Comments on: Last.fm: privacy invasion or site of resistance? http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/02/22/lastfm-privacy-invasion-or-site-of-resistance/ Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:01:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Wolna Kultura Wiki: Lista Tekstów Do Tłumaczenia http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/02/22/lastfm-privacy-invasion-or-site-of-resistance/comment-page-1/#comment-1446 Wolna Kultura Wiki: Lista Tekstów Do Tłumaczenia Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:52:09 +0000 http://freeculture.org/?p=650#comment-1446 [...] Last.fm: privacy invasion or site of resistance? [...] [...] Last.fm: privacy invasion or site of resistance? [...]

]]> By: Ben Moskowitz http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/02/22/lastfm-privacy-invasion-or-site-of-resistance/comment-page-1/#comment-1443 Ben Moskowitz Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:55:27 +0000 http://freeculture.org/?p=650#comment-1443 Alternatives to last.fm are not likely to work for the same reason that Facebook alternatives are not likely to work. Whatever their design deficiencies, these sites are valuable because their user bases have hit critical mass. Kevin has blogged about this phenomenon re: YouTube. Decentralization/divestiture from services also entails fragmenting the semantic links and communities around the content. By design, last.fm requires individual users to disclose what they're listening to. There's no way around that. IMHO, last.fm should not be a site of resistance. if anything, it's the kind of service that FCers would want to fully embrace. Everyone should scrobble! 1.7 million last.fm'ers recently listened to the Beatles. That music is not legally available for download, and I think its safe to say that few of those users actually purchased and ripped a Beatles record. This kind of data is a manifest—not estimated, not actuarial—representation of the listening habits of everyday users. If most iTunes users were to scrobble, it would cast some much needed sunlight on aggregate music consumption patterns. A community like last.fm paints a vivid picture of the sea change that's occurred in the last ten years, providing copyfighters with ammo for future legal and legislative battles. Alternatives to last.fm are not likely to work for the same reason that Facebook alternatives are not likely to work. Whatever their design deficiencies, these sites are valuable because their user bases have hit critical mass. Kevin has blogged about this phenomenon re: YouTube. Decentralization/divestiture from services also entails fragmenting the semantic links and communities around the content.

By design, last.fm requires individual users to disclose what they’re listening to. There’s no way around that.

IMHO, last.fm should not be a site of resistance. if anything, it’s the kind of service that FCers would want to fully embrace. Everyone should scrobble! 1.7 million last.fm’ers recently listened to the Beatles. That music is not legally available for download, and I think its safe to say that few of those users actually purchased and ripped a Beatles record. This kind of data is a manifest—not estimated, not actuarial—representation of the listening habits of everyday users. If most iTunes users were to scrobble, it would cast some much needed sunlight on aggregate music consumption patterns. A community like last.fm paints a vivid picture of the sea change that’s occurred in the last ten years, providing copyfighters with ammo for future legal and legislative battles.

]]> By: Blaise Alleyne http://freeculture.org/blog/2009/02/22/lastfm-privacy-invasion-or-site-of-resistance/comment-page-1/#comment-1442 Blaise Alleyne Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:18:36 +0000 http://freeculture.org/?p=650#comment-1442 Hmm... a central point in using Last.fm though involves <em>publishing</em> your data. If you don't want to share what songs you've been listening to... why in the world would you scrobble to Last.fm? Even if Last.fm doesn't provide any stats, all someone has to do is subscribe to your RSS feed to generate whatever stats they want (or scrape to profile page to create a feed). Complaining that your listening patterns are revealed over Last.fm is like complaining that your bookmarks are revealed on delicious. (Having a public profile is clearly different than Last.fm handing over user data, like your email address or zip code or something to another computer so they can go after you.) Hmm… a central point in using Last.fm though involves publishing your data. If you don’t want to share what songs you’ve been listening to… why in the world would you scrobble to Last.fm? Even if Last.fm doesn’t provide any stats, all someone has to do is subscribe to your RSS feed to generate whatever stats they want (or scrape to profile page to create a feed).

Complaining that your listening patterns are revealed over Last.fm is like complaining that your bookmarks are revealed on delicious.

(Having a public profile is clearly different than Last.fm handing over user data, like your email address or zip code or something to another computer so they can go after you.)

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