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TechCrunch vs. Last.fm vs. the RIAA, Round 2
Last.fm's parent company, CBS, was the source of the leak to the RIAA. Last.fm didn't know about it at the time, having just turned over the data to CBS, which explains their vehement denials. TechCrunch isn't saying Last.fm lied, but they are saying that CBS duped them during the reporting for their original story, asking TC to attribute a CBS quote to Last.fm.
The reason for the link, according to Techcrunch's source at CBS, is that the requester (it could have been the RIAA, or an individual label) had the ability to hurt CBS/Last.fm on streaming rates. The source also claims that Last.fm premium accounts aren't making any profit, and the leak was made with the intent of protecting Last.fm from increased rates that could put it out of business.
No comment from Last.fm yet, but it's still early (and a three-day weekend) at their headquarters in the UK. We'll know more when they've had a chance to respond.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Josh said 12:00PM on 5-23-2009
Um... fuck? I just turned off scrobbling for my account. First time I haven't had scrobbling on since I signed up about a month after Audioscrobbler launched. I'll reevaluate my decision once we hear from them on the matter.
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annoyingmouse said 2:40PM on 5-23-2009
One of the co-founders of last.fm has put up a quite funny twitter on the subject: http://twitter.com/metabrew/status/1892316194
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Damien said 5:51PM on 5-23-2009
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/535934/5#f9521312
Says it all :)
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elle said 10:30AM on 5-25-2009
"(a three-day weekend) at their headquarters in the UK"
A bank holiday at the same time as Memorial Day? And TechCrunch whips this out when they know neither CBS nor last.fm will officially answer until Tuesday?
Damn, Arrington's worse than my ex.
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