While Facebook's changes to its data ownership policies occupied the online world last week, there were other issues brewing in the world of data ownership.
For the second consecutive time, a U2 album was leaked before its official release date. While the album will not officially be released until March 3, copies found its way onto BitTorrent and were downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. If you have been following the issues around digital rights management you know the lawyers for the record company and, even more importantly, the lawyers for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) will be up in arms over this event.
From here we leave the world of facts and enter the realm of hearsay. Rumor has it that the RIAA asked social music service Last.fm (the .fm masking the company's U.K. headquarters) for data about its users' listening habits. The RIAA's alleged goal was to find people with unreleased tracks on their computers. Rumor says that Last.fm, which is owned by CBS, handed the data over to the RIAA. I suspect that this rumor will turn out to be false, and for the purposes of this article, I am going to assume that Last.fm did not hand over any data. Regardless, and just like Facebook's privacy policy flip-flop of last week, this event raises many issues about data ownership and privacy.
The first key piece is to consider why the RIAA would go to Last.fm. Other services like iTunes and Pandora are far more popular than Last.fm. Indeed, nobody is even accusing Last.fm of being involved in the release of the U2 album. What Last.fm has is customers who have downloaded its Scrobbler software. This software keeps track of every single song you listen to on your computer, which allows Last.fm to understand your musical interests and recommend more songs to you. The key selling point on the Scrobbler download page is "Keep your Last.fm profile updated with what you've been listening to on your computer or iPod." So Last.fm captures tracks played via Last.fm and any music, legal or illegal, played on your PC or iPod.
So sitting in Last.fm's log files is all the proof that would be needed to identify millions of people around the world who have illegal copies of the U2 album. As I said above, let's forget about the rumor about Last.fm and the RIAA. But let's assume that a government agency asks Last.fm to turn over the data. Looking at Last.fm's privacy policy, it clearly states:
We believe in privacy and therefore will take all reasonable measures to ensure that your personally identifiable information remains private. However, in the event that we are required to disclose personally identifiable information by a court, the police or other law enforcement bodies for their investigations, regulation or other governmental authority we will make such a disclosure without being in violation of this Policy.
So, in the hopes of having Last.fm make better music recommendations, millions of users have allowed Last.fm to record their music listening habits and authorized Last.fm to turn this over if a government body requires it. Yes sir, you selected "download" and "install," and you installed a monitoring device on your PC that the government could subpoena. Nobody held a gun to your head, no spyware put it on your PC -- millions of people have done this to themselves.
Most people will grill any salesperson who comes to their physical front door, assuming that they even open the door to talk. We sign up to block salespeople on our phones. We use caller ID to ignore those salespeople who still call. But then we sit down on the computer and we freely and merrily download away -- files, plug-ins, freeware. The challenge is how we educate people so they begin to understand that when they select "download" or "install," they are opening a door, a huge barn door, into their house and, indeed, into their life.
- David Silversmith, Internet and Web analytics consultant, and former CTO of Carfax
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I wasn't attempting a moral distinction, just pointing out that, technically, the action is a defraudment, not theft. To argue that it is theft of proceeds, rather than the object itself, simply reinforces the use of fraud as a correct description.
Your argument about photographs rather obfuscates the issue, rather than shedding light. I feel you are pullling the issue into a moral, even emotive, arena, rather than a legal one which is where it belongs. This is reinforced by your suggestion of 'naked' photographs, as if this makes a difference to the argument. I would not have been paid for the photographs anyway, so there is no loss of income involved.
Stealing a song from Best Buy (I assume you mean a CD?) is different from listening to a track on Last.fm or downloading an early copy from a BitTorrent. Best Buy is out of stock one CD and the overheads that that involves. Downloading a track means that a music corporation is possibly losing out on some income, but nowhere near the same amount as a CD is worth. Given that a musician is going to receive something in the region of less than 10c for a dl track, and only one in a hundred (or in a thousand) of those pirated downloads represents a lost sale, then the scale of problem is minimal compared to lossage in a record shop.
I find it easy to make those arguments when you are taking about somebody else's property. Lets take your definition and apply it closer to everybody's home
So if you (the proverbial you - not you personally) have photos of family members naked and somebody else takes/steals copies of those photos - that would be okay? By the definition you presented - the person who took the copies has clearly not deprived the family members of possession and use of the goods. The family still has both the photos and the family members bodies so they were not dispossesed of anything. Granted, again by your definition, I might not have paid for those photos - but since copies were handed off to me for free I figured it was okay. Likewise there was no legal alternative for me to get these photos.
The above example may sound harsh - but it uses the same logic you have presented.
The owner of a product, in this case a song, has not gotten paid fair value for their work - that's just wrong to me. As an ealier poster said - Why is it okay to steal off the Internet, but not okay to steal the exact same song from Best Buy?
"Millions of our songs were stolen - pertty established fact"
Interesting. So if they've been stolen, then they are no longer available to the general public? My understanding of 'stolen' means that you also deprive the legal owner of possession and use of the stolen goods. The fact is that 'Millions of songs were copied' and although this may have defrauded the music majors of income (in itself debatable) they weren't dispossesed of the songs.
This whole idea perpetuated by the music companies, that every illegal download is a loss of income, is in itself fraudulent. Many (or most) of those downloaders would not have brought the tracks. And many were simply downloading because there was no legal alternative.
Reading the terms and agreement notices
because we wouldn't sign a contract to buy a home without reading it)
Why's it okay for us to steal music over the
web, but it's wrong to go into Best Buy and pocket the CD?.
Plain and simple language that bring extreme clarity to the conversation. Clear examples that highlight it's actions WE take not things OTHERS do to us.
(in fact the music analogy will be used by me as train my own kids on the proper use of iTunes)
As some of the fellow commentors pointed out...many people simply check the acceptance box of a website's or application's terms of agreement without giving the document a once over. Every website is different from MySpace to Facebook to Pandora, etc, etc. Individuals need to take their privacy a little more seriously. Getting things for free is great, but be aware of what you are/are not responsible for when signing up. I also agree that the "leak" of U2 songs may not be a leak at all--most likely a strategically planned arrangement. Nevertheless, pirating music, movies, or otherwise is not correct in my opinion. Seems like we all need to get back to a basic mode of better self-protection methods (i.e. reading the terms and agreement notices because we wouldn't sign a contract to buy a home without reading it) and better ethics (i.e. why's it okay for us to steal music over the web, but it's wrong to go into Best Buy and pocket the CD?).
In this blog while I reported the rumor, I also stated that "I suspect that this rumor will turn out to be false, and for the purposes of this article, I am going to assume that Last.fm did not hand over any data. Regardless, and just like Facebook's privacy policy flip-flop of last week, this event raises many issues about data ownership and privacy."
This blog does not focus on the rumor, which Last.fm has denied at with their blog
techcrunch-are-full-of-shit.
However, their denial of the leak does not address the much bigger issue addressed in this blog. What would happen when a government body legally requests this information. By all indications of their published policy they WOULD release this data to an official agency.
That's the real issue I hope Last.fm addresses. Clearly they did not read this article - just did a search of any web site that discussed the rumor and asked them to post their denial of the leak.
Right on, dvisme... Here's what a leak is: An agenda being actively and surreptitiously worked (listen for the telltale sound of axe grinding).
I think you're quite right to be suspicious of the source/intent of the alleged U2 track leakage; publicity stunt or distribution experiment, or maybe the band (or its producers) just got sloppy. It's not quite as egregious as the whole Valerie Plame thing, but we don't have to understand the agenda to know one's getting worked somewhere.
I'm sorry, but I keep wondering about the validity of these types of leaks. Could it be part of a broader PR strategy? Meaning, if you're arguably the world's most popular band, and you know millions of users are going to illegally share your music anyway, do you try to nullify the bleeding by attempting to take advantage of it by 'leaking' the album to create more awareness about the album? This leak has garnered attention from the media, avid music fans, hipsters, and online influencers that serves to raise awareness of the new album in the mass (paying) public's mind. Is it that different from what Radiohead did with releasing their album for free for a period of time?
I'm a huge U2 fan. And obviously a skeptic. But I have a feeling that the U2 incident may just be the type of brilliant PR stunt that Bono would never admit to.
David, I agree with you that people are resonsponsible for what they opt-in to online, even if there is 15 pages of legalese. In our social hysteria, people don't consider what ramifications they may face down the road. And, if someone is concerned about privacy and want's great music recomendations, they should use Pandora, not Last.fm.
Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band, cited above, has been instrumental in starting alternatives like Moogis that build on a combination of live performance and legal music downloading. But it's expensive (though not compared to the $100+ cost of a ticket to the ABB's Beacon Theatre run next month) -- and not every musician these days is even capable of performing live.
I've heard all kinds of solutions, but supoena'ing millions of people seems just ridiculous. The paperwork followup alone would exceed the payment of fines.
What's the answer? Dunno. Enlisting ISPs could backfire. The government has bigger fish to fry.
Is this a job for that international Internet governing body?
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