p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P “Tech Crunch should be added to your list of unreliable trash.”

That was p2pnet reader MasterOfBurn commenting on the post that according to Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch, CBS handed Last.fm user data to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA, an assertion hotly denied by both the Big 4 extortion unit and Viacom’s CBS.

But, “We believe CBS lied to us,” paidContent has Arrington declaring.

MasterOfBurn also includes a link to the Last.fm forum where, says Russ Garrett in an updated post, “Nothing I can say will convince you that this didn’t happen, because allegedly CBS did the deed and not us. I hope that CBS will issue their own denial soon, but the wheels of large companies run slowly.”

He goes on »»»

This accusation was made the evening before a three-day holiday weekend in both the UK and the US. Yet again, we were not given the opportunity to respond.

The article claims that “This source`s information comes directly from Last.fm employees who he has spoken with.” Nobody at Last.fm knows anything about such a leak. We didn’t when they last wrote an article, and we don’t now. Any suggestion that we were complicit in transferring user data to any third party is incorrect.

The exact nature of the data that was allegedly transferred is still not clear. It’s implied that the data linked scrobbles to IP addresses. That particular data is controlled tightly inside Last.fm and is only stored for a short period of time. Any request for such data would have to be approved by myself first. The suggestion that CBS’s ops team provided this data is just not possible – Last.fm operates as a separate entity and their operations staff do not have access to our system.

As Arrington points out, transferring personally identifiable data from the UK to the US is against data protection laws. We wouldn’t risk a lawsuit to pander to the RIAA’s requests.

“It really seems like someone is trying to slander us here,” Garrett adds.

Meanwhile, CBS , once again, “is trying to shake this story,” says paidContent.

“Both CBS and the RIAA have already stated quite clearly, for the record, that absolutely no individual user or listener information was supplied to the RIAA by last.fm or any division of CBS Corporation in the past, nor do we plan to do so in the future,” it quotes CBS Interactive as stating, adding:

“The story posted by the website was based on an unnamed tipster. No inquiry was made to CBS or last.fm about the veracity of the anonymous source. Those who consult such blogs should be aware of the standard by which such postings are sourced and published.”

Arrington says the original source, “employed at Last.fm parent CBS, has been sacked for the original leak, while a second source ‘very close to Last.fm’ says it was CBS and not the music site that handed the data,” says paidContent.

“The implication is that CBS misled Last.fm in to giving data for internal use that was then passed up to the record business association. ‘We believe CBS lied to us,’ Arrington writes.”

TechCrunch is standing by its original report, says the Wall Street Journal.

Stay tuned.

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Last.fm user data – CBS gave RIAA Last.fm user data: report, May 23, 2009
paidContent – New `Last.fm Gave Data To RIAA` Claims `Still Nonsense`, Again, May 26, 2009
Last.fm forum – CBS handed over USER DATA (including IP addresses) to the RIAA, May 25, 2009
Wall Street Journal – Last.fm Denies Data-Sharing Accusations, Again, May 26, 2009