The Beat Junkies

Last.fm, the UK based music community, is said to have handed over data to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of American) listing users with illegal pirated tracks.

The popular music website, owned by CBS, handed over a large amount of user data to the RIAA to go through and find out which users and members have illegal music on their computers.

The RIAA, which is meant to represent the recording industry, supposedly asked for the data after U2’s album leaked onto the Internet. The album, set for a March 2nd release, has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and the RIAA is wanting to punish the culprits.Both Last.fm and the RIAA haven’t released any official statements.

How do they have the Information?

Last.fm users can download for free a program called Scrobble. The program tracks and lists every song you play on your computer and then it can be synced with the website online and the user’s profile. This is the data Last.fm has supposedly handed over.

As the story has developed slowly, and carefully, Last.fm has released a couple unofficial statements obviously dening the rumour but at the same time not saying yes or no. It all seems very unclear as to:

A) If any, what data has been handed over.

B) Does the data list the users name and profile ID or just statistics.

Story Update

One of Last.fm’s founders released a statement denying 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.

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