anything except that they have the filing fee, just to file a lawsuit. If you don't show up in court, they win. But probably first they'll offer to cut you a deal for a thousand bucks or so.
Good luck with your court case. If you hire a lawyer, you might even win. But more likely, if it looks like you might win, they'll drop the suit. Oh, you'll still need to pay that lawyer.
It actually depends on the country. Downloading music is legal in Canada due to the blank media tax, for example.
Bullshit. Universal Australia was the one who sold the album accidentally for two hours.
Most, but not all would be illegal.
Ezekiel 23:20
I don't think there's some moral right to business models. Newspaper classifieds were exceedingly shitty, to the point where even in early days I'd often find it easier to sell or buy stuff on local mailing lists and Usenet groups than through classifieds. They also made the most of their gatekeeper status and local monopolies or near-monopolies to charge exhorbitant fees, imposing high transaction costs on person-to-person sales, while not even being friendly to use or search.
Craigslist did classifieds right, so the revenue model of overcharging for classifieds done badly dried up.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
.
Unless the RIAA subtly change the music to fingerprint every CD uniquely, and then track from the point of sale with your information and watch for that fingerprint on the internet. (Dang, haven't quite got the conspiracy theory thing down quite yet!)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Comments expressing alternate points of view are seemingly disappearing from the TechCrunch discussion thread. If TC feels it's necessary to delete comments which critique their reporting, perhaps we should be taking a closer look at that reporting...
Pandora
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/_/9521312
Russ, a founder of last.fm and much more reliable than that National Enquirer-wannabe TechCrunch, has denied everything.
Showing nothing to hide, you'll see in that thread noone ever had a post deleted there, no matter how irate or against last.fm it was.
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/_/9522388
Starting there, and continuing reading a couple pages, you'll see the truth about TechCrunch. Every message at TC in response that was against Michael Arrington's (shoddy) reporting has been summarily deleted. Several screenshots were even posted of people's responses that were deleted.
Now, who is more trustworthy again, a site that allows open discussion, or one that whittles down the discussion to make it look like everyone agrees with them?
Anyone believing this drivel... I got some 419 e-mails for you.
I think that this is only true in America and a few other countries. Under English law the loser pays the winner's fees. Not sure what happens if the loser merely drops the case though.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Well, it does because Last.fm is not owned by an RIAA company. Last.fm was bought by CBS, not Columbia Records.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
I was having the same problem with Jamendo, and then realized that my issue was that I had flashblock or adblock turned on and it surpressed the embedded player in the side bar. Once I allowed that through and allowed it to load fully, then clicking the play button next to a song or album brought up the mini-window embedded player and it worked fine.
*slight crashing sound*
From the linked site:
* Complete public source code licensed under the GNU AGPL!
* You own your own data!
* Use our service, or run your own!
* Get started and hacking today!
Set up your own server and use that.
Put identity in the browser.
You ever hear the one about the lawyer who represented himself? They say he had a fool for a client.
Representing yourself can be a very bad idea, especially when going up against the legal muscle the RIAA can muster. You'd be better off hiring a lawyer, and hoping you can get awarded court costs.