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.
Some people are so gullible, a web site with extremely low journalistic standards makes up a story and some intellectually challenged people panic.
Get some backbone you lemmings !!
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?
The big deal is that the article is a lie, but people are believing it and, worse, spreading it. There’s the problem.
What’s the big deal? All this paranoia when we’ve all seen repeatedly that the RIAA, if they care to, can just accuse random people of anything and the burden of proof’s on the individual to somehow prove they didn’t listen to, possess, or share a file.
They can do this because they have money, and that’s all that matters in the eyes of Congress, where laws are openly purchased every day.
FUCK YOU TECH CRUNCH!
You guys suck so hard. Anytime I’ve got the misfortune to stumble across your lazy ass “journalism” I regret it.
How fucking hard is it to get in touch with the peeps at last.fm?
NY Post has more integrity that you fuckwits.
So guys, let’s do a bit of theorizing. Presume that Last.fm really did give private information to the RIAA. What kind of response would you expect from the Last.fm staff? What would *you* likely do in their position?
A) Offer immediate, outright admission of this fact
B) Engage in some form of obfuscation or denial
What good would A) do them, exactly? How do they stand to benefit from admitting something that would destroy their site when, as of now, there’s no definitive evidence either way? In my mind, it’s a “he said she said” scenario at the moment. The denial from Last.fm is what we would suspect in both a scenario where they did divulge private information and one where they did not.
The RIAA (of which Last.fm’s parent company, CBS, is a member) will steep to any means possible to throw its own consumers under the bus. They (correctly) believe themselves to be like a dying animal and will do anything they can to survive. Their track record speaks to this and really, if this story was true, it would surprise anyone how? This is the same criminal group (the RIAA) that has tried to sue teenagers, dead grandmas, and even printers (idiots). Their standard of proof is low and their sense of justice entirely absent.
Let’s use a little cynicism both ways around, in other words. I want to believe in Last.fm but as of now, there’s really no proof either way.
It’s not a “he said she said” scenario. It’s a “libelous website said, respected website said”.
This is like the evolution debate, in that there’s no debate here. There is only a lie from TC and a company caught in its crosshairs.
(Disclaimer: I work at Last.fm)
As already pointed out by one of the companies founders, RJ (and author of Audioscrobbler), this is utter utter unfounded bullshit.
I can’t help but find this highly suspicious, Tech Crunch are no fans of ours, but posting a “friend of a friend, anonymous tip” on a Friday evening (US time) strikes of an intentional hatchet job. I mean seriously guys?
Tech Crunch is the new National Enquirer for geeks. Sensationalist headlines. No fact checking. Utter bullshit. I seriously hope nobody takes anything they read here seriously. I’ll be back at The Register thanks.
Shame on you, Techcrunch and Erick Schonfeld! Seems that you posted this on Friday on purpose so that Last.fm is not that fast in replying oficially. Techcrunch in general seems to become a paid fake posts site.
What a crock of shit. No sense of proper journalism or moral responsibility, didn’t bother to check facts, in fact, totally peddling in fiction, rumour and speculation. Oh bravo. You made yourselves look really good.
techcrunch articles now officially suck ass.
Re: Comment posted by “LW”, Feb 20, 7:04pm PST
I’ve read every single comment here.
YOU dear sir/madam have hit the nail on the head…
You’ve brilliantly summed up the entire “record labels versus piracy”, “IP versus the digital age”, etc…. issues… Or as I call it, simply, “The end of the age of copyright.”
I suggest everyone here go and read that particular post by LW again. And again. Read it slowly and thoughtfully three times. Now, print it, save it, and learn from it.
He/she has expressed what I’ve been saying for years. It’s a new ecosystem that is being created – like it or not – by whatever means. Go with it happily. Embrace it. Or be dragged into it kicking and screaming like a child throwing a tantrum. But enter into a new age, you will.
It’s a new ecosystem where value is placed on the ARTIST, by the CONSUMER…. and the do-nothing money grabbers in the middle are banished from the playground.
Where the financially sucessful artist freely gives away all his/her works in electronically reproduceable and shareable forms (i.e. Nine in Nails, one of the first major artists to “get it” & make millions as a result), and then… The artist’s works are spread all over the planet within seconds…. like a nightmare virus….
And the artist makes his/her BIG money, where they’ve always made their big money… the one thing that CANNOT be duplicated… Their real live in-the-flesh concerts, appearances, speaking engagements, commissioned works, etc., etc… And radio royalties too.
Just like Ubuntu, the new far superior computer operating system is quickly replacing Windows on PCs worldwide… as is FOSS (free open source software)… The company heavily backing it, Canonical, will make a fortune…. How!? By selling its consulting and training services to corporations who need it. After all, “Who knows Ubuntu better than the folks who created it?” …or so the logic goes.
Record labels have extorted money out of the masses while exploiting the artists. That’s was ok…. Then.
But now…. They’re day has come.
It’s a glorious new day for artists and content creators worldwide! And an even better new day for us… the public who so apreciates, enjoys, and freely loves to support and reward them… at their live concerts.
Bruce,
Reznor is not establishing workable model for the industry just because you state this.
You are missing a critical factor- just like many others who push this fallacy.
Reznor is already at the top of the popularity pool from years of initial promotion by his vile record company. AFTER he gains this critical mass of loving fans he cuts the strings and THEN goes off into freetopia.
Every single successful musician/artist you folks posit never initiated their own success through the freetopia method. They were already successful and therefore are able to ride on a wave of an existing loyal fan base.
I can tell you that to make it long-term in a viable fashion where you are not living off parents and friends you MUST have a massive following because only a very small percentage of any group will cough up the money to support you- no matter HOW goddamn famous you are.
This is at the crux of the model you pose. I do not believe it is possible for an up-and-coming artist to gain enough critical mass to support a thriving music business, family and a basic house payment on what you and LW are proposing.
Now, single kids with no children love the idea of sitting around at mama’s house popping his shit into the hands a half-million bit torrent fans will one day see the light and buy something from them. Bullshit.
Prove to me that ‘up-and-comers’ are coming into a VIABLE living this way and, I promise, I WILL extend my hand of respect to you and others and actually help promote the idea.
I’m sorry but I don’t see the ‘provable’ numbers. I see glorious hype and desire but no concrete numbers.
Damn,
I HATE the fact that we cannot edit posts here:
I meant to post————–
Now, single kids with no children love the idea of sitting around at mama’s house popping their shit into the hands of a half-million bit torrent fans hoping they will one day see the light and buy something from them. Bullshit.
The Special Olympics of tech media, TechCrunch.
- The Register
TechCrunch is so full of shit it’s hilarious.
It would be fun if everyone tagged one or two songs as titles from the new album and scrobbled that just to piss off the RIAA.
Long live the social music revolution!
This was an interesting week on Buzz Out Loud when they had to discuss the whole tv.com/Hulu situation because of their CBS affiliation. I have a feel this will also make for an interesting story on Monday.
Full Discolosure: I didn’t download the album because I am not that big a U2 fan. But I did watch a video from MySpace that had been embedded on a Facebook page.
One of the nice things about being bought by large companies such as CBS is that it puts a large legal team at your disposal.
I would be happy to see last.fm take advantage of this and sue techcrunch out of existence.
It takes years for a team to build up the trust of its user base, and tabloids like techcrunch seem happy to try to destroy that trust just to generate a few page views.
As someone who has also spent the last few years trying to build a strong online community, I sympathize with the founders and the rest of the team at last.fm. Every day presents countless challenges to overcome as it is – the last thing you need is journalistic scum ruining your tea in the morning.
TechCrunch = FAIL. I’ve unsubscribed and deleted your bookmark, I doubt you’ll be missed…
IF this is true, I will be removing my Last.fm account and stopping scrobling my music (with sadness). I want to hear the other side first though.
Nice action… quoting the part of the privacy policy that basically tells your scrobbling-history (it is called the library there) and use that as a means to scare people that data will be sold.
Having read the whole privacy statement again I find nothing that makes me believe this story.
I am a happy user of the site, and a mod for years. My personal experience is miles of the load of rubbish written here.
Based upon a hearsay story of a friend of a friend and an unidentified guy?? And you call that “news”?? Most gossip has a firmer basis.
I don’t know if the story is true or false in all of its details, but I noticed that the “denial” did not deny that Last.fm does provide data to the RIAA and is owned by CBS.
Why would they deny being owned by CBS?
wtf are you up to Erick? Do you want TechCrunch to be taken seriously?
Jeez, I wonder if Last.fm could take legal action against TC for publishing utter lies? I for one would back them, I mean it’s not as if they’re a small company anymore they have the backing of CBS.
If they can, I certainly hope that they do.
I third that. I’m not sue-happy, but this is reckless irresponsibility that has already harmed Last.fm. Should they be the only victims of the shoddy journalism of this blog?
WOW!! Nice fact-checking there TechCrunch. Morons
Yikes…
Arrington takes a vacation, and now we get garbage stories on TechCrunch.
Amazed at the silence from techcrunch. Very surprising.
Just blogged my thoughts on it here: http://tinyurl.com/ddtzlu
Very nice blog
Wait, people still listen to U2?
No comment from the RIAA…THAT SAYS A LOT.
bbb
wheatus.com
My first impressions of the story here was the same as my impression now. There is no story. This article is just link-bait for the author and Techcrunch and they should be ashamed. In the future, if anyone gives me a news link and it points to this site, I’m not taking the bait.
i closed my Last.fm acct over the summer b/c of lack of help from Last.fm in dealing with a rude member bad mouthing artists what have you. Last.fm is a little to social if you ask me.
btw when I closed my acct Last.fm informed me that my content would stay on the site indiffly even though I’m no longer a member.
matell
If you’ve uploaded your music to the site, you can take it down. If you delete your account before doing so then you make it more awkward for yourself, but staff can help you out and remove it for you (I know this, I’ve seen it done).
This has been published on “an anonymous source tells us that their friend who works for CBS says that Last.fm staff are unhappy…”, and comprehensively denied almost immediately by Last.fm staff (including one of the co-founders). Yet there’s no sign of TechCrunch giving any retraction, apology, or even the merest hint of admission that “maybe we were wrong”. I feel I’m being quite generous to TechCrunch in calling this appalling ‘journalism’ (word used loosely).
this is retarded…there is no proof what track you actually played is indeed said track..you could easily retag a song and name it “Utter Nonsense – Stupid” and it will be scrobbled as such… because of this..it would never hold up in court
This article is bullshit.
This article is bullshit with unverified claims
So what, exactly, stops you from waiting to collect all this information you so desperately want to collect, and posting on Monday when you’ve got all the facts at your disposal, like any normal journalist?
This is an excellent question, but the silence from TC is deafening.
I really do want the answer to this one. Erick?
So, TechCrunch decides to dip its toe into investigative journalism and ends up in the deep end, holding its nose and saying “Oh, SH**!”
You’re getting what you deserve for writing up a RUMOR in all this breathless prose. Supposition, speculation. Just acknowledging the fact that it’s a rumor doesn’t suddenly make it OK to write about.
Now that you’ve been burned, maybe next time you’ll think twice before you pull the trigger on a rumor.
It’s not journalism! It’s a blog!
This is the other problem with this post. How can we expect mainstream media to take bloggers seriously as journalists (believe me, some bloggers are hardcore journalists), when a big blog like TC does something like this?
And with no retraction.
I know it’s end of the me 2.0 bubble and scoops are hard to find, but this kind of libelous disgrace spits in the face of the whole tech community. It is clear from the statements that nothing of the sort has happened and now you’re trying to muddy the waters in a paltry attempt to hide your disgrace. You wanted to create a shitstorm and you’ve landed up with one over your own integrity. Be careful what you wish for. This is just the latest in a litany of smears against Last.fm. I recall the recent debacle over your posting the facebook statuses of a number of employees who were made redundant, which you later removed. It is my sincere hope that you’re forced to print a full retraction of this too, at the very least. Perhaps it’s time to join Mr Arrington in early retirement – after all – you always wanted to “Be Like Mike.”
bye bye last.fm….
It’s of secondary relevance if they did it, it’s enough to know they CAN do it!
How hard can be to put some pressure on them if the stakes are high?!
“To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA”
Schonfeld’s initial investigation into this story was perfectly warranted- even if he was only a customer who had come across a rumor.
The response from last.fm to his request for information is practically the opposite of a concrete denial and allows a helluva lot of wiggle room.
In my view, whoever wrote that lame response should be held responsible for the resulting angst against last.fm. Not the guy trying to get to the gist of a story.
How can a company retain no knowledge of whether or not they release your data to the RIAA and then turn around and SWEAR through an ignoramus and expletive-laden backlash in the comments and elsewhere that your information is protected?
When Schonfeld requested info at the outset an executive with last.fm SHOULD have responded categorically that NO information has been released. Period.
There are so many tender-hearted children chirping about in the blogosphere that it takes a snowflake on their nose to bring them to tears.
Fuck that. I stand behind TechCrunch on this. Last.fm dropped the ball with their lame-ass statement and Schonfeld just did his job.
If this “journalist” hadn’t called them up at midnight (UK) on Friday, perhaps there would have been a stronger response. I found a very firm denial of this on Last.fm’s official blog first thing this morning (Monday).
This Erick guy couldn’t have waited until Monday for a response? I’ve waited for longer than that, and I only have a little tech review blog with 500 readers.
How you can stand behind TechCrunch on this is really beyond me. This isn’t a snowflake. This is TC costing Last.fm users and money. Last.fm has employees. Those employees have families. This is a disgrace for blogging everywhere, and there’s no way around that.
Welcome to the new journalism, unfettered by trivialities like facts, integrity, and responsibility.
Mr. Schonfeld You say, “From the very beginning, I’ve presented this story for what it is: a rumor.” This raises the question as to why you would publish what you have admitted is an unsubstantiated claim. Read the comments and look at the harm you have done to LastFM’s reputation.
wwoow i m really surprised. if this rumor is true than i will be really disappointed on lastfm. i’m glad i uninstalled their software few days ago because it was annoying….never letting any software scan my comp for music…
It looks like TC has taken to manufacturing the news. Prove me wrong, and cite the source of your information.
He did. It was an anonymous friend of an anonymous tipster or something just as trustworthy.
LOL!
bye bye Last Fm
see you never !
This is utterly ridiculous. TechCrunch obviously has no journalistic standards what-so-ever. They have lost my faith and trust, and i will NOT recommend them to anyone in future. The back-tracking “updates” don’t fix anything either, you always give the source plenty of time for a fully detailed response before crying-wolf and shouting wild damaging accusations. The proviso “According to a tip we receive” was only placed well after the rumour paragraph at the beginning of the post. TechCrunch continues to milk their position as king-maker purely because they were in the right place at the right time when the current new stuff in web development became big. They crossed a line here, and their integrity is obviously worth nothing to them.
LAST.fm – rulezzz! RIAA rrrr!
Ah, Erick Schonfeld, why don’t you just give in and admit that you made a mistake posting this story? But no, that seems to be inconceivable, if i take a look at the latest (2nd) update, where you now begin to lie in direct contrast to the article below.
Your update reads: “From the very beginning, I’ve presented this story for what it is: a rumor. ”
And in the original article you wrote: “And Last.fm, which is owned by CBS, actually handed the data over to the RIAA. ”
There is NO hint that the handover of the data is a rumor, none whatsoever. Without checking any facts you assume the worst and damage the reputation of Last.fm, and a reply from them is not good enough for you, you keep on trying to find some holes in the clear denials given by last.fm staff, especially the one by Russ Garrett. You’re a bad loser, thats all! Be a man, stand up, and say that you and TC made an error. But i fear you are just a mouse.
You people need to employ some brain cells.
Schonfeld PREFACED the article with a fucking question.
IF the guy wanted to ‘generate’ the news he would have titled the article with a statement: Last.fm Hands RIAA User Listening Data.
There is no HINT of a rumor? The guy implicitly states that “word is going around…” AND that he’s received information as a TIP.
Um, how can this be construed as anything less than a rumor?
Fact is last.fm’s bozo’s full of shit should have made it clear from the FIRST sentence they sent this author that NO data was being compromised. PERIOD!
You don’t preface this kind of issue with the lame: “To our knowledge…” because they OBVIOUSLY a day later KNEW 100% that zero data had been dispensed.
I heard from a friend of mine that Agile Cyborg strangles children to death while pleasuring himself. Now, whether or not this is true, we have to ask ourselves: are our children safe around him? Is that the sort of person you’d want in your neighborhood?
And if I post a story titled “Did Agile Cyborg strangle children to death while pleasuring himself?” on a large blog, then mention “rumor” and “if” once or twice in the body of the article, is that good journalism?
What about:
“Update: Agile Cyborg “denies” this story.”
Feel better?
Claims about “presenting this as a rumour” don’t cut it as an excuse for publishing this when you leave them until way after your claim that the data’s handed over. You’ve included a vague disclaimer, but you’ve written the rest of the article as though it’s undisputed fact that this happened.
You’ve chosen to ignore the part of the privacy policy which states that personally identifiable data is not shared with anybody, and gone on to ask whether any personally identifiable info has been shared. There’s really no justification for this. You’ve clearly read the privacy policy, as you quoted the part which suits your scare-mongering story.
The updates just sound childish and run away from the point. “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.” You don’t seem to have *any* information worthy of the name which suggests it is true. ‘My anonymous source’s friend’ doesn’t hold up as an excuse to keep running with this.
C’mon TechCrunch, you’ve got it wrong, admit it.
Stop attempting to divert attention off of yourselves and just man up and post an apology.