"Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously."

[de_fromage]

I just found this article, I suppose this is relevant for the people in here. Heads up.

https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/

[bout to crash]

Yeah, saw this on Facebook last night and my reaction continues to be "Oh hellllllll no."

[425]

This is why I refuse to turn on any of Apple's streaming services (though I love most of their products). This is why I don't rely on streaming services at all. This is why I buy CDs.

[TioJorge]

Holy fucking shit.

This just...WHAT!? WHAAAAAAAT!?!?

First and foremost I'm glad that my main PC is still on the fritz and I'm on my shitty old laptop and don't even use iTunes on this, so my Apple Music use has been used only on my iPhone...and second...that all my music I've procured over the years is on an external hard drive that I rarely use. Both of which won't be used till this shit is resolved...which it has to be. Cause that is...so completely FUBAR.

Welp. I'm glad I made a list of new artists that I love from what I discovered from Apple Music and also that I still buy CDs from the bands that I truly love and follow. This just blew my mind. I knew of the feature that would allow Apple to delete the music you've downloaded WHILE SUBSCRIBED TO/FROM Apply Music, that part makes sense, but everything else....shifty fucking assholes.

[cramx3]

Yikes

My company uses apple products and it's the only reason I use itunes (for music on my work laptop) but this is terrible and a big reason why I stay away from using itunes on my personal devices

[jingle.boy]

I love Apple's products; hate their services.  Don't use anything iCloud, or Apple Music.  Way too much 'big brother' behaviour/mentality there.

[425]

Yikes

My company uses apple products and it's the only reason I use itunes (for music on my work laptop) but this is terrible and a big reason why I stay away from using itunes on my personal devices

If you don't use Apple Music and keep iTunes Match turned off, this can't happen.

[cramx3]

Yikes

My company uses apple products and it's the only reason I use itunes (for music on my work laptop) but this is terrible and a big reason why I stay away from using itunes on my personal devices

If you don't use Apple Music and keep iTunes Match turned off, this can't happen.

Yea, I'm not worried about it because I don't use anything like those services and if they did take my music for whatever reason, I will just put it back since I have it backed up on my phone (a good portion of my music library) my home PC, and a 5TB back up drive on my server.  I just hate how Apple hides behind the terms of service,reminds me of that South Park episode about that.

[425]

Honestly, as shady as TOS can be, I think it just goes to show the dangers of not actually owning your media. That's why I'm very wary of the trend toward streaming.

[cramx3]

I dont like streaming just because I pay for data and dont want to rely on having a network connection.  But if I did go streaming, I would not be using apple.

[Stadler]

Stop.  Read down, there is a link there to a tech article that (I think pretty convincingly) calls bulls*** on the notion that Apple is just deleting s*** from your harddrive.

In my opinion only, just another way to take a cheap shot at Apple.

[Fluffy Lothario]

Don't do streaming, not using Apple Music, hopefully will never affect me, have all my music backed up elsewhere anyway.

It is mindbogglingly intrusive though. Surely they could at least have a "Would you like Apple to delete all your shit?" window come up.

[cramx3]

Stop.  Read down, there is a link there to a tech article that (I think pretty convincingly) calls bulls*** on the notion that Apple is just deleting s*** from your harddrive.

In my opinion only, just another way to take a cheap shot at Apple.

Link, I don't see it.  But I don't think this is technically stealing, but the way the OP article represents it, the media is converted and he loses his initial lossless audio which is the real reason why he is pissed.

[Bolsters]

Plus he doesn't have the files on his computer anymore.

Plus rare alternate version of songs were lost because Apple didn't recognise them as such.

Plus his own original music was uploaded to Apple. I know it's only made available to him, but that's still fucked up.

This is why I don't like Apple - it's their way or not at all, you don't get a choice, and they give literally no fucks what you think about that.

[cramx3]

Plus he agreed to it

[425]

This is why I don't like Apple - it's their way or not at all, you don't get a choice, and they give literally no fucks what you think about that.

Only if you agree to use their paid subscription service. I'm a full-on Apple user, use iTunes, have a Mac, have an iPhone. I simply never signed up for Apple music, never signed up for iTunes Match. Still able to 100% use iTunes and my music library the way I always did.

You could argue that they should spell it out more clearly for technologically illiterate people what exactly Apple Music does, but the fact is that people are voluntarily agreeing to sign up for an optional service which has the specific purpose of doing this. The reason for this service is so that you don't have to carry all your music on your iPhone's internal storage. Some people, who don't particularly care about lossless audio and metadata and ownership of the files, might find this very helpful and useful, especially if they have a lot of music but don't want to shell out for a lot of storage on their phone. Personally, I want control over the files end to end, I want to have them on my computer's hard drive, I want the audio quality I ripped them at and I want metadata all incorporated and done my way. But the important thing is, it's an optional service.

I don't blame the guy in the article for being upset, but he did sign up for a service that intentionally does what it did. If he cared deeply about something like lossless audio, he probably should have done more research into what exactly the music streaming service does before signing up for it.


EDIT: I stand corrected on some of the things I said, it seems like there might have been some sort of error or glitch that caused the particular problem he has. Check out this article.

[Crow]

doesn't matter if it's a glitch or error. still awful 

[Fluffy Lothario]

Maybe Apple will start sending representatives to your house when you're at work.

They break in, smash up all your CDs, shit in your stereo's CD and cassette drives, destroy any windchimes about the house, rip out your cat's vocal cords, deactivate your smoke alarms and alarm clocks, and then leave.

[425]

doesn't matter if it's a glitch or error. still awful 

No doubt, which is my point stands that streaming culture and the whole trend of not owning your own media is one of which I am extremely wary. Just pointing out that a) this was a thing the guy opted into and not something that could happen to just any iTunes user and b) this was not done intentionally by Apple; something went wrong (as can and does happen with any company, not just the ones that people love to hate on). Clarification of exactly what happened in these scenarios is important, to avoid interpretations like this:

Maybe Apple will start sending representatives to your house when you're at work.

They break in, smash up all your CDs, shit in your stereo's CD and cassette drives, destroy any windchimes about the house, rip out your cat's vocal cords, deactivate your smoke alarms and alarm clocks, and then leave.

[ariich]

doesn't matter if it's a glitch or error. still awful 

No doubt, which is my point stands that streaming culture and the whole trend of not owning your own media is one of which I am extremely wary.

I think this is two different things though. Streaming in and of itself is absolutely fine. I want access to all the hundreds and thousands of albums that I might want to listen to occasionally but can't afford to buy, and I want the ability to try-before-I-buy too. I'm perfectly happy paying for a subscription service that allows me to only access the content as long as I subscribe. That's fine, and that's why I use Spotify.

However, I also buy music as well, on CD and on download. This is stuff that I have purchased, and that I own, and nothing should interfere with that. From the other articles that have been posted, it seems like this is more to do with problems in the cloud service, rather than the streaming service, so it's nothing to do with streaming culture. That doesn't make it much better though, its still a major cock up by Apple and makes me glad I use almost none of their services (and once my iPod Classic dies, I'll probably never use any of their services).

[Kotowboy]

I'll continue to not use Apple Music.

[jingle.boy]

I think this is two different things though. Streaming in and of itself is absolutely fine. I want access to all the hundreds and thousands of albums that I might want to listen to occasionally but can't afford to buy, and I want the ability to try-before-I-buy too. I'm perfectly happy paying for a subscription service that allows me to only access the content as long as I subscribe. That's fine, and that's why I use Spotify.

Bingo!

This is why there needs to be a bigger push for software developers to put terms of use, license legalities etc... in PLAIN FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!  Has anyone, EVER, read the license agreement terms?  Hell, I think the iTunes agreement is 60+ pages.  Fucking developers could sneak in any language they want, because no one fucking reads them.  There should be a mandatory "summary" of the document, and changes since the last license agreement.

They break in, smash up all your CDs, shit in your stereo's CD and cassette drives, destroy any windchimes about the house, rip out your cat's vocal cords, deactivate your smoke alarms and alarm clocks, and then leave.

Perhaps Apple is the genesis of the Great Northern Empire of the America's?

[JustJen]

Yep saw this last night or the night before on facebook. Realized THAT"S why I keep having to hook up my external hard drive to access my music any time my internet is out. WTF. I never even used Apple Music, whatever that is, I only just use iTunes. I've added the correct folder and files to my music library SO MANY TIMES but every freaking time that I try to use the computer in the back room, my music can't be found. I don't even use internet on that machine usually but in order to fix this error I always have to go find a USB wifi stick thingy and connect. Never knew why before. And that also explains why all of my old copies of songs are no longer the old copies.

[seasonsinthesky]

Definitely something the service needs to change. It should upload your stuff to the cloud but use the local files for playback still. And match metadata if it changes, rather than uploading the whole file over again.

Thankfully doesn't affect my use of the service. My collection is in FLAC, so anything I synced to the cloud was an extraneous file from a thumb stick (which wasn't deleted after sync, p.s., so idk where Apple Music makes the decision to delete local files).

[Dr. DTVT]

To the people who told us iPod classic owners to just stream our music (and yes, I am talking to some people on DTF):  This is just one of the reasons we are right to want our non-streaming devices.

[de_fromage]

This is why I refuse to turn on any of Apple's streaming services (though I love most of their products). This is why I don't rely on streaming services at all. This is why I buy CDs.

Exactly, I still buy CD's and stuff. Immediately I backed up my library, haven't done that in about 6 months.

Plus he agreed to it

Of course, to some extent that's fault of the user to not read all the 60+pages, but still I agree with the idea of having to put a mandatory summary, some terms used are just to maintain grey areas or just be completely ambiguous.

I also don't rely a lot in streaming services though some can be used without connection it's not reliable enough for me, also a lot of music I hear is hard to find in those libraries.

Stop.  Read down, there is a link there to a tech article that (I think pretty convincingly) calls bulls*** on the notion that Apple is just deleting s*** from your harddrive.

In my opinion only, just another way to take a cheap shot at Apple.

Gotta check that, didn't see it. Still I think this could happen and yes, the author makes it sound horrible.

[425]

doesn't matter if it's a glitch or error. still awful 

No doubt, which is my point stands that streaming culture and the whole trend of not owning your own media is one of which I am extremely wary.

I think this is two different things though. Streaming in and of itself is absolutely fine. I want access to all the hundreds and thousands of albums that I might want to listen to occasionally but can't afford to buy, and I want the ability to try-before-I-buy too. I'm perfectly happy paying for a subscription service that allows me to only access the content as long as I subscribe. That's fine, and that's why I use Spotify.

However, I also buy music as well, on CD and on download. This is stuff that I have purchased, and that I own, and nothing should interfere with that. From the other articles that have been posted, it seems like this is more to do with problems in the cloud service, rather than the streaming service, so it's nothing to do with streaming culture. That doesn't make it much better though, its still a major cock up by Apple and makes me glad I use almost none of their services (and once my iPod Classic dies, I'll probably never use any of their services).

Well, I think that's a fine way to use streaming, a totally legitimate use. However, that's not how everyone uses streaming, and the growing popularity of not owning any music at all and just streaming everything may lead to us music-buying types being pushed out. It's already happening in the hip-hop genre, I believe (I don't know, I don't follow it that closely, but I've read some stuff about this), where some new releases are exclusive to the Tidal streaming service, and it's unclear when if ever they will be available to be bought normally.

I just worry about a future when you'll be unable to own any music (or other media) at all and you'll be at the mercy of the streaming service.

And the reason why I connected this to streaming culture is because it has to do with a growing trend towards not having your media stored locally. Yes, I agree this case was just a problem in the cloud service, but any sort of thing that brings up not having control over media that you enjoy on a regular basis makes me nervous and reminds me of my frustrations with the growing prevalence of streaming and the current direction of media consumption.

[ariich]

Can't say I've heard of a single album that's been released for streaming only and isn't available to own. It's possible someone might have done that as an experiment, but I'm quite confident it'll never become commonplace.

[JustJen]

To the people who told us iPod classic owners to just stream our music (and yes, I am talking to some people on DTF):  This is just one of the reasons we are right to want our non-streaming devices.

Back in 2004 when I joined DTF a particular poster who still posts here gave me a hard time when I said I was going to burn my entire CD collection to my computer because I felt that someday there would be some use to having music files on a computer. He thought it was a massive waste of time. Then iPods and filesharing happened. Next thing you know, everyone is ripping their CDs.

Pretty funny noting who thinks they know best and who ends up just blowing a lot of hot air all the time.

[kirksnosehair]

I think, at this point, anyone who trusts Apple with anything should have their head examined.


It should also come as no surprise whatsoever that Apple's terms absolve them of all wrongdoing - that's the exact point of "Terms of Service" - legal insulation from litigation.


I enjoy a few Apple hardware products.  I have a Mac Pro in my studio to run ProTools, I have several iPads, iPhones and iPods, but that's where my relationship with Apple ends.


Their iCloud offering is ridiculously overpriced and iTunes is the most massive piece of shit ever created by mankind.


I get ALL of my music from Amazon.com - it costs less and at least I get a kiss from Amazon while they're fucking me.

[jingle.boy]

If only Amazon .mp3 was available in Canada.   

[cramx3]

I get ALL of my music from Amazon.com - it costs less and at least I get a kiss from Amazon while they're fucking me.

Yup, besides the purchase of CDs for my most favorite bands, amazon MP3s is my source as well.

[425]

Can't say I've heard of a single album that's been released for streaming only and isn't available to own. It's possible someone might have done that as an experiment, but I'm quite confident it'll never become commonplace.

Kanye West. One of the most popular artists in the world right now. You can check iTunes, Amazon, wherever. His new album is nowhere to be found except on Tidal. So this isn't just some marginal thing, this is something being done by very popular artists.

I think, at this point, anyone who trusts Apple with anything should have their head examined.


It should also come as no surprise whatsoever that Apple's terms absolve them of all wrongdoing - that's the exact point of "Terms of Service" - legal insulation from litigation.

As if they're the only tech company that has a terms of service that does this. 

They are, however, the only tech company that cares even a tiny bit about user privacy, as the recent episode with the FBI has shown, so there's that thing that makes them more trustworthy than companies like Google or Microsoft, who love to sell user information to advertisers.

[ariich]

Can't say I've heard of a single album that's been released for streaming only and isn't available to own. It's possible someone might have done that as an experiment, but I'm quite confident it'll never become commonplace.

Kanye West. One of the most popular artists in the world right now. You can check iTunes, Amazon, wherever. His new album is nowhere to be found except on Tidal. So this isn't just some marginal thing, this is something being done by very popular artists.

Well, actually I would say this very much is a marginal thing. Appreciate it is happening (and indeed I recall the occasional special release on Spotify too) but my point stands - this will never become the norm.

[425]

Okay. I disagree. While I wouldn't say it's certain to become the norm, I would say there is a not insignificant chance of that happening, as streaming becomes more popular.