Last.fm Shoots Down Rumors Over U2 Album Leak

nandemoari writes "Internet radio site Last.fm has denied reports that it told the record industry which of its members had listened to a leaked U2 album. The site claims the entire story, published by Techcrunch, was made up. Last week the record industry became extremely concerned after U2's forthcoming album appeared on several torrent file sharing sites. While there is no way any users could have acquired the album through Last.fm, the site's statistics suggest that more than 8,000 users have played the unreleased album on their machines."

Re:Nice Relationship

[cromar]

I for one am tired of waiting! However, independent music has been making progress, and we are far better now than we were ten years ago. We have good music blogs that provide promotional mp3s, iTunes and Amazon (I believe) are both dealing with independent labels (iTunes indie section, is insanely great), sites like last.fm and favtape.com provide a means of leagally listening to music. Albums cost less than they used to: $10 or less compared to some CDs that cost $22? (I haven't bought a new CD in a long time... are they still so expensive?) eMusic is even cheaper (of course a lot of their content is deliberately misleading crap, but I digress).

The beginnings of a shining revolution in media are here and have been growing. Of course that doesn't stop such travesties as DMCA, DRM, erosion of fair use, etc.

P.S. Has the ASCAP been fucking around in anyone else's hometown lately? In my hometown in Columbia, Missouri, we have had the ASCAP basically shut down our "open mic nights" for anyone who doesn't pay some rediculous ($thousands) protection money. The one business owner I talked to couldn't afford that, and the ASCAP goon had scared her good *even though typically no commercial content is sampled or covered at these events!* Result: local venues catering to independent music have been nearly completely shutdown.

poor victims of their own creation

[Tom]

The poor music industry, I feel so sorry for it. For years and years they have driven the marketing machine so that everyone absolutely must get the album on the day it's out, or as soon as possible. Mostly due to the way the charts are calculated by sales peaks, but also because everyone wants money now.

And now people can't wait for the release day anymore. Geez. Who would have guessed?

Re:Looks like the privacy paranoiacs win this roun

[Nova77]

http://blog.last.fm/2009/02/23/techcrunch-are-full-of-shit [blog.last.fm]

You mean this album?

[chord.wav]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4730213/U2_-_No_Line_On_The_Horizon-SHAREGO_320_KBPS_2009 [thepiratebay.org]

linking is the new terrorism :)

And manwhile...

[root_42]

Trent Reznor is giving away NIN's new album for free, and still making a load of money on the album through online, CD, vinyl and DVD sales. (see [1] and [2])

I say kudos to this man, and his slightly innovative, yet very successful method of distributing music. I have not yet paid for the album, but already downloaded the mp3 and flac version, and I like it! I guess I will try to buy the vinyl, if I can get it in any of the record stores here.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_inch_nails#Ghosts_I.E2.80.93IV_and_The_Slip_.282008.E2.80.93present.29 [wikipedia.org]
[2] http://www.nin.com/ [nin.com]