Posted 02/22/09 at 05:21:01 PM by Justin Kerr

The unreleased U2 album "No Line on the Horizon" was leaked onto Bit Torrent last week, and the resulting downloads have sent the RIAA into a frenzied fit. New rumors reported by TechCrunch have revealed that the recording industry might be looking to track down people who downloaded the album using Last.fm’s Scrobbler service. Scrobbler keeps track of songs playing on a user’s computer, regardless of the program used to do so. This information is then shared with Last.fm’s servers which broadcast’s playlists, along with recommending new tracks. According to unconfirmed sources within Last.FM, the RIAA contacted and obtained the logs of users who may have played the leaked U2 tracks. Apparently the logs also contain information that “can be used to identify individuals and will likely be shared with 3rd parties that have relationships with the RIAA.”

Despite the fact that neither Last.fm, or its parent company CBS has yet to confirm these rumors, its privacy policy certainly gives them the legal backing  to do so. According to the policy, “…. your record collection (including your skipping history) may be viewed by all other users of Last.fm (who may include other organizations or representatives of other organizations who have registered as Last.fm users) and that they may easily associate this information with your Last.fm username.” Users of the service must be understandably worried. Particularly because they are dealing with an organization which historically solves these types of disputes in a court of law.

Given the fact that that no legal precedent would force Last.fm ito release a user’s personal information, should they be protecting its customers from the RIAA here?  Let us know what you think after the jump.

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Posted 12/21/08 at 06:32:32 PM by Justin Kerr

About a month ago we took a look at a disturbing new trend that was emerging in Australia involving the movie industry’s new approach to copyright enforcement. It now appears as though this heavy handed approach has indeed crossed the ocean and the RIAA is preparing to switch gears. Over the past 6 years the music industry has initiated lawsuits against over 35,000 people. Seniors, minors, or the deceased, nobody was safe from the wrath of the recording industry. This public relations nightmare was bound to end sooner or later, but their new approach could see tens of thousands of internet users booted off the web.

The Wall Street Journal has uncovered agreements made between several unnamed ISP’s and the RIAA which will make it possible for them to force internet service providers to disconnect user’s who refuse to cease and desist music sharing after being issued a written warning. Warnings will likely start with an emailed notice of violation which can then lead to restricted bandwidth, or in worst case scenarios as we mentioned before, the disconnection of internet service. Under the newly proposed system, the RIAA would forward a notice to the ISP of an offending IP address, and would leave it up to the provider to contact the individual customer. The positive change here would be that your privacy would not be compromised, and the RIAA would not require disclosure of the customer’s name.

The RIAA believes this new approach will “reach more people” and that it cannot afford to ignore piracy. The group cites NPD figures which show that the growth of illegally downloaded content has stalled in the wake of the uncertainty surrounding the lawsuits. Their new approach would be much more covert, and would likely attract less media attention.

So would you rather be sued or booted off the net? I think I’ll pay the 99 cents a track thank you very much.

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