CBS handed over USER DATA (including IP addresses) to the RIAA

hah! I StumbleUpon'd it. So now the rest of the internet knows.
http://babs05.stumbleupon.com/review/33050166/

Techrunch have no reason to be biased here and to be honest it's rather frustrating that fundamental questions that they are asking are not being answered. why is there no open dialogue being created by last.fm/cbs and techcrunch to resolve this issue, simply saying that techrunch is talking bullshit is really not enough here, that's far too easy to do on your behalf

some answers please:

1. Are they claiming that the initial story, including the email allegedly from a former CBS employee, was completely fabricated by our source? Was there no data request by CBS in February? If there was one, was data transmitted to CBS? Did CBS pass it on to the RIAA or one or more music labels?

2. You say “Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.” Ok. How about a suggestion that you were innocently involved in transferring data to a third party, and subsequently outraged when you discovered what happened?

3. We believe Last.fm staffers have been agreeing with our story in private conversations for some time. Why the private agreement and the public broad denial? We have emails from Last.fm and CBS employees that are saying quite the opposite from what you are.

4. We believe Last.fm put in broad new data policies following our February story. If the original story was completely untrue, why did they put new data policies in place?

5. What is CBS’ position on this story?

Babs_05 said:
That's alarmist. Even if people were faced with lawsuits, it could never be proved.

Also, the album was on MySpace (USA) prior to release, and many of us use Universal Scrobbler. And also, it was on Spotify at the same time.

It's all crock.

maybe, but with mediasentry, you never know who's watching you download that random song...

Babs_05 said:
bunder2009 said:
I hate U2, but for all we know, (if this is true) anyone who downloaded a song before the release date is going to end up with a lawsuit. Could we then in-turn, sue lastfm/CBS for leaking our IP's?That's alarmist. Even if people were faced with lawsuits, it could never be proved. Remember, we can change tags to anything we want. Also, the album was on MySpace (USA) prior to release, and many of us use Universal Scrobbler. And also, it was on Spotify at the same time.

It's all crock.

I'd like to see an official response from CBS.

Things seemed to have mellowed a bit. I'm leaning to the side that this will not be the terrible crisis as some have said, Mr. Stead, you summed it up well with colors too boot. The whole deleting comment fiasco clinched my disbelief.

But the thing is, the folks that are certain Last.fm is evil will always think it's evil. Oddly enough they will probably be the forerunners the next time this happens.

Oh, waking up to this latest part was fun. TechCrunch were censoring comments that suggested their story might not have been watertight? Hilarious!

madmax_cro said:
Lastfm i love you so please come on with something that is not "we love you we would never do it."Ok, what if that is actually the whole truth?

Imagine for one second that I call you a murderer. What's that, you're denying it? No, no, you need to come up with something better than that. I don't believe it.

Last.fm keeps doing what Last.fm has been doing for the last few months: publishing blanket denials and pushing PR-speak but never, ever answering critical questions or engaging in a meaningful dialogue with its users.

Last.fm is flushing it's credibility down the drain, and simply shooting the messenger won't do this time.

The total lack of transparency the lack of communication and the lack of user control over their data make everything Last.fm does or say suspect.

The "of course we would never doe such a thing" attitude may be genuine, but it's no longer credible since Last.fm decided to abuse the contributions and the trust of it's users against them by introducing the discriminatory paywall for non-UK/US/DE residents.

"We are the good guys" is not enough anymore. Last.fm has told us in no uncertain terms that it's a business, so start acting like a professional business. A modern, transparent and ethical business.

Techcrunch has always been full of shit, but they've also always been full of scoops and inside information. Techcrunch has a high level of transparency and an active dialogue with it's readers and critics that balances out the risk they take when publishing inside rumors and gossip.

Last.fm on the other hand has been increasingly secretive, uncommunicative, deceitful en disrespectful towards its users. (Not to mention the fact that Last.fm is fully owned by CBS, which has absolutely zero credibility when it comes to respecting users' rights.)

Right now, TC is considerably more credible than Last.fm.

Last.fm users get the mushroom treatment: kept in the dark and fed bullshit. TC can make up a thousand stories and they'll all be more credible than Last.fm's denials as long as Last.fm keeps up this arrogant attitude.

RIAA bullies CBS into getting private user data illegally by threatening to increase radio fees.
Doesn't sound too far off the kind of things the RIAA do.

alexmuller said:
Imagine for one second that I call you a murderer. What's that, you're denying it? No, no, you need to come up with something better than that. I don't believe it.The butler did it...

I'm sure we all get a proper and official response from Last.fm/CBS next week and hopefully it's something less juvenile than "Techcrunch are full of shit".

rickmb said:
Techcrunch has a high level of transparency and an active dialogue with it's readers and critics
hah! yes, they were very "active" indeed with their critics last night.

trixietrinian said:
rickmb said:
Techcrunch has a high level of transparency and an active dialogue with it's readers and critics
hah! yes, they were very "active" indeed with their critics last night.Considering my last few attempts at posting have all mysteriously not appeared in the comments list, I presume I've been blocked altogether. That strikes me as a very strange definition of 'active dialogue'.

[edit: yes, my e-mail's definitely been blacklisted from comments, using a different address my comments magically appear.]