Another Blanket Denial By Last.fm | Hacker News Reader

Another Blanket Denial By Last.fm

techcrunch.com

49 pointsvaksel35 comments

I find it extremely unlikely that Last.fm is outright lying or trying to obscure the truth. That would be pretty stupid of them.

But I also doubt Arrington would be this direct about the issue if he didn't have some really, really solid proof.

It's hard to decipher. The only thing that benefits from this stuff is TechCrunch, though, which is something to think about.

Someone is committing PR suicide. I can't decide who yet.

I see the motivations line up as follow:

TC reasons to lie: generate traffic, personal animosity

TC risks by lying: libel lawsuit

last.fm/cbs reasons to lie: cover up alleged activity which would be in violation of EU law

last.fm/cbs risks by lying: bad PR (but compare that with an admission of guilt)

Based on motivations alone, I think TC would have be insane to fabricate this story.

There's a third possibility here, which is that TC was tricked. The sources' information could be fake, because the sources want to make Last.FM look bad.

I agree, it's impossible to come to a conclusion based on what we've seen from both sides thus far. I think it's best to wait-and-see on this one.

Perhaps Techcrunch and Last.fm are "both" right from their perspectives, and we're seeing a confusing mess? Time will tell...

For now, I think Techcrunch should name their source publicly. Or, if that source is worried the exposure will do them harm, have a neutral 3rd party verify the source's credibility while keeping their confidentiality. Is this a current or former employee? How high-up are they in Last.fm/CBS? How long have they worked there? Are they a current or former employee? etc etc...

Last.fm's trust is potentially on the line here. Techcrunch's integrity as journalists is potentially on the line here as well.

From the 2nd article: "The person who first leaked the news was terminated from CBS for the leak, says our original source, and threatened with legal action."

Even assuming that they were telling the truth and that TC would cover the legal bills, the source would have to be pretty brave to expose themselves any further.

No need for outright lying. Just consider the wording of the denial: "Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect"

Last.fm does not deny that information was passed to the RIAA. They're just saying we have nothing to do with it, and CBS refuses to comment. Now, to me, this looks very much like Arrington has got it right this time. If no information was passed to RIAA, Last.fm and CBS would issue a joint statement to that effect.

We do deny it.

http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/_/9525592

In that case I suggest you step up your PR and/or legal effort one or two notches _together_ with your parent company. If you are indeed the victims here, I'm very sorry for you.

Maybe it's just me but I don't like seeing speculative crap like this on HN. I'll read it once there's an actual incident with some proof but this is just drama and it's the same reason I don't watch soaps on TV. Flagged even if it is not spam/fake.

"I'll read it once there's an actual incident with some proof"

TC is claiming that there _was_ an actual incident, they're claiming the data already _was_ handed over to the RIAA and they're basing this on an anonymous source (a technique which has broken some of the most famous stories in journalism).

TC would be insane to make it all up as this surely would meet the standard for libel.

Not many people read techcrunch compared to real newspapers, so it might be hard to prove any damage to reputation.

Readership of the NY times: 1 million Readership of Techcrunch: 2 million+

You're comparing paper circulation to web page views. Don't do that. A more valid comparison is daily web visitors: nytimes.com with 12 million and techcrunch.com with 1.6 million.

Source: Alexa (http://www23.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=techcrunch.com+daily+...)

You have a low bar for "proof." Michael Arrington is not the NY Times and his waving his hands in the air citing anonymous sources is neither informative nor interesting.

I will cancel my much beloved Last.fm account as soon as there is proof. Until then, please keep the bar above petty sniping and speculation.

Looks like TC are aggressively deleting comments that disagree with their opinion.

How can you tell?

http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/7

a lot of screenshots and quotes, they seem to literally be deleting anything that might be in favour of last.fm

I know who I trust

Let's assume last.fm did indeed provide information to the RIAA. Won't we find out the truth once the RIAA starts suing people based on that information? Surely last.fm would plan for something like that instead of issuing denials.

This leads to one of two conclusions: either (1) last.fm isn't guilty, or (2) the RIAA doesn't intend to act upon the information they got. If (2), why did they request the information in the first place?

Personally, I'm inclined to believe the TechCrunch story is nothing more than linkbait, and last.fm is trying to give them as little attention as possible.

For (2), they probably wanted it for research purposes.

For (2), They were trying to catch the guy who leaked it from the inside… not sue everyone who listened to the new U2 album. </quote> [from the comments]

For (2), the RIAA could act upon data from last.fm without mentioning that they were using the data from last.fm

Examples: RIAA uses last.fm data to find IP addresses of people they suspect of filesharing, and then tries to find other evidence on those IP addresses breaking copyright etc. The filesharer gets busted based on the additional information and the last.fm data never gets mentioned.

I like the part where he takes a screenshot of an email and suggests that this makes it more... proofy, I guess?

Arrington is the master of the weekend drama.

I forgot that last.fm was in the UK. Why would a company in the UK give a rat's ass about some US lobbying group?

Edit: I am totally wrong in this comment.

<strike>Last.fm is owned by CBS which is part of the RIAA.</strike>

CBS is not part of the RIAA (http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_mem...) and has not had a significant music recording arm since it sold CBS Records/Columbia to Sony in 1988.

This is fundamentally a legal problem - namely, that our virtual and physical privacy are treated much differently. Our online data is often held by third parties who need not respect our wishes about how our private data is handled and cannot necessarily be trusted to act in our best interest. And this problem isn't limited to last.fm, it spans multiple classes of private data, from webmail to credit card transactions.

Hat tip to http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0905.html#3

Yet another hit job on LastFM late Friday night before a 3 day weekend.

Us types go crazy over this stuff, while this back and forth hurts a start-up, a company, peoples' livelihoods they put their blood, sweat and tears over. Years of work possibly down the drain because of a start-up's blog insatiable appetite for drama(traffic). This start-up blog is supposed to be on the side of start-ups; nurture and report on them. While they are reporting on them it's out of a tabloid magazine reporting! Why wait til a holiday weekend to report on this?

If you were listening to a leaked album you were breaking the law and should not be so dumb to flagrantly share it on a network with your friends. The law sucks, but it is law!

You assume that one is breaking the law by listening to an unreleased album. I do not believe that is the case.

The primary assumption is that you will (or have) copy(ied) and thus violated copyright. That's only true in cases you actually copied them. If somebody else handed you copied discs, then it is they who broke copyright, not you.

Listening to them would be perfectly legal, as long as you dont copy them.

"That's only true in cases you actually copied them. If somebody else handed you copied discs, then it is they who broke copyright, not you."

However, it follows logically that, if you are in possession of a copy of an album prior to its authorized release, someone in the chain has committed copyright infringement by producing and/or distributing copies of the album without authorization from the copyright holder. Which means you'll still get to take part in legal proceedings regardless of whether you're the defendant (you can be compelled to provide information about how you obtained the unauthorized copy).

So if someone steals a car, then gives you it, it's fine?

(I'm just talking morally, not legally).

So if someone makes a copy of a car, and gives it to you, it's not fine?

That wasn't my point. My point was, that if someone commits a crime, and then "gives" you the product of that crime, it doesn't mean you're innocent if you knew a crime was committed.

If someone breaks in to Google and steals some trade secrets, copies them to a memory-stick, and gives them to you, etc

I should have known better to compare stealing music to stealing cars ;)

There was a law passed in 2005 I think by copyright that said if your in possession of a pre-release then they can come down hard on you if found out. If your listening to the new U2 before it's release then you have possession of the file on your hard drive and allowing last.fm to scrobble it (stupid)!

I use to be download this and download that and not give a rats tail if i was stealing or not. Thought oh Im just sticking it to the man. Well now I run my own business(start up) I have a different perspective. As well the perspective of ten years of the RIAA continuing to fight and win against innovation (Seeqpod being the latest of many before it) and bashing into our heads (at least trying) that downloading something you would have otherwise bought circa 1997(majority of downloaders) is stealing!

I think a lot of what the RIAA does is dumb, but they run a business, which is out to make money and thus they are finding their way kicking and screaming into new models. Though everyone wishes they'd go away or at least that's what they say and yet those same ppl continue to consume their product keeping them going and stronger!

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