I am surprised at people trying to rationale Apples wrongdoing by pointing at Google and bringing some crazy examples.
There is no rationale in this - this is outright breaking your privacy and ownership rights. No terms and conditions can be above law. It doesn't matter what others do - Apple is doing those crazy things here and there trying to test the ground which indicates they are not pro privacy and pro user, but rather are willing to go huge lengths to please music industry.
Only because you eating in the restaurant it doesn't mean waiter can run to your house and smash all of your food in the fridge reasoning "from now on you are covered".
Remember the U2 fiasco, when Apple decided to break into your computer and push their new album through iTunes? It seems like whenever Apple decides to take control of your files, shit happens.
Back in the day, I tried to use iTunes for a while when I bought my iPod. One of the first things that it asked me was to take control of my music, as it would reorganize it by itself. I agreed, but tested it first with a small sample. When I saw the mess it had done to the way I organized my music, specially with the files' names, I backed out of the auto-organize option and preached heavily against it to everyone I knew.
I learned my lesson: never let whatever service control your files. And always, ALWAYS have backup. Remember: The answer to life, the universe and how many backups you should keep of your stuff is 42.
Some people in this post are assuming that this is something iTunes does to everyone intentionally. Other people are saying this is not something iTunes has ever done to them. I'm not sure it's worth debating whether this practice is ethical or not unless we know whether iTunes will actually delete your MP3s under normal circumstances. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that iTunes is too hard to use.
This is almost certainly not apple acting alone. There will have been lengthy contract negotiations (and probably a lot of pressure from the major labels). The auto-overwriting metadata issue is probably apple alone though, they've long been very exacting about the metadata of music in itunes. They already throw their weight around in the supply chain by demanding that metadata is correct or they won't accept music, which they can do because they control so much of the market. I'm not surprised they're expanding that to user's devices (presumably for matching purposes for igenius). The industry sucks, so many middlemen with so much power :(
God forbid there is a bug in software! This article is crap, maybe he ran into an issue but I've helped over a dozen people get setup on Apple Music and not once has there been file deletion. I am very skeptical that theoretical phone rep said any of these things either. Obviously there is a bug that needs fixing, but this is definitely not a platform wide attempt to delete anyone's data.
Every time I am asked to set up someone's Apple device, I find it incredibly difficult to:
* Get it synced properly
* Determine what is stored in iCloud/on-device
* Ensure that device contents are actually backed-up, unless done manually
* Set up simple things like email accounts
Just a month or two ago, I was helping someone whose iTunes music wouldn't sync to their iPhone. It turned out that, when they signed up to Apple Music, iTunes had silently flipped on a setting that prevents this. Working out what on earth was happening took me almost an hour.
Yet everyone tells me that their Apple devices 'just work'. I don't have the same experience - I find their behaviour to be utterly opaque and non-deterministic. Am I alone?
No -- you aren't alone. Whenever I connect my daughter's iPhone to iTunes (say to add more music) we take our lives in our hands. You get scary popups that ask you a question and provides two options -- neither of which is what you want.
I don't know whether this is deliberate on the part of Apple to discourage the use of iTunes, or whether they really think that it works well and is intuitive. For anybody from Apple reading this -- iTunes is not intuitive. It is horrible.
I've always been a Windows/Linux guy, and I never understood the Apple "Just works" motto, because my experience has been largely the same as the issues you've laid out.
iTunes has always been the worst user experience, both for myself and setting it up for the less technically inclined. I've been a firm "no-Apple" camper because Apple products doesn't give you the control if you need it. For an obsessive music fan, fine-tune control over how the product interacts with your library is critical.
I am not surprised at all by the disaster mentioned in the article- it validates the paranoia I've always harboured against Apple products.
>Yet everyone tells me that their Apple devices 'just work'. I don't have the same experience - I find their behaviour to be utterly opaque and non-deterministic. Am I alone?
Apple devices haven't "just worked" in over a decade. It's a testament to apples marketing that people still think this.
I recommend Android for anyone in a position to change.
I plug my Android phone into my Linux laptop. The phone's filesystem is mounted. I move, copy, delete whatever music and photos I want. Dead simple and rational.
I put Flickr on the phone. Photos I take with the phone are automatically backed up to Flickr, and I can see them from anywhere.
I have had a similar experience - finding out what is really going on with my iDevices always ends up being a giant time-suck. Things do seem to "just work" as long as you don't go looking too far - which, I imagine, is what most people do. I don't think this is unique to Apple necessarily, just more pronounced due to the "just works" mentality.
I remember reading "In the beginning was the Command Line" and the description of Apple products being hermetically sealed boxes sticks to me to this day. Even though the author said that the essay was obsolete within a year or so of release (due to Apple and OSX), it proves that even over 17(?) years in technology, some things never change. Almost every other ecosystem doesn't obsessively hide every adjustment knob and switch and force you into submitting to their way of doing things like Apple's does.
I got my parents an iPad mini recently and some of the contacts on my mom's phone sync and some of them don't. I am a developer and love tinkering with computers but for the love of me not figure out how to fix this.
Yeah I had the exact same issue with syncing externally purchased music whilst using apple music, I honestly could not believe apple has delivered software that behaves in such a user hostile manner. It hurts their reputation and convinced me to give up on some music.
Not so much devices (rarely come into contact with them), but this is what finally pushed me away from iTunes - https://i.imgur.com/JUIXKTd.jpg
For various reasons, I have multiple Apple IDs with iTunes content linked to them (old account, new account, various region changes over the years etc.). At some point, Apple decided that you could only download past purchases with _one_ Apple ID per computer per ninety days, effectively locking me out of the content unless I had a local copy[1] and was using a pre-authorised PC (for context, this was after Apple had done the "It's all in the cloud; just stream it" push for movies etc.).
I ended up getting around it by firing up a bunch of virtual machines (one per Apple ID), downloading everything I end, striping off the DRM, and then never using iTunes again for anything other than music (and even then I favour CDs first and other download sources second).
I'd certainly been a long time coming (2010ish iTunes handled my large-ish media library fine, and the UI was fine. By 2014ish, every release was feeling slower and slower, and the UI felt more and more like the iOS interfaced backported to PC), but that was the final straw. Currently moving over to foobar2000 for music (technically I could just point it at my music folders and be done, but I'm taking the opportunity to make sure everything is tagged properly).
[1] Which of course I keep on my NAS, but a) I'm not always on my local network and b) I'm not always 100% diligence about making sure a copy ends up there.
I owned my first MacBook 3 years ago. To me, the MacBook "just work" as much as any new Windows laptops I came across. So I'm clueless as to where did the phrase "just work" came from. Maybe Windows has improved over the years, or maybe a lot of things are done of the web now, the OS doesn't really matter as long as there is a browser.
It "just works" if you fully buy into the ecosystem. i.e. all content stored in iCloud nothing synced via cable etc.
I happen to do this since i tend to need a new iPhone every 2-4 months and it's just easier to pick up a new one, sign in and let it set itself up exactly as the old one.
But anything that deviates from this workflow, you tend to run into problems.
My iPhone currently has two apps that somehow failed to install, and I can't delete them or open them. I tried rebooting the phone, signing in and out of the Apple store, all to no avail.
Yet, people still buy it. They agree to pay for a product, at a bug price, and ask for people around them to do Apple's work to setup it up for them, but for free.
And they find that very natural. Normal.
Like they found normal 20 years ago we had to help them with their MS product they paid, but for free.
At first I thought the tone of the article was a bit hyperbolic, but upon reading further, no, this totally fits with the emotions that I'd probably feel upon such a situation. Shock, then horror, then anger. Then solution minded...then when hitting a wall...
>When giving the above warning, however, even in my most Orwellian paranoia I never could have dreamed that the content holders, like Apple, would also reach into your computer and take away what you already owned.
It just feels dirty, and, as my Software Developer Uncle probably would've called it, "Playing outside the sandbox." I mean, sure, as the article notes, the TOS gives Apple a lot of consent, but "Loss or Damage" via incidental use vs. outright deletion via intentional coding feels...different. Maybe legally they're not...
I do remember ranting at the top of my lungs after an online jam software installed an update and crashed my Win7 PC laptop so hard it had to rebuild via a command prompt screen. By then, I already had CD backups, a USB HD 500GB full of projects, and it was a cold reminder. The laptop restored fine, but whoa, not fun. Not what I signed up for in the agreement, risk-wise, I felt, so I've essentially stopped using that software.
...and I'll close by reminding myself I'm perfectly reasonable with my Win laptop setup, not running iTunes (Winamp), and backing up to a local cloud or other media (another USB HD coming soon). Life happens, accidents happen...but there's some funky software out there.
Heck of a story, and one I will point to gladly when discussing paths for audio DAW hardware/software platforms.
Corporations have spent decades conditioning their users to accept all ToSs and EULAs, using a combination of forbidding the software outright (often with no ability to get a refund) and applying scary language that they have limited the abuse of only as much as they thought would escape the public's notice. Now that their investment has been completed, they want their returns.
My solution to this (and to issues like this outside of software) is extreme but it will fix the problem. When one side creates a contract of any sort (ToS, EULA, phone contract, home buying contract) which primary purpose is to be signed by numerous other individuals who have little to no ability to alter the contract, the other parties are allowed to use lack of understanding to break the entire contract unless the creator can show beyond reasonable doubt (I would use clear and convincing, but that would be abused) that the signer did understand the entirety of the contract.
It would break contract law as we know it, but it would force simple, easy to understand contracts and it would penalize any robo signing practices. (Personal story: last time I went to a phone company, they gave the contract to read on a small device where I could only read 2 lines at a time and where part of the display was broken. I wasn't allowed a print out of the contract until after I signed. I walked away and have to this day not gotten a smartphone because of the downright evil practices of cell phone companies).
Apple iTunes Match (and Apple Music) subscriber, with 23,000 hand ripped songs, only about 18,000 able to exact match by Apple, 5,000 are less common versions.
Also have enabled iCloud Music Library. Note these are three different services, and iCloud Music Library has been the most likely culprit for monkeying with your music, not Apple Music.
The combo of all three has deleted or auto-replaced exactly zero of my custom rips. I can use a series of steps (smart playlist to find matched songs, then manually delete that set) to shift to using Apple's high quality unprotected version, or not.
I wonder if the key to everything working as you imagine is the Match subscriptions:
If using Match, then after matching, manually deleting local, then re-downloading, you end up with a very high quality file without DRM that will continue to work fine and be portable, even after you cancel.
I'm not sure what happens if using only Apple Music without Match.
The linked article sounds a lot like the iCloud Music Library beta problems in July 2015:
I believe the trick is declining when iTunes first asks whether you would like it to keep your music collection organized, or disabling the option in the preferences.
There are two default options that should be changed for safety when configuring iTunes:
- enable error correction when importing from CDs (importing options in Preferences)
- disable "keep music collection organized" (or something to that effect, located somewhere in the prefs)
I can say for 100% certain that the combination of iTunes Match and Apple Music completely botched about 600 songs in my library.
I restored a backup, turned off Match and Apple Music and obtained a refund. Suffice to say it was the first week of Apple Music but still, it was pretty appalling that my carefully tagged library and artwork were overwritten with zero warning.
Apple do tend to release things a little half baked sometimes - especially when it pertains to cloud services - sadly the customer's data is the casualty which is a shame since it reflects a very cavalier attitude to user data.
I can't think of a single reason why Apple would want to delete the files from the user's computer apart from an intent to lock the user in to the service by making it tremendously hard to leave. That's the black hole of UI dark patterns.
It's worth noting that Google Photos actually does something similar... the photos are "backed up" even in their "original" form... but I don't believe it's possible to actually restore (download all) from Google Photos.
I thankfully have a local backup of the photos I took, but when a phrase like "backup" is used, it is implicit and understood that there is a "restore" mechanism.
Google Photos lacks a "restore" mechanism, and it sounds like the same is true of Apple Music.
Google Play Music also does the matching/mismatching thing.
An uploaded Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer was replaced by a remix album but remains tagged as if it's the original. This is probably due to them not having the original, and this was a 90% match based on tags... but 90% is not good enough. I worked in the music industry and have so many demo tapes, master cuts that were not subject to post-production, etc. I want the version I have, and not some approximate guess at something similar-ish.
Similar what happened to me years ago - i got new iphone, installed itunes, it synced all local files. Few weeks later, i de-synced the phone or something like that, and all my local files were gone! Still not sure how or why, there were no warnings or anything. From that day, i stay as far as possible from iTunes and similar "smart music sync" apps. Spotify doesn't see my local music collection, and vice versa. All music streaming services and their apps are total crap, they try to lock you in and manage everything like you're an idiot.
It might be worth filing a criminal complaint with the FBI, under the "exceeds authorized access" provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.[1] Apple's EULA [2] does not give them unlimited access to your computer. It just keeps you from suing them in civil court over it. You probably need a lawyer and a press agent. Someone really needs to take this to court.
See the Justice Department's CFAA guide [2], under "Intentionally Damaging by Knowing Transmission". Also read the section on "Exceeds authorized access", starting at page 11.
This guy was told that the software was operating as intended. That shows criminal intent. It eliminates the defense in the CFAA under "No action may be brought under this subsection for the negligent design or manufacture of computer hardware, computer software, or firmware." The CFAA has a civil suit provision: "Any person who suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of this section may maintain a civil action against the violator to obtain compensatory damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief." That may override the EULA, but this needs legal advice.
iTunes is the driving reason behind why I got rid of my iDevices.
First of all using iTunes for Windows has a way of making its users feel like something of an afterthought.
Secondly I was always scared to sync my devices. Is this the day it tries to undo my jailbreak? Is this the day that deleting a playlist actually removes all the songs from my device? Is this the day that it removes an app I depend on because Apple decided to kick it out of the app store?
Somewhat relatedly I never felt comfortable plugging my iPhone into my secondary computer. The whole process of authorization and syncing is just horribly opaque.
It's some of the most opaque software I've ever had the displeasure of using. How they managed to fuck up a file copy[1] so badly is beyond me.
Android isn't without it's own faults, but at least it feels like it's own independent device, with its own copy of my library. I don't want a complicated sync mechanism: I want to put this new album onto my phone.
> "Amber relayed to me that she’s had to suffer through many calls from people who cancelled their Apple Music subscription after the free, three-month trial, only to discover that all of their own music files had been deleted and there was no way to get them back."
The Apple Music three month trial had a positive affect on my listening habits. I tried it, hoping to discover new music. But the UX was a slog. No easy pivot points on artists and songs. A DJ workflow vs listener workflow, which added complexity. No collaborative filtering.
So, I switched to Spotify. The "Discover Weekly" section that uses Echonest (I think) has surfaced new artists and songs to explore. Pivot points on songs, artists, and playlists are straightforward.
Have spent 100s of hours hours ripping and curating high 100s of CDs over the last 25 years. Barely touch em. At this point, if you'd ask me to choose between my old catalog and Spotify, I would choose the later. Heh, thanks to the Apple Music 3 month trial.
The problem with Spotify is 25% of their library has that horrible UMG watermark on it. It makes any UMG music before 2013 unlistenable. Apparently, UMG fixed the problem on their side but Spotify don't give enough of a damn about quality to redownload the UMG library.
As the post mentions, in most cases of mainstream media, we all agree to licensing our purchased media, not owning it, and so publishers and resellers assume that all media in our possession must be purchased, and so are under their control.
Of course this ignores user created media, or freebies, or gifts... but even for the purchased access, I always wonder about that forced (dare I say clickwrap?) licensing aspect. Why should I pay again for different format of same info (amazon format vs. epub)? Why should NYT force me to pay extra for tablet AND phone access to same content? Why should I pay extra for a digital copy of a movie that I already have on Bluray? And of course, why should I be forced to allow the publisher to control media on my drive?
We see this with books (printed books say that you have a license to read them, but not to redistribute in any way electronically without permission, even snippets or out of press books (the long running Google books issues) or Amazon revising kindle books on your device) and as the post mentions, we see it with music and movies/shows as well.
It's not as easy to distribute content these days as we may think; many book publishers tried direct to consumer ebook sales over the last few years and are pulling out of that game (the fact that o'reilly and tor worked so far is because they give flex and target techies). Libraries are shifting to emedia services like BiblioBoard and Hoopla which don't even let you download the content except in very restricted apps; instead, you read images online in a browser or stream only. The goal again is to enforce the licensing and get consumers out of the "own" mandate.
At the end of the day, content creators should have a say in how their content is consumed and sold, publishers have demanded a say, and resellers want to own the customer and their data. The current model is too adversarial; I hope we can come up with a way to reward content creators while still allowing a reasonable flexibility of consumption and appreciation.
PS: We seem ok when Netflix drops a movie because we understand we are renting access to their basket. I guess publishers want that too, only they want a higher per unit price with even more control. Sigh.
I've been telling people for a long time to avoid Apple because it's an organisation which has demonstrated a pattern of contempt - to its customers, to its competitors, to the developers who use its app store and to the courts. The replies I get are so depressingly apathetic: "but the iPhone is nice"; "I like how simple it is to use"; "the design is so pretty". How can people be so easily charmed into bending over for out-of-control megalomaniacs? Maybe the secret to Hitler's popularity was the uniforms, which were admittedly really snazzy (Godwin's law, I know, I know...)
This is ridiculous, but that's what you get by trading ownership and privacy for convenience. I keep all my music in .mp3, movies in .avi and books in .pdf, which means I can access them on any computer, using any software and I don't need to worry that one day I may loose access to them. The world is going mad, I wonder when (or if) people will realise how much control over their stuff is in 3rd party hands, and it's just the beggining - we're now entering the era of IoT, autonomous cars and so on. Fuck all of that, I'll use "dumb" stuff as long as possible, even if sometimes it's less convenient - at least I don't feel like a sheep following trends while getting more and more dependant on corporations, whose only interest is to squeeze you as much as possible.
More importantly for me, no matter what happens to my devices I will have some form of backup. This is miles better than the default for people even 5 years ago. You have to try really hard to lose data now! Well, so long as you're not picky about the file size....
Granted Google has the keys to my kingdom. I have things like Backblaze but...
What would cause iTunes to actually delete the music? AFAIK, it doesn't have an "Optimize Storage" option like Photos does, and it's never deleted any files for me even when my disk is down to 0 bytes free.
Wow. It's hard to believe they were capable of fooling us this long. I mean, how can we rationalize after they saying they will keep our files and if we end business with them, good bye?
This should be unacceptable, things like this makes me sympathize a bit more with Stallman's hardcore philosophy about software.
All I can think of is my Wife's photography collection. She has terabytes of photos. Imagine the day "iPhoto" works like this (which is probably not too far off).
We have her do a manual backup periodically, but now I am going to automate that and make it robust. I am honestly afraid for the future of that data. This is just another part of why I am glad all of my own important data is on Linux machines that I have relatively strong control over, and backup automatically.
What a time to be alive! I can't wait until they can edit your memories out of your brain and store them on the cloud, you know for more capacity and safer recall.
A long time ago I started to use the iPhone music app. Then I quickly discovered that songs sent to the iPhone could not be sent back the other way. This was just the beginning of Apple's lock-in. I got out of it right then and there. Now I store my music on my own server and use one of the many third party music apps to play them.
If a service smells of lock-in, you can be sure things won't become better, they will become worse like the issues people get with Apple Music and iCloud. You care about your files? Then you manage them, don't trust some service you have no control over.
I had a non-English song on my Mac and iPhone prior to Apple Music subscription. Now, my iPhone has a very different non-English song altogether.
What seems to have happened is, Apple incorrectly matched the original song to another non-English song. Later, it deleted the original song on my iPhone and gave me the incorrectly-matched version.
[+] [-] funkyy|9 years ago|reply
There is no rationale in this - this is outright breaking your privacy and ownership rights. No terms and conditions can be above law. It doesn't matter what others do - Apple is doing those crazy things here and there trying to test the ground which indicates they are not pro privacy and pro user, but rather are willing to go huge lengths to please music industry.
Only because you eating in the restaurant it doesn't mean waiter can run to your house and smash all of your food in the fridge reasoning "from now on you are covered".
[+] [-] clapinton|9 years ago|reply
Back in the day, I tried to use iTunes for a while when I bought my iPod. One of the first things that it asked me was to take control of my music, as it would reorganize it by itself. I agreed, but tested it first with a small sample. When I saw the mess it had done to the way I organized my music, specially with the files' names, I backed out of the auto-organize option and preached heavily against it to everyone I knew.
I learned my lesson: never let whatever service control your files. And always, ALWAYS have backup. Remember: The answer to life, the universe and how many backups you should keep of your stuff is 42.
[+] [-] simonster|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaysonL|9 years ago|reply
[0]http://www.imore.com/no-apple-music-not-deleting-tracks-your...
[+] [-] StavrosK|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muso1999|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] givinguflac|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossng|9 years ago|reply
* Get it synced properly
* Determine what is stored in iCloud/on-device
* Ensure that device contents are actually backed-up, unless done manually
* Set up simple things like email accounts
Just a month or two ago, I was helping someone whose iTunes music wouldn't sync to their iPhone. It turned out that, when they signed up to Apple Music, iTunes had silently flipped on a setting that prevents this. Working out what on earth was happening took me almost an hour.
Yet everyone tells me that their Apple devices 'just work'. I don't have the same experience - I find their behaviour to be utterly opaque and non-deterministic. Am I alone?
[+] [-] pjsg|9 years ago|reply
I don't know whether this is deliberate on the part of Apple to discourage the use of iTunes, or whether they really think that it works well and is intuitive. For anybody from Apple reading this -- iTunes is not intuitive. It is horrible.
[+] [-] yks|9 years ago|reply
It's just a UX nightmare, hard to grasp how to do things, almost impossible to grasp what the consequences of doing things are.
[+] [-] badloginagain|9 years ago|reply
iTunes has always been the worst user experience, both for myself and setting it up for the less technically inclined. I've been a firm "no-Apple" camper because Apple products doesn't give you the control if you need it. For an obsessive music fan, fine-tune control over how the product interacts with your library is critical.
I am not surprised at all by the disaster mentioned in the article- it validates the paranoia I've always harboured against Apple products.
[+] [-] Sir_Substance|9 years ago|reply
Apple devices haven't "just worked" in over a decade. It's a testament to apples marketing that people still think this.
[+] [-] leephillips|9 years ago|reply
I plug my Android phone into my Linux laptop. The phone's filesystem is mounted. I move, copy, delete whatever music and photos I want. Dead simple and rational.
I put Flickr on the phone. Photos I take with the phone are automatically backed up to Flickr, and I can see them from anywhere.
[+] [-] prplhaz4|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theandrewbailey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yhippa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colin_jack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stordoff|9 years ago|reply
For various reasons, I have multiple Apple IDs with iTunes content linked to them (old account, new account, various region changes over the years etc.). At some point, Apple decided that you could only download past purchases with _one_ Apple ID per computer per ninety days, effectively locking me out of the content unless I had a local copy[1] and was using a pre-authorised PC (for context, this was after Apple had done the "It's all in the cloud; just stream it" push for movies etc.).
I ended up getting around it by firing up a bunch of virtual machines (one per Apple ID), downloading everything I end, striping off the DRM, and then never using iTunes again for anything other than music (and even then I favour CDs first and other download sources second).
I'd certainly been a long time coming (2010ish iTunes handled my large-ish media library fine, and the UI was fine. By 2014ish, every release was feeling slower and slower, and the UI felt more and more like the iOS interfaced backported to PC), but that was the final straw. Currently moving over to foobar2000 for music (technically I could just point it at my music folders and be done, but I'm taking the opportunity to make sure everything is tagged properly).
[1] Which of course I keep on my NAS, but a) I'm not always on my local network and b) I'm not always 100% diligence about making sure a copy ends up there.
[+] [-] sixseven|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mpswardle|9 years ago|reply
I happen to do this since i tend to need a new iPhone every 2-4 months and it's just easier to pick up a new one, sign in and let it set itself up exactly as the old one.
But anything that deviates from this workflow, you tend to run into problems.
[+] [-] rhinoceraptor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sametmax|9 years ago|reply
And they find that very natural. Normal.
Like they found normal 20 years ago we had to help them with their MS product they paid, but for free.
[+] [-] IkmoIkmo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colin_jack|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|9 years ago|reply
>When giving the above warning, however, even in my most Orwellian paranoia I never could have dreamed that the content holders, like Apple, would also reach into your computer and take away what you already owned.
It just feels dirty, and, as my Software Developer Uncle probably would've called it, "Playing outside the sandbox." I mean, sure, as the article notes, the TOS gives Apple a lot of consent, but "Loss or Damage" via incidental use vs. outright deletion via intentional coding feels...different. Maybe legally they're not...
I do remember ranting at the top of my lungs after an online jam software installed an update and crashed my Win7 PC laptop so hard it had to rebuild via a command prompt screen. By then, I already had CD backups, a USB HD 500GB full of projects, and it was a cold reminder. The laptop restored fine, but whoa, not fun. Not what I signed up for in the agreement, risk-wise, I felt, so I've essentially stopped using that software.
...and I'll close by reminding myself I'm perfectly reasonable with my Win laptop setup, not running iTunes (Winamp), and backing up to a local cloud or other media (another USB HD coming soon). Life happens, accidents happen...but there's some funky software out there.
Heck of a story, and one I will point to gladly when discussing paths for audio DAW hardware/software platforms.
[+] [-] Lawtonfogle|9 years ago|reply
My solution to this (and to issues like this outside of software) is extreme but it will fix the problem. When one side creates a contract of any sort (ToS, EULA, phone contract, home buying contract) which primary purpose is to be signed by numerous other individuals who have little to no ability to alter the contract, the other parties are allowed to use lack of understanding to break the entire contract unless the creator can show beyond reasonable doubt (I would use clear and convincing, but that would be abused) that the signer did understand the entirety of the contract.
It would break contract law as we know it, but it would force simple, easy to understand contracts and it would penalize any robo signing practices. (Personal story: last time I went to a phone company, they gave the contract to read on a small device where I could only read 2 lines at a time and where part of the display was broken. I wasn't allowed a print out of the contract until after I signed. I walked away and have to this day not gotten a smartphone because of the downright evil practices of cell phone companies).
[+] [-] Terretta|9 years ago|reply
Also have enabled iCloud Music Library. Note these are three different services, and iCloud Music Library has been the most likely culprit for monkeying with your music, not Apple Music.
The combo of all three has deleted or auto-replaced exactly zero of my custom rips. I can use a series of steps (smart playlist to find matched songs, then manually delete that set) to shift to using Apple's high quality unprotected version, or not.
I wonder if the key to everything working as you imagine is the Match subscriptions:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/
If using Match, then after matching, manually deleting local, then re-downloading, you end up with a very high quality file without DRM that will continue to work fine and be portable, even after you cancel.
I'm not sure what happens if using only Apple Music without Match.
The linked article sounds a lot like the iCloud Music Library beta problems in July 2015:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/01/apple-music-users-...
And similar support experiences:
http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/07/24/i-got-my-music-back-at...
[+] [-] WiseWeasel|9 years ago|reply
There are two default options that should be changed for safety when configuring iTunes:
- enable error correction when importing from CDs (importing options in Preferences)
- disable "keep music collection organized" (or something to that effect, located somewhere in the prefs)
[+] [-] topdownjimmy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] osi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leonroy|9 years ago|reply
I restored a backup, turned off Match and Apple Music and obtained a refund. Suffice to say it was the first week of Apple Music but still, it was pretty appalling that my carefully tagged library and artwork were overwritten with zero warning.
Apple do tend to release things a little half baked sometimes - especially when it pertains to cloud services - sadly the customer's data is the casualty which is a shame since it reflects a very cavalier attitude to user data.
[+] [-] darkmagnus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buro9|9 years ago|reply
I thankfully have a local backup of the photos I took, but when a phrase like "backup" is used, it is implicit and understood that there is a "restore" mechanism.
Google Photos lacks a "restore" mechanism, and it sounds like the same is true of Apple Music.
Google Play Music also does the matching/mismatching thing.
An uploaded Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer was replaced by a remix album but remains tagged as if it's the original. This is probably due to them not having the original, and this was a 90% match based on tags... but 90% is not good enough. I worked in the music industry and have so many demo tapes, master cuts that were not subject to post-production, etc. I want the version I have, and not some approximate guess at something similar-ish.
This isn't just an Apple issue.
[+] [-] hudo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
See the Justice Department's CFAA guide [2], under "Intentionally Damaging by Knowing Transmission". Also read the section on "Exceeds authorized access", starting at page 11.
This guy was told that the software was operating as intended. That shows criminal intent. It eliminates the defense in the CFAA under "No action may be brought under this subsection for the negligent design or manufacture of computer hardware, computer software, or firmware." The CFAA has a civil suit provision: "Any person who suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of this section may maintain a civil action against the violator to obtain compensatory damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief." That may override the EULA, but this needs legal advice.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-ccips/l... [2] http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore...
[+] [-] drbawb|9 years ago|reply
First of all using iTunes for Windows has a way of making its users feel like something of an afterthought.
Secondly I was always scared to sync my devices. Is this the day it tries to undo my jailbreak? Is this the day that deleting a playlist actually removes all the songs from my device? Is this the day that it removes an app I depend on because Apple decided to kick it out of the app store?
Somewhat relatedly I never felt comfortable plugging my iPhone into my secondary computer. The whole process of authorization and syncing is just horribly opaque.
It's some of the most opaque software I've ever had the displeasure of using. How they managed to fuck up a file copy[1] so badly is beyond me.
Android isn't without it's own faults, but at least it feels like it's own independent device, with its own copy of my library. I don't want a complicated sync mechanism: I want to put this new album onto my phone.
[1]: https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dop
[+] [-] musesum|9 years ago|reply
The Apple Music three month trial had a positive affect on my listening habits. I tried it, hoping to discover new music. But the UX was a slog. No easy pivot points on artists and songs. A DJ workflow vs listener workflow, which added complexity. No collaborative filtering.
So, I switched to Spotify. The "Discover Weekly" section that uses Echonest (I think) has surfaced new artists and songs to explore. Pivot points on songs, artists, and playlists are straightforward.
Have spent 100s of hours hours ripping and curating high 100s of CDs over the last 25 years. Barely touch em. At this point, if you'd ask me to choose between my old catalog and Spotify, I would choose the later. Heh, thanks to the Apple Music 3 month trial.
[+] [-] Coincoin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrey_utkin|9 years ago|reply
"FUCK THE CLOUD" by Jason Scott: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1717
Proud user of Linux and SELinux (mandatory access control system, which protects your data from your apps).
[+] [-] mwexler|9 years ago|reply
Of course this ignores user created media, or freebies, or gifts... but even for the purchased access, I always wonder about that forced (dare I say clickwrap?) licensing aspect. Why should I pay again for different format of same info (amazon format vs. epub)? Why should NYT force me to pay extra for tablet AND phone access to same content? Why should I pay extra for a digital copy of a movie that I already have on Bluray? And of course, why should I be forced to allow the publisher to control media on my drive?
We see this with books (printed books say that you have a license to read them, but not to redistribute in any way electronically without permission, even snippets or out of press books (the long running Google books issues) or Amazon revising kindle books on your device) and as the post mentions, we see it with music and movies/shows as well.
It's not as easy to distribute content these days as we may think; many book publishers tried direct to consumer ebook sales over the last few years and are pulling out of that game (the fact that o'reilly and tor worked so far is because they give flex and target techies). Libraries are shifting to emedia services like BiblioBoard and Hoopla which don't even let you download the content except in very restricted apps; instead, you read images online in a browser or stream only. The goal again is to enforce the licensing and get consumers out of the "own" mandate.
At the end of the day, content creators should have a say in how their content is consumed and sold, publishers have demanded a say, and resellers want to own the customer and their data. The current model is too adversarial; I hope we can come up with a way to reward content creators while still allowing a reasonable flexibility of consumption and appreciation.
PS: We seem ok when Netflix drops a movie because we understand we are renting access to their basket. I guess publishers want that too, only they want a higher per unit price with even more control. Sigh.
[+] [-] mjw_byrne|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkorzeniewski|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rtpg|9 years ago|reply
More importantly for me, no matter what happens to my devices I will have some form of backup. This is miles better than the default for people even 5 years ago. You have to try really hard to lose data now! Well, so long as you're not picky about the file size....
Granted Google has the keys to my kingdom. I have things like Backblaze but...
[+] [-] kalleboo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andremendes|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boxfire|9 years ago|reply
We have her do a manual backup periodically, but now I am going to automate that and make it robust. I am honestly afraid for the future of that data. This is just another part of why I am glad all of my own important data is on Linux machines that I have relatively strong control over, and backup automatically.
What a time to be alive! I can't wait until they can edit your memories out of your brain and store them on the cloud, you know for more capacity and safer recall.
[+] [-] firegrind|9 years ago|reply
Could I copyright a piece of unpublished music, then use the converted copy to show a case against Apple for copyright infringement ?
[+] [-] dendory|9 years ago|reply
If a service smells of lock-in, you can be sure things won't become better, they will become worse like the issues people get with Apple Music and iCloud. You care about your files? Then you manage them, don't trust some service you have no control over.
[+] [-] logan5|9 years ago|reply
What seems to have happened is, Apple incorrectly matched the original song to another non-English song. Later, it deleted the original song on my iPhone and gave me the incorrectly-matched version.