The rumor evidently began with TechCrunch and a "tip they received." In a post titled "Techcrunch Are Full of Shit," Jones writes:

When you signup to Last.fm and scrobble what you listen to, you are trusting us with your listening data. We take this very seriously. The old-timers on Last.fm who’ve been with us since the early days can attest to this – we’ve always been very open and transparent about how your data is used. This hasn’t changed. 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.

TechCrunch is no stranger to controversial coverage. A recent example would be its top 21 Twitter applications based on Compete data that mysteriously left off a number of apps that others felt should have been on there (not just our own Twellow). Last year there was an issue with an "ads in Twitter Streams" story and with rumors of PaidContent looking to sell, and with Digg shopping itself to Google and Microsoft.

According to Ars Technica, Last.fm and the RIAA itself have both confirmed that Last.fm did not turn over user data after U2′s album leak. Jones asks people that see any rumors to the contrary to refer those spreading them to this post.  The post currently has over 1,500 diggs, so the rumor is well on its way to being squashed.

McGuinness played to the crowd at France’s Midem music industry trade show. An audience of music insiders from the RIAA, IFPI, and similarly affiliated groups warmed to his exhortations that companies should save the music industry.

A report at FT.com said McGuinness wants to see pressure on ISPs, telcos, and device makers, all of which he sees benefiting from “these countless tiny crimes” of file sharing.

Microsoft, Google, AOL, Yahoo, Comcast, Vodafone, Facebook and Apple, should be helping “not on the basis of reluctantly sharing advertising revenue, but collecting revenue for the use and sale of our content,” he said in the report.

Apparently there is some kind of ideal world where in McGuinness’ imagination ISPs bundle in a fee for music along with the usual charges for service, and that revenue gets shared “between the distributor and the content owner.”

I have a question, one that I ask as a long-time fan of U2, as someone who has helped carry amps up staircases and kept drunks from interfering with friends during their sets. Actually, two questions.

First, where exactly does the working musician, be it U2 or a newly signed group, make money from this? I’m old enough to remember the late Kurt Cobain wondering, at the height of Nirvana’s popularity, weren’t they supposed to be some rich rock band?

Evidently the labels, with their rich history of making their stables of artists if not hugely wealthy then at least profitable (that’s sarcasm, by the way), will accomplish this when the money starts flowing in from these offending companies. To quote more than one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld characters, pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

Second question, this one for Paul. Any chance you can arrange for the lads to make a listenable U2 album, something they haven’t accomplished since Achtung Baby in 1991? Just between you and me, I think there’s money to be made from a CD that’s really good from start to finish.

I very much want to see deserving musicians get paid. Maybe the key isn’t for those artists to let a label make the kind of deal McGuinness suggested.

Artists have always gravitated toward collectives. Wouldn’t it make more sense for like-minded musicians to cut out the labels entirely, negotiate collectively with Apple for iTunes or Amazon or Microsoft, and keep more of the money for those who make the music?

Someone get Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke on the phone. I’ve got an idea.

A video showing Bono singing “Wave of Sorrow” is also available through iLike.com (where you don’t need to sign up for anything in order to see it).  Here are links to both places, but to give you fair warning: the audio quality is pretty terrible, and I’m not sure the song is all that great, anyway.

Oh, well.  In terms of how this came about, Brendon Chase writes, “Marc Bodnick sits on the board of both iLike and a venture capital firm, Elevation — the same VC firm that Bono is involved in.”  And it’s not exactly as if this were a poor business decision, since the existence of this article and many others testifies to the PR benefits.

So, U2, iLike, and Facebook are set.  What about other social networks and sites?  Their loss.  Even something that doesn’t directly compete with Facebook or iLike – YouTube – seems to have been intentionally left out of the loop; as videos pop up, they’re getting quickly pulled down again due to the always-annoying “copyright claim by a third party.”

Congrats to Facebook and iLike, then, for getting an apparent U2 exclusive.  Also, fans who want to get a much better version of “Wave of Sorrow” need only wait until November 20th, when the remastered and expanded version of Joshua Tree will be released.

Launched in late 2003, AOL’s RED was MySpace when MySpace wasn’t cool, an online nest for teens, offering celebrity gossip, style advice, music, news, sports, and blogs. According to a January 2007 comScore report, RED attracts about two million unique visitors.

Antonio Borreill, an attorney for New York law firm Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, who represents the Cincinnati Reds, first filed opposition to RED in December of last year, updating the complaint last week.

The official protest appears to be inspired by AOL’s application for trademark of the term "Red," published in an October 3, 2006 edition of the Official Gazette.

The timing of the application explains why the Cincinnati Reds didn’t seem to have a problem with it before, and why the club didn’t go after the much-publicized (Red), U2 front man Bono’s campaign to raise awareness and money for AIDS in Africa.

Well, the PR nightmare of going after a charitable organization was probably reason enough not to oppose. But AOL’s trademark audacity was, apparently, the last straw.

The next obvious question is "can you trademark a color, or color word?" The answer is: sometimes.

While trademarking the color itself seems iffy and situation-dependent, as illustrated a Color Matters, RegisteringATradmark.com notes UPS has the market cornered on Brown.

There are other things to consider, like whether there is sufficient prior use, potential confusion between companies offering similar services, and genericization concerns.

Though colors sometimes are trademarked, it seems doubtful the Cincinnati ball club could make a case for confusion. However, they have been using the name "Reds" for upwards of a century now.      

Representatives of the Cincinnati Reds could not be reached for comment.