Last.fm did not turn over user data after U2's unreleased album leaked onto the Internet late last week, according to both the RIAA and the music site itself. According to a rumor circulating over the past couple of days, the record industry was up in arms after U2's No Line on the Horizon popped up on P2P and filesharing sites, resulting in the RIAA allegedly demanding—and getting—records from Last.fm to see which users were and scrobbling tracks from the album. The CBS-owned Last.fm was happy to fork it over, or so the story goes, but both Last.fm and the RIAA deny any such thing happened.

("Scrobbling," for those of you not in the know, is when you set up your media software to report to Last.fm what you're listening to. The data is shared with friends and the public should you so choose.)

Word got out last week that U2's upcoming album, which isn't slated for release until March 3, had been accidentally posted for sale by the UMG-operated getmusic.com.au. Before the label was able to pull the tracks off the site, they had spread like wildfire across the Internet—CD-quality and DRM-free. Considering U2's extreme paranoia about leaks—the band reportedly refuses to send out samples to industry people ahead of release and instead insists on secret, in-person listening parties—this particular series of events was almost amusing.

According to the unnamed source behind the rumor, when Last.fm was allegedly asked to hand over the user data, no one was told exactly what it was to be used for until later. Needless to say, the rumor sparked a bit of a panic among the Last.fm community, as such data would not only identify which users had downloaded the unreleased tracks, but could possibly be shared with the RIAA's partners. However, Last.fm staff member Russ Garrett posted in a discussion thread on Last.fm with "a full and categorical denial" of the report. "We've never had any request for such data by anyone, and if we did we wouldn't consent to it," said Garrett.

The RIAA has finally chimed in as well, categorically denying that any such request was ever made. "[We're] not sure where that rumor came from," RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth told Ars on Saturday. "It's not true."

So, everyone can calm down and go back to their regularly scheduled programming. The incident does show, however, that users are sensitive to their privacy being respected when it comes to usage data, even if they are choosing to share it themselves.