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Apple Negotiates For Unlimited iTunes Downloads
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Bloomberg reports that Apple is in talks with record companies including Vivendi SA (VIV)'s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) and EMI Group Ltd. to give iTunes music buyers easier access to their songs on multiple devices. The deal would provide iTunes customers with a permanent backup of music purchases if the originals are damaged or lost and would allow downloads to iPad, iPod and iPhone devices linked to the same iTunes account. The negotiations come as iTunes is facing competition from new Web-based services such as Spotify Ltd., Rdio Inc. and MOG Inc. that focus on letting customers listen to songs from anywhere with an online connection, instead of downloading tracks to a hard drive. 'Long-time iTunes users know that one of the more obnoxious differences between music and app downloads on the iTunes Store is the fact that apps can be re-downloaded a seemingly infinite number of times,' writes Jacqui Cheng. 'In contrast, users can only download music tracks once — if you find yourself without backups and your music disappears, you must beseech the iTunes gods to let you re-download all your music—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, should they hear your prayers.""
Well, since the music you download from Apple is DRM free, I would say yes.
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
My experience represents just one customer but I have never had an issue getting Apple to reissue downloads to me after losing all my data. They happily obliged after a hard drive failure and after my computer was stolen. Shame on me for not having backups, but Apple has always been very accommodating.
I've regularly found tracks on the Japan ITMS that are only available in DRM form.
There's no real COPYRIGHT LAW reason why you shouldn't be able to - but the cost of doing another download has other costs that need to be accounted for (the cost of the bandwidth, the cost of making a new connection to the download servers, etc, etc). It's easy to assume that cost is zero, but I can imagine it being something that people take seriously when it comes to capacity planning.
And before any gamers chime in and say "well, that's bullshit, because Steam lets you download things as many times as you want" - a significant proportion of the Steam Content Server Network is paid for by companies (ISPs) that are not Valve that maintain local mirrors (I manage two in Australia; we have several others because the cost of bandwidth is relatively high, and so there are several ISPs that are voluntarily running them for Valve as a benefit for their customers and to help reduce their bandwidth costs - so Valve get all that bandwidth for free).