Slashdot Mirror
Apple Outrages Users By Automatically Installing U2's Album On Their Devices
Zanadou writes "Apple may have succeeded at breaking two records at once with the free release of U2's latest album, titled Songs of Innocence, via iTunes. But now, it looks like it's also on track to become one of the worst music publicity stunts of all time. Users who have opted to download new purchases to their iPhones automatically have found the new U2 album sitting on their phones. But even if iTunes users hadn't chosen automatic downloads, Songs of Innocence will still be displayed as an "iTunes in the Cloud" purchase. That means it will still be shown as part of your music library, even if you delete all the tracks. The only way to make the U2 album go away is to go to your Mac or PC and hide all of your "iTunes in the Cloud" purchases, or to use iTunes to manually hide each track from your purchased items list. Other reactions include rapper Tyler, The Creator saying that having the new U2 album automatically downloaded on his iPhone was like waking up with an STD. Update: 09/16 15:06 GMT by T : Note: Apple has released a fix.
If you buy a product from Apple, it's not really yours. Oh, you own the lump of hardware, but the apps, the content, the OS? No, you do not own any of that.
Test 1 2 3 4
When I looked it was because of too much traffic from this forced update. Also, a bunch of our Mac Minis locked-up when they ran out of harddrive room. I spent most of the weekend cleaning-up after this fiasco. I'd like to know how much U2 paid Apple to screw over their users like this. I have a lot of angry coworkers.
I should take my Mac into the shower to wash away any remaining traces...but that might void the warranty.
You'll get over it.
What do you expect after sleeping with an Apple product?
If this album is 100 Mbytes at AT&T's roaming price of $19.95 per megabyte, this is going to cost me $1,995. The album is on my phone so I hope it downloaded over a week ago! If not, I'm screwed because this is a work phone. They were fine with me checking email a few times the last time I traveled, but that was only $45 in overage fees. This is going to be very profitable for AT&T and other providers.
It downloaded over wi-fi on my phone.
I had to actually start my download because I turn OFF THE ABILITY TO AUTOMATICALLY DOWNLOAD!!!
I swear, the more technology we get the dumber people become. Stop yer damn whining and delete the FREE ALBUM.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
I take it all the world's real problems got solved over the past few days? I must've missed it. I would've expected CNN to report on it...
Seriously, get a grip.
#DeleteChrome
That's why. And I'm not an Apple user.
A lot more #2 than before.
the horror ... talk about your first world problems.
HA-HA!
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Kindness turns into abuse, when you are not asked if you want the offered, and it is imposed unto you nevertheless.
It took me all of 5 seconds to hide the album in iTunes. All gone, I'll never see it again (unless I choose to unhide it).
Such a hardship.
if it's free, I can give it on to my friends, no? I'm sure I'd be making Apple a favour with that, after all they want to see it distributed widely and I spare them the costs of distribution?
GO VIRAL!
Amazon has been "helpfully" adding books to people's Kindle devices for months now. They just show up on your library like you purchased them and you didn't.
I haven't heard any big outrage over that.
Oh, that's right. That's not Apple.
If you leave automatic downloads on - guess what - you have automatic downloads!
I think it was a great thing to have the album right at your fingertips. This is not some cheap promo song of some re-released stuff of some ex-famous guy. This is a full-blown U2 album with a song about Joey Ramone!
I'd be happy to have that kind of album from your preferred musical genre im my library anytime, so please stop pretending to be offended.
Seriously, not only are they whining about being 'hacked', even when they find out what really happened and that they got an album for free they're still not happy and are still indignant. It is pathetic. I made a point of giving the album a listen and you know what? I like it. I was pleased to get it and I've played it a few times. The media are fanning the flames for all they're worth too. Definitely time to go back to dumb phones for dumb users.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
This problem could have been easily avoided. Send iTunes users an announcement that they can go to the store and get the U2 album for free, if they want to. That's how the game stores Steam and GOG usually do these kind of things. I have not seen them chucking any items into my library against my will.
it could have been nickelback....
Oh right, this is an apple product. You all must be 'stylish' hipster douchebags who think you're smart.
still haven't found what they're looking for...
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
to, Yeah Yeah Yeah!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So, Bono is back from Africa then.
Surely the point here is the precedent... It signals that the corp can and will push music and in future other content to your otherwise 'personal' media collection and otherwise ad-free OS... It doesn't take a lot of cynicism to guess where apple can go with this... How about a mass unsolicited email and SMS to all device users to promote... Oh wait that is called spam...
Anything by James Blunt - that would have promoted a mass defection to Android..
The album was a give-away. If you have your phone set to auto-download things you own, guess what? It downloads it. #firstworldproblem
First I couldn't take a dump because the maid was cleaning my bathroom, then my girlfriend wanted to have sex, but I had jerked off 15 minutes prior to her request, and then, and THEN I looked at my iPhone and discovered that it downloaded U2 songs! The outrage!
I should totally send Steve Jobs a nastygram. And just to spite him, I will send it via snail mail.
On an unrelated note, I just realized that the iPhone 6 was released. I should send one of my servants to stand in line for me. You're an idiot if you think I would stand in a line for days for a cell phone; that's why God gave us servants. I actually had to punish one of them once because he started getting all uppity, and acting like he was people. People aren't servants!
Well, given that I listen pretty much exclusively to classical music, finding the new U2 album on my iPhone (if I had one) or on my Mac in iTunes would be more like waking up and seeing that my ex-wife's sister is in bed with me. Ewww....
But on a serious note, this behavior by Apple is very unpolite, regardless of whether the album is pushed onto one's phone, computer, or cloud account.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
I thought this album release was quite significant actually. Many years ago Courtney Love wrote on Salon.com ("Courtney Love does the math") that she was not bothered with P2P distribution of her music, as in fact CD sales were not a source of income for artists. Every now and again the publishers associations whine about how artists will perish due to P2P, and on /. there is disagreement with no proper evidence to support it. Now we see a well established band and Apple showing that revenue sharing with a publisher for printing CDs that may or may not be bought is not the best deal they could have.
Opt-in and UI preferences aside, this album was a major release.
Like a human being but every time I click "click here" to return to classis I get this beta shit.
FUCK BETA!
We crossed the line
Who pushed who over?
It doesn't matter to you
It matters to me
(verses omitted)
She hides my selfies like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing
Her movements something else
Oh love, like a screaming flower
Love...dying every hour...love
(verses omitted)
Oh...love...
You say in iTunes there are no rules
Oh...love...
Sweetheart,
You're so cruel
Oh...love...
To stay with you I'd be a fool [no change; just bolded for emphasis]
Sweetheart
You're so cruel
Wealth doesn't correlate strongly with intellect. If anything, it might be slightly negative. Besides, if you really earned that much, you would've probably never heard of slashdot in the first place. You'd be off doing more interesting things.
Totally. Because U2 are your typical, just about getting by, rock band.
U2 don't have to sell another album, ever, to remain multi-millionaires. They could give away their work for nothing for the rest of their lives, and still be richer than 99.99% of the planet. They are not, in any way, a template for other musicians.
This strikes me as simply the next logical step in marketing. U2 is a major group, and it's hard to argue that giving customers their new album as a bonus is a bad thing. But the next step will be "free" albums Apple wants you to listen to, and the one after that will be extorting artists to pay them to have their albums released this way.
The final step, no doubt, will be an extra fee to have automatic installation of such stuff disabled.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Literally within days, this hot breaking news item shows on /. Impressive. How we ever managed to keep abreast before the age of internet is well beyond my metal capabilities.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I'll be damned, went into winamp and searched for a U2 song and found one. Didn't think I had any. "New years day" Just had to share that. It's Monday!
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Inherited wealth no, but earned yes, it correlates extremely well because it's tied with success, and success == intelligence. That is, the ability to set yourself goals and planning to reach them, and actually achieving them. As for Slashdot, I only post now and then to remind its sad dwellers that yes, there is a better world out there, and that they don't belong there.
From 1999 to 2009, music sales dropped about 60%. People used to say they pirated for convenience because there was no modern commercial way to download-for-pay, or that they would still buy as much music even if they choose to download large amounts in addition to that - but now with it incredibly easy to buy music online and prices lower than ever, sales are not back up. People need to be intellectually honest and stop making disingenuous arguments and just accept that, yes, with it being very easy to pirate music, people are going to pirate music and artists will have to find other revenue sources or make less.
U2 are actually one of the biggest hypocrites in the industry. They constantly moan about pirates, yet they have a complex corporate created to avoid pay any taxes. Some of the investment vehicles they've used, along with the likes of David Beckham, are actually illegal. But you won't find Bono or U2 mentioned in the criminal cases going through the courts, it's always some anonymous company name.
Pretentious? Moi?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I could have used that money as a down payment towards an iHouse or an iCar...
Just be proud that you helped pay for the $100,000,000.00 that Apple gave iU2 for the album
Under the deal between Apple and the band where Bono is one of the members, U2 "gives away" the album on iTune and for that, Apple awards them with a cool Two Hundred Million United States Greenbacks
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Australia still does not have competitive offerings, some not even offered at all ie Game of Thrones, or Itunes at some multiple of the American price. At business schools, they say if your price if off by 20% you forfeit a lot. At 100% plus more, as is standard here, the distribution people should be locked up for price fixing, abuse of market power, or some other consumer law, and not expect any mass take up.
"-1 Uncomfortable truth"
Just some random counter examples for success == intelligence.
* Athletes
* Musicians
* Actors
* Models
There are other talents a human can have besides intelligence, both mental and physical; beauty, creativity, muscles, taste, empathy, etc.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I assume she was basing this on her own CDs , and indeed the royalties on 37 worldwide sales is probably cancelled out by the clerical, stationery and postage charges incurred by the record company.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Envious much? It takes talent and determination to succeed in those fields as well. Whether you like it or not, writing code is not that epitome of human achievement you like to think. Join the Real World and weep.
I own a few thousand CDs (and still buy records and CDs), but I have never bought anything from iTunes (or any other digital music store). The prices are too high. A digital version of an album/book/whatever should cost about 1/10th the cost of the physical media. In many cases (often on Kindle), the digital prices for media are even HIGHER than the physical media.
Some people say "oh, your paying for convenience of being able to download it immediately". Sure, but that convenience is not worth the same dollar value of getting a physical media with artwork, packaging, linear notes, etc. You can also make your own digital version in about 5 minutes with a computer and free software.
I do like that Amazon gives you an MP3 version of every CD or record you have ever bought from them, automatically, in their Android Music app. Much the opposite of this situation, that really impressed me, that they retroactively added all my past purchases to my digital library.
Got any figures from the last 6 years?
True, U2 have more money in their pockets than most. However, if you do get around to read the Salon.com article I recommended (and I really think it's a great +5 insightful read), you'll be able to learn about what happens BEFORE someone has the chance to become big as U2. You'll see that the revenue share that privileged U2 and Radiohead opted out from was NEVER good for a starting band in any case.
then stop assuming and just read the article. it's a really good one.
Or maybe people just are not that interested in the music that is available? I do not pirate music, but I, also, do not buy music. I have several friends who pirate music...interestingly enough, they buy more music every year than I ever did.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
> you'll be happy to have gay erotic novels appearing as your purchases
Or decapitation videos!
"Other reactions include rapper, Tyler, The Creator, saying that having the new U2 album automatically downloaded on his iPhone was like waking up with a STD."
They're so straight-to-the-point, and really put things in terms that all of us can relate to.
Is Apple CEO Tim Cook competent?
When you purchase an Apple device and use iOS, the EULA clearly states that Apple can have its way with your device, including installing or UNinstalling any software or data that Apple sees fit to install or uninstall, so long as they feel it is necessary.
It's not really "your" device in the strictest sense. Sure, you possess the device, but whether or not it functions at all is strictly at the whimsy of Apple. They can even brick your device if they feel it is necessary and you have no recourse to recover the purchase price, because you agreed to such an act by using iOS.
Oh right, this is an apple product. You all must be 'stylish' hipster douchebags who think you're smart.
That's why they 'like' the U2 album.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
How it this an outrage?
Do I need a dictionary?
I think you mean minor annoyance.
Like adds on tv shows and web sites
Junk mail in your mail box.
Inherited wealth no, but earned yes, it correlates extremely well because it's tied with success, and success == intelligence. That is, the ability to set yourself goals and planning to reach them, and actually achieving them. As for Slashdot, I only post now and then to remind its sad dwellers that yes, there is a better world out there, and that they don't belong there.
Some of the richest people I know are absolute chuckleheads with the gift of gab. The only smarts they have is how to use the smart people.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I think musicians are artists. I don't think any artist deserves to make what bands like U2 make. It's just music. Sure, it may be very good music, but its still just music.
A long time ago, before record companies, musicians performed and got paid for their performance. Then along came the recording industry and turned these artists into Gods that we should give $Ms to. Unfortunately for musicians, technology marches on. Musicians are in the buggy-whip side of art when everyone wants to drive a car. Technology has caught up with the recorded music business and they can no longer make money by selling recordings because once the first copy is out, it spreads like a virus among people who want the infection.
I guess musicians will just have to go back to performing for their pay. Maybe that means they can't make millions any more, unless they tour and perform for millions.
The alternative is to look at technology and figure out where they can do art that can't be easily bootlegged. Maybe sculpture would be a good, though I haven't heard of a lot of artists getting rich from sculpture. The record industry needs to get out of the music business and start switching their artists to sculpture. Then the record industry can start promoting sculpture and the artists can make millions. Imagine- you'll be able to buy a sculpture for your home, but you'll have to buy another if you want one for the car, or a portable one you can take with you to the gym. no wait... 3D printers... hmmmmm
If you don't like what Apple is doing to your iTunes library just use *another* mp3 player and forget about iTunes. Simple as that.
Aka: you can use Apple sw/hw even without being a fanboy.
You all sound like nagging women. I'm all up in here like..."free music, sweet".
where's your sense of humour?
This would be an awesome technique for Monty Python to promote their next box-set.
They could have unsolicited downloads this sketch onto people's devices. I'm sure everybody would be delighted to receive it.
sure they have a few hit songs, and i enjoy listening when they are played on the FM radio but i wont go buying their music, i dont buy any music or movies anymore, i just dont consider my income disposable like that anymore, i rather save it for more important expenses
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
to your library? I can add whatever free crap I want and you will happily delete it?
Reminds me of this South Park episodeâ¦
Stan: Dude, don't you have enough? I mean, you got tons of money, a jet, and the biggest rock band in the world, a hot wife, and, you've been knighted. I mean, at some point, can't you just kind of... fuck off?
What if you don't even like U2? Is that so inconceivable to you? It is not just about automatically downloading, but getting random stuff added in YOUR library.
I've always wanted a way to delete programs and content from my account that I don't want and no longer use. Perhaps this is Apple's chance to add this as a new feature.
Outraged? Really... of all the things in the world, people are going to be "outraged" about this? I call BS dramatization. Annoyed maybe, but outraged? Dumb.
The poster you responded to above did not say anything negative about athletes, musicians, actors or models; he just pointed out that you don't necessarily need intelligence to succeed in those fields. Since you couldn't parse the message, it's obvious your strengths lie elsewhere as well, and that's cool, but maybe you don't want to poke a wasp's nest of intellectuals and take them on in their home turf.
Just a suggestion.
It's not a FREE ALBUM. Apple rolled the cost into every phone it sells; you paid for the album whether you wanted it or not.
This doesn't "prove" anything. You may believe that it illustrates a point that you're trying to make, but it supplies no proof of any kind.
That aside, I'm sure that music publishers and/or U2 are making plenty of money on this deal. It's "free" to iDevice users, not to Apple and nothing like sharing music with P2P.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
It was a nice gesture but I was super annoyed it became part of my library. They should have just had it for free in the store and not forced everyone to own it.
If this isn't the most First World Problem I've heard of, I just don't know. Of course it's there if you chose automatic downloads. Of course it will show up on some menu as being available to download. This story is manufactured outrage for clicks and I, sadly, fell for it.
Who the f*ck is Tyler, The Creator?
Many years ago Courtney Love wrote on Salon.com ("Courtney Love does the math") that she was not bothered with P2P distribution of her music, as in fact CD sales were not a source of income for artists
Keep in mind that the percentage of revenue artists get from album sales has historically been heavily genre-dependent. Rockers in general, and heavy metal and alternative rock in particular, have long derived most of their income from touring and merchandise. They treat album sales primarily as PR for their live performances. In contrast, with pop and top 40 groups, it's the reverse. Most of them use touring as PR to generate album sales.
U2 is actually one of the latter, even though they're rockers, BTW. They put on such extravagant live performances that their financial goal on tour is to avoid losing money (and they often fail). They do make some money on merchandise, but most of U2's income is from album sales, or at least used to be. Perhaps that's changed; my information is 10+ years old. The source of my information, BTW, is a gentleman (and I use the word deliberately, he was, unlike many of the people I encountered in the music biz) I worked with at Universal a few years back. He had been the manager of U2's account for several years, responsible for the financial aspects of the label's U2 business including royalties and their advances and recoupment.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
We have a rapper whose pissed because;
1. He doesn't know real music when he hears it.
2. Apple isn't going to give him such a sweetheart deal.
How many others here are Android users and griping about something that doesn't affect them?
How many Apple users are really complaining?
That's what I thought.
I couldn't find information that displayed they constantly moaned about pirates. Just a few articles.
I don't really get what your point is. Tax avoidance isn't piracy.
Illegal investments aren't piracy.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
They know that ALL their users are U2 fans. Every. Single. One.
And from this point on, if someone says they bought an iPhone you can say to their face that they are U2 fans, even if they deny it. Because Apple SAYS they are U2 fans, and to them that is the word of their god.
Task Mangler
Reason #12,345,432 not to buy Apple products.
Is Futurepower(R) grasping at straws?
Just checked my iphone and see the unwanted album listed as a 'purchase' waiting to be downloaded.
Thanks Apple for the breach of trust and F-U to the music industry that bitches about illegal downloads when it suits them. What do you call this?
I'm sure somewhere in the fine print it states that we have no legal protection from Apple's marketing or Bono's hubris.
I just opened iBooks, and it downloaded a free copy of the Bible. I've been saved. Thanks, Apple, for saving me!
Way back in the day, when Steam used that ugly vaguely-military olive drab color, any free apps just showed up in everyone's accounts. There weren't that many - a few demos, all for Valve games. The entire Steam library was only like thirty or forty games at this point.
And then PopCap joined. They basically doubled the list of paid games, but also added demos for at least two dozen games (I recall the list was so long I actually had to scroll). People were understandably furious, because that made it a lot harder to pick out the games you had actually bought from the demos that just popped into everyone's accounts. I think this was before there was an option to show only installed games, which would have made things much worse.
Valve fixed that pretty damn quickly. And I thought everyone would have seen and learned from that. Sadly Apple refuses to learn from their own mistakes, let alone the mistakes of others.
Two things I can't stand: Apple and U2.
We already know that new artists do well from free distribution of their work. From Metallica back in the days of bootleg tapes of their gigs, to modern artists who get started on YouTube and social media. We already know that established acts aren't significantly harmed by piracy either, and this just confirms that in a high profile way.
Artists have always needed to give their music away for free. The money they get from radio play is a fraction of the pittance they get from CD sales, but it's an essential marketing tool. If they don't give it away for free no-one will hear it and no-one will buy it, simple as that.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Isn't there a setting to download only on Wi-Fi? That would work for anyone whose primary home Internet connection isn't satellite or Iowa DSL.
Now iTunes users get to experience what it's like having Phil Collins / Genesis appear in any given Pandora playlist given sufficient time.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Seems to me that the biggest problem here could be that U2 get to rack up X million downloads for their latest release which gets counted because it wasn't a $0 freebie. Not sure if this really will happen but wouldn't put it past that self obsessed gobshite Boner.
There seems to be a permanent shift in the younger generation not owning music. I don't know that piracy is the problem. My daughter and her friends (all teenagers) don't pirate but they, with very few exceptions for which those services don't work, don't buy music on a per song or per album basis. Rather they subscribe to services or get ads via. things like Pandora, youtube and Spotify.
My generation which was enculturated to buy music still buys. But I think we are talking about a true cultural shift where younger people see music like TV shows as something they wouldn't own for a lifetime.
As bundled crapware.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The only way to make the U2 album go away is to go to your Mac or PC and hide all of your "iTunes in the Cloud" purchases, or to use iTunes to manually hide each track from your purchased items list.
Incorrect. In iTunes there's a prominent "X" displayed on the upper right corner of the album. Click it. The album is gone.
In other news, yet another 2 bit "rapper" is getting free publicity accidentally on purpose!
Doesn't this artificially inflate album sales for U2? I mean, it sounds like iTunes has record of millions of customers "purchasing" their new album. Sure, it was $0 but the charts don't ever talk about how much the average price for an album is.
Relax, Francis.
FAndroids always want to find something to complain about Apple. Get a life, sport.
From 1999 to 2009, music sales dropped about 60%.
Much of that has to do with three things:
1. Many people have already purchased all the pre-1999 music they want, and now only buy new music. Prior to digital, there were a lot of replacement sales of old music.
2. It is now easy to only purchase the songs you want, so people no longer have to spend $10 for two songs, which means overall revenue is down. The solution to this is for artists to create music where every track on an album is desired.
3. "Rental" options like Spotify, Pandora, etc., don't count as sales, but are widely used by many people as their only music source.
Why is that every Pro-Apple post is modded down while almost every Anti-Apple/pro-Android/Samsung post is modded up?
No bias here I see.
And when one of the boy prostitutes you traveled to some third world country to bang kills you for your watch, no one will shed a tear. But hey, maybe we'll all get lucky and you'll get some kind of combination of AIDS and colon cancer and die slowly while spending every dime you have to extend your miserable life for another year.
Would you have said the same things if instead of U2 it would have been sex kitten "fuck the tiger" album ?
Would you have said the same things if it had been an album about holocaust denial or how women are all whiny bitch ?
Free album is in the eye of the beholder.
I really don't see the problem here. Apple gave me a boring piece of music to listen to for free. Ho hum. Delete it and move on.
Free software, free society:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM
It's on my phone but I'd have to download it to icloud. All they did was add it to your ethereal icloud music library. It's not taking up any space in your iDevice unless you download it.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I prefer to think of it as a big discharge.
There is a ton of stuff in my Google Play Music library that Google thinks I might like. It's damn annoying and clutters up my library.
My Pandora channels have suggested channels at the bottom. I don't want them, but they are there.
This bothersome phenomenon is not unique to Apple.
Summary is incorrect. You can easily make the single album go away. Please go and educate yourselves by reading this article:
http://www.imore.com/nsfw-apple-u2-and-looking-gift-horse-mouth
Really? Outrage? Worst music publicity stunts of all time? How about "minorly annoyed and then I moved on"? Can we just have that reaction for once?
Your music library WILL contain all of the stuff you choose to put in it. That's not going to change, because that's pretty much the POINT of it!
What we've got here are a bunch of whiny people who dislike U2, throwing fits over the fact that their latest album is now a part of their collection despite not wanting it there. Well..... so what? How does this really affect you in a negative way, in the grand scheme of things? You never have to add a U2 song to a custom playlist. It doesn't delete any of your other music you already have, or prevent you from adding something new that you want. It cost you absolutely nothing. And because of the way iTunes works, you don't even have to use any disk space keeping the downloaded tracks on your Mac or iOS device. You can delete them all and it just leaves a "marker" in the cloud, saying you have the ability to download it any time.
Heck, if THAT is so intolerable? Consider exporting your music library to a standard format like MP3 (iTunes gives you the ability to make an MP3 version of any of your songs by right clicking on them, even) - and use a different program as your music manager. You could still purchase new stuff via iTunes if you wanted, and just export a copy to the player you actually use.
As I understand it, this whole "promotion" cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars to pull off -- and was likely only something negotiated courtesy of the recent acquisition of Beats and the inside connections they had with the music industry. I really don't think you're going to see this happening regularly.
+6
Rap is an STD, that is all.
Yes it does. In fact, IQ tests of high schoolers are the best predictor of future wealth outside of wealth of parents.
I grew up when U2 was a big name band. Bono was always speaking up for social causes. I haven't kept up with them, so I don't know how much they may or may not have changed, but based on what I remember of the band, this move to force product on the citizens via semi-Orwellian methods doesn't match up with what I used to perceive as the band's morality.
This is idiocy. Wow someone gave me something free, I am going to whine and cry like a baby, So dumb. Seriously get over yourselves people.
That's also the time frame when MOST people I know became disinterest / disenchanted with the new music coming out, and reverted to listening to older material instead.
I'm not saying the ease of "pirating" music with digital tools doesn't contribute to loss of music sales. It MAY (but the ease of BUYING tracks has exponentially increased too, as well as a reduction to nearly zero in costs of distribution to people -- so I'm not sure).
But quite frankly, we've regularly witnessed trends in popular music that are long overdue, here in the 2000's. As just a random few I can think of off the top of my head? We had the "rise of the alternative girl bands" (Bjork, Sarah McLaughlin, Poe, Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey, Mazzy Star, etc. etc.) in the 90's. We had the brief burst in popularity of ska and neo-swing type music (Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, etc.). Obviously, we had the huge effect of the Seattle grunge scene. Before that, we saw a rise in popularity of "modern country" and line-dancing, the era of Heavy Metal in the 80's, and a period where rock/rap fusion was popular. So what's really happened along these lines in the 2000-2014 time period?
Four things happened:
- Apple pushed something on us that we did not ask for, just so that U2 could reach multi-platinum status with the latest album almost instantly.
- Apple forced the music taste of their CEO on everyone with an iTunes account. They should have set the album price to "free" and let people decide if they wanted it or not. Use their music in the iPhone 6 ads and write "U2 album available for free on iTunes until date xyz" at the end of the ad, no need for anything else.
- A lot of people have monthly data quotas, and some are always on the edge of going over it. Around 100MB might not seem like much, but on a cellphone plan of 2GB that's 5% wasted, or roughly a day and a half of data if you spread it over 30 days. Will Apple pay for the people who went over their monthly cap because of this publicity stunt? That certainly doesn't make the album "free" for those people, on the contrary.
- the iTunes algorithms make recommendations based on our purchases. Now, because of the "purchase" of this U2 album that I didn't ask for, I'll get recommendation for things I absolutely hate, which means Apple just destroyed their own recommendation system, which means I'll be ignoring recommendations from now on, which means less profits for Apple. How stupid is that.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
After seeing the keynote I went looking in my iPhone/iTunes for the album - expecting to see a "Free" where "Buy" usually appears (or Buy $0.00). I couldn't even find the album for a long time (still can't find it on my PC w/ iTunes). Next stop - Google, to discover that it was already on my phone. Sure enough - when browsing through my Artist list there was a new entry to U2, and all of the songs marked with the "download from cloud" icon.
From a user perspective it was confusing and expected to "buy it" (first) like any other album. Let's pretend I'm not a U2 fan. Sure I've purchased albums from other band and decided I didn't like it later - and simply deleted it. I now forever have this album in my list that Genius will try to mix and play from when at home on Wifi.
While I appreciate being able to discover "new" music - I'm not in control of it. I can't put it back on the shelf. Kind of ugly.
They assume everyone likes the same entertainment. Sure - U2 is probably more universally liked than the Juicy Bananas.
I would really be pissed if it was a Tyler the Creator album on my hypothetical iTunes account. I won't even provide a link to youtube, which would only feed his ego. He is a misogynistic, foul-mouthed, racist, immature 'rapper' who likes to brag about what women he beats and screws. Why does he get to weigh in on this? U2 at least used to be good until they started making all the electronic club hits.
Wealth doesn't correlate strongly with intellect. If anything, it might be slightly negative.
It obviously does. But you probably only mean to refer to humans.
Many people have already purchased all the pre-1999 music they want
And many of those people think nothing good has been recorded since.
Yes, I am an apple user and I am OUTRAGED. OUTRAGED BY MUSIC. O, wait - u meen I hav dis musik 4 furee? I not mad now.
Really, come on - if you buy into the Apple Ethos, this is NOT a big deal.
I sort of like U2 sometimes, But I refuse to take part in this. I deleted it and gave it a bad review. I suggest everyone else do the same.
We have the picture leak because people don't understand iCloud. There is an option for that.
Next we all get free music and complaints of it getting installed on their tech. There is an option for that as well.
Mobile tech is great these days, but I think most people get them to do the basics (phone, text and Facebook) where installing an "app" is advanced training for them. Educating them any further is going to be quite difficult.
At least we have a guarantee for interesting stories.
I don't see this as a huge problem. Not particularly invasive. If you don't like U2, don't click on the cloud. If you have things set in a particular way, it might download automatically, but you can now "delete" things directly from your phone (as against the way that it used to be where you needed to do everything from iTunes); so again, not too big of a deal. OTOH, it shows up as an entry in your list of albums, which could become annoying if this were to become any sort of standard practice, but only because at some point it makes it harder to find the items which you want to be there.
In this way it isn't too much different from the new Amazon Prime Music app, which lists all the "free" streamed albums offered through Amazon Prime membership. It becomes hard to browse for something I am interested in because there are so many things that I am NOT interested in. That being said, I can't complain too much as I haven't paid for any of them (I paid for the prime membership for other reasons) and it is occasionally nice when I want to hear something that haven't thought to purchase outright. Search works well, just browsing not-so-much, and even then sometimes one _wants_ to browse through things unknown to find something new.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Apple will start killing puppies and then charge you a fee to stop.
I never met an Apple user who didnt like U2. It'd be the same if Apple sent all their customers black thick-framed glasses, a pair of skinny jeans and a Starbucks gift card.
I for one would much prefer a bag of crap to a U2 album.
Good point. Bags of crap have a very good use in the garden. Music files on the other hand aren't good for much of anything.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Save your 'outrage' for something real and meaningful. This is not a real problem. You have not been harmed. Get over it. It has been normal for decades for music players to come with free sample songs.
I can easily see a future where content creators will automatically have a 'sample track' or a trailer sent automatically to your cloud account.
A lot of folks here seem to be missing the point. Lots of folks don't like U2. And it is being downloaded on their devices without asking them if they want it. It took bandwidth that the device owner (not (Cr))apple paid for. Whats next, (Cr)apple installing apps that THEY want (but that you don't want) on your phone or tablet? Its bad enough that almost all phones and tablets come with apps pre-installed that the owner cannot easily uninstall.
As to people seeing a U2 album on your device, that IS embarassing, but you can always explain that it was not your choice to download it, its there because you were stupid enough to pay 3-6 times more than you would for any other brand of phone or tablet, just to own a junk i-product.
some dbags will say anything to get their name a little popularity. he may not be U2's target market but boo-hoo-hoo, what a crybaby.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Seriously? A bunch of superficial immature people with too much time on their hand get their panties all up in a bunch over a free album, given to them, IN THE CLOUD, not taking space on your phone that you can deactivate... hide and not see.
Along the same line of stupidity, microsoft office users are enraged templates and clip art are automatically installed as part of the software suite, rapper H-Job declares, "I ain't hosting no toaster on ma drive!" drooling and hissing in rage over Microsoft hijacking of their storage space.
Envious much? It takes talent and determination to succeed in those fields as well.
Then please explain "boy bands", Nickelback, Tyler Perry, Larry The Cable Guy, Soulja Boy, Nicolas Cage, LMFAO, "crunk rap", etc...
I don't think you can compare the two. Radio play is a degraded, time limited, copy that takes effort to replicate. If you like what you hear there are plenty of incentives to buy your a copy that will suffer from none of these limitations. A copied MP3, on the other hand, is available always, pristine and effortless. Once it is available for free there are no limitations to it and no further incentive to buy a copy.
Apple gives a gift to people.
People spend more time outraged then simply deleting it.
Imagine it's the US* festival, and as people are leaving, Apple is handing out free cassettes from a band.
Now imagine standing there and screaming at Apple for giving you music, spittle flying out of your mouth, say 'HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME FREE MUSIC, YOU MONSTERS ERRRGH!!!"
Or would you just say no thanks and continue on?
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Festival
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
should be banned from the internet for a month.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's Canter and Siegel for the new millennium. Expect to see more of this (and not just from Apple).
We need a proper open-source phone. Maybe it's time to look into that Pi-phone again. http://www.raspberrypi.org/pip...
Consider switching carriers to TMobile, where there are no data overage fees.
If a bunch of your machines locked up because they ran out of drive space after adding ONE ALBUM, then maybe it's your admin policies/procedures that are the problem.
While I completely agree that probably no artists are harmed by free distribution of their work and, in fact, it's usually beneficial to them, this case does not show that big name artists are helped by free distribution of their songs. Apple paid U2 about $100M to give away the album for 5 weeks. I suspect that this is much more than the band would have hoped to sell on this album. They only sold 1M copies of their last album and their most popular albums are more like 4M copies. Even if they have a super-favorable contract that gives them 25% of all sales, that adds up to an order of magnitude less than they're earning on the Apple deal.
Apple, by the way, is not necessarily overpaying for this. One reason is that they have a ton of extra cash stuck outside the country. Probably a lot of it is actually stuck in Ireland. They would easily lose 20% of it to taxes if they were to bring that cash home.
As far as having the album already in your library. Wow. It's hard to believe anyone is so self-centered and childish that it makes any difference to them whatsoever.
when the ipod came out, apple paid the artists to provide about 300 free songs for users for free - it was a gift - it was like them paying to give us a free mix tape. i found some good tunes on there, and deleted the rest. thx apple.
again, instead of paying for this music, apple is paying (or in cahoots depending on yr pov) for a gift of music that they believe to be good. if you like u2 - its a gift. if you dont, it is easy to delete - you wont even see it unless you go digging for it.
thanks apple.
2cents from toronto
jp
Totally. Because U2 are your typical, just about getting by, rock band.
U2 don't have to sell another album, ever, to remain multi-millionaires. They could give away their work for nothing for the rest of their lives, and still be richer than 99.99% of the planet. They are not, in any way, a template for other musicians.
Today there is more free content available than you can listen to in a lifetime, without ever hearing a repeat. Why would I pay for something I never heard as it is?
Some schmuck's garage band could be the best in the world. If its not on the radio or used as a background track in some other media I DO seek out, I'll never, ever, ever, hear it.
F copyright. Feel free to repost this.
Wow...."Apple outrages users?" Seriously? I'd love to know how many people were "outraged" versus those who either appreciated the album or just didn't care. If you're 1) that concerned about "curating" your library, 2) too dumb/lazy to turn off automatic downloads, especially when roaming, 3) can't spare 100mb, 4) actually concerned what someone might think upon seeing an album in your library, 5) concerned about what a free album will do to Apple's suggestions but too lazy to rate the album on iTunes, then you have no business having an iPhone at all. It's much more likely these "outraged users" don't exist at all and are just hipster douches complaining about (Cr)Apple from their rooted Androids.
I assume she was basing this on her own CDs , and indeed the royalties on 37 worldwide sales is probably cancelled out by the clerical, stationery and postage charges incurred by the record company.
Yeah, she's like that flop wizard movie - Harry Potter - which also lost money after accounting for administrative costs.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml
Every album loses money according to the studio.
only weasel lawyers, it seems, own music. you at best own a limited-rights use license for personal gratification, and one physical or electronic copy of the work. if you don't want it, mark it "do not push" so it doesn't get on all your devices after syncing.
could be worse. could have been Slim Whitman. or Shatner Sings the Hits. that's what would have been a freebie on the Zune.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Slashdot is always on the bleeding edge of current happening.
They're not pretending to be offended. They've *decided* to be offended, and then blaming that decision on someone else.
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/201...
This problem could have been easily avoided. Send iTunes users an announcement that they can go to the store and get the U2 album for free, if they want to.
That's how it worked for everyone that didn't enable auto-downloads of purchases (which is not enabled by default).
I *wanted* the album, and it took me two days to figure out how to get it. It did not appear for me anywhere automatically...
I can't believe people get worked up over being given music for free. Hey guess what, all sorts of free crappy music is in whatever music streaming service you favor also. Why not complain about that?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, this actually makes sense. Magnetic media degrades over time, CDs suffer from bit rot, vynil records are easily dameged, HDDs fail, id3 tags are corrupted (Windows Media Player does that). Formats change over time - for example movies purchased 10 years ago are in DVD quality, which doesn't look good in big TVs; and high-quality 1080p torrents consume less space.
And just at old iTunes purchases - they are poorer quality and have DRM.
Now, renting music is not much worse than maintaining a record collection, and for the price of one album per month you get unlimited access to all songs. Sounds like a great bargain to me if you download at least one new album per month. And in 5-10 years your library will probably get upgraded to FLAC quality.
If you are "lucky" to work in an open space environment, you need A LOT of music to compensate the noise. Listening to the same music over and over is even worse than listening to loud sales calls, and radio-style services or unlimited libraries really help to keep your sanity.
The only downside I see is the possibility of provider going bankrupt or shutting down the music service.
Well to use my daughter as an example she doesn't download anything. She just pays $60 a year to have unlimited access to 90% of the all the music she could ever possibly want. She doesn't get to keep anything but the total cost is very reasonable.
https://buy.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/offerOptOut
How is what Apple did any different than UCE?
I'll probably keep my copy, listen to it once or twice, it's been a long time since I cared about U2, but this is no different than SPAM.
And SPAM is evil.
upload@Tim Cook brain /s
Apple gave free music and it something to bitch about.
Spoiled brats nothing more.
stop splitting your sentences like this ?
problem
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Good points.
Also the Depression and the .001%'s theft of productivity gains and hidden inflation and stagnant wages and dwindling jobs mean that for many people buying music, a luxury good, is no longer a valid way to spend the few dollars we have left.
Maybe.
When I was younger I couldnt afford to buy anything. So I 'rented' by watching advertisements and the like. I listened to the radio. If I wanted a particular song I would call up the DJ and say 'hey could you play XYZ in the next hour or so' they usually would accommodate that as long as I didnt abuse it.
I didnt buy my first CD until I was 20 (in the mid 90s). I had a couple of cassette tapes given to me. My sister had about 30 tapes. But she would hang out on the radio and try to win every contest. She didnt have any money either. I now own 500+.
Our 'free' music was the radio. There was about 15-20 stations to pick from. We would then copy it if we could.
Now being older I almost exclusively buy my music/movies. Why? Because the cost ratio and quality and convenience is usually better. You learn fairly early renting != owning. Which at that point you start buying your media. Just like I buy my car and house and everything else. I own it I control it. The two industries are trying quickly to put the genie back in the bottle though as bright sparks figured out how to copy the media. That makes my owning my media much more convenient as I can format shift easily. They seem to think children and college kids have mountains of money. They usually dont. Their parents do.
Owning my media means I no longer have to pay the toll of boring advertisements.
Thought it is nicer these days you can buy services that mimic the radio. However, all you are buying is the ability to not have commercials. Until they decide to add them in anyway. Like they did with cable TV. You are right there will be a non insignificant number of people who will keep using these services. But they probably wouldnt be buying music anyway.
My tl;dr point? Money usually brings ownership.
I never though that the US government would be so mean
Now millions of iPhones of ISIS are infected with U2's last "album" and many will have no idea on how to remove it, driving them to commit suicide in the most horrible and painful manners imaginable like barbecuing themselves at slow flame or drowning in rotting pig pee.
I don think that even ISIS deserves this much pain and suffering
Obama! You are a Criminal!!!
-- 29A the number of the Beast
The album shows up in my collection, but it didn't download to my device and take up valuable space without my knowing. And I have "AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADS" switched on. The album was essentially given to me for free, and is available for me to download at will. Nobody forced anything on me. What's all the fuss? I don't see the issue (yet?), if there is one.
Really? Outrage? First world problems.
This only affected people who had 'Auto Download of Purchased Content' set to 'On' when actually its default is 'Off' Such a non story of stupid people getting upset and stupid journalists giving it column inches. And I'm an Apple Agnostic
Apple to customers: Bend over, I promise you won't feel a thing.
Is it pro Bono?
Ah, the joys of living in a first world nation. It's a free album. Personally I wish we could choose ANY free album, or at least any U2 album. I used to listen to them a lot, but not in the last 20 years. But Joshua Tree is a fantastic album. If you don't want it, delete it. Personally, I'm going to keep it and give it a try. I don't see what the big deal is. Apple was trying to be nice and reward it's customers. I don't think it warrants an onslaught of crybabies whining about receiving free music. I'm willing to bet a large number of these whiners are people who just illegally download whatever music they want for free without paying the people who made it.
i am not happy with Apple AT ALL...This was an unwanted push to all of their customers. Why do they assume that i would want this product on my account? By automatically downloading these tracks it takes up MY storage in my icloud that I PAY FOR!!!. What makes them think that this would be okay? i am able to get a new phone in 2 months, and IT WILL NOT BE AN APPLE PRODUCT!!
What Moron at Apple made the executive decision to install the U2 shit on my phone and ipad. I would like to know the name of this Apple Executive this thinking this was a good idea.
It's not like they pushed down some rap crap, or some stuff passing as music that's actually noise.
OBVIOUSLY scores of Apple legal staff have checked this is perfectly legal "marketing"...
UNFORTUNATELY as a - Jewish - MARKETING person I must say this was the stupidest, most CONSUMER IRRITATING way of promoting anything....
It is EXACTLY as checking out at the counter an WATCHING SOMEONE SMILING FACE SHOVE A POUND OF PORK in your bag of groceries....and YOURE JEWISH...or VEGETARIAN, or YOU JUST WANTED YOGURTH...and the pork has just soiled the paper bag...and ...
If anything it shows Apple's management BLIND ARROGANCE does indeed BLINDS THEM FROM EVEN REMOTELY CONSIDERING negative consequences ...
Apple downloading crap onto my Iphone, IPad, and IMac that I don't want have made me decided that I won't buy another Apple product.
So some rapper is all pissy he's gonna lose some street cred because he now has a U2 album in is music list and everyone on slashdot is commenting about the merits of this argument? Do you get all offended when the lady at the supermarket offers some new cocktail wieners for free and even though you turned it down there's an ad for those same wieners printed on your receipt? If your music library list is how you "represent" yourself to the world then you've got bigger problems none of which anyone here should care to discuss.