The Last.fm Straw
Update: Check the comments below regarding TechCrunch being “full of shit.”
Damn. I liked this service. But if it turns out that Last.fm actually did hand out data then I’m out of there like shit through a goose. Not because I listened to an illegal copy of U2’s latest piece. Actually, I haven’t thought about U2 since Auchtung Baby. I didn’t even realize Bono was still alive.
I’d bag on Last.fm on principal. The principal being that the RIAA needs to find a business model that isn’t based on the same business model they started with in 1952.
February 20th, 2009 at 19:44
Hello!
TechCrunch have gotten mixed up and posted an unsubstantiated rumour. It’s entirely untrue, as Last.fm have stated here: http://www.last.fm/forum/21713/_/506518/1#f8660996
“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.”
February 23rd, 2009 at 16:29
FYI (http://blog.last.fm/2009/02/23/techcrunch-are-full-of-shit)
February 23rd, 2009 at 16:57
I’m really happy to hear this. Not the part about techcrunch being full of shit. That’s actually sad and goes a long way to point out the issues with a democratic medium like the Internet:
That any asshat with a connection can become a media source.
And yes, I’m completely aware of the irony in that statement.
It’s really sad that a blog as well established as TechCrunch is willing to charge headlong into the shallow end of the mediocrity pool.
Scrobble on.