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.

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Wired.com has an interesting little summary of the state of Wal-Mart’s troubles concerning their digital music store, which is shifting back to utilizing DRM technology on their music, as well as activating the servers that supported their previously-sold DRM-enforced as well as DRM-free music.

“DRM” is an acronym for Digital Rights Management, a generic term that applies to access control technologies that prevent digital duplication off of sources like MP3s and CDs. A controversial copyright protection technology, the legality of DRM technologies as well as their impediments to traditional music copying such as backing up to computers and CDs have long been hot topics among music industry representatives and consumerist advocates and fans.

You can find the article here.

Myspace has launched it’s advertising-supported music platform, allowing for users to stream millions of songs for free, thanks to the new structure drawing revenue entirely from advertising. This new development also allows for artists to sell their music through an Amazon.com-supported online store. Myspace’s co-founder Chris DeWolfe said;

“You’ll be able to see the top songs your friends are listening to. Eventually you’ll be able to buy tickets and merchandise and ringtones. When you look at things like iLike and Facebook, they don’t have the full songs, in most cases, and they don’t have official artist pages. People aren’t interested in music on Facebook in the way they are on MySpace, That’s one of the big keys here.”

It’s an interesting and ambitious move, especially considering the partnering with a variety of major music labels in this project. Normally one wouldn’t see such cooperation at this level of mainstream with music levels, but undoubtedly the power of Myspace’s social networking and past in helping to break celebrity and musical talents is undeniable.

Punknews.org is reporting that Napster.com was just bought by Best Buy. The electronics giant revealed it has purchased the internet downloading site for $121 million. The move is clearly an effort to catch up with Apple’s iTunes music store and Amazon.com’s online music stores. Myspace is even set to enter the fray as well.

This has lead some to wonder just what the hell Best Buy thinks is going to happen now. They are squaring off against the two biggest outlets for online music purchases in the world with another, with an already built-in user body, on the way.

Good luck, Best Buy.

Universal Records reps apparently cancelled an interview between Metallica and writer Jonn Jeppsson of the Swedish paper Sydsvenskan after he reviewed a fan-remixed version of Death Magnetic that he downloaded off a bit torrent site. Jeppsson also mentioned exactly where he found the record online. They’ve furthermore threatened to cancel the paper’s access to any other Universal artists over this as well. The whole ordeal feels like a repeat of the Metallica vs. Napster debacle that the band have been working hard to overcome.

Death Magnetic was released September 10th, 2008. We heard it’s not that bad surprisingly.