(Billboard) Last.fm founder Richard Jones responded forcefully Monday(Feb. 23) to accusations that the company had given user data to the RIAA in order to track illegal downloads of U2's upcoming album, "No Line On the Horizon." Jones' refutation follows a similar denial made by the RIAA on Saturday."I denied it vehemently [in] the Techcrunch article, as did several other Last.fm staffers," Jones wrote today in a post on the company's blog. "We denied it in the Last.fm forums, on twitter, via email. Basically we denied it to anyone that would listen, and now we're denying it on our blog."
Another staffer, Russ Garret, issued "a full and categorical denial" on Last.fm's forum. "We'd never personally identify our users to a third party - that goes against everything we stand for. [Click here A lot more details plus info on what info they actually do share. Billboard's Antony Bruno also wrote an interesting editorial about the larger issues at play with this story. It's a worthy read that can be found - here]
