Last.fm Strongly Denies Sharing Data With RIAA

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.'"

Comments

RIAA also says

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thanks for the good idea!"

Re:RIAA also says

[sopssa]

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 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:RIAA also says

[sopssa]

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:RIAA also says

[sopssa]

subsystem posted this down in the comments, but everyone should read it. Guardian has actually done some fact checking with it unlike TechCrunch: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/28/not-safe-for-work-last-fm

From the Article:

[InMSWeAntitrust]

This all leaves us in the same place we were in Februaryâ"with a slew of accusations, a handful of denials, and zero evidence.

That's what happens when you believe rumors.

Re:From the Article:

[SomeJoel]

Rumors are almost always more entertaining than the truth. And that's why we read slashdot, right?

Re:From the Article:

[gEvil (beta)]

This all leaves us in the same place we were in February—"with a slew of accusations, a handful of denials, and zero evidence.

Wait a second. Are we talking about the TechCrunch accusations or the RIAA's lawsuits here?

Re:From the Article:

[InMSWeAntitrust]

I read slashdot to stay informed of current events in the tech world, and I want the articles to which it links to have factual accuracy and to be researched. This accusation sounds a lot like the wrong person twittered the right thing and now the people involved are knocking some sense into us.

Re:From the Article:

[afallowhorizon]

Don't think about what PR departments say; think about what they _don't_ say. Why exactly did the RIAA word it that way?

-Exactly-! Why would the RIAA say "We've made no such request for this information." when they could have said "We've made no such request for this information, and neither has the Unified Reptoid Conspiracy which controls us." As it stands now, they've pretty clearly used their carefully crafted lawyer speak to completely leave out any mention of the vast network of cold-blooded alien masters lurking in the shadows. Frankly, that makes me a little suspicious.

Re:From the Article:

[Allicorn]

Whilst I must salute some quality semantic pedantry there - hats off! - if you read the extensive statements, blog posts and forum messages of the Last.fm team in response to this issue you'll see that there is no "wiggle room" in their wording. They have emphatically denied this in absolutely every sense that some data might have gone somewhere.

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.

Smells fishy

[Tanktalus]

I wasn't so sure before, but when the RIAA denies even making the request, well, now I'm paranoid. Methinks [they] doth protest too much.

Sure!

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the company is going to come right out and tell people.... "we fuckin sold you out to make a quick buck! hahahahaha!"

Is it logical that the RIAA would want that data? Yup. Would CBS really cooperate with them? Yup.

I have no problem believing they really did it. And have no problem believing that they would LIE about it. Both are really in their best intrests.

Re:Sure!

[MindlessAutomata]

Suddenly, everyone accused of rape fits the bill too!

Is it logical that Tom would rape the supermodel Tina? Yup. Would her friend Sheri cooperate with the police? Yup.

I have no problem believing Tom really did it. And have no problem believing he would LIE about it. It's really in his best interest.

With your logic there's no way for Last.fm to win. Simply because they were accused of it, and because the accusation was plausible, they are guilty. I know these are liberal times and all, but let's not jump the gun.

Irresponsible Journalism??

[Renderer of Evil]

From TechCrunch? I refuse to believe that.

Re:Irresponsible Journalism??

[subsystem]

Here's an article with some actual fact checking: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/28/not-safe-for-work-last-fm (sfw). I didn't like the fact that comments on TechCrunch that offered any opposing viewpoints were promptly deleted.

Uhm...

[agnosticanarch]

What's a Duckworth?

Re:Uhm...

[Endo13]

I dunno, but when I find out I'll send you the bill.

Re:Uhm...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Just make sure you don't get the estimate from some quack.

Re:Uhm...

[machine321]

*ducks*

So, did they get the data?

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA says that they didn't request the data, but note that there is no denial that they received it.

Re:So, did they get the data?

[putch]

yeah also note that cbs/last.fm only deny handing over "user info" which is seems like a carefully constructed statement. how exactly do they define "user info?" it implies that they have handed over some info.

Slashdot hands over information to Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an ex-Slashdot employee, ex-astronaut, and ex-president of the Hair Club for Men, and two weeks ago CmdrTaco gave Microsoft the posting history along with IPs, email addresses, favorite colors, your FICO score, and if you like pouring hot grits down your pants for the Bing search engine.

I'm anonymous, on the Internet, and have no actually proof, so it has to be 100% true! Now is the time to over-react and proclaim you are quitting Slashdot.

Hmmm, Credibility....

[Bob9113]

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.

TechCrunch and Pandora

[meehawl]

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. Plus, Pandora's Flash interface is just aggravating, user-hostile, and screams hipster-designer-marketroid-douchbags-in-control.

Re:TechCrunch and Pandora

[Red Flayer]

FWIW, the Valley is a small place. One of Arrington's first interviews was Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora.

There doesn't need to be any fiduciary interest on Arrington's part, familiarity with Pandora might be all it takes to make him favor Pandora.

And also, not sure where you're getting the concept of a big rivalry between Pandora and Last.fm. I've observed no such thing... just that people use what they are comfortable with. Maybe there're fanboys sprouting up, but I think you're overanalyzing.

IMO, Arrington's just a twit. Twits exist independently of financial arrangements.