Well, we asked for a denial, and they’re giving us one. Russ Garrett, a Last.fm developer, issues another blanket denial of the Last.fm user data fiasco:
Nothing I can say will convince you that this didn’t happen, because allegedly CBS did the deed and not us. I hope that CBS will issue their own denial soon, but the wheels of large companies run slowly.
This accusation was made the evening before a three-day holiday weekend in both the UK and the US. Yet again, we were not given the opportunity to respond.
The article claims that “This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.” Nobody at Last.fm knows anything about such a leak. We didn’t when they last wrote an article, and we don’t now. Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.
The exact nature of the data that was allegedly transferred is still not clear. It’s implied that the data linked scrobbles to IP addresses. That particular data is controlled tightly inside Last.fm and is only stored for a short period of time. Any request for such data would have to be approved by myself first. The suggestion that CBS’s ops team provided this data is just not possible – Last.fm operates as a separate entity and their operations staff do not have access to our system.
As Arrington points out, transferring personally identifiable data (i.e. IP addresses) from the UK to the US is against data protection laws. We wouldn’t risk a lawsuit to pander to the RIAA’s requests.
It really seems like someone is trying to slander us here.
Last.fm cofounder Richard Jones, the author of the “TechCrunch are full of shit” post from February, also quipped “busy sending data to the RIAA… Oh wait, no, that’s still nonsense.”
A careful read of the post turns up very little actual information. There’s indignation over the story, indignation over us not giving them a heads up, and a statement that it’s impossible for data to be sent to CBS without Garrett’s knowledge. They also say “Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.”
We need more than that.
First, it’s correct that we didn’t talk to Last.fm or CBS before posting this story. Our efforts to do so in the past have been met with a brick wall. CEO Felix Miller has outright refused to have any direct conversation with us, instead pointing to Last.fm’s New York based PR group. We’ve been trying to have an off or on record conversation with him for months.
But to the meat of our post and the story as told by our sources, we need direct answers. A blanket denial can easily be issued if even some small part of the story we reported is inaccurate or up for discussion. Given the seriousness of the story, we think its fair to ask Last.fm and CBS exactly what did happen:
1. Are they claiming that the initial story, including the email allegedly from a former CBS employee, was completely fabricated by our source? Was there no data request by CBS in February? If there was one, was data transmitted to CBS? Did CBS pass it on to the RIAA or one or more music labels?
2. You say “Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.” Ok. How about a suggestion that you were innocently involved in transferring data to a third party, and subsequently outraged when you discovered what happened?
3. We believe Last.fm staffers have been agreeing with our story in private conversations for some time. Why the private agreement and the public broad denial? We have emails from Last.fm and CBS employees that are saying quite the opposite from what you are.
4. We believe Last.fm put in broad new data policies following our February story. If the original story was completely untrue, why did they put new data policies in place?
5. What is CBS’ position on this story?
We all understand that Last.fm is upset and “rather pissed off.” But what we really want to know is exactly what happened in February. Was data requested? Was it supplied? Can CBS pull data directly from Last.fm without Last.fm’s involvement?
We remain open to on or off record conversations with Last.fm, which has been our position throughout this story. The phones are ringing. They’re just not answering.
Update: Garrett clarifies his denial here. We’re going to wait for any further statements from Last.fm, and we hear from sources inside Last.fm and CBS that they plan on issuing a denial as well early next week. We’ll respond at that time with the additional information we’ve gathered. There are employees of both companies who are saying things that are quite different from these blanket denials.
Just publish the whistle blower’s name. This will solve everything.
Bill O’riely?
It’s hard to point out who the culprit is.
Arrington is savior of IT industry from law dragons.
so whats the next best alternative? Being that I refuse to be used…hey that rhymes
based on the “Deny This” post, http://www.jamwee.com is planning on offering something similar, it hasn’t launched yet though.
Well someone did ask Russ on Last Fm forum
“Just to double-check – is it possible for CBS to ‘trick’ you into handing over data, as the article seems to imply?”
and his reply was
“They’d still have to ask for the data linking scrobblers to IP addresses, which they have not done. Asking for that data would raise red flags on my end… ”
One thing I don’t understand is why are they not coming with an official response . So what if it is weekend .
Your credibility is in question (CBS)?
If Last.fm never transferred data to CBS, which is itself a likely violation of EU law, why not just say so. And what data exactly can CBS pull directly from Last.fm servers?
Just to mention- Not giving a IP address doesnt mean that CBS would have nothing to go on. The IP likely wouldnt matter that much to them directly. They are plenty capable of finding evil info without it.
Why? How? In this day and age, we all tend to use the same unique username on multiple sites. If they find that the user bluedog2383 first scrobbled the pirated song- Guess what? They are just a short google search away from finding out who that is by turning up the offenders myspace, facebook and other pages.
So in short- Last.fm isnt any less guilty for not giving the IP data as unless the username of the offender was “bob” , the damage was already done.
Or maybe they’d use wink.com to find them…
Maybe they gave some data to CBS but no IP-Addresses?
You’ve got two #2’s in your list.
fixed thx.
2 is the new 3. God that was corny.
nevermind, you fixed it.
I am going to ask the simple question: what could the RIAA really do with this data?
They can see how many number of times you listened to a particular songs .
What are your listening habits and all ?
Lets say if I was one of the RIAA’s bitch What I would do with this data?
I will see what songs you have listen that has just been released or were released ? and lets say I have a magical data base ( which has the detail of all the people I want to sue or are potential candidate ) that can search for your IP address with help of a simple SQL queury . If you are lucky maybe i will sue you.
That is just one example .
PS: I don’t work for RIAA or Record Industry as a matter of fact but I do play guitar and have couple of awesome songs that needs some fine recording
Possible scenarios:
Scenario #1 RIAA does nothing with the data, since TechCrunch has raised this issue to public awareness. So we have to thank TechCrunch because the public outrage causes RIAA to leave the data alone. In this scenario, Last.fm staffers would breath a sigh of relief and wish this whole debacle would just blow over and fizzle out soon, and I might add, if this were the case, Last.fm staffers have TechCrunch to thank as well.
Scenario #2 RIAA, despite public outrage, goes ahead and analyze the data (the exact nature of which even Last.fm management cannot pinpoint) and go after their “enemies” (of which RIAA does have quite a few), resulting in a sea of lawsuits.
The issue is not about “Well, I am just a law-abiding citizen, merrily using a legal Internet Radio service, why should I worry?” The issue here is that privacy laws everywhere clearly spell out what users’ data can or cannot be passed around, and that if the laws have been violated in this particular incident.
… they could count the total number of songs per IP and investigate users with large amounts of songs …
But, nothing would hold up in court. last.fm get’s the information via the tags on the music file – you can easily just right click -> properties on any of your files and change the tags to say whatever you want. So you could change a freely available album and make it look like the latest hot album, scrobble it over and over, and boom, looks like you have it. It’s data that is way, way too easily manipulative to hold up in court.
So the RIAA could *claim* that you *supposedly* listened to certain tracks, while you can just as easily get someone else to prove how easily they could be wrong. It’s all basically the equivalent of digital hearsay, I guess. This is assuming they don’t search your HDD and find anything incriminating, of course
That’s a whole new situation though (and that’s why they invented programs such as Truecrypt, but that is way digressing lol)
So in short: The RIAA in reality could do NOTHING with the scrobbled data they took. Your IPs? A little scarier, but it’s no better or worse – less dangerous, in fact, than the RIAA sitting on a torrent and getting the list of IPs of seeders. At least in this case they can’t prove your IP has done anything tangible…
Just for the record, the RIAA doesn’t need to request this information – it’s available to all to see.
Here are all 20,000+ songs I have listened to, as Scrobbled by Last.fm. Note that I don’t *own* them all – some I (or others who use my Mac) listened to via Spotify. It’s open access.
Come get it RIAA: http://www.last...hrislake/tracks
But that page doesn’t gives away your IP address? .
Hey Zack – true… but that in itself raises a bigger issue, in that I have listened to this stuff via four or five different IPs, and all of them have had multiple users / machines in place. Even if it showed my IP range it wouldn’t prove anything. So what is the RIAA going to conclusively prove from matching my – or anybody else’s – IP addresses with that Scobbled data?
I know this is a privacy issue, and a corporate headache between Last.fm / CBS, and also solid journalism, but still… I can only see one loser here, mainly from a PR perspective, and that’s Last.fm, which is a service I’ve loved using for years.
Michael’s right to ask the questions, and I hope there’s nothing in it, but this ‘data’ is hot air.
Of course the RIAA can’t do anything with that. It’s just metadata, you can scrobble whatever you like, it doesn’t even mean you are listening to it.
The RIAA even said back in February they didn’t ask for that data. I don’t see why they would need it anyway, it’s pretty easy to get IPs of people downloading the songs just by looking at the bittorrent trackers… (which doesn’t prove much either, but that’s not the point)
They aren’t going to conclusively prove anything. That’s not what it’s about. I posted about it here:
http://www.tech...comment-2762821
Surely you can see that there are ways that releasing listeners’ IP addresses can harm them which are not obvious at first sight.
Besides, even if scrobbling data is non-conclusive, it’s likely enough to obtain a warrant in order to obtain further information on a user.
The main concern is the privacy and breach of trust . Information can be twisted or can act be used in a scenario which can in turn harm you or me in the end.
You better believe they are all over the ISPs who control those IPs and will gather every bit about you they can from that though. Also important to note the rediculous amount of pussy ISPs (major MAJOR ones at that) who are folding to the RIAA and MPAA and other evil keep the rich rich services..You can pretty much guarantee yourself also in that case that your specific piece of hardware is now known to them, and would be filtered against their data..
If you live in France, they can shut you from reading TC and the internet.
Lastfmgate
“This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.”
That’s just wrong. It should be ‘employees whom he has spoken with.’
You are incorrect, too.
It should be: “This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees with whom he has spoken.”
What you have done, GrammarNazi, is to make a hyper-correction. Ending a sentence with a preposition is perfectly acceptable in the English language, despite what some might have you think.
http://www.wsu....tml#preposition
http://www.wsu..../churchill.html
Morgan that is hilarious. I need grammar lessons for my blog. Do you consult?
Even simpler question: how would RIAA (or lastfm) know if your music was legal or illegal?
They wouldn’t. It’s all pure speculation. Just goes to show what you can do when an useless organization is given a large amount of money to waste.
You don’t get it. This has nothing to do with legal or illegal music.
The U2 album was leaked early in Feb 2009, after the record label tried desperately to keep it from leaking. In blind rage they demanded the logs of people who have listened to the new U2 from CBS/Last.fm.
CBS then asked Last.fm for the scrobble logs, in which they handed it over, not knowing it was going to the RIAA.
They were trying to catch the guy who leaked it from the inside… not sue everyone who listened to the new U2 album.
Says who? They’ve certainly not admitted to either of those scenarios.
Says the very first blog post back in Feb 2009. Go back and read it.
This is all about the U2 leak.
@Jeff First post on TC? Or is there another blog I seem to have missed involved here…?
Read the original Feb 2009 post here. It’s all about the U2 leak.
http://www.tech...ta-to-the-riaa/
I’ve heard the new U2. I’d like to sue someone. Anyone.
Well my whole point is that it *can’t* know. I’ve moved home twice and move office twice, since I started using Last.fm, and I’ve logged into services like Spotify / Last.fm from other people’s homes. Make sense of that if you really want to, but don’t suck me into anybody’s else’s listening / piracy habits while you’re doing it. Not Guilty By Association. It’s nuts…
This is just a privacy issue, when it comes down to it.
RIAA sues dead people and babies. They don’t care who’s IP they get.
Could you not have waited until next week to put this up Michael? The accusation seems well founded but irrevocable damage can be done to Last.fm’s reputation without giving Last.fm adequate chance to respond this story over the weekend.
Your source may be accurate, but not getting a response prior to publication is unfair. Even it was a “no comment” from Last.fm/CBS.
I can understand their not returning your calls due to the previous story, but the weight of these allegations surely needed to be brought to their attention prior to publishing.
dude after the way they trashed TC and Arrington he didn’t have to do what was FAIR
What’s with all the “over the weekend” outrage. Who doesn’t work on weekends?
PS: Thanks for following up on this Mike. CBS/Last have some ’splainin to do.
One thing I don’t understand is this weekend crap . Your reputation is at stake . The company that you bleed out for might be in danger .
There can be a lawsuit against you and all you have to say is that ” hey its Saturday and I don’t work on Saturday”
I do know that Russ came out with a response but that too after when users at Last Fm forum demanded an explanation or official statement.
I don’t know if it is true or what but this whole weekend crap is just bullshit
I couldn’t disagree more. Mike had control over when to publish the story. He could have done so on a normal working day or even better, actually got a response first.
This is potentially a criminal matter, and to top it off this story was not time critical. Nothing would have been lost by waiting or opening a line of communication prior.
Sorry, but this is not a fair fight. This will be all over the blogosphere before Last.fm can scramble a response. That’s just not cricket.
With something this big, is it too hard to clock in some overtime over the holidays? This is a potential lawsuit over US/EU Data Laws!
To flip this on it’s head:
With something this big, is it too hard to wait until they are actually respond first? This is a potential lawsuit over US/EU Data Laws!
Maybe I’m too accustomed to reading newspapers but I always assumed that if an unsubstantiated claim was to ever be published, the defendant would need an adequate opportunity to defend prior to publication. I don’t like the idea of print to prompt journalism.
I’m deviating off topic, my sentiments still remain that if Last.fm have even inadvertently allowed the RIAA to obtain personally identifiable data, the IFPI can’t be too far behind. I don’t like the means, but if the ends are irrefutable then my scrobbling days are over.
basically CBS realize that they are going to get sued and and all communication subpoenaed so they are not going to say anything until a lawyer has seen it while the last.fm people either don’t realize this (and that all their communication is going to get subpoenaed ) or dont have a lawyer to tell them this…
again guys you need to be aware of law on both sides of the atlantic !
denials dont work… you need to produce a timeline and evidence to show your correct otherwise you look bad
regards
John Jones
well said! and continued kudos to MA and TC for pushing the story.
The people that comment just to correct the author’s grammar crack the F**k up!! Thanks for this great follow up to the original story, and excellent timing! Using the holiday weekend as a platform to spread the message around the internet before the corporate propaganda machine @ CBS has a chance to respond.
Lol @ the grammar error in my attack on the grammar nazi.. LMAO have a good weekend!
OK, leaked U2 album.. “look who just caught up”
hah. Last.fm makes use of the classic “wasn’t me” defense.
http://www.yout...h?v=u_f6qFBQD9U
It sounds like some employee inside of Lastfm is violating company policy and the people in charge are scratching their heads and trying to figure out the who, what and how of it.
What are the chances of a Lastfm employee getting bought by RIAA and slipping some software in the system or sending data to people?
Language of Last.FM/CBS/RIAA/”un-named sources” all reminiscent of Nixon’s Water Gate ( which ended really well for all parties involved )
What’s clear to me from all of this is that SOMETHING is going on. Last.fm’s denials have too much personal stuff, not enough dealing with the facts. They obviously feel comfortable enough to broadly deny the story, but there is too much evidence that something happened, even if it isn’t exactly what the story says. Very suspicious.
To follow up, Last.fm has to provide some sort of credible story that fits with all this evidence against them. Just yelling “we didn’t do anything” definitely gets their fans riled up, but no one else believes them. Whatever they are hiding needs to come out.
Yeah, last.fm fanboys (and girls) are on the rampage over at last.fm forums. What they clearly don’t realize is that where’s smoke there’s fire and just being on denial mode doesn’t put out the fire.
No because to be perfectly frank all the so called “evidence” could have easily been fabricated. Techcrunch has had it in for last.fm from day one and I take anything they say with a pinch of salt. If they actually have a whistleblower that claims this happened then where are they to stand by their claim? This is shit, was in February and it still is now.
Sentiments like “where there’s smoke there’s fire” show an appalling disregard for the truth.
From Digg
TheRealStyro on 10/10/2007 – “So, if the RIAA came along and through CBS wanted your user and fingerprint database, would you comply (and hopefully notify your users/subscribers) or tell CBS/RIAA to go take a flying leap…?”
Russss on 11/10/2007 – “The RIAA would have to subpoena us to get our data, we’re not volunteering it to anyone (CBS is not a member of the RIAA). And even if they did manage to do that, all they’d know is what user has which tracks in their collection, which is exactly the same as what scrobbling does. We don’t know if you illegally downloaded music, nor do we want to know.”
______________
Hmmm, a “Yes” would have sufficed instead it’s like “it won’t happen & EVEN IF THEY DID so what’s the Big Deal whether they have the information or not, subpoena or not, it’s all there anyway vis scrobbling. Now run along mr paranoid ”
And What’s with the “Hey, anyone from the RIAA can review hand delivered last.fm data via CBS. They can’t do anything with it anyway. It’s sort a public anyway what’s the big deal?”
I suggest then putting that as a company tagline.
“Last.fm – Our parent company collaborates with the RIAA. What’s the big deal? It’s public anyway”
Some people are so ignorant.
Not “slander”, but “libel”.
Seems like they gave a perfectly fine statement back to me. So what, they didn’t provide hard facts?
All we have from Techcrunch is unknown sources. Jeez, that sounds dependable.
Exactly. Everyone is so quick to jump on a side that brings out their story without hearing the other side. Like the Jon Engle Case. I shall remain neutral until it’s proved.
Don’t want this kind of stuff to happen? Don’t download leaked albums and scrobble them. Major user error to begin with.
I’m an artist; you think I don’t know who’s listening to my tunes that haven’t been released yet, and hearing them brag about it on last.fm? Same shit that’s been going on for decades on irc, only now it’s indexable.
Not a new problem, but one that is more easily actionable.
I think CBS/last.fm doth protest too much on this one. Just in case, I’ve deleted my last.fm account anyway.
The site really doesn’t serve much of a purpose, anyhow, and if the data hasn’t been sent to the RIAA, who is to say it won’t be?
I haven’t listened to any leaked albums, but I decided I don’t want my data there for the RIAA to just say “Hi can we have this?” and CBS or whomever to say “Sure, pal!”
> Nothing I can say will convince you that this didn’t happen
You could start by saying it didn’t happen.
> because allegedly CBS did the deed and not us.
Sorry, are you saying it was you after all? This feels like hand waving.
> I hope that CBS will issue their own denial soon, but the wheels of large companies run slowly.
Pre-excusing them for not quickly issuing “their own” denial you “hope” they’ll issue subtly implies you’ve already issued “your own” denial. Haven’t seen that denial yet.
> This accusation was made the evening before a three-day holiday weekend in both the UK and the US. Yet again, we were not given the opportunity to respond.
Playing the “it’s unfair” card is not a denial.
> The article claims that “This source’s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.”
Yes.
> Nobody at Last.fm knows anything about such a leak.
So, you know about the data, but not which employee might be the leak? Got it.
> We didn’t when they last wrote an article, and we don’t now.
You’re interested in that; the readers, not so much.
> Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.
What about any suggestion you were unwitting in transferring user data to any third party, or complicit in transferring to any first party?
> The exact nature of the data that was allegedly transferred is still not clear.
Are you complaining the leak and reporting is not detailed enough?
> It’s implied that the data linked scrobbles to IP addresses.
Ok…
> That particular data is controlled tightly inside Last.fm and is only stored for a short period of time.
Ok…
> Any request for such data would have to be approved by myself first.
Good to know. Why don’t you say in the next breath, “and I did not approve it, and we know for a fact nobody went around that process either”?
> The suggestion that CBS’s ops team provided this data is just not possible – Last.fm operates as a separate entity and their operations staff do not have access to our system.
Ok, they couldn’t get it without last.fm help. Where is the “and nobody here helped them”?
> As Arrington points out, transferring personally identifiable data (i.e. IP addresses) from the UK to the US is against data protection laws. We wouldn’t risk a lawsuit to pander to the RIAA’s requests.
Thing is, the story says you didn’t know what CBS was doing with the data. So the story says you didn’t risk that, agreeing with you that you “wouldn’t”. But again, there’s no, “we are not at risk” statement here to help clear things up.
> It really seems like someone is trying to slander us here.
“Really seems”? In Comp 101, they called these weasel words.
It’s plausible that in your haste, a few of these sentences might be poorly worded. Readers could expect some vagaries. But for every sentence to be sufficiently indirect to remain factual even if data had been handed over—that takes a bit of work.
Paranoid
One thing that would help is a clarification as to whether Last.fm considers CBS to be “a third party”. Lotta wiggle room there.
I think the copies that are available before should have backwards masking as a type of watermark. This way they can pinpoint who’s copy was published on the web.
Thanks for sticking with this. CBS has been untrustworthy for years, pity they took Last.fm with them.
@Adriel Cartmell – You’re a dipshit.
Obligatory the haunted quote. “Let it burn /Let it burn /Let it burn don’t care if we all go down / Let it burn !”
Even if this story is true: don’t you think it makes sense that last.fm doesn’t publicly ‘attack’ CBS? Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, anyone?
And if TC has evidence to support this, they should release it, just like the other e-mail. Redacted of course, but they should release it nonetheless.
Now it’s just a stupid conversation.
TC: “you gave user data to the RIAA”
last.fm: “no we didn’t”
TC: “yes you did”
last.fm: “no we didn’t”
This could go on for ages.
So Arrington: if you do have the evidence that says they did, publish it already, rather than just vaguely saying that some staffers agree with your statements in private.
This story can only end with a lawsuit.
Either:
a) The story is correct, and Last.fm/CBS will be hauled in front of the EU courts for violating data protection laws.
b) The story is incorrect and TechCrunch has committed libel.
Both would be pretty open and shut cases depending on the verification of the story.
Has this story been covered in any traditional press?
Lack of evidence would prevent a), and the fear that evidence might materialize could prevent b) from reaching the courtroom.
The fact that the first round of accusations never led to b) leads me to believe CBS/Last.fm really fears the latter. Consider the number of layoffs at Last.fm and the impact it would have if court case would prove TC’s story to be accurate.
That would effectively kill Last.fm, with it’s relatively tech savvy and clued-in user base. Damn, even if they win, the story reaching the mainstream press would do a lot of damage.
As long as TC’s evidence is relatively thin, Last.fm’s best bet is to deny everything and hope this goes away.
Not sure if connected. I got a pop-up yesterday that stopped me listening to a song claiming they were starting a beta subscription service soon. For a monthly fee you could listen to as much you like.
No, you have to pay 3$/month to listen last.fm radio if you live outside the UK, the USA and Germany. They came up with that idea some weeks ago but thanks to their communication skills some users might not be aware of it.
I guess the popup meant that you’ve used the 30 songs you could listen for free before you have to subscribe and pay. Enjoy the new last.fm…
From Russ:
For the benefit of TechCrunch, because apparently I didn’t make things clear enough the first time.
* Nobody at Last.fm had any knowledge of our user data being fed to the RIAA (or any labels directly), before or after the alleged incident, or at any other point in the history of the company.
* Last.fm has never given data linking IP addresses and scrobbles to any third party.
* Last.fm has never given data linking IP addresses and scrobbles to CBS (who, by the way, we don’t consider a third party, but who do have to uphold our privacy policy).
* We’ve been in communication with CBS and they deny that they gave any third party any of our user data.
If TechCrunch have any evidence which contradicts any of the statements I’ve made here, I’d love to see it, but I think someone is taking them for a ride. I’m not sure why, though.
http://www.last...35934/_/9525592
is last.fm really that good ?
http://www.last...35934/_/9525592
Seems good to me.
I am probably quite naive or dumb about this, but I feel that some basic assumptions need to be revisited very seriously – the Venture Capital business model as practiced by the majority of startups.
Why should any company aim to be acquired by someone rich, rather than someone perfectly fit for the task?
1. Money
2. Prestige
3. ???
Why should the buying Corp have full control over the executive function of the bought startup?
1. Money (for the startup founder)
2. Control (for the MegaCorp )
3. ???
How many startups have raised decent / huge / ugly sums from VCs and yet not given up any executive control?
Why is no law / temporary contract ( I know about copyright law being hijacked) made for the VC business, so that it allows the startup, who have passion for their work and a sense of ownership (”my baby”), to decide most things about the future and just gives the shareholders the money they want?
Protectionism, especially disguised in legalese is mighty powerful and can create long term damage. But then can the system be improved without changes to the framework, to the rules of the game?
If there will be change, why not curtail the MegaCorp so that it can be forced to behave in social interest or at the very least, not pursue criminal or anti-social motives?
If it is money alone, all I personally can do is to ask entrepreneurs to follow Google’s style of executive power. The guys who love the baby, the startup, never leave. They want no quick money. They want the thing to last long and be useful to users and profitable to themselves. The investors get what they asked for – money, and they basically STFU on anything else and leave the company to the people who love it and labour for its success.
Google’s founders have kept things going so well chiefly because they asked the shareholders to shut up whenever they started behaving like monkeys on hot bricks.
Why not anyone else?
Am I missing something obvious (apart from money, laziness, early retirement plans, and so on).
A post or two on this would be great, here or elsewhere.
I’ve clarified some of the concerns about my original post in a new post here:
http://www.last...35934/_/9525592
It’s a shame techcrunch feel the need to ’slander’ lastfm, surely as ‘real journalists’ (haha!) they’d know that you can’t trust sources, they’re just out to make up for their fail last time, when they were clearly wrong.
Furthermore, EVEN IF CBS had somehow taken the data from your servers, why would you to be to blame? It’s beyond your control and has no bearing on you as a company.
It’s a shame about the fickle nature of techcrunch readers, I’ve been a member of last.fm since 2006, subscriber for quite a bit of it and I’m not going to just delete my account because you apparently handed over data about scrobbles, apparently being the operative word.
*burden of proof
XD
That was not a “blanket denial”. The was a blanket non-denial denial.
However this pans out either way, the RIAA can’t really do much with the data that should worry anyone.
The people who should be worrying are places like blip.fm where music is being playing from illegally publicly hosted copies on webservers all over the world.
A simple script could provide the RIAA with a list of all those web hosts – then whois can give the contact details of the web hosts/isp. They (& their customers) are the ones breaking laws here, enabling and providing copies for others to download.
I also wonder how long it be until the RIAA and MPAA wise up to all the free file host places – rapidshare, megaupload, etc, etc and sue them out of existence. Guilty as charged. Extremely easy to prove and win. No long drawn out case for misunderstanding.
Compare these places and what they DO to the things PirateBay were accused and fined for. It’s crazy.
the guy from last fm saying, nobody here knows anything about a leak. is he surprised that if there is a leak, that the leak isnt admitting to it?
I don’t know. That part was weird, and didn’t really make sense. He seemed to be saying, “I know we didn’t give the RIAA data because no one will risk their job and reputation by admitting to being the link.”
If you’re willing to leak something this damaging – if it really is legit – it would say to me that you’re despising of the company ethics or the way they operate and you’d be out of there as fast as possible. Also, it can’t be that hard to find the leak, if this was legit.
Its not a big thing for a company like CBS to violate EU-Data-Rigths – belief me that, but its a really big thing to get caught! Specially by a journlalist like Arrington publicly and not a regulation-authority or a privacy-agency.
I trust Arrington because I know if he (and hes source) were wrong he will publicly apologize. I dont know if cbs will do that if the story is really true…
Too busy writing a script for scrobbling unreleased singles via the API to come up with a worthy response to this thread…
Oh dude did you get the new eminem cd I emailed you?
When you are purchased by a giant media conglomerate you no longer have control of your company. All this crap that last.fm is spewing is just trying to defend the actions of CBS. Last.fm already betrayed their international users by cutting off their music feed. They’re not going to get any more sympathy from me.
The odd thing is…no one will ever really know the whole truth. Both companies will just play the denial game.
Funny… What happens with all the real comments? Why are they removed? All I see is aye-sayers.
Is your story that bad, that people not agreeing with you ought to be censored? Is TechCrunch hosted in North-Korea?
Posts from Russ:
http://www.last...35934/_/9521312
http://www.last...35934/_/9521431
http://www.last...35934/_/9525592
http://www.last...35934/_/9525641
http://www.last...35934/_/9525908
http://www.last...35934/_/9525950
http://www.last...35934/_/9526007
http://www.last...35934/_/9526120
http://www.last...35934/_/9526287
http://www.last...35934/_/9526463
Russ, Michael, uh, yeah, why don’t you guys have an actual conversation and then let us know what you decide really happened.
Michael, you promise to call. Russ, you promise to answer. easy. see! lol.
As they say denial is my epitaph.
Posts STILL disappear. Even the ones with valid questions and without death-threats. And you stay as silent about that, despite numerous friendly requests for information about them, as you claim Last.fm is
Honestly… deleting valid requests about information and your insight in this matter and connected issues from the past do not make them go away. They make your accusation only less believable…
Yeah I have told the story, and i’ll tell it again, last.fm indeed handed over the info, but nothing good came out of it as nobody yet used the data (and probably never will).
Both companies suck, although last.fm was actually once a great service, khtxbai.