Update: Last.fm vehemently denies this rumor. See below.
That leaked U2 album is causing all sorts of trouble. The unreleased album, which is due out on March 3, found its way onto BitTorrent and was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. That, apparently, sent music industry lawyers over at the Recording Industry Association of America into a fit. As a result, word is going around that the RIAA asked social music service Last.fm for data about its user’s listening habits to find people with unreleased tracks on their computers. And Last.fm, which is owned by CBS, actually handed the data over to the RIAA, according to a tip we received:
I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that last.fm recently provided the RIAA with a giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks. As word spread numerous employees at last.fm were up in arms because the data collected (a) can be used to identify individuals and (b) will likely be shared with 3rd parties that have relationships with the RIAA.
Supposedly, the operations team which handed over the data in the first place weren’t told the true purpose for the transfer or who was getting the data until after the fact, and only when they had to help with some corrupted data. It sounds like it was more of a corporate decision. I’ve contacted both CBS and the RIAA. Most of the Last.fm team is in London, where the weekend has already started. For now Last.fm says: “To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.” (The RIAA declined to comment).
Setting aside what actually happened to the data, and assuming this rumor is true, why would the RIAA target Last.fm? It wasn’t streaming the U2 album, and it is not an illegal download service. But Last.fm has millions of users who are heavy music consumers, and many of them download Last.fm’s Scrobbler software which keeps track of every single song you listen to on your computer, no matter which music player you use. In other words, it captures tracks played from illegal BitTorrent downloads just as easily as from iTunes.
Last.fm members knowingly share what they are listening to with the rest of the Last.fm community, and in return receive social recommendations of music they might like. That is the whole point of the service. And Last.fm’s privacy policy does clearly state:
. . . your record collection (including your skipping history) may be viewed by all other users of Last.fm (who may include other organisations or representatives of other organisations who have registered as Last.fm users) and that they may easily associate this information with your Last.fm username.
But most probably never even considered it a possibility that individually identifiable information about their listening habits (legal, illegal, or otherwise) could be handed over to an organization known for taking consumers to court for file-sharing. What makes this even more egregious is that it appears to be absent any legal precedent (such as a pending lawsuit) for which Last.fm could at least hide behind as an excuse.
Incidents like this highlight how the social Web can sometimes bite back if you are not careful. It also raises the issue of who owns all of this data about you and what they can do with it. (The same issue that caused Facebook to backtrack on recent changes to its data policy). Unfortunately, it’s come down to this: you really shouldn’t share any data on the Web you wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing in a court of law.
(Please contact us at tips [at] techcrunch if you have more information about this).
Update: Some more denials from Last.FMers, including one of the co-founders, Richard Jones, in comments, who says this story is “utter nonsense and totally untrue,” and another one from Russ Garrett, a systems architect.
Update 2 (2/21/09): There are a lot of angry questions being raised about this post in comments and elsewhere. Lots of demands for retractions and some people questioning the timing of the post late on Friday night.
First, on the timing. The reason this story was posted so late was because I had contacted a Last.fm spokesperson in the U.S. earlier in the day who promised me a response, and I decided to wait for it. Several hours passed, with assurances that a statement was being prepared. So I was a little surprised when it was only one sentence:
To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.
That statement is hardly a categorical denial. It leaves open all sorts of holes. Was the data collected internally, but never actually handed over? Was it made available to a specific record label or group of record labels, perhaps at the request of the RIAA. Or did the whole thing never happen? I asked for clarification, but again was referred to the single vague statement. After I posted, I again contacted the spokesperson to see if she had any further comment she would like to make. She didn’t.
Soon after I posted, however, plenty of unofficial but heartfelt denial came from Last.fm staffers in London, two of which I linked to last night in the update above. The one from Russ Garrett, in particular, raised even more questions. His denial starts out unequivocal, but then he adds a squishy disclaimer:
I’d like to issue a full and categorical denial of this. We’ve never had any request for such data by anyone, and if we did we wouldn’t consent to it.
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.
Hmm, so could the RIAA or a record label use the data to identify people? I never suggested that it was Last.fm that was singling out individuals listening to unreleased tracks. The issue is whether the RIAA or any of its member companies are trying to do so and whether or not Last.fm is helping them.
As Garrett points out, Last.fm shares aggregate listening data with the labels. Are there any unique identifiers associated with this data that could lead back to an individual, despite any precautions Last.fm might take? (It wouldn’t be unprecedented—remember that leaked AOL search data a few years ago?) I sent Garrett an email about 5 hours ago asking him some of these questions.
From the very beginning, I’ve presented this story for what it is: a rumor. Despite my attempts to corroborate it and the subsequent detail I’ve been able to gather, I still don’t have enough information to determine whether it is absolutely true. But I still don’t have enough information to determine that it is absolutely false either. What I do have are a lot of unanswered questions about how exactly Last.fm shares user data with the record industry.
Update 3 (2/22/09): Garrett got back to me. He responds:
The data we make available to labels is aggregate data about their artists – it’s a slightly more detailed version of what you see on the site. We release no data linking users and plays to any third parties.
The only data we provide to labels (in addition to the data publicly available on their artist pages) are historical graphs of listeners and plays. There’s no way to link these to individual users.
If a label was trying to work out who’s been listening to their leaked track, the closest they can get would be to look at the publicly-available listeners on the music pages. I would doubt that would be enough evidence to convict someone, and users can opt out of being displayed there in their settings.
Update 4 (2/23/09): Last.fm co-founder Richard Jones expands on his denial in comments with an official post on the Last.fm blog. He also adds this:
We never share personally identifiable data such as email and IP addresses. The only type of data we make available to labels and artists, other than what you see on the site, is aggregate data of listeners and number of plays.
I never knew they were owned by CBS. It’s time to uninstall their client if this is true.
hmmmm…bye bye lastFM and scrobbling on Amarok. I will miss ye.
Looks like you won’t be saying good bye after all.
http://blog.last.fm/2009/02/23/techcrunch-are-full-of-shit
If that sale had happened yesterday, this same site’s comment threads would have been full of congrats. Awesome.
Just Deleted my last.fm account… le sigh.
Same for Boxee =/
don’t let the door hit your asses on the way out
It’s time for a new generation of game changing social networks where we the users own our own data. http://chi.mp/ is trying to be that game changer and there are probably others out there too.
Eeeeeeeeeee…what we talk about?? That what I’m listening is only matter of tags of my music files. If I only want i can tag all my files with unreleased album, even with non recorded yet. Tag may lie.
That’s a REALLY good point, except that if they had “probable cause,” they could seize your computer, play all your files, and find the tracks that they were looking for, despite whatever you tagged/named the files.
i dont understand what the big deal is. last.fm handed data over to the music owners (the labels, or in this case, reworded as the riaa). wheres the problem?
and if you didnt know that the riaa owns the music, then i suggest you look it up before replying to my comment.
also the riaa most likely has a contract with last.fm that says they can look at their own musics data if they want to.
once again, techcrunch has a slow news day.
The RIAA doesn’t own anything….You don’t know what you are talking bout and you should stop talking. You have misidentified a congressional lobbying organization, that sometimes represents content rights owners, with content creators….that is both ignorant and very disturbing and it tells me that you are likely a fascist, or a raging idiot…. prove me wrong.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
i suggest you look up whether the riaa owns *anything*.
*giggles*
If people are stealing U2’s work they should be prosecuted. Any company involved in the distribution of music should gladly help them out as it is against the law not to mention just bad karma to steal from people. For god sakes wait till the thing comes out and download your favorite song for a buck. If you can’t spare a buck for your own enjoyment go shoot yourself. Anyone who is a fan of U2 and stole their music should be ashamed of themselves for doing so and I hope they get caught.
You can’t steal something digital. There’s no loss of a physical object. Nice try though.
Excuse me while I go download the U2 CD because I can, but refuse to listen to it because they’re dumbasses and their music sucks. Have I still caused a loss in profit?
Actually there IS a loss of a physical object. It’s called money.
rgbiuwri either works for a music label or the riaa…
There actually IS NO BIG DEAL !
Just never use
- LastFM
- Facebook
- Google’s properties
- Lala
and any other of these monopolist data-collecting Websites again.
Unbelievable if true.
First the Facebook fiasco and now this.
When will there be a company that says enough is enough?
Anjali Sen
Last.fm’s email inbox is probably jam-packed with messages from irate users, right about now! I know one of them would be from me, if I was a user.
I think it’s TechCrunch’s e-mail inbox that’s overflowing.
I got this from Robin Wauters a few minutes ago:
—
“I’m one of the TechCrunch editors. I’ve been following your comments on the Last.fm post, just wanted to give you quick heads up to say Erick (the author of the post) is digging deeper into this. Might take a while for an update, though, sorry for that.”
—
Shouldn’t Erick (the author of the post) have “dug deeper” before posting?
TC, stop digging this hole and just apologize or offer some proof of your accusation. What’s the deal here?
“But most probably never even considered it a possibility that individually identifiable information about their listening habits (legal, illegal, or otherwise) could be handed over to an organization known for taking consumers to court for file-sharing.
If users are downloading and scrobbling illegal downloads you can’t blame the RIAA for wanting to act, and for Last.fm to want to protect key relationships with the labels.
But this will be an absolute PR disaster for Last.fm if proven true. I’m sure it will result in mass-uninstallations of their software.
You are wrong and you are ignoring the law. You cannot legally disseminate user information to The RIAA, as they are not content owners!….EVEN IF the information in question is that of a user who HAS downloaded or posted illegally obtained material. The RIAA is a congressional lobbying group, not a content owner or copyright holder….You cannot infringe upon the RIAA’s copyrights….They don’t own any music….they don’t hold copyrights. If this story is true then LastFM broke the law….in addition to betraying the trust and privacy of their users and has joined hands with middle man fascist scumbags who don’t make anything but money.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
1 – the information they allegedly gave is publicly available
2 – disseminate doesnt mean what you think it does
1 : to spread abroad as though sowing seed
2 : to disperse throughout ….
So are you saying that it is all false…never happened. I sure hope you are right.
You don’t own like you think you do.
I’m sure you wouldn’t be saying that if I came in and stole your computer or took whatever tools you use to make a living. Music theft sucks just as any other theft and the people who are in the business over distributing music should help each other in these cases to stop the illegal theft of property. I’m sure you would want the same help if you were the one who was being stolen from. If you aren’t aware by now that your internet use is always up for grabs then you just haven’t been paying attention.
whoa, stop there. taking tools or whatever isn’t the same. Tools are physical objects, music is art, an expresion of society by one individual. Read the constitution. There are no promises of money, just control, and even that for only 14 years with one 14 year extension (thanks for nothing disney for screwing us on that one as welll.) The founding fathers understood that every bit of creativity is based on another persons creativity. A musician hears a beat or rhythm and say “hey” and runs off to make a tune. someone else hears that tune (the beat or whatever) and says “wow” and runs off to make his tune. In the end all creativity belongs to society (hence the term “public commons”) and therefore belongs to all of us. I do not have a problem with musicians making a living, but that’s not going to happen till they break off from the music industry’s tit.
the RIAA act on behalf of the content owners.
it need not be proven true…am sure people have already uninstalled it just to be safe
This is exactly why I avoid putting spybot social services on my computer. No one needs to know what I am/am not doing.
Metadata is proof of nothing. I could tag a bunch of tracks with the tracklist of the new U2 album, scrobble them to last.fm and then it looks like I’ve listened to them when I’ve really listened to Ricky Martin or some other rubbish.
I think the RIAA were just trying to work out a rough idea of the scale of piracy.
I agree with you MartinSFP, I was thinking the same thing while reading this article. If true, there’s no way the RIAA or any other court could prove that the files with the Meta Data labeled U2 ‘New Song’ is actually the song in question.
if it’s only the meta data which is uploaded on Last.fm then you are right. But what if the client also uploads a hash of the mp3-file? The hash can easily prove that the file was actually the mp3 file of a particular song
true Martin. i also struggle to care about this story because, even if true, the only people who would be ‘damaged’ by it are people who (a) pirated music (b) were stupid enough to scrobble their pirated music.
protip: dont pirate stuff or at least dont be so dense as to proceed to use something whose very purpose is to broadcast what you’re listening to to the world when listening to it. there is a ’scrobbling on/off’ button right there for goodness sake.
Im pretty sure last.fm only uses the metadate, atleast when your scrobbling from an ipod, it wouln’t be able to generate a hash.
And even if they uploaded a hash from the songs u played in itunes, changing only on tiny part of the file, eg the embeded cover art, the spelling of the artist name, or the track number, the hash would change completely and thus make any association impossible. I don’t know about the u2 album, but for most common lps there are a heapload of different encoded versions.
Tracking the hash would only be possible if there was only one source for that particular album and users didn’t touch it (iTunes often modifies metadata slightly, without any action on the users site)
But then, as most hashes are about 10-20 digits, u couldn’t rule out the possibility that u listened to a song which just accidentaly had the same hash value as one of the u2 songs, but im not sure if that would be strong evidence in court
@Liam: I agree with you, many devices cannot generate hashes and also that if you change small parts of the mp3 the hash will be completely different. And the only portion of an mp3 which a user can However, what if the scrobbler uploaded the hash together with the ID-Tag?
If you use a simple proxy, like Paros, you will see that for some songs the Scrobbler uploads what it calls the ‘fingerprint’ of a song . And the fingerprint is actually some ID-Tag info of the mp3, a sha256 hash of the file and some form-data which is unreadable and probably is some application data.
What’s the problem? If they hadn’t given them the data, the RIAA could have just went to their site and gotten it themselves, it’s not hidden in any way. Looks like a couple people are listening to the album right now (http://www.last.fm/music/U2/_/No+Line+on+the+Horizon/+listeners).
Yes, but they can’t see IP addresses and registration emails from there, can they? I’m not saying Last.FM gave that info away but come on, what else would they really be after?
Please last.fm say it is not so!
they HAVE to say,that it is like you said
(
let’s bold the phhrase “assuming this rumor is true,” shall we?
If so, there will be blood on the dance floor.
Looking at LaLa.com’s privacy policy, it looks like they reserve the right to basically do the same thing. Disturbing.
Hmm, conspiracy theories start: Was the U2 album released “accidentally” so the RIAA could search out users that had the unauthorized album on their drives? It’s one thing to be storing Britney Spears tracks from 10 years ago, another to have an album with tracks that *nobody* should have yet. Just tossing the possibility out there…
Not out of the question for these dumb asses…..Either way, technically, the album was RELEASED BY THE LABEL! It wasn’t “Leaked”…so if the plan was to trap people they are gonna have a hell of a time…UNIVERSAL RELEASED IT!
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
Unlikely. You might find that U2 have other things to do than play Trojan horse with a new album. If that is what they wanted, it would be less risky just to “seed” a rare track.
If this is true I will immediately delete my Last.fm account. I have been a Scrobbler user since 2004.
I’m not sure how this is going to help the RIAA because the data collected and displayed is track name and artist. I’m guessing they will need to prove that the users were listening to the actual leaked track and not another track that has changed meta data that corresponds with the new albums. I know it sounds silly but surly they would have to have hard evidence?
Nope Joseph, the RIAA doesn’t need any evidence at all. They just point the finger at you and the courts find you guilty. These people twist and bend the law to their own corporate greed. Spend about 30 minutes to do a google on ‘RIAA Lawsuit Victims’ and see what these scumbags are capable of.
And I don’t condone copyright infringement, but the RIAA is going along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition!
At least they’ve already changed their policies on lawsuits. The RIAA said last year that they wouldn’t be suing people anymore.
Not that they won’t find something equally heinous to do instead.
I think this is a good point, Joseph. If it goes as far as court evidence, this information alone probably couldn’t convict, but it could point toward where they could get more evidence.
If this is all true they could have released user IP data….that would be a catastrophe.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
The thieves are wrecking the net. Period.
If people were responsible in much larger numbers and behaved as they do at their local retailer bullshit like this would be a rare occurrence.
Universal released the record. People bought it. Copies should be covered under fair use. You own it you should be able to make copies. The Majors failure to monetize the web and respect their customer base has done WAY more damage than “thieves” could ever hope to.
bbb,
wheatus.com
It has never been legal to copy music, movies, etc and share them with anyone. You can’t even play them in a public place with out paying to do so. If you build tables for a living would you want 100’s of thousands of people to steal your tables or use them for free? I sure wouldn’t.
What a silly analogy. People who make tables create finite, physical objects which are intended for use by multiple people over long periods of time. And the table-maker has no say whether that table is used in a two-person home, a busy restaurant, or on a stage in front of 10,000 people. It would be difficult for you to have picked a WORSE thing to compare to digital replication of music.
As Last.fm is based in the U.K., their privacy policy says the data controller is in London, could this fall foul of the British Data Protection Act? Their privacy policy seems to allow for this … but who knows.
Looking at the Last.fm data should not be able to incriminate anyone. They’re ignoring that promotional press copies of the album *have* in fact been created and distributed. I just read a review of the albumy esterday on Stereogum. It’s possible that some of these reviewers have ripped the album to their computer so they could listen to it on their iPod. It’s also possible these people use Last.fm.
The RIAA needs to suck it. I am so tired of these people. I can’t believe we’re going on a decade of this BS now.
LOL. All these chumps want to share their info and then find it unfathomable when this public info falls into “the wrong hands”.
You get what you deserve, folks.
Exactly this.
IP addresses are NOT public info. Yours is being recorded by this sites provider as you post. If they give it out are you a chump?
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
IPs addresses aren’t, but Last.fm inputted credentials (username and password login into your account on their server) are.
Your last.fm profile is tied to an identity (name, email, etc.).
It doesn’t matter at all what IP addresses that profile is logged in from.
Indeed…but the point you are missing is that the RIAA lawsuits that have been brought successfully have hinged on the IP’s. That’s the smoking gun for them when they bring single mothers of 4 to court and ruin their lives.
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
There’s one problem here that I don’t quite understand. This ISN’T the way last.fm works. Last.fm only scrobbles the details of the tags on your files and has no real way of knowing if what you’re actually listening to. Just because your last.fm page shows U2 doesn’t mean you were actually listening to that, it just means you were listening to a track where the field for artist in your tag says “U2″.
right. and this is why they can have fun actually trying to sue any of these people. This won’t hold up in court.
Last.FM also scrobbles a fingerprint of the tracks you play. If or if not this is by default on their client, I can’t remember.
You are asked to turn it on or off when the software is installed, since it aids with the metadata issue but reduces your privacy a certain bit.
But yes, they should be able to verify the leaked tracks with the fingerprint data.
I use Amarok and I don’t think it sends any fingerprit or so…
No, no, I mean the Last.fm software.
http://blog.last.fm/2007/12/07/client-14-released-fingerprinting-begins
I don’t listen to illegal downloaded music, however, I am immediately removing LastFM from my computer because of this.
Why? Because the RIAA is totally untrustworthy, and has demonstrated that it will use legal bullying to try to get people to ’settle’ rather than be bankrupted by defending themselves from an accusation in court.
Who is to say that the scrobbler data is accurate?
This is not a case of ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’. At the very least, you risk having to defend yourself against a false accusation.
So, you boycott last.fm/CBS for giving out public information, but you’re still going to support the RIAA by buying music. If you don’t like CBS then fine, but I don’t think you’re affecting the RIAA in anyway.
There are plenty of ways to buy music without supporting the RIAA.
I buy all my music in the form of Used CDs from Amazon.com Resellers.
It’s 100% legal (AFAIK), sometimes a CD can be as cheap as $1.00 (plus shipping) and the RIAA doesn’t get a dime.
My comment wasn’t about supporting or not supporting the RIAA.
My point was that they are known for using unethical tactics, including a scattergun of setting attorneys on people based on flimsy evidence and so if an organization is supplying them with data that could include information identifying you, then you are at risk of needing to defend yourself even if the evidence won’t stand up.
Admittedly, the rebuttal and unreliability of the original story makes me look a little hasty, if not foolish, but frankly I don’t have a lot invested in this – I don’t want to either boycott or support lastfm, or read lots of reports and come to a judgement over time – I read what seemed to be an alarming story, and reacted in a way that I think many others would do too to eliminate a potential risk to myself.
If there really is nothing to this, then I have to say it’s pretty irresponsible of TechCrunch. Even now the story gives the impression that it may have some basis despite the ‘denials’.
(I didn’t mean to appear to be doubting the ‘denial’ in that reply – just pointing out that TechCrunch is still casting doubt on them)
Worse, you boycott a successful startup/web business because TC writes an accusatory article? last.fm have already denied it, less than half an hour after this article hit (pretty impressive since it’s gone midnight UK time).
What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?
They aren’t a startup, they are owned by CBS.
In 2002 it was a start-up. In 2007, it was acquired by CBS.
While I tend to listen to my own media, I don’t like the idea that a great social network like Last.FM (CBS) would potentially deliver my listening habits to the RIAA. That just wrong. As of now, Last.FM is removed from my PC, account deleted. The risk / reward is not worth it.
Switching entirely to streamed media like Pandora. There I know I am only listening to their music.
Only problem being last.fm is so much better than Pandora because of the scrobbling and the social network.
The new album is already out here in Ireland, just like all U2 albums are released early here.
Hardly a “leak” now is it
Wow, I’m deleting my Last.Fm account on principle alone
Finally a post that mentions “principles”.
Would that be the principle of unfounded rumor or the principle of irresponsible journalism?
One thing that’s ludicrous about this is it shows just how short-sighted the RIAA has been for years. Why knee-cap a service that actually enables people to learn about new music and helps PROMOTE the artists you portend to represent, in a way that’s completely legal and actually helps sales? Why knee-cap a service that allows you to collect valuable data about the popularity of artists that you could use to funnel marketing budgets? Stupid.
And Last.fm is pretty dumb too if they actually did hand over the data. I just don’t know what to make of it.
Hmm – you’re right about the summary knee-capping.
But hadn’t you heard? Rumours are ALWAYS true.
Tough titties – If Last.FM is ‘owned’ by CBS – and I have to say that was pretty easy to figure form their site content – then CBS will of course let the user data go to the execrable RIAA.
Remember this is the mob representing merciless gouging of artists down through the years.
As far as principles mentioned in a later post goes – IMHO that mob was, is, and always will be utterly devoid of any.
Now excuse me while I get back to digitizing my collection of Vinyl LP’s purchased at considerable expense many years ago evidently to provide the funding basis for all the shite going down right about now. Really,
OH, and I’m thinking of SHARING some of it. that’s right, sharing something I own with others who don’t own the stuff. Needless to say If I do that, I’ll have to then top myself out of pure guilt:-)
“Word is going round” that Techcrunch make shit up based on rumour, don’t wait to substantiate it officially, and just go ahead and post regardless. No confirmation of this, but I’m going to place it here as news anyway, because the pageviews it’ll get will impress our advertisers. We’re proper journalists aren’t we? None of this is going to make the idea that bloggers should be taken seriously at all laughable is it? And, oh look, that brown bag of Myspace money has just arrived, brilliant! La la la, I’m a moron.
are you new to the planet?
No he’s not, but you may well be. Nice post, Fastchecking..
I think this is not a big deal, even if the ownership changes in google I will use their services anyway, will you not?
No, incidents like this highlight how you amateurs can take a source and quote it without any fact checking, due diligence, or journalistic integrity.
Do you event *want* to be taken seriously?
You are a strange. Why not comment on the fucking article rather than smacking the rag.
My comment on the article is this bozo is full of shit. End of story.
I think he did comment on the article and how it demonstrates how TC continually distorts rumors and ignores basic journalistic principles.
If there’s no meat to the article (that is, it’s a lie), then what is there for James to comment on other than the lie?
How much current and future business will Last.fm lose based on this un-researched, un-corroborated lie? Do you see how many people are knee-jerk deleting their accounts?
Shameful, TC. Really.
He is commenting on the article especially about its lack of facts which is required for a good article
So what? There is nothing they can do about this that will hold up in court. I can tag my tracks however I like, so if say a Metallica track that I purchased legally is tagged with U2 info, then that’s my defense and its their words against mine.
As a Lastfm user, this is shitty beyond belief, and I will have to heavily consider not using their product anymore if true. But no users will get in trouble for this.
I work for Last.fm.
This has not happened. This is a complete lie, and we’d never do such a thing.
I work in the operations and data teams at Last.fm – if something like this had happened, I’d know about it.
I’d love to know how Techcrunch came across this baseless, unsubstantiated accusation and decided to publish it as news.
They put a question mark at the end of the headline, so that makes it OK.
Jon Gruber blogged about this on Daring Fireball. The headline to his post is “Does TechCrunch Publish Scurrilous Unsubstantiated Bullshit but Lamely Attempt to Cover Their Asses by Ending Their Sensational Headlines With Question Marks?”