Snitch.fm?

Punknews.org had an interesting report a few days ago on accusations against last.fm, regarding the site reporting specific users who had accessed an illegal early copy of the upcoming U2 record to the RIAA.

Now, regardless on where you stand on the issue of whether or not people with musical taste should be listening to U2, this is an interesting tidbit of news. Last.fm responded with this;

“Of course we work with the major labels and provide them with broad statistics, as we would with any other label, but we’d never personally identify our users to a third party – that goes against everything we stand for.”

Read more after the jump.

The story originated over on the site Techcrunch, from what I can tell, who were acting on a tip from “a friend of a friend.” And while it seems that it’s turned out to be a less-than-reliable story, it relates to an interesting case going on in Sweden against the file sharing site The Pirate Bay, as the founders of the site are on trial for facilitating file-sharing through their site. The prosecution in the case is arguing that the site’s main purpose was illegal file sharing and that the founders encouraged such usage.

 

If this had turned out to be a legitimate accusation against last.fm, would it have been the popular music-sharing and music-organizing website attempting to avoid a fate like this? And if they had been doing that, what would have that done to their standing in the online world? Last.fm is known as an outlet for sharing music online, almost on par with Myspace in terms of social networking and probably more so in terms of sheer connections to other musicians and musical outlets. It’s a haven for both mainstream artists as well as thousands of small-time underground DIY bands who use it as a tool for networking and sharing their music with the world.

 

This would have been a really big fucking deal. If online music networking reaches this level, where you can’t even be sure if you can trust the tools you’re working with to be actively using you as a means to spy on other people online, then it could arguably create a huge shift in the way independent music and indie music listeners work these days. If last.fm is going to be spying on your every scrobble, then who knows where that information is heading and ending up.

 

Maybe it’s a sign that the end of free-range internet connectivity for truly independent DIY networking is coming to an end, who knows. It certainly does cast a bit of a shadow over the Web though.