Update: Last.fm vehemently denies this rumor. See below.
That leaked U2 album is causing all sorts of trouble. The unreleased album, which is due out on March 3, found its way onto BitTorrent and was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. That, apparently, sent music industry lawyers over at the Recording Industry Association of America into a fit. As a result, word is going around that the RIAA asked social music service Last.fm for data about its user’s listening habits to find people with unreleased tracks on their computers. And Last.fm, which is owned by CBS, actually handed the data over to the RIAA, according to a tip we received:
I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that last.fm recently provided the RIAA with a giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks. As word spread numerous employees at last.fm were up in arms because the data collected (a) can be used to identify individuals and (b) will likely be shared with 3rd parties that have relationships with the RIAA.
Supposedly, the operations team which handed over the data in the first place weren’t told the true purpose for the transfer or who was getting the data until after the fact, and only when they had to help with some corrupted data. It sounds like it was more of a corporate decision. I’ve contacted both CBS and the RIAA. Most of the Last.fm team is in London, where the weekend has already started. For now Last.fm says: “To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.” (The RIAA declined to comment).
Setting aside what actually happened to the data, and assuming this rumor is true, why would the RIAA target Last.fm? It wasn’t streaming the U2 album, and it is not an illegal download service. But Last.fm has millions of users who are heavy music consumers, and many of them download Last.fm’s Scrobbler software which keeps track of every single song you listen to on your computer, no matter which music player you use. In other words, it captures tracks played from illegal BitTorrent downloads just as easily as from iTunes.
Last.fm members knowingly share what they are listening to with the rest of the Last.fm community, and in return receive social recommendations of music they might like. That is the whole point of the service. And Last.fm’s privacy policy does clearly state:
. . . your record collection (including your skipping history) may be viewed by all other users of Last.fm (who may include other organisations or representatives of other organisations who have registered as Last.fm users) and that they may easily associate this information with your Last.fm username.
But most probably never even considered it a possibility that individually identifiable information about their listening habits (legal, illegal, or otherwise) could be handed over to an organization known for taking consumers to court for file-sharing. What makes this even more egregious is that it appears to be absent any legal precedent (such as a pending lawsuit) for which Last.fm could at least hide behind as an excuse.
Incidents like this highlight how the social Web can sometimes bite back if you are not careful. It also raises the issue of who owns all of this data about you and what they can do with it. (The same issue that caused Facebook to backtrack on recent changes to its data policy). Unfortunately, it’s come down to this: you really shouldn’t share any data on the Web you wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing in a court of law.
(Please contact us at tips [at] techcrunch if you have more information about this).
Update: Some more denials from Last.FMers, including one of the co-founders, Richard Jones, in comments, who says this story is “utter nonsense and totally untrue,” and another one from Russ Garrett, a systems architect.
Update 2 (2/21/09): There are a lot of angry questions being raised about this post in comments and elsewhere. Lots of demands for retractions and some people questioning the timing of the post late on Friday night.
First, on the timing. The reason this story was posted so late was because I had contacted a Last.fm spokesperson in the U.S. earlier in the day who promised me a response, and I decided to wait for it. Several hours passed, with assurances that a statement was being prepared. So I was a little surprised when it was only one sentence:
To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.
That statement is hardly a categorical denial. It leaves open all sorts of holes. Was the data collected internally, but never actually handed over? Was it made available to a specific record label or group of record labels, perhaps at the request of the RIAA. Or did the whole thing never happen? I asked for clarification, but again was referred to the single vague statement. After I posted, I again contacted the spokesperson to see if she had any further comment she would like to make. She didn’t.
Soon after I posted, however, plenty of unofficial but heartfelt denial came from Last.fm staffers in London, two of which I linked to last night in the update above. The one from Russ Garrett, in particular, raised even more questions. His denial starts out unequivocal, but then he adds a squishy disclaimer:
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.
Hmm, so could the RIAA or a record label use the data to identify people? I never suggested that it was Last.fm that was singling out individuals listening to unreleased tracks. The issue is whether the RIAA or any of its member companies are trying to do so and whether or not Last.fm is helping them.
As Garrett points out, Last.fm shares aggregate listening data with the labels. Are there any unique identifiers associated with this data that could lead back to an individual, despite any precautions Last.fm might take? (It wouldn’t be unprecedented—remember that leaked AOL search data a few years ago?) I sent Garrett an email about 5 hours ago asking him some of these questions.
From the very beginning, I’ve presented this story for what it is: a rumor. Despite my attempts to corroborate it and the subsequent detail I’ve been able to gather, I still don’t have enough information to determine whether it is absolutely true. But I still don’t have enough information to determine that it is absolutely false either. What I do have are a lot of unanswered questions about how exactly Last.fm shares user data with the record industry.
Update 3 (2/22/09): Garrett got back to me. He responds:
The data we make available to labels is aggregate data about their artists – it’s a slightly more detailed version of what you see on the site. We release no data linking users and plays to any third parties.
The only data we provide to labels (in addition to the data publicly available on their artist pages) are historical graphs of listeners and plays. There’s no way to link these to individual users.
If a label was trying to work out who’s been listening to their leaked track, the closest they can get would be to look at the publicly-available listeners on the music pages. I would doubt that would be enough evidence to convict someone, and users can opt out of being displayed there in their settings.
Update 4 (2/23/09): Last.fm co-founder Richard Jones expands on his denial in comments with an official post on the Last.fm blog. He also adds this:
We never share personally identifiable data such as email and IP addresses. The only type of data we make available to labels and artists, other than what you see on the site, is aggregate data of listeners and number of plays.
I never knew they were owned by CBS. It’s time to uninstall their client if this is true.
hmmmm…bye bye lastFM and scrobbling on Amarok. I will miss ye.
Looks like you won’t be saying good bye after all.
http://blog.las...re-full-of-shit
If that sale had happened yesterday, this same site’s comment threads would have been full of congrats. Awesome.
Just Deleted my last.fm account… le sigh.
Same for Boxee =/
don’t let the door hit your asses on the way out
It’s time for a new generation of game changing social networks where we the users own our own data. http://chi.mp/ is trying to be that game changer and there are probably others out there too.
Eeeeeeeeeee…what we talk about?? That what I’m listening is only matter of tags of my music files. If I only want i can tag all my files with unreleased album, even with non recorded yet. Tag may lie.
That’s a REALLY good point, except that if they had “probable cause,” they could seize your computer, play all your files, and find the tracks that they were looking for, despite whatever you tagged/named the files.
i dont understand what the big deal is. last.fm handed data over to the music owners (the labels, or in this case, reworded as the riaa). wheres the problem?
and if you didnt know that the riaa owns the music, then i suggest you look it up before replying to my comment.
also the riaa most likely has a contract with last.fm that says they can look at their own musics data if they want to.
once again, techcrunch has a slow news day.
The RIAA doesn’t own anything….You don’t know what you are talking bout and you should stop talking. You have misidentified a congressional lobbying organization, that sometimes represents content rights owners, with content creators….that is both ignorant and very disturbing and it tells me that you are likely a fascist, or a raging idiot…. prove me wrong.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
i suggest you look up whether the riaa owns *anything*.
*giggles*
If people are stealing U2’s work they should be prosecuted. Any company involved in the distribution of music should gladly help them out as it is against the law not to mention just bad karma to steal from people. For god sakes wait till the thing comes out and download your favorite song for a buck. If you can’t spare a buck for your own enjoyment go shoot yourself. Anyone who is a fan of U2 and stole their music should be ashamed of themselves for doing so and I hope they get caught.
You can’t steal something digital. There’s no loss of a physical object. Nice try though.
Excuse me while I go download the U2 CD because I can, but refuse to listen to it because they’re dumbasses and their music sucks. Have I still caused a loss in profit?
Actually there IS a loss of a physical object. It’s called money.
rgbiuwri either works for a music label or the riaa…
There actually IS NO BIG DEAL !
Just never use
- LastFM
- Facebook
- Google’s properties
- Lala
and any other of these monopolist data-collecting Websites again.
Unbelievable if true.
First the Facebook fiasco and now this.
When will there be a company that says enough is enough?
Anjali Sen
Last.fm’s email inbox is probably jam-packed with messages from irate users, right about now! I know one of them would be from me, if I was a user.
I think it’s TechCrunch’s e-mail inbox that’s overflowing.
I got this from Robin Wauters a few minutes ago:
—
“I’m one of the TechCrunch editors. I’ve been following your comments on the Last.fm post, just wanted to give you quick heads up to say Erick (the author of the post) is digging deeper into this. Might take a while for an update, though, sorry for that.”
—
Shouldn’t Erick (the author of the post) have “dug deeper” before posting?
TC, stop digging this hole and just apologize or offer some proof of your accusation. What’s the deal here?
“But most probably never even considered it a possibility that individually identifiable information about their listening habits (legal, illegal, or otherwise) could be handed over to an organization known for taking consumers to court for file-sharing.
If users are downloading and scrobbling illegal downloads you can’t blame the RIAA for wanting to act, and for Last.fm to want to protect key relationships with the labels.
But this will be an absolute PR disaster for Last.fm if proven true. I’m sure it will result in mass-uninstallations of their software.
You are wrong and you are ignoring the law. You cannot legally disseminate user information to The RIAA, as they are not content owners!….EVEN IF the information in question is that of a user who HAS downloaded or posted illegally obtained material. The RIAA is a congressional lobbying group, not a content owner or copyright holder….You cannot infringe upon the RIAA’s copyrights….They don’t own any music….they don’t hold copyrights. If this story is true then LastFM broke the law….in addition to betraying the trust and privacy of their users and has joined hands with middle man fascist scumbags who don’t make anything but money.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
1 – the information they allegedly gave is publicly available
2 – disseminate doesnt mean what you think it does
1 : to spread abroad as though sowing seed
2 : to disperse throughout ….
So are you saying that it is all false…never happened. I sure hope you are right.
You don’t own like you think you do.
I’m sure you wouldn’t be saying that if I came in and stole your computer or took whatever tools you use to make a living. Music theft sucks just as any other theft and the people who are in the business over distributing music should help each other in these cases to stop the illegal theft of property. I’m sure you would want the same help if you were the one who was being stolen from. If you aren’t aware by now that your internet use is always up for grabs then you just haven’t been paying attention.
whoa, stop there. taking tools or whatever isn’t the same. Tools are physical objects, music is art, an expresion of society by one individual. Read the constitution. There are no promises of money, just control, and even that for only 14 years with one 14 year extension (thanks for nothing disney for screwing us on that one as welll.) The founding fathers understood that every bit of creativity is based on another persons creativity. A musician hears a beat or rhythm and say “hey” and runs off to make a tune. someone else hears that tune (the beat or whatever) and says “wow” and runs off to make his tune. In the end all creativity belongs to society (hence the term “public commons”) and therefore belongs to all of us. I do not have a problem with musicians making a living, but that’s not going to happen till they break off from the music industry’s tit.
the RIAA act on behalf of the content owners.
it need not be proven true…am sure people have already uninstalled it just to be safe
This is exactly why I avoid putting spybot social services on my computer. No one needs to know what I am/am not doing.
Metadata is proof of nothing. I could tag a bunch of tracks with the tracklist of the new U2 album, scrobble them to last.fm and then it looks like I’ve listened to them when I’ve really listened to Ricky Martin or some other rubbish.
I think the RIAA were just trying to work out a rough idea of the scale of piracy.
I agree with you MartinSFP, I was thinking the same thing while reading this article. If true, there’s no way the RIAA or any other court could prove that the files with the Meta Data labeled U2 ‘New Song’ is actually the song in question.
if it’s only the meta data which is uploaded on Last.fm then you are right. But what if the client also uploads a hash of the mp3-file? The hash can easily prove that the file was actually the mp3 file of a particular song
true Martin. i also struggle to care about this story because, even if true, the only people who would be ‘damaged’ by it are people who (a) pirated music (b) were stupid enough to scrobble their pirated music.
protip: dont pirate stuff or at least dont be so dense as to proceed to use something whose very purpose is to broadcast what you’re listening to to the world when listening to it. there is a ’scrobbling on/off’ button right there for goodness sake.
Im pretty sure last.fm only uses the metadate, atleast when your scrobbling from an ipod, it wouln’t be able to generate a hash.
And even if they uploaded a hash from the songs u played in itunes, changing only on tiny part of the file, eg the embeded cover art, the spelling of the artist name, or the track number, the hash would change completely and thus make any association impossible. I don’t know about the u2 album, but for most common lps there are a heapload of different encoded versions.
Tracking the hash would only be possible if there was only one source for that particular album and users didn’t touch it (iTunes often modifies metadata slightly, without any action on the users site)
But then, as most hashes are about 10-20 digits, u couldn’t rule out the possibility that u listened to a song which just accidentaly had the same hash value as one of the u2 songs, but im not sure if that would be strong evidence in court
@Liam: I agree with you, many devices cannot generate hashes and also that if you change small parts of the mp3 the hash will be completely different. And the only portion of an mp3 which a user can However, what if the scrobbler uploaded the hash together with the ID-Tag?
If you use a simple proxy, like Paros, you will see that for some songs the Scrobbler uploads what it calls the ‘fingerprint’ of a song . And the fingerprint is actually some ID-Tag info of the mp3, a sha256 hash of the file and some form-data which is unreadable and probably is some application data.
What’s the problem? If they hadn’t given them the data, the RIAA could have just went to their site and gotten it themselves, it’s not hidden in any way. Looks like a couple people are listening to the album right now (http://www.last...izon/+listeners).
Yes, but they can’t see IP addresses and registration emails from there, can they? I’m not saying Last.FM gave that info away but come on, what else would they really be after?
Please last.fm say it is not so!
they HAVE to say,that it is like you said
(
let’s bold the phhrase “assuming this rumor is true,” shall we?
If so, there will be blood on the dance floor.
Looking at LaLa.com’s privacy policy, it looks like they reserve the right to basically do the same thing. Disturbing.
Hmm, conspiracy theories start: Was the U2 album released “accidentally” so the RIAA could search out users that had the unauthorized album on their drives? It’s one thing to be storing Britney Spears tracks from 10 years ago, another to have an album with tracks that *nobody* should have yet. Just tossing the possibility out there…
Not out of the question for these dumb asses…..Either way, technically, the album was RELEASED BY THE LABEL! It wasn’t “Leaked”…so if the plan was to trap people they are gonna have a hell of a time…UNIVERSAL RELEASED IT!
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
Unlikely. You might find that U2 have other things to do than play Trojan horse with a new album. If that is what they wanted, it would be less risky just to “seed” a rare track.
If this is true I will immediately delete my Last.fm account. I have been a Scrobbler user since 2004.
I’m not sure how this is going to help the RIAA because the data collected and displayed is track name and artist. I’m guessing they will need to prove that the users were listening to the actual leaked track and not another track that has changed meta data that corresponds with the new albums. I know it sounds silly but surly they would have to have hard evidence?
Nope Joseph, the RIAA doesn’t need any evidence at all. They just point the finger at you and the courts find you guilty. These people twist and bend the law to their own corporate greed. Spend about 30 minutes to do a google on ‘RIAA Lawsuit Victims’ and see what these scumbags are capable of.
And I don’t condone copyright infringement, but the RIAA is going along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition!
At least they’ve already changed their policies on lawsuits. The RIAA said last year that they wouldn’t be suing people anymore.
Not that they won’t find something equally heinous to do instead.
I think this is a good point, Joseph. If it goes as far as court evidence, this information alone probably couldn’t convict, but it could point toward where they could get more evidence.
If this is all true they could have released user IP data….that would be a catastrophe.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
The thieves are wrecking the net. Period.
If people were responsible in much larger numbers and behaved as they do at their local retailer bullshit like this would be a rare occurrence.
Universal released the record. People bought it. Copies should be covered under fair use. You own it you should be able to make copies. The Majors failure to monetize the web and respect their customer base has done WAY more damage than “thieves” could ever hope to.
bbb,
wheatus.com
It has never been legal to copy music, movies, etc and share them with anyone. You can’t even play them in a public place with out paying to do so. If you build tables for a living would you want 100’s of thousands of people to steal your tables or use them for free? I sure wouldn’t.
What a silly analogy. People who make tables create finite, physical objects which are intended for use by multiple people over long periods of time. And the table-maker has no say whether that table is used in a two-person home, a busy restaurant, or on a stage in front of 10,000 people. It would be difficult for you to have picked a WORSE thing to compare to digital replication of music.
As Last.fm is based in the U.K., their privacy policy says the data controller is in London, could this fall foul of the British Data Protection Act? Their privacy policy seems to allow for this … but who knows.
Looking at the Last.fm data should not be able to incriminate anyone. They’re ignoring that promotional press copies of the album *have* in fact been created and distributed. I just read a review of the albumy esterday on Stereogum. It’s possible that some of these reviewers have ripped the album to their computer so they could listen to it on their iPod. It’s also possible these people use Last.fm.
The RIAA needs to suck it. I am so tired of these people. I can’t believe we’re going on a decade of this BS now.
LOL. All these chumps want to share their info and then find it unfathomable when this public info falls into “the wrong hands”.
You get what you deserve, folks.
Exactly this.
IP addresses are NOT public info. Yours is being recorded by this sites provider as you post. If they give it out are you a chump?
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
IPs addresses aren’t, but Last.fm inputted credentials (username and password login into your account on their server) are.
Your last.fm profile is tied to an identity (name, email, etc.).
It doesn’t matter at all what IP addresses that profile is logged in from.
Indeed…but the point you are missing is that the RIAA lawsuits that have been brought successfully have hinged on the IP’s. That’s the smoking gun for them when they bring single mothers of 4 to court and ruin their lives.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
There’s one problem here that I don’t quite understand. This ISN’T the way last.fm works. Last.fm only scrobbles the details of the tags on your files and has no real way of knowing if what you’re actually listening to. Just because your last.fm page shows U2 doesn’t mean you were actually listening to that, it just means you were listening to a track where the field for artist in your tag says “U2″.
right. and this is why they can have fun actually trying to sue any of these people. This won’t hold up in court.
Last.FM also scrobbles a fingerprint of the tracks you play. If or if not this is by default on their client, I can’t remember.
You are asked to turn it on or off when the software is installed, since it aids with the metadata issue but reduces your privacy a certain bit.
But yes, they should be able to verify the leaked tracks with the fingerprint data.
I use Amarok and I don’t think it sends any fingerprit or so…
No, no, I mean the Last.fm software.
http://blog.las...printing-begins
I don’t listen to illegal downloaded music, however, I am immediately removing LastFM from my computer because of this.
Why? Because the RIAA is totally untrustworthy, and has demonstrated that it will use legal bullying to try to get people to ’settle’ rather than be bankrupted by defending themselves from an accusation in court.
Who is to say that the scrobbler data is accurate?
This is not a case of ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’. At the very least, you risk having to defend yourself against a false accusation.
So, you boycott last.fm/CBS for giving out public information, but you’re still going to support the RIAA by buying music. If you don’t like CBS then fine, but I don’t think you’re affecting the RIAA in anyway.
There are plenty of ways to buy music without supporting the RIAA.
I buy all my music in the form of Used CDs from Amazon.com Resellers.
It’s 100% legal (AFAIK), sometimes a CD can be as cheap as $1.00 (plus shipping) and the RIAA doesn’t get a dime.
My comment wasn’t about supporting or not supporting the RIAA.
My point was that they are known for using unethical tactics, including a scattergun of setting attorneys on people based on flimsy evidence and so if an organization is supplying them with data that could include information identifying you, then you are at risk of needing to defend yourself even if the evidence won’t stand up.
Admittedly, the rebuttal and unreliability of the original story makes me look a little hasty, if not foolish, but frankly I don’t have a lot invested in this – I don’t want to either boycott or support lastfm, or read lots of reports and come to a judgement over time – I read what seemed to be an alarming story, and reacted in a way that I think many others would do too to eliminate a potential risk to myself.
If there really is nothing to this, then I have to say it’s pretty irresponsible of TechCrunch. Even now the story gives the impression that it may have some basis despite the ‘denials’.
(I didn’t mean to appear to be doubting the ‘denial’ in that reply – just pointing out that TechCrunch is still casting doubt on them)
Worse, you boycott a successful startup/web business because TC writes an accusatory article? last.fm have already denied it, less than half an hour after this article hit (pretty impressive since it’s gone midnight UK time).
What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?
They aren’t a startup, they are owned by CBS.
In 2002 it was a start-up. In 2007, it was acquired by CBS.
While I tend to listen to my own media, I don’t like the idea that a great social network like Last.FM (CBS) would potentially deliver my listening habits to the RIAA. That just wrong. As of now, Last.FM is removed from my PC, account deleted. The risk / reward is not worth it.
Switching entirely to streamed media like Pandora. There I know I am only listening to their music.
Only problem being last.fm is so much better than Pandora because of the scrobbling and the social network.
The new album is already out here in Ireland, just like all U2 albums are released early here.
Hardly a “leak” now is it
Wow, I’m deleting my Last.Fm account on principle alone
Finally a post that mentions “principles”.
Would that be the principle of unfounded rumor or the principle of irresponsible journalism?
One thing that’s ludicrous about this is it shows just how short-sighted the RIAA has been for years. Why knee-cap a service that actually enables people to learn about new music and helps PROMOTE the artists you portend to represent, in a way that’s completely legal and actually helps sales? Why knee-cap a service that allows you to collect valuable data about the popularity of artists that you could use to funnel marketing budgets? Stupid.
And Last.fm is pretty dumb too if they actually did hand over the data. I just don’t know what to make of it.
Hmm – you’re right about the summary knee-capping.
But hadn’t you heard? Rumours are ALWAYS true.
Tough titties – If Last.FM is ‘owned’ by CBS – and I have to say that was pretty easy to figure form their site content – then CBS will of course let the user data go to the execrable RIAA.
Remember this is the mob representing merciless gouging of artists down through the years.
As far as principles mentioned in a later post goes – IMHO that mob was, is, and always will be utterly devoid of any.
Now excuse me while I get back to digitizing my collection of Vinyl LP’s purchased at considerable expense many years ago evidently to provide the funding basis for all the shite going down right about now. Really,
OH, and I’m thinking of SHARING some of it. that’s right, sharing something I own with others who don’t own the stuff. Needless to say If I do that, I’ll have to then top myself out of pure guilt:-)
“Word is going round” that Techcrunch make shit up based on rumour, don’t wait to substantiate it officially, and just go ahead and post regardless. No confirmation of this, but I’m going to place it here as news anyway, because the pageviews it’ll get will impress our advertisers. We’re proper journalists aren’t we? None of this is going to make the idea that bloggers should be taken seriously at all laughable is it? And, oh look, that brown bag of Myspace money has just arrived, brilliant! La la la, I’m a moron.
are you new to the planet?
No he’s not, but you may well be. Nice post, Fastchecking..
I think this is not a big deal, even if the ownership changes in google I will use their services anyway, will you not?
No, incidents like this highlight how you amateurs can take a source and quote it without any fact checking, due diligence, or journalistic integrity.
Do you event *want* to be taken seriously?
You are a strange. Why not comment on the fucking article rather than smacking the rag.
My comment on the article is this bozo is full of shit. End of story.
I think he did comment on the article and how it demonstrates how TC continually distorts rumors and ignores basic journalistic principles.
If there’s no meat to the article (that is, it’s a lie), then what is there for James to comment on other than the lie?
How much current and future business will Last.fm lose based on this un-researched, un-corroborated lie? Do you see how many people are knee-jerk deleting their accounts?
Shameful, TC. Really.
He is commenting on the article especially about its lack of facts which is required for a good article
So what? There is nothing they can do about this that will hold up in court. I can tag my tracks however I like, so if say a Metallica track that I purchased legally is tagged with U2 info, then that’s my defense and its their words against mine.
As a Lastfm user, this is shitty beyond belief, and I will have to heavily consider not using their product anymore if true. But no users will get in trouble for this.
I work for Last.fm.
This has not happened. This is a complete lie, and we’d never do such a thing.
I work in the operations and data teams at Last.fm – if something like this had happened, I’d know about it.
I’d love to know how Techcrunch came across this baseless, unsubstantiated accusation and decided to publish it as news.
They put a question mark at the end of the headline, so that makes it OK.
Jon Gruber blogged about this on Daring Fireball. The headline to his post is “Does TechCrunch Publish Scurrilous Unsubstantiated Bullshit but Lamely Attempt to Cover Their Asses by Ending Their Sensational Headlines With Question Marks?”
http://www.last...06518/_/8660996
“I’d like to issue a full and categorical denial of this. We’ve never had any such 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 appear to have made this whole story up.”
Indeed. Unbelievable if true.
The whole point of services like Last.fm is to make your listening habits public and shareable with other people. You’re willfully uploading this data to a public website and then freaking out when the RIAA gets their hands on it?
There are a lot of reasons to not like the RIAA but people are way overreacting about this. Just like everyone totally overreacted to the Facebook TOS change. If you don’t want people to have information about you, don’t put it on the internet and share it with a whole bunch of other people.
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.
lol ….
”We’d never personally identify our users to a third party”
In Last.Fm we trust.
http://www.down...data-with-riaa/
Techcrunch’s quality is declining fast indeed.
Only one post away from being dumped in my “tabloid” folder.
I only come back to TechCrunch so that I can be sure to de-bunk their untrue stories to my friends before they become Internet memes. One person had already cancelled his Last.fm account when I pointed out that TC’s story is a lie.
I think that Last.fm is holding all of the deleted accounts in stasis for a while, so if you deleted yours, they might be able to give it back.
Shame TC. When will you post something pointing out that you were probably wrong? You can’t just update this post. The damage has been done.
If you have any integrity left, TechCrunch, you’ll post about this incident. You don’t need to fall on your swords if you still think you’re correct, but this lie you’ve started is all over the Internet. What is your reaction beyond a crippled “update” to this post from last week?
So uh, what was that you said again?
Wait? The new U2 is out there? Sweet. I’m going to go download for free. Thanks CBS/RIAA!
I know what you mean. The RIAA f@(ked up really bad here. I know a lot of people that found out about this because of the RIAA. Haha corporate Nazi’s.
it appears the RIAA has found out that one of their member companies has an even better spyware base than the ISPs they are trying to strong-arm!
Tom – Go to the top of the class.
The U2 album was up for digital album on an Australian site before it actually got on bittorrent.
So some people have the album legitimently and some people downloaded it off bt.
Suppose last.fm did hand over the data…How is the RIAA going to know who’s who when they have a look at the last.fm data?
It’s amateur hour at TechCrunch. Last.fm has stated unequivocally that they didn’t hand over any data. I like reading tech blogs, but they really need to stop this sort of baseless speculation and actually check their facts.
So, how long will it take for you guys to post a retraction?
Oh come on. It’s the internet. Have we learned nothing in the past few years of social networking. Your data isn’t sound or protected. To me that’s the nature of social networking. If you are playing illegally obtained songs, don’t scrobble them! Common sense to me. If it were apple spying on what you’re playing in iTunes, that’s one issue. But songs you are intentionally scrobbling? You know it’s monitored. That’s what you signed up and enabled the client for!
“Unfortunately, it’s come down to this: you really shouldn’t share any data on the Web you wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing in a court of law.”
Are you for real? It’s no wonder TechCrunch’s credibility has been taking such a shit-kicking lately.
How about “it comes down to this: DON’T STEAL!” and if you’re stupid enough to scrobble music you’ve obtained illegally, then you’re definitely a candidate for the Darwin Awards.
When are people going to give their indulged ritalin-soaked heads a shake that theft is theft, regardless of your opinions of various aspects of the music industry.
I don’t have a very positive view of the airline industry, but I can’t sneak onto a flight without a ticket; I can’t walk into a bank and just grab some money and walk out – in both cases, theft is prevented because of proper security and people realize they can’t get away with it because they will be prosecuted and thrown in jail.
The RIAA’s prosecutorial crusade finally brought the same reality check to music thieves and made people realize that just because ‘everyone was doing it’ didn’t make it ok. Remember what happened because of similarly twisted ‘crowdthink’ 70 years ago?
I agree with consumers who feel they shouldn’t have to pay multiple times for a song they’ve legally paid for via download to be able to burn it to a CD or an iPod or other device so that they can access it from whatever platform they wish to use.
In the ‘freemium’ environment of the Internet, and the new economic reality, people are going to have to get a grip on the fact that it costs money to create content, and that new models will need to evolve to modularize, distribute and monetize that IP along the lines of how the iTunes store made weaning off illegal torrent downloads less painful, along with the fact that music thieves were being prosecuted.
Someday the light bulb will go on that ‘just because it’s on the Internet, doesn’t make it ok’ whether it be stolen music, libelous or defamatory information, or inciting hate. Real word laws apply to real word actions, whether online or not.
And if last.fm has handed information about scrobbles that contain an obviously stolen ‘pre-release’, whether it be U2, or an new artist at your neighborhood coffee shop struggling to make a living, then they should be commended for standing up for the rights of the people whose creative intellectual property allows last.fm to grab their own piece of the music pie chart by constructing a legal ’sharing’ model for its users.
If you had also done your homework, you would have discovered that Universal Australia, a division of U2’s label, Universal Music Group, accidentally offered the album for sale on its own digital download site for a couple of hours earlier this week — long enough for plenty of copies to get out the door and illegally make their way into the file-’sharing’ channels.
Think of it this way, how long do you think you’d be able to afford an Internet connection to download any music or anything else if the place you (or your parents) work at had people coming in and stealing the content, products or services that pay the income that underwrites your connection, and then copied it for free for friends?
This kind of theft hurts real people, with real families, and real mouths to feed, especially at lower income jobs at the bottom of the trickle-down food chain that are usually the first to get axed.
And it’s time whimpering social network butterflies get over their narcissistic flutterings of whether their last SBD turned into a more disastrous result, and realize that the kind of social model offered by last.fm is a privilege, not a right, courtesy of the music industry and the flesh and blood people who were creative enough to compose and/or perform the original content.
Grow the fuck up already.
Musicians say that their life is all about the ‘music’, putting it out there for people to experience, their ‘art’, have their voice heard or whatever.
Well, the internet/file sharing/bittorent has allowed them to do so and on a much larger scale.
Musicans and the record industry need to get over themselves already. Wake up and realize thats its 2009.
People use the internet as another way to discover music. Dont they understand that even illegal music downloads do in fact translate to CD sales?
The average music listener is now realizing, especially in these economic conditions that going to the store and buying a CD that you havent even heard before (lets just say you heard one single) is too much of a risk.
By risk, I mean the album would suck and it would have been a waste of money. And throw in there that CD prices are still fairly high. The average price for an album in Australia is around $25-$30.
The message is pretty clear and simple: Make better music and the people will buy it.
Let me preface this by saying I am in no way connected to the music industry or the motion picture industry.
Like you, Henry, I’ve also been conscious of the risk of possibly buying a CD album, sight unheard only to discover a few great tracks mixed with filler sometimes. But evolving technology has evolved the concept of an ‘album’ , and the modular, micro-payment model of the iTunes store and other online outlets, along with their preview function, have made it somewhat easier to ‘legally’ avoid the filler.
But that ll that said, let’s fact-check your statement “Dont they understand that even illegal music downloads do in fact translate to CD sales?” . . .
From a number of online & industry sources:
CD sales officially hit an all-time low in 2008.
361 million CDs were sold in 2008, down almost 20 percent from the previous year. About 84 percent of all album purchases were CDs, down from 90 percent the year before.
Total album sales in the United States last year, including CDs and full-album downloads, were 428 million, a 14 percent drop from 2007, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan. Since the industry’s peak in 2000, album sales have declined 45 percent.
On the other hand, in 2008, just over a billion songs were downloaded, a 27 percent increase from 2007.
And as I said, new models are evolving – 20% percent of Rihanna’s revenue has come from the sale of ring tones.
So, like TechCrunch, you need to be a bit more careful in stating something as fact. But I hear you about the high CD prices in Australia. There are, though, listening stations at record stores and where you can preview albums before you buy, and enough online outlets where you can just buy the tracks you like.
But your comment about musicians and the record industry needing to get over themselves is an unfair generalization. Does that mean authors of books should ‘get over themselves’ when something like the Kindle 2 ‘text to speech’ function usurps their potential audiobook rights?
Should photographers get over themselves when graphic arts ’sharing’ sites offer ilegal downloads of their copyrighted works? And how many of the same sites offer illegal Rapidshare or torrent downloads of complete website templates, code and all, from content creators like TemplateMonster.com?
Nothing you’ve said justifies criminal theft.
The one statement you made I do agree with is ” make better music and people will buy it” – which can apply to any creative content.
But let me leave you with a few more sobering statistics courtesy of drownedinsound.com that serve as a footnote to your “Dont they understand that even illegal music downloads do in fact translate to CD sales? ” . . .
“the IFPI, has released a report which claims that more than 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008.
This huge figure equates to 95% of all music downloads and is the same percentage of illegal downloads which were made in 2007, despite government action and the growth of legal sales and compelling alternatives to P2P.
We knew things were bad but this is astounding. It means that due to file-sharing via P2P, blogs, IM-ing, YouSendit/Rapidshare-ing zip files, CDR’s, hard-drive swapping, etc. the record industry is only making 5% of the money it could potentially be making. This five percent of legitimate/legal sales equates to US$3.7 billion (about £2.4 billion, according to Google’s currency converter), which is all well and good but it’s a pittance when you consider what the other 95% is worth, we figure about £48 billion!!!
(US$69 Billion).
‘Nuff said.
In your well-articulated argument, you have very conveniently failed to mention one important fact: iTunes Music Store sold songs worth $3.34 billion in 2008, a whole 25% increase over the previous year[1]. Since you quote a figure of $3.7 billion for total conventional CD sales, the iTunes store (alone!) is doing business almost equal in size to conventional retail stores.
The CD sales dropped 20% in 2008, but at the same time, digital downloads rose by 25%. Given that conventional sales amount to $3.7 billion, this equates to a loss of $925m, while the iTunes store saw a rise of $840m. That alone almost covers the “loss” you speak of.
I have not even factored in sales from Amazon, eMusic and other online music stores as well as sales from ringtones and similar sources of revenue; but it is increasingly clear that CD sales figures do not tell the complete story. If anything, I’d attribute any overall loss in figures of music consumption to the increasing amount of absolute garbage being released by the major label these days.
Your argument falls flat on its face.
[1] http://blogs.ew...he_numbers.html
Small typo: 34% increase in iTunes music sales (not 25%)
” This five percent of legitimate/legal sales equates to US$3.7 billion (about £2.4 billion, according to Google’s currency converter)”
This is assuming that everyone downloading was actually intending to purchase, which would most likely not be accurate.
I agree with Prashant that there are other sources such as iTunes, Amazon, MSN Music and other online sources of music that are mitigating the drop in real world CD sales, but you’re missing the main point, and my argument doesn’t fall flat on its face.
40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008. A loss is still a loss.
If you equate an iTunes average price of 99 cents to each, you’re totaling US$ 39.6 Billion dollars.
The rise in iTunes purchases or from any other source doesn’t offset that loss. That’s $40 billion dollars worth of theft – only $10B short of Bernie Madoff’s financial fraud, and convince me how it is any less criminal.
We’ve all had out complaints with the record industry and the RIAA – but there are also good people within the industry trying to discover great talent (Clive Davis, Quincy Jones etc.). And there are people who’ve taken financial advantage of big talent (some examples – Col. Tom Parker-Elvis; Brian Epstein-The Beatles; Frank Weber-Billy Joel)
But free market dynamics are indeed forcing evolution, and some artists may see shrinking revenues as efficiencies evolve, but at least they are revenues and not losses due to theft.
No one in this thread has offered any justification for theft. But we all agree the system is in need up updating and fixing. And the same applies to DVD and Video Game theft and its distribution model.
And if we need big guns like the RIAA to give some people with a self-delusional sense of entitlement a wake-up call by protecting the rights of artists, how is that any different from the police going in and taking out the tiresome list of school shooters who try to justify killing students and teachers because they’re zoned out on Doom and/or have been bullied or taunted.
Like the recording industry, our educational system is full of much that needs fixing, including zero tolerance of bullying. And it also needs to cope with the larger social impact of music, movies, video games and other forms of popular culture that drive imitation because social cliques of young people think it’s cool – and result in an erosion of values and respect towards each other.
(But that’s a whole other thread . . .)
Despite the influences, what this all comes down to is taking responsibility for our individual choices . . .and the bottom line is that stealing music, or DVD’s or website templates, or photos and so on that are the Constitutionally protected property of the creators is illegal and wrong.
There is no justification. Period.
Not trying to pontificate in a condescending way, but it’s been evident by this posting thread that some people ‘get it’ and some people don’t, but hopefully all the discussion has prompted a broader way of thinking about it.
You’re right about some people not getting it. 40 billion downloads is not the same as 40 billion lost sales, for two reasons. First, plenty of people who download an album or song buy the album or song. Second, not everyone who downloads an album, if the choice were buying the album or nothing, would buy the album.
The other reason for the drop in CD sales, as quoted by the various industry press, is DVD sales and games increasing, and eating into disposable incomes.
> Does that mean authors of books should ‘get over themselves’ when something like the Kindle 2 ‘text to speech’ function usurps their potential audiobook rights?
Are you trolling, or do you really think that content creators should have the right to restrict the use of the content with terms like “you may read this text with a text reader but not with a voice generator”? If so, I have a better idea for you: instead of selling their tracks, musicians should sell separate licenses for speakers and headphones.
“The message is pretty clear and simple: Make better music and the people will buy it.”
This comment is completely illogical and dumb. Just because you think most music is bad (what I think also, by the way), you are not allowed to steal it. Why do you want to own it illegally, if it is not worth?
This is like “Write better books and the people will buy it instead of stealing it” or “If you make your bread tase better, I will stop stealing it and buy it instead”.
People download music they may potentially enjoy. If it turns out to be a bust, they delete it – at least that is the assumption. Personally, I think Apple is partially to blame. As they continue producing larger capacity iPods – 30gb, 60gb, 80gb, 120gb, 160gb – people don’t delete these junk albums. People feel wasteful if they buy a 120gb iPod and only put 20gb of data on it.
Anyway, if one person illegally downloads music, and they enjoy what they downloaded, they will talk about it with those they come in contact with. While the original person may not buy the album, or even the 6th person he/she talks to, someone is going to buy it. Someone who may have never heard of a certain artist at all. The original person also increased ticket sales at the artist’s show, as well as merchandise sales.
The only group piracy “hurts” is the RIAA. Until they stop stealing from artists, I don’t think the public is going to care.
my gawd …
your comment is longer than the post itself …
and yes …. i didnot read it ..
Old copypasta is old.
Wow you are a miserable cunt.
AllMediaConsultant obviously makes good money from holding this view.
To think that IP can become a cash-cow, providing the copyright holder with perpetual weath, is naive. Our economy is built on scarcity – supply and demand. We need to find new models, because it’s wrong to treat intangible goods (like downloads) in the same way as a material product.
If the supply of a product is limitless (e.g. IP), and duplication incurs a negligible cost, then expecting to get paid FOREVER for a downloads is corrupt in my view. It’s very appealing to the owner of the IP, but that doesn’t make it right.
As xkcd put it today, this righteousness about sticking it to the RIAA man was right when everything was DRM’d up the wazoo… but all major stores sell non-DRM MP3 or AAC files now. We won. We can buy music from the labels without any weird crap or rules attached to it.
If you don’t like labels, don’t listen to the music they publish, plain and simple. I’m always amazing how people don’t grasp this simple concept. Plenty of podsafe artists out there.
People create IP because IP laws encourage them to. It’s appealing to the owner *and* the creator. Who else should it appeal to? Why don’t you tell us? How is it not right, because music should be free? Because nothing is stopping anyone from creating and releasing music into the public domain for free. You are not REQUIRED to charge money for your music, or publish it through a RIAA-affiliated label.
There is choice here, and some people choose the break the law just because. Because they are indulgent and self-righteous. If this energy was directed into supporting and promoting sites designed to publish and reward artists that release free music, we’d be seeing the culture shift you’re asking for.
Read Lessig’s book and read more deeply into why Creative Commons was formed. You’ll see what I mean.
Amen! But if you’re the creator of the free music, you can’t buy free food, clothing or shelter. It’s a fine model for the hobbyists who can afford it.
I think we do need a culture shift.
There are whole hierarchies of people who sit between the music makers and the listeners who are most likely not needed in the digital era. From what I’ve read, bands and artists make the majority of their money from radio royalties and from gigging. In terms of downloads and CD sales, they receive a far slimmer slice of the profits; and in some cases, they receive even _less_ from downloads. The industries standard response doesn’t wash, quite frankly.
I’m not trying to legitimise piracy – but maybe I am trying to rationalise it.
In my view, sometimes legislation can’t be used to turn a tide. I think that there are a lot of lessons that can be learnt from the open-source movement. While open-source software products (IP) are distributed for free, the creation of these products, creates an ecosystem where services can be sold.
As far as I can see, creating this kind of service-based economy is the logical step in terms of trying to ‘monetise’ any type of IP.
I think the main problem with this idea, is that large corporations would have a difficult time maintaining control. Which isn’t necessarily bad for society in my opinion.
I’ll definitely read about Lessig and Creative Commons, thanks for the tip.
“People create IP because IP laws encourage them to.” Evidence??
@ AllMediaConsultant, exactly. Don’t expect it to be a profession. You want to give away everything you do for free? Good on you. “Virtutem pretium‥esse sui.”
@G, have you ever spent time creating something, I mean weeks to months, or even more, only to have someone else rip it off and claim it as their own? Take your screenplay and sell it to a studio? Make a hit single from a score you penned?
Intellectual property rights exist to keep that from happening. IP laws encourage people to spend money, time and effort on ideas bigger than what’s readily available on hand because governments say that those efforts and expenses will be protected.
Take technology IP. Ignoring the broken patent system in the US, would Apple have spent over five years in design, research and development making the iPhone if they knew that once it was released, an LG or an HTC could legally open it up, reverse-engineer the hardware, clone the OS down to the raw bits, and re-release the handset as their own? Hell no.
What about Linux? What if it ran that instead? Well, Linux is “free.” But even Linux is licensed. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Look at the first line (http://www.linu...g/info/gnu.html): “Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.”
The irony, of course, is that it is the IP laws that ensure that Linux remains open. It’s the GNU license that states how it must be reused in an open way, and their power to REQUIRE others to use it in an open way exists because IP laws give them that power. The same irony that makes the open Creative Commons licenses legally enforceable.
Did I just blow your mind?
I definitely believe that most people who don’t believe in copyrights and IP laws *at all* are people who have not truly labored over creating something personal and new.
By the way, I went to film school, and it was required that we take a copyright law class, so that we knew what not to do, but mostly to know how we could protect our own work.
I also believe that modifications to recent IP laws overstep the original ideals of IP, but that wasn’t the question was it? You just wanted me to prove that IP works. So here’s some studies from the WIPO:
http://www.wipo...ticle_0032.html
LW – nice to see a reply with some intelligent thought behind it.
I wasn’t suggesting “IP can become a cash cow”. Yes, our economy is built upon supply and demand, scarcity will drive prices up – abundance will drive them down.
I don’t know, though, how you come to the conclusion that downloads are intangible goods. I don’t see a paid download at iTunes for a specific digital content file through a registered and secure account tied to a credit card as being intangible and not being a material product.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never encountered the supply of a product that was limitless. Production and inventory are usually tied to demand.
I also don’t see how expecting to be paid, ‘FOREVER’ or otherwise for a legally-transacted download is ‘corrupt’ or not right. If you were a painter and people buy prints of your original work and then scan it and print additional reproductions for their friends without paying you, is that not corrupt? How long, at that rate, would you be able to afford your Internet connection to even be able to post in a threat like this?
I agree, and have already stated, that we need to find new distribution models which may put downard pressure on prices – but the open market will determine that.
You and a few other people seem to be missing the point that theft is theft and is criminal. That’s not a ‘miserably cuntish’ opinion . . . it’s a truism voiced by other responders in this thread.
And finally, no, I don’t make any money from holding this view . . .but perhaps I’ll take up your suggestion . . . if I can find a way to configure uncorrupted downloads.
My main problem is with the concept of making money from IP – and I don’t think that society should necessarily view the sale of IP as a given right.
‘Intangible’ might have been the wrong word to use – but I chose it because IP can’t easily be viewed as a finite resource. I can duplicate a digital print, track or video an infinite amount of times.
The electronic credits that my debit card represents are far more tangible to me, because they relate to a finite amount of money – which is hopefully (naively?) linked to gold reserves or other suitable collateral. This is what I believe differentiates the two.
>If you were a painter and people buy prints of your
>original work and then scan it and print additional
>reproductions for their friends without paying you, is
>that not corrupt?
I think that in a fair society, people should be paid according the amount of effort they put into a given job or task. If I put a finite amount of time into a task, I’m not going to expect to be rewarded infinitely – I just don’t think it’s fair. Time is our most precious commodity, and if our society and economy used time as a yardstick rather that money, I believe we’d all be better off.
If I were a painter, and I’d made money from selling the original painting – maybe someone making prints for their friends wouldn’t be such a crime.
You’re clinging to a completely outdated model of distribution and consumption.
I responded to your first post by calling you a miserable cunt because your post was condescending, long winded, and essentially a rehash of ideas the RIAA has been bludgeoning the public with for the past several years.
You say, “Grow the fuck up” as if consumers who download material without paying for it are immature when in fact people like you are the ones who display immaturity by refusing to recognize the current system as broken.
“This kind of theft hurts real people, with real families, and real mouths to feed, especially at lower income jobs at the bottom of the trickle-down food chain that are usually the first to get axed.”
The people that are getting hurt by this “theft” are the people that are nonessential to the process. In 2009, pretty much all anyone needs is a) the musician and b) the consumer. Everything else should go the way of the dinosaurs.
I’m not promoting a download everything, pay artists nothing, anarchistic model of the music industry (however I don’t doubt someone will ignorantly claim that I am), but I am promoting we look at distribution in a different way then we did 50 plus years ago.
“If you were a painter and people buy prints of your original work and then scan it and print additional reproductions for their friends without paying you, is that not corrupt? How long, at that rate, would you be able to afford your Internet connection to even be able to post in a threat [sic] like this?”
Probably a long time. Someone would buy your work, distribute it far greater than you could ever have accomplished through selling it, increase awareness about you work and soon you get more money for original paintings, opportunities to have art exhibitions, etc. You analogy is a great example of how capitalistically effective people NOT paying for something can truly be in the long run.
@Greg:
I hate to point this out, but *most* people are “nonessential to the process.” But scale requires labor. An architect can design the Empire State Building but can’t build it alone.
You seem to think that a musician can go it alone. Maybe he can. Define the level of success.
Perhaps the internet *does* have the ability to let the next U2 find an audience and become a worldwide sensation.
I believe that the supply is too great, the attention span too small, and the audience too spread out to make any small band achieve that kind of success solely on their own.
Jonathan Coulton might the best internet musician success story since he never signed with a label post-buzz. Yet I recall him on The Soung of Young America talking about his fan base and how not only has it been growing, but how it’s consisted almost entirely of hardcore fans. He’s enjoying a very modest niche success here, and honestly, I think that’s all you’re going to get without larger marketing forces to help push you up and keep you top-of-mind with the parts of the audience that forget you for the next new internet meme band of the week.
“And in some parts of the country, I’d be making a decent living. I chose to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. I don’t know why I did that, but….” — Coulton
My question then is: are *you* a musician?
I’m a struggling musician and I don’t care who downloads my music. I’m an artist not a corporate capitalist pig. You my friend are the one who is misinformed here. Most musicians don’t care, its the record labels who are run by talentless execs who are leeches that squeeze every penny out of musicians in the name of profit. But alas their day has come. They have served their purpose and now it is time to go. But the RIAA will not go quietly into the night so we will be hearing some real horror stories as the end of the era of corporate greed in the music industry comes to an end.
I can record music at home, share it with friends or sell it online. I can l play live and get paid. So why do I need the RIAA? Or any members of the RIAA?
One: You don’t speak for most musicians, and saying most musicians dont care is a horrible, baseless argument.
Two: The sad truth is, illegal downloads make it harder for independent musicians to make a living off of their art without a record label leeching off of them. We finally reached a point where it became cheap and easy to record and distribute your music independently. But now that no one is willing to pay for that or recognize it as a product, those artists are forced to sign a deal with a record label who can pimp the artist in a number of ways – touring, merch, ringtones, licensing, ect.
The industry is sick, but your refusing to respect IP has no justification.
I think that a recording industry contract is not much more than an amalgamated financial product; the equivalent to getting a loan and hiring someone with industry / business experience.
Does anyone agree / disagree?
Metallica might care, but most musicians don’t.
Everyday musicians prefer the exposure, which leads to paying gigs. Most musicians don’t want record deals. Unfortunately, most people have only heard of the musicians who do want record deals, not those who want to make music.
I’m not saying musicians with record deals aren’t “real musicians” or have sold out. But, again, you haven’t heard of and will never hear of most (meaning more than 50%) of musicians in the world.
Herein lies a cogent point: the originator of the IP has the right to determine if they want to sell it, trade or barter it, give it away, or just keep it for themselves.
That choice can often be determined by whether the content is being produced by the creator in their bedroom in mom and dad’s home – or by if they’ve got a place of their own to pay for by being able to support themselves with with an adequate threshold of income from the IP or a related/non-related job.
As a creator of IP in music, and all other media platforms, I have the same democratic rights. I agree with all the complaints everyone’s had about ‘talentless execs’, corporate greedbags et al and have welcomed the evolution in the production and distribution ecosystems.
I’m not clinging to any model, outdated or otherwise; my main point through all of this is that the rights of the content creators in their choice of how they want to market their wares should be respected as protected by the current laws, regardless of the distribution system, or how past models are evolving into new models, be they micropayments or buy two-get one free.
And how are the ‘non-essential dinosaurs’ that Greg is, himself, so ‘condescendingly’ dismissing, and who are a part of the larger consumer ecosystem going to be able to afford any of the original ‘paintings’ or any other IP if they have no income?
It’s an easy ‘rationalization’ to say buyers copying a work for their friends increases awareness of the artist and original commissions. Low rez- thumbnails, or mini-gallery widgets distributed just as ‘virally’ can accomplish the same without diluting the value of whatever price the artist has the right to set for the original or any ‘prints’. If he/she wants to give away some promo prints, it’s their call and their right – not the consumer’s.
The dynamics of a free market economy will determine whether the art is good, the prices are fair, or whether it’s an artist to be recognized or ignored. But the bottom line is that the artist’s rights related to property and legal protection are a pillar of the 14th amendment to the US constitution.
Any forced dilution caused by theft and piracy may mean that, over the long haul, we all may be forced into a lower standard of living. That’s not capitalistic pig remorse . . . just an observation meant to stimulate the kind of interesting discussion that’s followed through these posts.
Amazing what additional perspectives can sprout when you’re willing to engage beyond the initial juvenile attack responses that have permeated the TC comment threads.
“Amazing what additional perspectives can sprout when you’re willing to engage beyond the initial juvenile attack responses that have permeated the TC comment threads.”
I’ll admit it. I baited you. I’m sorry. You do bring up some good points. Ultimately we’ll have to see what happens.
Also, I’m declaring a moratorium for myself on arguing with anyone on websites for an entire week. I’ve done this too much recently. It’s not healthy.
Relevant to the post: I’m keeping last.fm until someone respectable and intelligent tells me otherwise. And I’m deleting TechCruch from my bookmarks (no RSS).
Kick back watch it crumble
See the drowning, watch the fall
I feel just terrible about it
That’s sarcasm, let it burn
I’m gonna make a toast when it falls apart
I’m gonna raise my glass above my heart
Then someone shouts “That’s what they get!”
For all the years of hit and run
For all the piss broke bands on VH1
Where did all, their money go?
Don’t we all know
Parasitic music industry
As it destroys itself
We’ll show them how it’s supposed to be
Music written from devotion
Not ambition, not for fame
Zero people are exploited
There are no tricks, up our sleeve
Gonna fight against the mass appeal
We’re gonna kill the 7 record deal
Make records that have more than one good song
The dinosaurs will slowly die
And I do believe no one will cry
I’m just fucking glad I’m gonna be
There to watch the fall
Prehistoric music industry
Three feet in la brea tar
Extinction never felt so good
If you think anyone would feel badly
You are sadly, mistaken
The time has come for evolution
Fuck collusion, kill the five
Whatever happened to the handshake?
Whatever happened to deals no-one would break?
What happened to integrity?
It’s still there it always was
For playing music just because
A million reasons why
YES!!!!!!!!! You are correct sir….you get a gold star.
The era of the middle man is over.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
The er
As the cost of duplicating and distributing audio entertainment decreased, what happened to the price to consumers? That’s right, went up. Did the kick-back to the artists increase. I’ve never heard that argument presented.
Who needs a reality check here. Just because a monopoly can get away with screwing the consumers doesn’t make it morally correct to do so.
Oh, sorry. Slipped into your argument.
This is correct…no they have not paid us any more…or the engineers who record music….no no only Record Exec salaries have increased.
Despite the liberal stereotypes the head of the major labels are all Bushie Fascist Pigs.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
The era of the middleman is over as fewer and fewer people want to pay a decent price for music. Is that good news or bad news for musicians?
Copyright infringement is NOT theft. This isn’t opinion, it’s FACT. Gov’t has been bought off by the RIAA and media companies to blur this simple fact.
Wait….this is a report of a second-hand rumour? Not that I trust the RIAA at all, but this isn’t really news yet. It’s a rumour about a rumour.
This smells of urban legend…”A friend of a friend told me”.
It’s even worse than that. An anonymous friend of an anonymous tipster might have told Tech Crunch something that probably isn’t true. (Or Tech Crunch just made it up.)
And now they’ve shared it with you, under the guise of news.
I notice the silence from Techcrunch is deafening bearing in mind last.fm’s posts above. Won’t bother reading Techcrunch anymore as I’ve got better things to do than read made-up stories. There are comics for that…
Hope last.fm take legal action against them as it must have already lost them users who haven’t bothered to check facts first.
This does it for me, I’m uninstalling it from my computer.
Actually I’m holding off for now. There is a staff response to the article on the last.fm forum:
http://www.last...6518/1#f8660996
whew, good to know, although I’ll never get back those 4 horrific minutes of my life back.
techcrunch posting a retraction? that would be the day. instead they prefer to ’strikeout’ their previous false statements so everyone can read the original rumor and continue speculations.
last.fm in NO way has done this – one of the founders has already posted a comment above and last.fm has issued a freaking statement. give me a break.
Now don’t you feel like a fool, what with it all being true.
Toe the line bud, you’ll be rewarded with that pie in the sky for sure.
This is just karma. Listen to U2 and you get what you deserve.
LOL
the last time I checked your data is made available just by being a Last.fm user ? so TC is semi-wrong but the point is moot – obviously, RIAA has access to anyone with this u2 song regardless of tag/metadata changes.
When you sign up for services your sign away your right to own your data – get used to it.
Tech Crunch is 100% wrong. Last.fm did NOT just hand over user listening data to the RIAA under the terms that Tech Crunch describes here.
Not at all. It’s a lie. It is not a half-truth. It’s a lie. The damage is done, though, and Tech Crunch got a healthy check from their advertisers for all the page views generated by this lie.
“But most probably never even considered it a possibility that individually identifiable information about their listening habits (legal, illegal, or otherwise) could be handed over to an organization known for taking consumers to court for file-sharing.” Presumably because information that identifies you, as an individual, is protected by the Data Protection Act and may not be shared with third parties without your consent?
I’d like to note that: just because the tracks are scrobbled doesn’t mean that the person has actually listened to this track. Meaning, this isn’t a fool-proof way of actually determining that a person has a particular track. Last.FM only collects titles that are in ID3 tags. I mean, I don’t know who would purposely edit the ID3 tags to reflect they are listening to unreleased material, but it’s very easy to fake the data. The RIAA will need more proof than what Last.FM could supply, data wise.
I find it humorous that an article that that bases its information on unsubstantiated rumors coming from anonymous sources tries to take the moral high ground on anything.
You know that there is a moral obligation to confirm facts, right, before saying something that has the potential to harm the livelihood of others?
i´m agreeing!!!!!
techcrunch-potatoe give us facts not expectations!!!
totally agree here. amazing how a story based purely on rumor and assumption carries an accusatory tone. irresponsible journalism – if you can actually call it that
TechCrunch has no journalistic standards.
Is this really a surprise? The whole site is based on rumor just on the off chance that someone gets a scoop now and then. Of course, the devoted disciples of TechCrunch don’t seem to see through the “online journalism” facade that it has created. Well done to the marketing team, they succeeded at something.