Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA? | Hacker News Reader

Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?

techcrunch.com

34 pointsvaksel16 comments

Last.fm utterly refutes this story from Techcrunch. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-ov..., http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/506518/1#f8660996)

To quote:

Hi from Last.fm, I’m one of the founders (and the original founder of audioscrobbler, the music tracking plugin).

I’m not going to write much right now because i’m rather pissed off this article was published, except to say that this is utter nonsense and totally untrue.

As far as I can tell, the author of this article got a “tip” from _one_ person and decided to make a story out of it. Techcrunch is full of shit, film at 11.

That was my first thought -- not that the rumor was untrue, but that it was an exceptionally weak basis for a story, and possibly bordering on irresponsible. A tip from a random person via email that starts off with "I heard from a friend..." is hardly the type of thing you go to press with.

To be fair, he didn't say "Last.fm Just Handed Over Listening Data to the RIAA."

Several times he says things like "supposedly" and "assuming."

While this might be a little weak to go to press with, he at least did not present it as fact but as a possibly-true rumor.

"Incidents like this highlight how the social Web can sometimes bite back if you are not careful"

Incidents like this highlight nothing but the need for 'a cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom'.

http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

Last.fm staff are denying this: http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/506518/1#f8660996

From the comment: "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.

As far as I'm concerned Techcrunch have made this whole story up."

I don't think that the RIAA can really win any lawsuits based off of this.

1) They have to figure out who the people actually are, either through adept mass-Googling of the usernames or getting IPs that the users log in from.

2) There's only a small portion of the music that they can figure out is illegal from this--stuff they played before it was released. Even though they like trying to charge 10x for such songs in lawsuits, 1 or 2 albums won't be worth much.

3) I don't think that that's sufficient evidence to win a lawsuit (though maybe sufficient evidence for them to bully people into settlements as they often do.) I could have found the track list for an upcoming album and tagged any songs I have with the artist and titles of those songs.

Still, CBS definitely shouldn't have done that.

It sounds like enough to win a lawsuit. The burden of proof is more likely than not. If they have software that tells them the names of the songs that were playing, then that is pretty damning evidence.

Sure, you could have renamed your songs, but who is going to believe that?

I've thought about using last.fm but didn't for this very reason. Wasn't it obvious to everyone that at some point CBS would avail themselves to the information that their subsidiary was collecting?

It doesn't matter. The RIAA doesn't actually have to know who you are before they sue. Normal Situation.

1. RIAA finds your ip address and a song that had the same name as a copyrighted work.

2. RIAA sues hundreds of John Does in the state where the ISP is located.

3. The RIAA subpoenas the account info, gets it (since the defendant doesn't show up to fight it), and drops the lawsuit.

4. The RIAA sends a settlement offer to the John Doe, since they know the name and address. The RIAA sues if there is no settlement.

http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/2006/08/07/the-riaa-vs-jo...

So all the RIAA needs to do is to sue the username in the state CBS is headquartered. RIAA gets your account IP. This is assuming CBS just doesn't give it to them. Now they have the user's ip address, so its just a normal file sharing lawsuit.

And does it matter whether they have sufficient evidence for a lawsuit? As you mentioned it's probably sufficient evidence for a settlement. And nobody wants to hire a lawyer and fight the RIAA over a few grand.

This is going to be a pr nightmare if it is true. They are basically attacking their user base. Even if a user doesn't pirate music, nobody would want their information handed over to the RIAA.

I don't think that any of Last.fm's data would hold up in court. As far as I know Last.fm just records the artist and track names.

In this case I could rename a track to say U2 when it is actually some other artist and Last.fm wouldn't know the difference.

Flagged because HN is not intended as a forum for distribution of unsubstantiated libels.

I see techcrunch is getting desperate for stories.

I seriously doubt that Arrington would have allowed this story to be published if he was around. I know that a lot of people here dislike him, but even when he published controversial stories, he generally got the facts straight. I find the quality of the others' writing at TC to be of much lower value. The site is really suffering without him.

They've always been all about scandalous headlines and very little substance.

This is a story that potentially hundreds of thousands of U2 fans would be interested in emailing to each other. Not to mention anyone who has ever downloaded music illegally. Sound like linkbait?

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