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Last.fm User Data Was Sent To RIAA By CBS
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat May 23, 2009 08:46 PM
from the doing-their-bidding dept.
from the doing-their-bidding dept.
suraj.sun sends in an update from TechCrunch on a story that generated a lot of controversy a few months back, "Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?" "Now we've located another source for the story, someone who's very close to Last.fm. And it turns out Last.fm was telling the truth, sorta... Last.fm didn't hand user data over to the RIAA. According to our source, it was their parent company, CBS, that did it. Here's what we believe happened: CBS requested user data from Last.fm, including user name and IP address. CBS wanted the data to comply with a RIAA request but told Last.fm the data was going to be used for 'internal use only.' It was only after the data was sent to CBS that Last.fm discovered the real reason for the request. Last.fm staffers were outraged, say our sources, but the data had already been sent to the RIAA. We believe CBS lied to us when they denied sending the data to the RIAA, and that they subsequently asked us to attribute the quote to Last.fm to make the statement defensible. Last.fm's denials were strictly speaking correct, but they ignored the underlying truth of the situation, that their parent company supplied user data to the RIAA, and that the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users."
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News: Last.fm Strongly Denies Sharing Data With RIAA 122 comments
bonch writes "Last.fm and CBS vehemently deny sharing any user data with the RIAA, contrary to previous reports. One anonymous party calls it 'irresponsible journalism,' and Last.fm goes so far as to suggest it is a target of slander. Carla Duckworth of the RIAA confirmed, 'We've made no such request for this information.'"
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Breaking News (Score:4, Funny)
Media companies lie! Film at 11.
Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what guys. What you did was basic. You remembered my song history. Along with twitter, I consider you to be one of the most simple web "2.0" tools on the net today. You have a crowd, but not a complex or clever execution.
And now your users don't trust you...
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Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Informative)
Libre.fm [libre.fm] for the win. It's compatible with Last.fm.
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Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Funny)
Amen, brother. I had a party last weekend and all my friends asked if they could come. I told them to have their own party. Nothing makes a bag of chips disappear faster than a bunch of moochers.
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Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the pirates first, but when will it be "Dear Ol Auntie" who gets bit with malware or extreme mistrust by a company (surprise). An attack on "Dear Ol Auntie" has already been done by Sony with little to no real punishment.
We'd like to think that a music recommendation engine would be impartial and fair. The engine is, but the people arent. And aside from that, they most likely broke laws when they handed out identifying information to their corporate owner. There's a lot of laws regarding data security in places like California and throughout the EC.
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Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Breaking News (Score:5, Informative)
While I disagree with the handing over of information, I fail to see what the RIAA will be able to prove with it.
Prove? They don't need to be able to prove anything except that they have the filing fee, just to file a lawsuit. If you don't show up in court, they win. But probably first they'll offer to cut you a deal for a thousand bucks or so.
Good luck with your court case. If you hire a lawyer, you might even win. But more likely, if it looks like you might win, they'll drop the suit. Oh, you'll still need to pay that lawyer.
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Re:Breaking News (Score:4, Informative)
I think that this is only true in America and a few other countries. Under English law the loser pays the winner's fees. Not sure what happens if the loser merely drops the case though.
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Last.fm denying this (again) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ask. (Score:5, Informative)
Comments expressing alternate points of view are seemingly disappearing from the TechCrunch discussion thread [www.last.fm]. If TC feels it's necessary to delete comments which critique their reporting, perhaps we should be taking a closer look at that reporting...
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Ain't Just a River in Egypt (Score:4, Funny)
I promise I didn't tell on you!... my mom did.
Re:Ain't Just a River in Egypt (Score:4, Interesting)
Er, this isn't actually a troll. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Last.fm told its parent company, who then told. Hence "I didn't tell on you...my mom did".
This post makes sense and is relevant.
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The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess one could simple turn off scrobbling, but that is one of the main features of the service.
Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who will use their service?
Probably the 90-99% of their users who don't and will never know anything about this or even care if they do.
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have some sort of list of last.fm users I could look over to confirm your statement? sorry, j/k
In all seriousness, though, my assumption is that the average last.fm user is no different than the average facebook user. Which is to say completely following the bell curve with only the top 2% or so being 1) savvy computer users with 2) an opinion about the RIAA who 3) care about the privacy of their use of a free online radio service.
But that's just my thoughts on it. If you have some statistics that somehow demonstrate that the users of THIS online service are somehow superior power users, feel free to post'em.
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you have some sort of list of last.fm users I could look over to confirm your statement?
No but the RIAA could help you with that one.
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Informative)
No they don't, I implemented a last.fm plugin, so I know what I'm talking about.
The only data sent are : title, artist, album, length and track number.
And of course, the data we send doesn't prove anything, as we can put whatever data we want.
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:4, Informative)
.
Unless the RIAA subtly change the music to fingerprint every CD uniquely, and then track from the point of sale with your information and watch for that fingerprint on the internet. (Dang, haven't quite got the conspiracy theory thing down quite yet!)
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Re:The death of Last.fm? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the RIAA they only are planning on searching the data for an unreleased album.
Uh-huh. And because the RIAA has such a stellar record of transparency and accountability, we should trust them explicitly.
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So, how is the weather in denial? (Score:5, Insightful)
You think the RIAA is going to let a silly little thing like possibly mistagged music stop it? Hasn't stopped them before, won't stop them next time.
And it is not about winning from the RIAA in a court case, it is about being able to afford to win. US legal system means you got to have the money to pay the lawyer up front and I am fairly sure the RIAA got more money then you.
Last.fm commited a major error in judgement and CBS showed its colors. Anyone who is smart is going to stop the service. No wait, anyone who is smart NEVER used the service. Giving your music data to a media company in bed with the RIAA? Exactly what part of that sounds like a good idea?
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Why the outrage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait (Score:5, Interesting)
So it is not "legal" to listen to music on last.fm? Can I get sued by the RIAA if I listen to songs on last.fm? If it is "illegal" to have music on last.fm, then why doesn't the RIAA send a cease and desist to CBS/last.fm? If it is legal, then why would CBS release that information? Is it so that the RIAA can have a list of IPs with names to go after if they think someone is pirating music?
Re:Wait (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Wait (Score:5, Interesting)
You're looking at it the wrong way.
User listening data is not really that useful as a tool for filing lawsuits. It is useful as a tool for tracking and potentially identifying leaks. For example: suppose User X listened to a new album ten days before it was actually released, and is friends (on the site) with User Y who listened to it twelve days before the release date, and User Y is friends with User Z whose profile matches up with an intern at the studio. Odds are that User Z -- the intern -- is the source of the leak.
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Don't support corrupt organisations (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop buying CDs and movies. It's the only way to stop RIAA and MPAA abusing our rights. Fund the artists, not these corrupt organisations.
Artists: Go direct to the public via the web.
RIAA/MPAA: Evolve or die. Stop attacking and threatening potential customers, or like me, they will stop buying your product.
AC
Re:Don't support corrupt organisations (Score:5, Informative)
links ftw
http://www.jamendo.com/en/ [jamendo.com] (integrated with amarok2)
http://www.magnatune.com/ [magnatune.com] (integrated with amarok, found brad suck's here)
http://blip.tv/ [blip.tv] (out of office [blip.tv])
http://libre.fm/ [libre.fm] (pretty meh atm, but i appreciate the fact its agpl)
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Little use as legal evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users
Except that
(1) There is no way to tell whether music on last.fm is from legal or illegal copies.
(2) "Listening" to music you don't own is in no way illegal. Even if the RIAA can prove you are listening to music you didn't purchase, they have presented no evidence that a crime has occurred.
(3) The tag data sent to last.fm is self-reported and unverified. Basically, there is no more evidence that you actually listened to the music than if you said you listened to it on facebook. In fact, due to incorrect tags, I'm quite sure that I have reported listening to music not in my collection on a number of occasions.
So while the RIAA may have a bit of a tip-off in looking at high-volume listeners, I don't think they could even get a warrant for more information, since they distinctly lack evidence of any kind of crime.
Re:Little use as legal evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Little use as legal evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
But seeing as the last.fm data was obtained in an underhand manner and then released to an unrelated 3rd party, does that mean that the RIAA pirated the data? :-)
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Re:Probable cause for a search warrant (Score:4, Insightful)
This is absolutely not true. Any unauthorized copy is a copyright violation, whether or not you upload or download, whether or not you knew it was an illegal copy, and even whether or not the person you got it from purported to give you a license. Civil copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. That means they don't care what you were thinking. The fact that the copyright owner has to prove is that you copied protected elements of their copyrighted work.
I see this theory on Slashdot a lot, and while I can see why it's so popular, that doesn't make it true. If any of you are sued for copyright infringement, please don't go in and tell the judge, "I wasn't infringing. I was just downloading!" In fact, don't say anything. As soon as you get served, hire a lawyer.
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Re:Probable cause for a search warrant (Score:4, Insightful)
Any unauthorized copy is a copyright violation, whether or not you upload or download, whether or not you knew it was an illegal copy, and even whether or not the person you got it from purported to give you a license.
This is not universally true either.
Perhaps your argument holds by US law, but not by all national copyright laws. 95% of the human population does not live in the US.
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that's what happens when you sell out (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason Craigslist, for example, has never gone public or sold a controlling stake to a major media company: because Craig Newmark knows exactly what would happen to the site if he did. He could get more money, sure, but he's very wealthy as it is, so he doesn't need more money. Not enough to sell out the site he spent so many years building, anyway.
Remember, folks, free-market capitalism is about your right to control your own business, taking responsibility for it and running it as you see fit. If you sell out to some large, bureaucratic entity, greedy bastards with no vision will run your life's work right into the ground. Is the payout worth it? Maybe it is, but at least make sure you realize what you're doing: you cannot both sell out to CBS and retain your integrity. The freedom to choose not to sell something is as important as free access to markets is.
Re:that's what happens when you sell out (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason Craigslist, for example, has never gone public or sold a controlling stake to a major media company: because Craig Newmark knows exactly what would happen to the site if he did. He could get more money, sure, but he's very wealthy as it is, so he doesn't need more money.
It's called "Integrity" and unfortunately it is in short supply.
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Re:that's what happens when you sell out (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think there's some moral right to business models. Newspaper classifieds were exceedingly shitty, to the point where even in early days I'd often find it easier to sell or buy stuff on local mailing lists and Usenet groups than through classifieds. They also made the most of their gatekeeper status and local monopolies or near-monopolies to charge exhorbitant fees, imposing high transaction costs on person-to-person sales, while not even being friendly to use or search.
Craigslist did classifieds right, so the revenue model of overcharging for classifieds done badly dried up.
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Re:that's what happens when you sell out (Score:5, Insightful)
Too true. And even before widespread network usage, traditional classifieds were already under serious attack from traditional "alternative" paper ads. In my area, there's been a weekly paper that published classified ads for free from individuals, and makes money by charging for larger graphical ads and for line ads from businesses. It's been around since the early 90s at least. Even before Craigslist, if you were looking for a motorcycle, boat, car or any such thing, you'd pick up that weekly because almost nobody advertised in the local newspaper. And it isn't hard to figure out why -- the prices for a newspaper ad are nuts. For example, 4 years ago or so, whenever we'd put in a 3 line want ad for an employee, it was cost $125 to run for three days.
About two years ago, we decided to try a Craigslist ad because it didn't cost anything and if it didn't work out, we didn't lose anything. We ended up getting three times the applicants and of higher quality to boot. Gone were the days of wondering what would possess someone would to bring a purse to an interview that had boobs printed on it. In compensation, we do sometimes get some unusual email addresses now, but we just don't call back. Word to the wise, don't respond to an employer's job posting with an address like "GoatseMe69@msn.com".
Even if CL charged $10 per ad, we'd still use it without hesitation. Compared to what things used to cost, $60 would be a bargain, particularly because you have enough room to adequately describe the job which helps immensely in getting appropriate applicants. If CL wanted to, its revenue could spike very high whenever it wished.
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What data? (Score:4, Interesting)
How could anyone be sued for last.fm data? The only data you supply to last.fm when using their 'scrobbling' client is the tags of the currently playing song. Tags can be anything. I can take any song by any artist, or even just random noise, and give it any tags I wish. That doesn't magically make that song the song that I've tagged it as. I seem to recall data about U2's then-unreleased album being spoken about when the last.fm data news story came about. The album wasn't released yet, so anybody listening to it obviously got it through unofficial channels. The problem with that line of thinking is, getting a hold of the track names before its release wouldn't exactly be rocket science. I'm sure a tracklist would have been made public long before its release. It's a trivial matter to take any random songs and give them tags that correspond to the upcoming release and then play them back in your media player. And since you're running the last.fm 'scrobbling' client those tag names would be uploaded to your last.fm account as what you're currently listening to. That doesn't mean that the tags your files have are actually what your tags claim them to be. They're just tags. Tags that can be set to any arbitrary value by anyone, anytime. How anyone could possibly think this could be used as evidence of being in possession of officially unreleased material ahead of the official release is beyond me. It makes absolutely no sense at all. And the people that think this data could be used for anything to do with the legal system is downright hilarious.
Re:What data? (Score:4, Interesting)
If thats legal or not, who knows, the RIAA isn't exactly known for having legal convictions based on solid evidence.
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Re:What data? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, I can just see the stunning, Law & Order-inspired jury argument. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Shorty did not illegally download U2's then-unreleased album. In fact, he had a legally-obtained copy of the Joshua Tree album, and he renamed all the tracks to the names of the tracks of the upcoming albums so he could fantasize about listening to the new album.
I don't think I could even pull it off with a straight face.
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I can't help but wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
... If this has anything to do with the fact that Tech Crunch is sponsored by a competitor of Last.fm.
They should come after me for the new Eminem track (Score:4, Funny)
I'm currently listening to a future Eminem track. I got it by running bittorrent through a time-machine. The evidence is plain for all to see [www.last.fm] (or my playedlist [www.last.fm])
Good grief.
I hope this did happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Take them through Criminal Courts rather than Civil courts...
Last.fm Terms of Use (Score:5, Informative)
"When you upload Your Upload Information via the Website, you irrevocably grant to Last.fm, its parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, and partners, without any credit or compensation to you, a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, unrestricted, irrevocable, royalty-free and fully transferable, assignable and sub-licensable right and licence to use, reuse, modify, adapt, alter, display, archive, publish, sub-license, perform, copy, reproduce, disclose, transmit, communicate to the public, post, sell, translate, create derivative works of, distribute, make and export Your Upload Information (in whole or in part), or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now known or developed in the future, for any purposes whatsoever including, without limitation, for advertising, marketing, publicity and promotional purposes, such as developing, manufacturing and marketing products and targeted advertisements using such Uploaded Information. You hereby waive any moral rights (or any similar rights in any jurisdiction) you may have in and to any of Your Upload Information, even if such material is altered or changed in a manner not agreeable to you."
It comes down to this: (Score:5, Informative)
Who do you trust more... Michael Arrington, or Russ Garrett?
Russ' rebuttal is here [www.last.fm]. He's no PR flack... he's one of the founders and one of the original developers of Audioscrobbler.
It's very interesting that so many Slashdotters are taking the Techcrunch report at face value. Given Mr. Arrington's history with regard to responsible journalism, I'm with Russ on this one.
Arrington has last.fm in his sights for some reason. Somebody pointed out that TechCrunch takes advertising money from a last.fm competitor. I don't think it's as simple as that, but Arrington has an agenda here, and I don't think it's the noble pursuit of truth.
Re:It comes down to this: (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, for mod points.
The one thing that surprises me is that Russ Garrett says that legal action isn't possible. That surprises me. You have an entity suffering real, quantifiable damage (count the "I'm unsubscribing RIGHT NOW" posts upthread) as a direct result of libellous, allegedly incorrect information being published, when that entity exists in a country with some of the most plaintiff-friendly libel laws in the world.
WTF?
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Does it really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it really matter if it was CBS, the owner of last.fm, that did it, even though the people who run last.fm might not have done it if asked? They're still the same company, just a different level. If my boss decides to put some DRM in our new game that sniffs around on your machine and sends it back your data to our servers, do you really give a crap that the Jeff the leader coder thought it was a sucky idea?
This whole idea that they're not the same thing is a farce. It's just sleight of hand to get you to feel good about a company that you would never have given a chance if it was directly marketed by parent company Evil, Incorporated.
this is why I never signed up for last.fm (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving any company a window into your day-to-day activities is very dangerous. The possibility of this kind of thing happening must run through the mind of any vaguely security-conscious person who considers their business model. Honestly, it's one of the reasons I never signed up.
That being said, however, there are a couple things to remember, though.
1) You give much more information to Google. If you have done ANYTHING illegal in the last couple years, Google could be used to help convict you.
Think about it. All of your searches, page views, chats and emails can be tied to a single account. You could probably establish where I've been every day with hour resolution just by examining the IP addresses I access email and search from, to say nothing of actually reading the contents.
2) Last.fm's innocence or guilt has no bearing on this issue
The problem is that this accusation plays perfectly to the fears a user might have about sending such detailed information to Last.fm. Whereas there are endless accusations about Google being in bed with the FBI and so forth, I'd imagine nearly every user of Last.fm considers the RIAA a credible threat. It's plausible that the RIAA would ask for the data, and it's plausible that a big company like CBS would be willing to side with the cartels on this one. They're being tried in the court of public opinion, and as far as I can see, they are losing.
Bottom line, if I had a bone to pick with Last.fm, this would be the perfect way to take them down.
3) This is only going to get worse
As the number of online services we use on a daily basis increases, our exposures are only going to multiply. Until we demand *true* anonymous use of internet resources (as distinguished from services that offer the illusion of privacy but are still subject to subpoenas, backroom deals, compromised network admins, etc), the misuse of our private information will only worsen.
Facts (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/_/9521312 [www.last.fm]
Russ, a founder of last.fm and much more reliable than that National Enquirer-wannabe TechCrunch, has denied everything.
Showing nothing to hide, you'll see in that thread noone ever had a post deleted there, no matter how irate or against last.fm it was.
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/_/9522388 [www.last.fm]
Starting there, and continuing reading a couple pages, you'll see the truth about TechCrunch. Every message at TC in response that was against Michael Arrington's (shoddy) reporting has been summarily deleted. Several screenshots were even posted of people's responses that were deleted.
Now, who is more trustworthy again, a site that allows open discussion, or one that whittles down the discussion to make it look like everyone agrees with them?
Anyone believing this drivel... I got some 419 e-mails for you.
Re:No more Last.fm for me (Score:5, Interesting)
I cancelled my Last.fm account immediately after I read this article. Fu** them for this.
I shouldn't have done this from the start. I feel stupid. I should've seen something like this coming.
Talk about over-reacting. Don't you think you should give it a few more days or weeks to see how it really plays out?
I cancelled the day they announced the CBS buyout myself. But you waited through the buyout and the first variation of this story, maybe its true, maybe its false, but since you gave them the benefit of the doubt then, why are you cancelling now when there is really no new evidence, just a new variation on an old story?
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