Say Goodbye To That Unwanted U2 Album

Ronin Developer writes Apple has listened to the complaints of those who object to having received a pushed copy of U2's latest album as part of their recent campaign. While nobody has been charged for the download, some objected to having it show up in their purchases and, in some cases, pushed down to their devices. While it is possible to remove the album from your iTunes library, it takes more steps than most would like to take. Apple has responded and released a tool to make it possible to remove the album from your iTunes library in a single step.

Comments

Not good enough

[PvtVoid]

I will not be satisfied until Apple provides a tool to remove Bono entirely.

Re:Not good enough

[rudy_wayne]

The most troubling aspects of this are:

(a) Apple can push material onto your device without your knowledge or consent

(2) It can be done in a way that is difficult to remove

(iii) Bono

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

A tool to remove a tool... interesting concept.

Re:Not good enough

[geekoid]

a) false. You had to have your device set to allow automatic pushes.
2) Hardly new.
III) That's irrelevant to what happened. You putting this here tells me the only reason you are upset is because it's a group you don't like.
I know, I now, it's quite fashionable to hate a guy who spends a shit load of money helping people.

Re:Not good enough

[adamstew]

They can not. The only people who had the album pushed to their device are those who turned on the flag on their devices to download new purchases. The only thing Apple did was flag that album as purchased for all iTunes accounts. The device then dutifully did as it was told by it's owner and downloaded all purchases.

The album never showed up on my devices because I don't have that flag turned on.

Re:Not good enough

[DutchUncle]

I haven't bought music through iTunes yet, so I'm hardly an expert, but it seems to me that if I were to PURCHASE music through a DOWNLOAD service, I would want to "download new purchases". It seems, then, that this would be the normal and expected setting - unless perhaps one expects to purchase on cell data service and then download later on wifi? in which case it would seem the better solution would be an option in the service to only download big files while connected on wifi, but I know Apple doesn't seem to care about little things like how much you spend (after all, you bought an Apple product, you want coolness!)

Re:Not good enough

[adamstew]

Apple does have that option as well. You can set a bit such that the phone will only download new purchases over wifi.

Re:Not good enough

[NotDrWho]

I will not be satisfied until Apple provides a tool to remove Bono entirely.

From the iTunes Store or from the world? PLEASE say it's the latter.

Re:Not good enough

[rudy_wayne]

a) false. You had to have your device set to allow automatic pushes.
2) Hardly new.
III) That's irrelevant to what happened. You putting this here tells me the only reason you are upset is because it's a group you don't like.
I know, I now, it's quite fashionable to hate a guy who spends a shit load of money helping people.

Please listen .... what's that sound?

WHOOSH!!

Re:Not good enough

[_xeno_]

a) false. You had to have your device set to allow automatic pushes.

Which is, of course, the default.

And, if I'm not mistaken, Apple defaults to downloading anything less than 100MB over cellular data. Which could be quite costly to people on more expensive data plans.

III) That's irrelevant to what happened. You putting this here tells me the only reason you are upset is because it's a group you don't like.

Well, yeah, it's U2. Their music is terrible. I'd be pretty pissed if I had U2 forced on me.

Wait, "anyone who has an Apple account?" Crap. That does include me.

Re:Not good enough

[PPH]

Right now, Bono must be feeling about as bad as Gary Powers did back in 1960.

Re:Not good enough

[chinton]

I will not be satisfied until Apple provides a tool to remove Bono entirely.

Would that be a tool removal tool?

Re:Not good enough

[NotDrWho]

it's quite fashionable to hate a guy who spends a shit load of money helping people.

No, he spends a shitload of money promoting himself and boosting his own ego and sense of self-importance.

That's selfish, not selfless. Big difference.

Re:Not good enough

[spire3661]

The most troubling part here is that Apple thinks it can inject stuff into my curated libraries without asking. This is the end result of blending the player and the store.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I want to -control- when music gets put on my portable devices because they have limited space compared to the size of my whole iTunes library. Of course when I buy a track from iTunes I do want it downloaded somewhere, but ONLY on my PC. I decide where it goes from there.

Re:Not good enough

[ConceptJunkie]

U2 didn't used to be terrible, but at some point in the late 90s or early 2000s they seemed to start phoning it in. I haven't listened to anything new by them since then.

I'm a pretty serious music junkie, and while I usually listen to progressive rock and jazz fusion, I liked U2's stuff starting in the late 80s and my wife brought me an appreciation for their earlier stuff. They were a talented bunch of guys who were never above reinventing themselves every couple albums, like a lot of good, creative groups. This was back in the days when a significant amount of popular music was interesting and creative.

I'm surprised that Apple would be so tone-deaf to think everyone would automatically want this new album pushed to them. It wouldn't bother me (but I don't own any Apple devices and you couldn't pay me to use iTunes), but I can guarantee I'd want a very easy way to get rid of it if I didn't like it. I haven't spent decades curating a collection of music just to have it be carelessly junked up.

Re:Not good enough

[Richard_at_work]

That's skirting around the issue - this wasn't a purchase, so it shouldn't have been distributed that way.

Re:Not good enough

[rockout]

Apparently no one is allowed to spend a shit load of money helping people without having do-nothing assholes hate on them for it, usually by accusing them of self-promotion and ego boosting. At least be a little bit original.

Re:Not good enough

[_xeno_]

You can set a bit such that the phone will only download new purchases over wifi.

And how many users do you think knew that they needed to do this prior to the album being released?

The autodownload feature is only useful if you're completely within the Apple ecosystem and regularly buy songs from your iPad and want them to show up on your iPhone (or vice versa). If you either never download tracks off the music store or only download them on a single device (such as, say, someone who only owns the one iPhone), you'd never know that there even was an automatic download feature. (And if you're downloading them to your PC, you just sync to it and don't worry about downloading it a second time.)

If you aren't aware there is an automatic download feature, how are you supposed to know to either turn it off or set it to wifi only?

U2 showing up on the phone is likely the first time the majority of users even were made aware that there was an automatic download feature. Based on the articles and comments I've read, I know that there are people who only discovered this feature existed when U2 suddenly showed up on their iPhone. It may turn out to be a vocal minority, but this definitely was not something all iPhone users expected to happen.

Re:Not good enough

[rockout]

That was a long way to go for a U2 reference tie-in.

Re:Not good enough

[geekoid]

"I haven't listened to anything new by them since then."
well then., by all mean go on about the new album. No need to have actual heard it.
ha ha, no you can't be that pretentious, I kid.

*reads rest of the post*
AH, apparently you can be the pretentious.

Re:Not good enough

[adamstew]

The auto download feature isn't turned on by default. It's off by default. So you'd have to know of it's existence for it to be on.

Re:Not good enough

[adamstew]

So don't turn on the auto download feature then. When you want to download it to your device, then open your list of purchases and download it manually.

Re:Not good enough

[geekoid]

I ma really tired of this shit.
Rich person send his money and limited time on a charity the want supported.
Suddenly they are bad people.

I suspect your just jealous, but since you can't actually talk about making music, you just make up ad hom attacks about what he does with his money.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a lawyer friend who is a big fan of U2's lead singer. That lawyer is pro-Bono

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

At that point, I will stop reading Slashdot.

Re:Not good enough

[adamstew]

That is fair. I thought it was odd that they just "purchased" it for everybody rather than just make the price free for a month and people could go and claim it. I didn't bother me either way.

Re:Not good enough

[tepples]

Would that be a tool removal tool?

Only if U2, Cher, and Tool start touring together.

Re:Not good enough

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I thought a ski slope took care of Sonny Bono a long time ago.

It's Cher that still needs to be removed.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

it's quite fashionable to hate a guy who spends a shit load of money helping people.

No, he spends a shitload of money promoting himself and boosting his own ego and sense of self-importance.

That's selfish, not selfless. Big difference.

You dipshit.

Whether you agree with his politics or not, Bono is downright serious about his charity work.

Good for him.

Just compare him to Jenny "vaccines cause autism" McCarthy or Rosie "fire can't melt steel" O'Donnell.

Hell, if you want a celebrity that's full of himself? Boosting his own ego? Take Kanye West. Please.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, I now, it's quite fashionable to hate a guy who spends a shit load of money helping people.

Like Bill Gates?

Re:Not good enough

[Mechanik]

No, he spends a shitload of money promoting himself and boosting his own ego and sense of self-importance

How many Courics in a shitload?

Re:Not good enough

[Mikkeles]

The only thing Apple did was flag that album as purchased for all iTunes accounts.

Except that it wasn't purchased and flagging it as such doesn't make it so.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that Apple would be so tone-deaf to think everyone would automatically want this new album pushed to them.

...
AH, apparently you can be the pretentious.

Nah, that's not pretentious. Bono (and Apple, apparently) are both demonstrably tone-deaf. Bono, in particular, has bee tone deaf since the early-mid 90s.

You may not be able to hear how disastrously out-of-tune he is with the rest of the band. I can. It's fingernails-being-dragged-down-chalkboards bad. Either no one has told him and he can't hear it himself or he doesn't care.

He was always a mediocre singer to begin with. U2's secret is in their unique band sound and their lyrics, because it surely isn't their musical technique or technical ability on their instruments.

Re:Not good enough

[ColdWetDog]

So ....

Apple gets nailed because it's a walled garden and the user is insulated from making choices.
Apple gets nailed because they didn't give the user a choice.

I suppose it sucks to be Apple.

All the way to the bank.

Re:Not good enough

[ColdWetDog]

Pretty high flying if you ask me.

Re:Not good enough

[EvilSS]

I haven't bought music through iTunes yet, so I'm hardly an expert, but it seems to me that if I were to PURCHASE music through a DOWNLOAD service, I would want to "download new purchases". It seems, then, that this would be the normal and expected setting - unless perhaps one expects to purchase on cell data service and then download later on wifi? in which case it would seem the better solution would be an option in the service to only download big files while connected on wifi, but I know Apple doesn't seem to care about little things like how much you spend (after all, you bought an Apple product, you want coolness!)

While there are reasons you would want to turn it on, you don't have to. If you attempt to play a song that is in your library but not downloaded, it will stream the song, playing it while downloading it to your device. This is nice if you have a smaller device (16 GB especially) and a large music collection. It will manage the music storage automatically. The user can control if they use their cellular data for this functionality. By default it's turned off.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that guy. His so-called foundation is mostly a tax avoidance shell.

Re:Not good enough

[Subm]

I will not be satisfied until Apple provides a tool to remove Bono entirely.

So you still haven't found what you're looking for?

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

A tool to remove a tool... interesting concept.

It's tools all the way down!

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't bought music through iTunes yet, so I'm hardly an expert, but it seems to me that if I were to PURCHASE music through a DOWNLOAD service, I would want to "download new purchases". It seems, then, that this would be the normal and expected setting - unless perhaps one expects to purchase on cell data service and then download later on wifi? in which case it would seem the better solution would be an option in the service to only download big files while connected on wifi, but I know Apple doesn't seem to care about little things like how much you spend (after all, you bought an Apple product, you want coolness!)

not for me. I have turned off all "automatic download" options on my phone because I do not use my phone as my primary music device. I don't use iTunes, but i have it set the same for the Amazon music store. I like the option to be able to buy music from my phone, and listen to it via the cloud once or so, but I usually only download it from my computer at home, for loading onto my primary music device (iPod classic 120GB!). If I chose to download all purchased albums automatically to my phone, I wouldn't have any space left for anything else.

So for me, the U2 album showed up in my iTunes cloud library, along with a ton of other songs and albums that were free that I "bought" to listen to once. I can see how automatically pushing this to all iTunes users as a "purchase" would anger a lot of people though. Like other free tracks they release, they should have just put it on the iTunes store for free download at one's own discretion.

Re:Not good enough

[Cinder6]

IIRC, iOS asks you if you want to auto-download when you set up the device for the first time.

Re:Not good enough

[gl4ss]

a) it comes along with sync.

and it will go away in a month as I understood? the thing is though that they just used millions of peoples paid data to do their little stunt - AND they could have made it for free to _choose_ on itunes.

but bono, that fuckhead, didn't want it free unless it was pushed to every device.

and it'll count as wasted storage space too. there's a difference in putting it for free to sync if you want and synching it for you. that they needed to make a tool to get rid of it just tells that it wasn't simple to get it off your shuffle list(and this from a company that prides on usability, yet even newspaper articles on it couldn't provide instructions on how to remove it from your idevice without crippling synch or it appearing on shuffle!

thus they had to make the removal tool.

and U2's manager commented that he had to find new ways to market.. well.. that's because nobody would've even known the friggin album about "their roots" and "the songs are about the early days" and shit like that had even come out. I certainly would not have known they had a new album.. not that I'm looking to listen to it now..

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

U2 didn't used to be terrible, but at some point in the late 90s or early 2000s they seemed to start phoning it in. I haven't listened to anything new by them since then.

I'm a pretty serious music junkie, and while I usually listen to progressive rock and jazz fusion, I liked U2's stuff starting in the late 80s and my wife brought me an appreciation for their earlier stuff. ...

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, including a taste for prog rock and fusion. Regarding U2, I thought Achtung Baby was a cool diversion, but the next several albums went off the deep end. Total crap. However, I liked their 2009 release well enough, and this latest one is very similar. You might give it a listen since it's free and see if you like it. There are enough hints of the old stuff to keep me happy, though obviously they will never approach the level of Joshua Tree again.

Re:Not good enough

[ChipMonk]

There are ways to do it without parading your "charitable attitude" in front of the world. "Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing," but in Bono's case, his right hand knows, and so do all of ours, whether we want to or not.

So you'll just accuse me of being "jealous." If having his resources goes hand-n-hand with being such an arrogant ass, I have no reason to envy him.

Re:Not good enough

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Re:Not good enough

[cyberchondriac]

I have no idea what they sound like now, but I got tired of them in the late eighties, everything just started sounding so whiny.. almost emo. "Still can't find what I'm looking for", yadda..
That said, I think highly of Bono, he seems a good dude, and doesn't let biases determine who he'll talk to or work with, and has done a tremendous amount of good.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

(a) Apple can push material onto your device without your knowledge or consent

Absolutely untrue. They most certainly do have your consent - you installed the software, and turned on the "automatically download iTunes purchases to this device" option. If you didn't do that, the material will not show up on your device.

The only other way it could "show up" in your library is if you went to your device and specifically turned on "show purchases in iCloud that aren't on this device" - which means you see "all the stuff your account has purchased," even if it's not on your device locally - but that is, in no way, "pushing data to your device." The data sits there inert in iCloud.

It can be done in a way that is difficult to remove

Also untrue - swipe left on the track, delete it - on the device, it's gone. Go to your iTunes library, and you can actually completely hide the fact that an item was ever purchased in a half dozen easy steps:

1) Open iTunes
2) Click "iTunes Store"
3) Click "Purchased" in the top right 'Quick Links' section
4) In the buttons across the top - ensure you've selected: "Music", "All", and then in the search box, type "U2"
5) Mouseover the horrifically offensive U2 album, and click the "X" button that appears in the upper left corner of the album art;
6) Click "Hide" when asked "Are you sure you want to hide this purchase?"

After that, you can return to whining about your OTHER first world problems, like what to do with all those Olive Garden leftovers, since your refrigerator is so full.

Re:Not good enough

[NotDrWho]

No, he was a bad person long before he started spending money on charity.

Re:Not good enough

[NotDrWho]

It's two football fields worth.

Re:Not good enough

[peragrin]

You are mistaken. My I devices haven't downloaded the song. Of course I don't use iCloud for music so that helps.

Re:Not good enough

[crgrace]

This was back in the days when a significant amount of popular music was interesting and creative.

Also known as the days when you were most likely a teenager or young adult.

Re:Not good enough

[bjwest]

a) false. You had to have your device set to allow automatic pushes...

Do you have to have it set, or not change it's default setting? Most iMorons are the same people who can barley find the Windows Start menu. Setting it to auto download is almost the same as making it unchangeable, and just as irresponsible as Windows auto run feature on by default.

Re:Not good enough

[pecosdave]

I think a Mac Classic with its power cord epoxied in could do the job.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

...spent decades curating a collection of music...

The pretentious meter just spiked.

Re:Not good enough

[mjm1231]

a) false. You had to have your device set to allow automatic pushes.

Which is, of course, the default.

And, if I'm not mistaken, Apple defaults to downloading anything less than 100MB over cellular data. Which could be quite costly to people on more expensive data plans.

This exact thing happened to a family member. The do not ever purchase music or media through iTunes, so why not leave the default? The only thing that should ever come across are maybe software updates.

I wonder how much of a kickback Apple got from T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc. for this stunt.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "curated libraries"... lol
Your iCurated iLibraries

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

by chinton (151403) on Tuesday September 16, 2014 @11:46AM (#47917959) Journal
Would that be a tool removal tool?

by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16, 2014 @11:22AM (#47917709)
A tool to remove a tool... interesting concept.

Not funny, just redundant.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely untrue. They most certainly do have your consent - you installed the software, and turned on the "automatically download iTunes purchases to this device" option. If you didn't do that, the material will not show up on your device.

That is turned on for stuff I control - I know what and when I buy stuff. But I DIDN'T BUY this album, it was graciously stuffed down my throat.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

U2 started to suck 25 years ago. They've churned-out monotonous crap every since. Bono is simply a self-parody who deserves no further comment

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

But people enabled that flag with the understanding that they were the ones who controlled what media they purchased, not apple. The were not psychic and did not know that apple would suddenly start making music purchases on their behalf. Again the apple fanboys are trying to blame the customer for apple's shortcomings or misconduct.

Re:Not good enough

[ObiWanKenblowme]

The MOST troubling part here is how disproportionally butthurt people seem to be over having a free album given to them. Also, spare me from having to read one more person prattle on about how their "curated" iTunes library has been harmed.

Re:Not good enough

[tlhIngan]

I haven't bought music through iTunes yet, so I'm hardly an expert, but it seems to me that if I were to PURCHASE music through a DOWNLOAD service, I would want to "download new purchases". It seems, then, that this would be the normal and expected setting - unless perhaps one expects to purchase on cell data service and then download later on wifi? in which case it would seem the better solution would be an option in the service to only download big files while connected on wifi, but I know Apple doesn't seem to care about little things like how much you spend (after all, you bought an Apple product, you want coolness!)

Well, there are two things.

First, there's a global "allow downloads over 3G" flag that's unset by default because well, you may not want to use your data connection.

Second, there's a "download purchases" flag that's dependent on iCloud.

The first controls whether or not you want to use your data connection for immediate download. So if you buy an app/book/tv show/movie/song, and you're on 3G, then it will queue it up for download later. If it's set, it will immediately download it.

The second is when you buy same SOMEWHERE ELSE. So if you use iTunes on your PC and buy an album, then all devices with the flag set (it's unset by default) will also automatically download the album and you'll have it at the ready. So you can buy a song/album/tv show/movie/book on your PC, take your device and it'll be there if the flag is set (and if it can download it - wifi or if enabled, 3G. After all, if you disallow 3G downloads, it would be a bug to download over 3G).

What happened here is Apple marked it as "purchased" and people who had the auto-download flag set started automatically downloading the album (over WiFi or if configured, 3G). And then complained because it worked as advertised.

Apple couldn't push it to you or force you to download it. They just marked it as if you bought it already. And that was something all download services have - they could add/remove stuff from your purchased list.

The only way Apple "pushed" it is if you had auto-download enabled in which case it worked as advertised - you "bought" the album "somewhere else" and it dutifully saw that it needs to get it.

The flag is off by default because you could easily find a smaller device filled full of purchases of anything.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that he was just not that into pre-produced music(as in a team of people has already made the song, before the "artists" ever sees it).

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple and U2 are a good fit.

Bono - known for advancing his causes, while doing everything in his power to avoid paying for anything himself.
While moving U2 around to avoid paying taxes, he runs around the world telling others how they can do more to help. One has to wonder had he paid his taxes, wouldn't that money have helped others as well?

Apple - Well known for having XXX hundreds of millions in cash, but all offshore. Had to issue bonds to pay out dividends to appease the shareholders. One has to assume the interest on the bonds was less then the repatriation taxes. Flip side, Apple is very fond of the US legal system, just not fond of paying for any of it.

"
Steve Jobs, Apple's late CEO, brought the issue up during an October 2010 meeting with President Obama. He called America's lackluster education system an obstacle for Apple, which needed 30,000 industrial engineers to support its on-site factory workers.
"

Wonder if the taxes Apple avoids paying could have went to the education system?

Re:Not good enough

[hairyfeet]

Bono is a douchebag hypocrite who says that somebody who downloads a song on P2P should be given jail time while he has no problem with his band ripping off other artists wholesale. See "U2 rips off song" in any search engine to find more examples than I can count.

I have found being a fucking hypocrite can generate more hatred than pretty much anything else and seeing how fucking reviled Bono is I'd say his hypocrisy must rub a lot of folks the wrong way. If U2 disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow? I'd have no problem with that and the music scene would probably be a better place.

Re:Not good enough

[phayes]

a) false. You had to have your device set to allow automatic pushes.

Which is, of course, the default.

No. Automatic Downloads are turned Off by default. If it is setup otherwise on your devices, you turned it on. Getting even this basic fact wrong turns your credibility to dust.

Re:Not good enough

[phayes]

I'm surprised that Apple would be so tone-deaf to think everyone would automatically want this new album pushed to them. It wouldn't bother me (but I don't own any Apple devices and you couldn't pay me to use iTunes), but I can guarantee I'd want a very easy way to get rid of it if I didn't like it. I haven't spent decades curating a collection of music just to have it be carelessly junked up.

Fortunately, auto-downloading music is NOT the default configuration, and even for those that changed their configuration to autodownload it, removing the album is trivial: swipe each song to the left.

So, clearly the problem isn't that the album was auto downloaded because it's sooo hard to prevent or get rid of.

No, it's an opportunity for those who want to rag on U2 or Apple to do so & reading the comments of those to are posturing "outrage" shows that this is the case.

Re:Not good enough

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Re:Not good enough

[ZipK]

They most certainly do have your consent - you installed the software, and turned on the "automatically download iTunes purchases to this device" option.

They have the user's consent to download iTunes purchases, but they don't have the user's consent to make purchases on the user's behalf. Those users who set up automatic download couldn't possibly have guessed that Apple would be unilaterally adding purchased items to their accounts.

Re:Not good enough

[_xeno_]

No. Automatic Downloads are turned Off by default.

No, it isn't. Apparently you're told to turn it on during setup (it's "recommended" or something) and so it doesn't default to either off or on, you're forced to decide. Which means that:

If it is setup otherwise on your devices, you turned it on.

Is technically true. But only technically.

Because there are definitely people out there who have automatic updates on and didn't know that their phones could even do that. They complained loudly enough that this article exists.

So either someone else turned it on for them, or they missed the part during setup where they could turn it off. Or more likely failed to understand what they were asked during setup and turned on a feature that they had no intention of ever using, since it's only useful in a very bizarre set of circumstances.

Re:Not good enough

[phayes]

"Settings>iTunes & App Store". Configuring auto-downloads of Music, Apps, Books & Updates is front & center. It isn't hard to find -- except in all probability for the people who don't have an iDevice but are falsely claiming to be "outraged" by having the album auto-downloaded to their inexistent device.

Re:Not good enough

[nblender]

I can't believe the news today...
Oh I can't close my device and make it go away ...

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

On the settings page where this is available:

"Automatically download new purchases (including free) made on other devices."

If you turn that on, you're saying "even free shit added to my account should be downloaded."

But please, tell us more about how badly it sucks when your car's air conditioning is so cold that it prematurely chills your venti mocha.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

No one would care if they had sent out an iTunes promo code for a free digital download. The butthurt is that Apple is adding shit (several Courics worth) to accounts without asking, which is making people realize they don't really have control of their own devices.

Re:Not good enough

[Bogtha]

You can set a bit such that the phone will only download new purchases over wifi.

And how many users do you think knew that they needed to do this prior to the album being released?

FFS, I wish people would at least attempt to avail themselves of the facts before spouting off like this.

You don't have to switch off automatic downloads of new purchases over cellular connections because it's switched off by default.

Re:Not good enough

[thegarbz]

There's a difference. Every time Bono drops a nickle it somehow ends up in the news, and he looks conveniently polished at the time. On the flipside Larry Ellison (yes that One Rich Arsehole) donated $100million to eradicate polio. How many people know that? In fact if you do a search for rich people donating things you will find a laundry list of rich people donating money, many of whom you've never even heard of, let alone end up patting themselves on the back in front of TV cameras every time they do it.

Re:Not good enough

[thegarbz]

So its troubling that people are upset about a U2 album, but it's ok that they are upset about a free 90day trial of McAfee when they buy a computer? What about the free copy of Flipbook that I can't uninstall from my phone?

Crapware is crapware. It's something people didn't ask for, it's something that is hard to get rid of. This U2 album is right up there with the rest of the shit that makes me want to format a freshly purchased computer, or install Cyanogenmod on a new phone as soon as I get the bubble-wrap off.

The bitter Irony is that Apple used to pride themselves on not distributing crapware on their phones.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Old people complaining about new music isn't new. Your taste in music hasn't moved past the songs you heard in your youth. Whilst you might appreciate new music, none of it sounds as good as the 'classics'.

Before you bash a band for 'changing their tune', perhaps think that they are experimenting, evolving into something new instead of releasing the same songs, the same style again and again.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

but well worth it

Re:Not good enough

[PPH]

And over unfriendly territory as well.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It winds up in entertainment news because Bono happens to be a fucking rock star. I'm not sure how he's supposed to reverse that part of his identity. You can debate the reasons for the existence of Access Hollywood and TMZ, but for whatever the reasons, doing stories on Larry Ellison doesn't garner ratings. Doing stories on Bono does.

Re:Not good enough

[phayes]

Again, NO! Automatic downloads are NOT the default! YOU may not have had the willpower to resist the suggestion that you turn it on, but it is only a suggestion, not a default setting one has to change to off. This is not subject to debate, your statements to the effect that automatic downloads are the default are WRONG.

You can stop it with the "apparently" and the "technically" bullcrap, you are factually wrong.

Clueless users are legion, that changes nothing. Idiots run red lights all the time but that is no defense when one of these idiots runs a light & T-bones a mother & her kids. Neither is complaining that "Duh iTunes did it widdout mah consent" when that too is patently false.

Yeah, you didn't pay attention when setting up your iDevice & never bothered to look at "Preferences>iTunes & App Store", now accept the consequences for those acts of inattention & your consequent ignorance without complaint. Do NOT attempt to contradict those who do know what we are talking about. The two words Automatic Downloads followed by on/off controls for Music, Books, Apps & Updates are clearly beyond your comprehension level.

Re:Not good enough

[AmiMoJo]

I was a teenager in the 90s and most of it was shit.

Around 1990 a major change happened where music was written before lyrics instead of the other way around. That made songs very hard to sing, if not impossible. The vocals often had to be sampled and sequenced because live performance was impossible. As someone who likes to sing that sucked.

1990 was also when the loudness war went atomic. Bad times.

Re:Not good enough

[AmiMoJo]

Why are you defending them? Technical people like us may understand all these issues but as far as the average Apple user is concerned this unwanted album turned up and now they have the hassle of removing it. Worse still there doesn't seem to be a way of blocking Apple from adding stuff to your music library in the future. Hopefully the outrage will stop them doing it again.

Re:Not good enough

[AmiMoJo]

Here, let me ram this FREE truncheon up your arse. No need to get butthurt about it. Some people are so ungrateful.

Re:Not good enough

[phayes]

Defending whom exactly? Anyone who pays attention already knows how to prevent automatic downloads of music to their iDevices (turn automatic downloads of music off) & knows how trivially it is to remove tracks from their iDevice (swipe left).

So who is it that "we" are supposed to be defending?
The clueless who change their automatic downloads of music to on & then lie that "Duh Music just appeared by majik"?
The apple haters who don't even own an iDevice but are attempting to label a wart a mountain?
The U2 haters who rag on & on that the group hasn't come out with an original song in a decade? My $DIETY the Embarrassment!!!
The people that are opposed to getting a free album of music that they may not appreciate but that can delete it trivially?

Who exactly is it that you are shrilly claiming needs saving? I can tell you this, it's not a normal iDevice user who pays attention when setting up his/her iDevice, appreciates free music if it's to his/her taste and deletes the album otherwise.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Around 1990 a major change happened where music was written before lyrics instead of the other way around.... The vocals often had to be sampled and sequenced because live performance was impossible

People have been bringing up these complaints since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper. If anything, the 80s were the apex of overproduced pop music, and the 90s were something of a pullback from that (at least in rock music). This is for various cultural & technological reasons.

As a counterpoint to the way people constantly bitch about the loudness war, consider the following:

1. It brings all the music up to the same levels. In this way, it's a bit more 'democratic' with the music, all the parts will be equally hear-able. A listener of a classical piece which is produced so the quiet bits are kept low level miss quiet details, unless they are playing around with their sound dial all the time. Alternately, if they increase the volume on their stereo to hear the quiet bits, they might get annoyed at how loud the loud bits are. Sure, you might say that's an intentional part of the music to (have dramatic contrast), but then you're admitting that it's a stylistic thing. And then you have to admit that there's really no "right" and "wrong" way to produce the music, since it's just a stylistic preference.
2. Most of the folks complaining tend to point to a few scapegoats as examples. For example, I've heard dozens of people complaining about Metallica's "Death Magnetic" falling into the loud war. And, it's true, that album does have clipping up the wazoo. But, I've never heard anyone complaining about, say, a folksy album suffering from the same issues. Take a look at the levels of Sufjan Steven's "Illinois" for example. Many of the songs are quiet, folksy affairs, but the levels are still totally blown out. This tells me that people tend to just memorize a few examples so they can sound smart in conversation, and further, that they falsely associate 'aggressive' music with loudness wars (which is a totally misunderstanding of the issue and is completely unrelated).
3. Related to my second point, the real hear-able issues due to the loudness wars are incredibly minor, psychologically. I totally agree, clipping the sounds effectively does decrease the ENOB. There's no denying that. However, the purpose of music isn't to transmit bits of data in the most efficient manner possible. And the number of bits is not proportional to the quality of the music. Basically, the fact that there isn't a widespread backlash against this indicates it's not that much of an issue in practice. (As an aside, a lot of older folks like to chock up the fact that they don't like music beyond their era to the loudness wars taking away the quality. This is mostly unrelated, people tend to just cling onto the music (and movies and whatever else) that they liked in their teens.)

That being said, I personally am against any unnecessary clipping in music, unless it's for explicit stylistic reasons (ex. the vocals on The Stroke's "Is This It" are obviously clipped, but it's for effect and it sounds great in the context). I just don't think it's a battle worth fighting.

Re:Not good enough

[strikethree]

Also known as the days when you were most likely a teenager or young adult.

Believe that if you will, but music from the late 60s to early 2000s was pretty good. The poison pill was introduced in the 80s. It took a while to kill, but it surely did. On the bright side, that pill caused pressure to build and some of the best thrash metal came out then (late 80s).

However; Ozzy was wrong... apparently you CAN kill Rock 'n Roll. I would say that today, it is dead; not even on life support any more. It may be underground, but it seems like it is 6 feet underground.

Re:Not good enough

[HornWumpus]

Ben Franklin said it better and first (para):

Frenchman: Let me shove this red hot poker up your ass.

Ben: Fuckoff, I'll kick your ass.

Frenchman: I will not force it. But at least pay me for the trouble of heating the poker.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

That's kind of a dumb comment, I mean, when an album and artist show-up in your library that you didn't put there or want, it's going to cause confusion.a reaction.

Your comment though isn't nearly as dumb as Apple thinking this would be a good idea in the first place; the reaction from the public was entirely predictable.

It's a corporate attitude that the consumer exists to eat any shit pushed onto them.

Re:Not good enough

[ZorglubZ]

Sure... He's the asshole... http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/wp-c...

Re: Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy, donate anonymously.

Re: Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Just one.

Re: Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

They were talking about the difference between Bono and Larry Ellison, but thanks for the completely unhelpful tangential comment.

Re:Not good enough

[eric_harris_76]

Actually, I hear he's gotten better. At least, his politics have gotten better. (I'll not speak to his music.)

Re: Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't listened to anything of theirs since the "unsuck" days in the early 2000's how do you know they are terrible now? And what exactly EVER gives you the right to say they are terrible? Randomly turning subjectives into objectives seems to be the modis operandi of this lame-ass web site. There are millions of people in the world that find nearly hatched yet completely rotten duck embryos a delicacy. Who am I to argue?

Re: Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

What's better?

A) One rich person donating a butt ton of money to a cause and nobody knows about it.

B) One rich person donating a butt ton of money to a cause, talking about it 'til the cows come home, using their fame and trying to get 100 million other people involved and caring about that cause, thusly raising awareness to a level where real progress can be made.

Dumbasses.

Re:Not good enough

[jtnix]

So it could have been distributed as a Gift, right?
Is there a gifting option for iTunes?
Can I buy an album for someone else and do they have to opt in on the 'gift' or is it just an automatic purchase for their delivery preference?

Ahh, the mysteries of this mostly unused service I have at my beck and call!

Re:Not good enough

[ConceptJunkie]

The early 90s was when I stopped listening to the radio. The current trends were not interesting to me and the "classic rock" format was painful to listen to because the repertoire was so ridiculously limited. There's plenty of "classic" rock music I like, but you can only listen to the same few dozen songs so many times before you just get sick of them, no matter how much you like them.

Radio seriously self-destructed in the 90s and was no longer a medium to experience anything even remotely new or challenging. (I suppose there were still small college stations, etc., but that's about it.) The last time I heard something cool and new on the radio was when the local classical station played that great and memorable battle song from "The Phantom Menace" by John Williams. The last music I bought after hearing it on the radio was probably Matthew Sweet or Echo and the Bunnymen around 1990 or so.

From everything I hear (which isn't much), pop music is simply horrible right now. The autotune epidemic is insane, and every singer sounds like crap because of it. I've heard autotune put to creative uses... back in the 70s vocoders were used in much the same way, but vocoders weren't used as a replacement for actual singing, just as a gimmick or hook for effect. Nowadays, everything sounds like a PDP-1 singing "Bicycle Built For Two" except without the interesting melody.

It wasn't always like this. There literally was much more variety in decades past.

Re: Not good enough

[ConceptJunkie]

I never said I know they are terrible today. I said I stopped listening to them because I no longer liked what they were doing. The worst criticism I made was that they seemed to be "phoning it in".

I also said, "They were a talented bunch of guys who were never above reinventing themselves every couple albums, like a lot of good, creative groups."

Apparently you can't read. Perhaps /. would appear better to you if you could.

Re:Not good enough

[ConceptJunkie]

Thanks, AC, but everything you've said about me is simply wrong. You might find it more rewarding to listen to what people say rather than pigeonhole them into your preconceived stereotypes. The people you talk to certainly will.

Try reading what I write next time.

Re:Not good enough

[ConceptJunkie]

Rock 'n' roll isn't dead. You just can't hear it on the radio or other mass media any more. But it hasn't gone anywhere.

Re:Not good enough

[ConceptJunkie]

1. It brings all the music up to the same levels. In this way, it's a bit more 'democratic' with the music, all the parts will be equally hear-able.

Yes, because it all sounds like white noise.

2. they falsely associate 'aggressive' music with loudness wars

But the loudness wars were real.

3. Related to my second point, the real hear-able issues due to the loudness wars are incredibly minor, psychologically.

You may think so, but a lot of us don't. The heavy compression (and this is audio compression, not digital compression, which is a completely different thing) destroys the quality of the sound. This is an objective truth. Perhaps that kind of crushed sound might be desirable by some artists as a style or effect, but when old music is being remastered to have no dynamic range and to clip, it is severely damaging to the quality of the sound and the ability for a listener to hear everything in it. That definitely has nothing to do with changing tastes, because we're talking about the same music.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The MOST troubling part here is how disproportionally butthurt people seem to be over having a free album given to them.

I would also be "butthurt" if I discovered somebody broke into my car just to leave a candy bar on the driver's seat. More so if was diabetic, y'know?

Re:Not good enough

[Augury]

I can't find the track right now, but there was a moment from a live recording which changed my mind on Bono. He's on stage between songs talking about how everyone is equal and beautiful and etc, then there's a slight pause and he says "the only difference is all of you... have made all of us... very rich". There's a little laughter in his voice by the end of the sentence.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

U2 didn't used to be terrible, but at some point in the late 90s or early 2000s they seemed to start phoning it in.

U2 was always terrible. Brian Eno made them sound a lot less terrible, but you'll never get him working with Bono again.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

You analogy is not at all close to the actual circumstances, PLUS you used a car analogy...so congratulations, you fail twice.

Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[blueshift_1]

Who would have thought getting free music would have caused such an uproar? Hasn't the RIAA been filing suits against people for downloading music without paying for it for a decade or so?

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Dave Whiteside]

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
in 2008 it was a very different argument

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[smooth wombat]

Hasn't the RIAA been filing suits against people for downloading music without paying for it for a decade or so?

You paid for this music when you bought the phone.

Keep trying.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[adamstew]

You never needed to give apple any money to get the music for free. All you needed was an iTunes account/password and you got the album for free. No prior purchase was necessary. In fact, if you sign up for a free iTunes account before some day in October, you still get the album for free...no purchases required.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have thought getting free music would have caused such an uproar?

Hasn't the RIAA been filing suits against people for downloading music without paying for it for a decade or so?

It's not so "free" if you had to pay for the bandwidth because it was automatically downloaded: that is one of the main things that angered so many people.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[omglolbah]

If I buy something and have my library set to sync I am fine with the download.

If they decided to give me something like this, let me opt-in to the download.
Data is not free.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think people are upset about getting free stuff. I think they're upset because their devices are now infected with U2's turrible music without their consent. Imagine the social embarrassment of setting your music to random and that crap playing.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[chinton]

Yet another reason to avoid iTunes...

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[spire3661]

If I came over and starting just randomly putting books into your bookshelves that publishers paid me to do without asking you, wouldnt you rightfully be a bit upset about it?

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[geekoid]

You need to have automatic downloads turned on. You can also have you device only download over wi-fi.
If you are concerned about data, and you haven't used those features, then learn how your phone works.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[geekoid]

Not if I gave you permission to do so; which Apple needs to do this to your device.

I would be upset you were actually in my house, but that irrelevant here.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would depend entirely on if you can decipher the grouping and sequencing of my bookshelves and put the new books in their proper places.

If I happened to be glancing at the kindling section of my bookshelves and saw the Twilight collection, I would not be offended even if I was completely sure I did not have any of those books yesterday. If, however, you put The Silmarillion after The Hobbit in my Middle Earth section, I will hunt you down and tear off your fingers, does the word 'chronological' mean anything to you worthless fools!?!?!

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[assantisz]

So, when you set your device to auto-sync you automatically agree that Apple can push whatever they want onto your device in addition to your own stuff? I hope that's covered in some EULA you agree before using iTunes.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[flatt]

Amazon, not to be outdone by Apple's genius marketing, has shipped a 50 lb. bag of fertilizer to everyone with an Amazon Prime account!

Best of all, it's totally free and slightly less pungent than U2's latest offering!

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[SydShamino]

Per Apple, this album is your own stuff. Let's flash back 20 years...

Assume you've told your maid service to always bring in the mail. One day, a U2 album arrive, unsolicited, in the mail, and the maid puts it on your CD rack.

Whether you paid for it or asked for it is irrelevant; once it shows up in your account/mailbox it was placed where it goes by your instructions.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA goes after people who download music that they actually want to listen to.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[westlake]

If I came over and starting just randomly putting books into your bookshelves that publishers paid me to do without asking you, wouldnt you rightfully be a bit upset about it?

U2 fits comfortably into the iTunes demographic.

I expect to see many more free --- targeted ----promotional distributions of AAA list titles through channels like iTunes, Steam and the Kindle.

Re: Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Rujiel]

"on your cd rack"? For anyone who uses random shuffle, you should have put "in your CD player'.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the right example would be the maid told to bring in the mail drops a u2 album into the pile (remember, there is no third party here) and then puts it on your cd shelf (the last part shouldnt happen as the cd was in the mail and would be placed with the other mail for my approval - i never asked the maid to sort the mail)

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it when steam puts shit in my library. It's always some piece of shit game that may ahve been hot stuff 3 years ago, but isn't anything anyone would actually want to waste time on now.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that if it went from physical mailbox to house and you didn't want it, you could destroy it, return it to sender, etc - even after it had been brought into your house.

In this case, it is/was stuck in your mailbox (account) forever. Bringing it into your house (or into you iDevice) isn't relevent. The device isn't the library - it's just the portable/offline version of it. The "cloud" is the library.

All of this could have been avoided if they just put out a message with a "Click here for a free copy of this album" link.

(for the record, I thought the album was decent, and no U2 or Apple hate, just an imperfect corporate decision)

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[ObiWanKenblowme]

If a) I already knew you and had set up an arrangement to grant you access to my home to deliver books that I've purchased in the same manner, and b) you ONCE put a free book that you, the store owner (not the publisher), paid for as a promotion, then I would not be upset about it...EVEN IF it were not a book I wanted, because the solution would be to throw away/give away the book, and then my "problem" would be solved.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not comparable, because you expect unexpected items in the US mail. You don't expect unexpected items in the list of stuff you've bought from Apple.

A better comparison: What if your grocery store came along and shoved a box of olives (I hate olives) into your shopping cart after you'd checked out - and the only way to get rid of the box was to find the store manager and ask her/him to take it away.

This would be annoying. Not a major deal, but annoying.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[assantisz]

I didn't hire Apple to maintain my music library. I signed up to use their shelves to put my music the way I want it. If I knew it came with a maid that can do whatever she wants with my library I wouldn't have signed up.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[phayes]

No, Apple made the album available to be downloaded. People needed to change their configuration for the album to be auto-downloaded. As removing the album is trivial (swipe each song to the left), what I am rightfully upset about is the people falsely pretending that the album is on their device without any action on their part & that that this is supposed to be some kind of hardship.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

So exactly what is it about Beta that you don't like?

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[vux984]

Let's flash back 20 years...

Ok... 20 years ago? I got an AOL CD in the mail about once a week, and it went straight into the trash. I was also signed up to Columbia house 11-cds-for-a-penny-deals and routinely got their unsolicited discs because i wasn't always great about sending in the go-away postcards.

The AOL disks went in the trash, the Columbia house discs, if they weren't explicitly ordered were returned to sender. And the stuff I actually ordered, naturally I kept.

If I'd had a maid, that's what she'd have been instructed to do with any CDs that arrived in the mail too. Assuming she wouldn't be able to tell unsolicited from solicited purchases, she'd have been instructed to set them aside.

Apparently if this had been your house, once a week the maid would have dutifully installed a new 30 day impossible to cancel AOL trial on your laptop for you, and once a month you would have found unbelievably crappy CDs on your rack coupled with collection notices from columbia house (or maybe your maid just paid those for you to)?

No... 20 years ago, the maid would definitely not have put anything that just showed up at the house away like you seem to think.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

itunes is not analogous to mail.
email is analogous to mail.
itunes is analogous to record store.
so this is like a record store somehow sneaking an unwanted record into the collection of anyone who had ever set foot in the store, whether they had made a purchase or not.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw dude, can't you do a car analogy?

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[stiggle]

Even better as you can track the click-through and know they are good to target for more U2 merchandising emails.

Re:Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[petteyg359]

Some people don't give a shit about data usage, hence having automatic downloads on. Some people DO give a shit about having shit music forced into their library without their consent. I like all _my_ music, so my playlist is everything-on-random. It's MY playlist, not Apple's playlist, and they can keep their shit out of it.

Perspective

[nmb3000]

It's nice Apple responded, but the outrage over this whole thing (especially for people who have already bought into the iTunes garden) seems way overblown.

Some perspective might help.

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

As someone who really detests sweatshops, on the grounds that a safe working environment should be a universal human right, please please stop calling it slavery.

On the one side, it invites people who don't care about the problem to argue semantics, and on the other it makes a false equivalence to real actual slavery that still exists in the world(though is universally illegal).

Re:Perspective

[Thanshin]

It's not overblown. People simply care more about the technology they bought than about whether some people are enslaved some thousand miles away. And you do to, so don't be a hypocrite.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

It shows up as a purchase. I didn't purchase it. Don't give me something I don't want and didn't ask for and mark it off as a purchase.

If it had another entry such as a gift and I could remove it at my will, it wouldn't be such a big deal, but giving something to someone for free but showing it as a purchase, makes it bad and even a little fishy.

Plus, all these gifts being shown as purchases count in the sales records of U2's album. They aren't giving it away for nothing.

Re:Perspective

[ArcadeMan]

And I wish people would stop using the word "universally" when we even haven't reached another solar system yet.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll transcribe it for the lynx users and the blind:
"Build your products under slave labor conditions and no one bats an eye"
<picture of Heath Ledger as the joker>
"Give away a free album and everyone loses their mind"

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxconn doesn't pay its employees? I was under the impression they paid above average wages for the area. I understand the conditions are not up to scratch, and that employees are requested to work long (but paid) hours, but that's hardly slave labour, and does explain the wages.

Re:Perspective

[GeekWithAKnife]

I completely agree. In many ways it seems that people do not even know how to be outraged.

So this link is really obligatory: http://thepessimist.com/2013/0...

Re:Perspective

[spire3661]

No its not overblown. The issue at hand is that Apple thinks it can alter people's libraries at a whim. I dont WANT U2 in my collection at all. I have nothing against them, but i hate the fact that it was pushed into my face and into my library. I want my library to be composed of material I choose, not apple.

Re:Perspective

[irrational_design]

On the one hand it would be wonderful if there were no sweatshops. On the other hand, they do provide a job for people. I remember a number of years ago Nike had a factory in Honduras (if I remember correctly). A bunch of privileged American college-age people went down there and raised such a fuss that Nike was forced to close the factory and relocate the work elsewhere. The smug Americans celebrated their mission accomplished and moved on to their next cause. Later someone went back to Honduras and followed up with the former workers to see what had happened to them. The majority of the workers had been women and the vast majority of them had turned to prostitution after they lost their jobs. They, of course, were not happy with what the Americans had done to them.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Overblown? Having U2 forcibly inserted up my iPhone without my consent? I feel like I've been raped!

Re:Perspective

[Stargoat]

If you were not an Apple user, your argument, indeed your wants, might matter. But you have chosen your "walled garden" and you must enjoy it. The theme music for your "walled garden" is the latest U2 Album. Enjoy your Bono.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Apple shouldn't have pissed off 10s of millions of people with this cuntish stunt? Apologists like yourself could get back to masturbating over Jobs pictures again.

Re:Perspective

[Thanshin]

real actual slavery that still exists in the world

As someone who demands precision, you should consider using real actual grammar that still exists in the world.

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

Seriously?

You can't understand the idea of a right derived from being human? Is that concept too complicated for you? Or what? Do you contest the idea on petulant "you can't know anything" grounds?

Because I gotta say, that makes you seem more like an ethical child than a clever debater, at least to me.

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

I make all sorts of grammatical errors all the time, but that isn't an example. That's called an "object phrase" and it's perfectly fine syntactically and semantically.

Try reading it again.

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

Right, and the existence of the unethical factories in the supply chain isn't the problem. It's the unsafe working conditions within those factories. Which is why the distinction against slavery is so important.

Re:Perspective

[geekoid]

People in sweatshops are often treated as property. Hence, slave.
also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

There are many methods of slavery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

People aren't arguing semantics when they say it isn't slavery, they are just ignorant about slavery.

Re:Perspective

[ArcadeMan]

How about "basic human rights"?

Re:Perspective

[geekoid]

Yes, it is overblown. People got a free album. It was downloaded to device that were set to allow automatic downloads. End of story.

You can be a hypocrite and still realize change needs to be made. When you are entrenched in a system, you can only change it from inside the system.

Re:Perspective

[geekoid]

Wrong.
Apple thinks it can give someone a gift, and trust that person setting to accurate reflect the user.

" I want my library to be composed of material I choose, not apple."
The turn off that damn feature., IT's not Apples fault you don't know how to use your phone.

I bet you are so outrage, you'll get rid of all your Apple stuff, right? what's that? you won't? Then you don't care that much. do you?

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

Because universality is a real philosophical concept and this whole verbal semantic gameplaying doesn't make any sense at all?

It's a basic right, too.

It's like you took the wrong dictionary definition for one word, and then thought that had a definite implication on the totally unrelated concept. This argument comes from such an incorrect place, I can't even consider making some kind of completely pointless yield on the phrasing.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the picture is spot on. You are outraged at being given free music yet where is your outrage at other more important issues pertaining to Apple.

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

As long as we're talking specifically about Apple's factories through Foxconn haven't been alleged to have that problem. They've been noted for having awful, dangerous working conditions with low wages and frequent suicides.

So you're conflating actual slavery, which I totally acknowledged exists, with what Foxconn is doing, which is differently problematic.

Re:Perspective

[ColdWetDog]

It IS overblown. But then again, so is pretty much everything around here.

It IS important to render garments and gnash teeth over stuff like this. Else Apple (and others) will try this again. Besides, what else are we going to do here? Solve the major problems of the world?

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, keep wishing!

Re:Perspective

[dAzED1]

PersonA said he wished people would stop calling sweatshops slavery, but said good conditions is a "universal" human right. PersonB said he wished people would stop saying "universal" when we haven't left the planet yet - meaning, instead of "universal" he thinks the word "planetal" or such should be used, since there aren't any humans outside of Earth's atmosphere for the word "universal" to be used. IE, he was makign a witty joke. So, in that sense...no, not "seriously" - instead, jokingly. (blah blah something about if you have to explain the joke it wasn't funny blah blah)

Re:Perspective

[Rujiel]

So the fact that Apple enables sweatshop slavery is supposed to make me feel better about their other shitty practices?

Re:Perspective

[dAzED1]

how was "left the planet" as a response to UNIVERSally not enough of a clue for you?

Re:Perspective

[Rujiel]

So the problem wasn't that people were killing themselves at Foxconn factories due to their terrible treatment (over a dozen in a year)--the problem was the lack of nets around the perimeter of the building ("unsafe working conditions")? You exemplify first-world hubris.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

did the album autoplay every time you turn on your precious, overpriced i-device? no it did not. it was not pushed into your face. it was flagged as purchased. your own settings are what brought it down from the cloud and onto your device. not apples. if apple had a setting for 'opt out of free media offers' people would bitch and whine 100x as much and even file lawsuits if they missed out, even if due to their own actions by setting that option. fuck off, bucko. you have no right to force your bitchy whines into my face.

+10 overblown #firstworldproblem

Re:Perspective

[spire3661]

What part of 'i dont want it associated with my account in any way do you not understand?'. If I want the U2 album i will get it. Dont add it top my account. (this isnt unique to apple btw, Steam adds things to the library from time to time).

I bought A full suite of Apple gear at the beginning of the ipad 2 era (mac mini, ipad 2, iphone 4s) to properly evaluate their ecosystem ( as part of my job). I am not going ot give up my apple gear that I have in place, but im not going to buy any more either. I use mostly my NAS and its attendant apps over VPN for all my media needs. Im not outraged, im disappointed that Apple would be so incredibly blind that this would be an issue. It jsut reinforces my decision to move over to devices and ecosystems i have much more direct control over.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

"I want my library to be composed of material I choose, not apple. Also, I want music I buy to download to my device, because iTunes is a piece of shit."

Now what, Mr ITG?

Re:Perspective

[i kan reed]

A. Because it wasn't written as a joke. It was clearly phrased as a meta-statement about the discussion that was going on.
B. Because in that context it's a particularly noxious misapplication of the word "universal"

Re:Perspective

[freeze128]

Are you sure it was APPLE that decided that? I would guess that it would be more of U2's fault. U2 was releasing a new album, and wanted a little publicity, so they partnered with Apple. Apple could have just made the album available for purchase for $0, but that might not be enough to get people to listen to it. If you already don't like U2, then you probably wouldn't download their album even if it WAS free. However, if they cram it into your library, then there would be a higher likelihood of you hearing it (even if by accident). It's a brilliant marketing move, but Apple doesn't benefit from it, so I don't think they thought of it.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time the word appeared in the 14th century, it was referring to the Church Latin universus, which meant "the world," not "the universe" as we conceive of it today.

Re:Perspective

[ArcadeMan]

Anonymous Coward wins this chain of replies with his informative post, even though I can't find that particular bit of information on Wikipedia.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy you really are a hopeless apple fanboy aren't you? Just wait until apple starts injecting ads between music tracks. You'll still be on Slashdot defending apple and longing to suck on Steve Jobs mummified dick!

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you please cite the reference for the Prostitution story? Without it, I expect this story your pushing is just you agreeing with yourself.

Re:Perspective

[phayes]

What apple stuff? I'm willing to bet that most of the people claiming to be outraged don't even have an iDevice & are just piling on in order to rag on apple &/or U2.

Re:Perspective

[dAzED1]

This is the line (whole post, really) to which you were responding:

And I wish people would stop using the word "universally" when we even haven't reached another solar system yet.

pray tell, how is that not obviously a witty comment, in response to the complaint about using "slavery" versus "sweatshop?" The response was clearly meant to show that arguing over the word used to describe the conditions is silly. Mayhaps you should calm down, have a glass of wine, and re-read the thread. You may find things about which you are still infuriated, and some of that may well be righteous anger that I share with you, but this particularline shouldn't be a thorn in your side.

seriously.

Re:Perspective

[Thanshin]

Read this and then go back to your original post.

Re:Perspective

[Seraphim_72]

Thank you for your comment. You are spot on.

Re:Perspective

[Rujiel]

Silenced by trolls, what a surprise.

Where?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article gives no link to said tool. where it it at? Why not link to it?

Re:Where?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://itunes.com/soi-remove

I must be broken

[halivar]

It seems like the whole world enjoys being outraged by the pettiest bullshit (and indeed goes out of its way to FIND things the be outraged about) in a world full of very important concerns no one gives a shit about.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Slave labor doesn't poke you in the face everyday - turn a blind eye and the problem is gone. Once you drop something into a user's playlist without their permission - expect the end of the world as the service they are paying for is used in a way they didn't expect.

Note that you're probably not complaining about where that chicken you buy at the grocery store comes from.. One could call it "slave labor". Same principle applies.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

>It seems like the whole world enjoys being outraged by the pettiest bullshit (and indeed goes out of its way to FIND things the be outraged about) in a world full of very important concerns no one gives a shit about.

Everyone except you is insufficiently concerned.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for this is where our "prioritized" bandwidth is going to go.

This incident isn't an accident. It's a prediction.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound pretty outraged by that.

Re:I must be broken

[msauve]

So, you like free gifts. What's your address? I'll have my dog crap on your lawn, FOR FREE! In other words, I'll "give a shit," and make sure it's not "petty bullshit." That should make you happy.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

It feels like a violation. If I snuck into your house and put new underwear in your underwear drawer you might have something to say about it. Worse yet is if the underwear isn't your size or style (taste in music.)

Re:I must be broken

[BringsApples]

Well, let me start off by saying that although I do own an iPhone(4), I do not use it as a phone, and there is no sim card in it. I do not connect it to any wireless router, or anything else. Hell, I don't even carry it with me ever. I only use it for it's video capability. Originally I bought it because I thought it'd be a nice addition to my things.

However, I think that everyone is mad because something automatically was added to a list of things that they purchased, maybe I'm wrong. They're mad, not because of this event, but mad in preparation for future events. We're all meeting the reality of everyone walking around nonchalantly with a small PC slash tracking device in their pocket. If that device is also a pocket that apple gets to put it's hand in as it sees fit, then that's a bit crazy to me. But then again, I do not use the iPhone (and have not for over 3 years now) for this exact reason. Technology is no longer serving The People, it's monitoring them.

Re:I must be broken

[geekoid]

Accept you would violate several laws in doing so.
However, if you give me your address, I"ll be happy to send you a book on logical thinking, as well as the proper want to go about finding a therapist.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points, I would give them to you.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

My almost $2,000 bill to have Bono spew his garbage to my device isn't petty. How much do you make that you can call $2k petty? In my guess, you're full of crap posting, and you know damn well this isn't a petty issue. It's a huge hassle when Bono has Apple force us to pay for bandwidth and storage space for something we didn't ask for. I was driving and using Maps when my device was attacked by Bono and then the navigation quit when my phone got full. I had to delete all of the Bono songs from my phone before maps started working again. Also, I was late to arriving at my customer because it took me a few minutes to find a safe place to park so I could start troubleshooting this Bono-created problem. Also, since I was on data roaming because I was expecting an important email from a customer, I now owe AT&T a lot. AT&T is really making a lot of money off of this Bono douchebaggery.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you being so mean to dog crap by comparing it to this hateful Bono guy?

Re:I must be broken

[halivar]

Yeah, I think you're lying about the $2,000 bill.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T data roaming is $19.95 per megabyte. Apple said the album was ~100 Megabytes. 100 * $19.95 = $1,995. The math checks-out.

Re:I must be broken

[halivar]

So you explicitly went into your settings and enabled Data Roaming while you have Automatic Downloads turned on. What part of you thought that was a good idea in the first place?

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Relax! Nobody will send you any shit via the mail. Any reasonable person on Slashdot reading your posts will conclude that you already full of it and don't need any more.

Re:I must be broken

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the OP, but Bono forced this update down our throats. He hates us and want to force us to listen to his garbage. That is the problem. His hate for anyone that isn't a rich white person. He wants us to die. He proves his hate by forcing this on us. It is horrible.

U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[JoeyRox]

And Apple is allowing people to remove it after 5 days. A nice example of how internet time differs from human time.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Thanshin]

But it's 5 days of millions of people. So it's centuries of their souls, compared to just some years.

U2 should pay the soul difference. Preferably not in music. Please.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Anonymous Coward]

>>U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

hahahah

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[ArcadeMan]

That means almost five month and a half to produce a single song. In the real world where you need to do real work, you'd have starved to death long before you could finish your album.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[tepples]

Benefit of the doubt: Perhaps the band was doing real work, that is, performing live. Having to fit writing and recording a new album into downtime between tours can cause this.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[ArcadeMan]

Then they didn't "pour 5 years of their soul" into this album.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[geekoid]

Modded insightful because you think making music isn't real work?
Idiots, all of them.
I wonder what you consider real work?

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't believe annnnNyyyymoorrre," croons a billionaire who hangs out with Bill Clinton and never takes off his sunglasses." http://www.somethingawful.com/...

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what you consider real work?

Farming, mining, medical research and practice, fire control, education to name a few.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Stormwatch]

He is photophobic, you insensitive clod.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[NotSanguine]

Modded insightful because you think making music isn't real work? Idiots, all of them. I wonder what you consider real work?

Complaining about ridiculous bullshit on /. That's real work!

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Anonymous Coward]

It's my fucking iPod. What do you mean "allowing" me to remove it? I'm allowed to do whatever the fuck I want with the iPod I purchased. I didn't lease it. That's exactly the attitude that pisses people off.

Re:U2 poured 5 years of their soul into this album

[Anonymous Coward]

Bono sold his soul to Satan.

So that means U2 poured 5 years of nothing.

First world problem solved

[Camembert]

What else about Apple can we now whine about? Perhaps Tim Cook's recent TV interviews?

New Record

[Anonymous Coward]

Most downloaded album in history! U2 is on top again.

Or not.

Uh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoe bad! People using closed source software controlled by its publisher discovering that its controlled by its publisher! People upset!

Really, guys, read the EULA.

As long as you don't own the source you don't own your device.

Use GPLv3+ and buy the emacs manual.

Re:Uh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with open or closed source. Remember how Canonical snuck the Shopping Lens to Ubuntu?

Also, in practice most people never even read the source code of the open source software they are using. It would take too much time to truly get familiar with the codebase. It basically boils down to trust towards the people who created the software. At that point, it does not much differ from closed source software.

Re:Uh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it has everything to do with open source. With closed source, you don't own the device. You /can't/ remove the unwanted content. I dont read it too, but thats not the point. With open source, you can do whatever you want, even remove the shopping lense. Its a simple bash command to fix this: gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses disabled-scopes "['more_suggestions-amazon.scope', 'more_suggestions-u1ms.scope', 'more_suggestions-populartracks.scope', 'music-musicstore.scope', 'more_suggestions-ebay.scope', 'more_suggestions-ubuntushop.scope', 'more_suggestions-skimlinks.scope']"

Use GPLv3+ and buy the emacs manual.

Re:Uh no!

[ColdWetDog]

Its a simple bash command to fix this: gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses disabled-scopes "['more_suggestions-amazon.scope', 'more_suggestions-u1ms.scope', 'more_suggestions-populartracks.scope', 'music-musicstore.scope', 'more_suggestions-ebay.scope', 'more_suggestions-ubuntushop.scope', 'more_suggestions-skimlinks.scope']"

Simple.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

No dice

[Anonymous Coward]

Say goodbye to that unwanted Slashdot article

*click*

Unfortunately

[Greyfox]

The tool looks at the rest of your music collection while it's deleting the U2 album and judges you accordingly. "Oh, the Justin Beiber gets to stay but you're deleting the U2 album? OK I see how it is!"

Re:Unfortunately

[PvtVoid]

The tool looks at the rest of your music collection while it's deleting the U2 album and judges you accordingly. "Oh, the Justin Beiber gets to stay but you're deleting the U2 album? OK I see how it is!"

Wait until Apple starts pushing Justin Bieber albums to people's iphones.

Biggest concern is the data usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has pushed something to a phone that wasn't approved by the user. What happens if that helped push them over their data usage limit? It just seems like a very short sided decision to do something that has ramifications for users.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[ArcadeMan]

Imagine people who were roaming at the time. I've read somewhere that the cost was potentially around USD$2000.

Why Apple didn't simply put the album online with a price of "free" instead of pushing it into all the iTunes accounts? I'm sure U2 was trying to get platinum status and their stunt just backfired. There's a difference between free and spam.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[keytohwy]

If you are that concerned about data usage, I would imagine you have turned off the option to automatically download updates and purchases via cellular connection. That is, you can turn on automatic downloads, but toggle whether that is over wifi or cellular.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[LDAPMAN]

Data roaming is off by default. You have to explicitly enable it.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[ArcadeMan]

But when you enable data roaming, it's because you need it. And you usually know what you're downloading too. This album just appeared in the purchased list with no warning.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[organgtool]

Not necessarily. Someone who only downloads small, cheap apps would want to download them immediately over their cellular connection and would not expect to have relatively large downloads forced upon them.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[EvilSS]

Not necessarily. Someone who only downloads small, cheap apps would want to download them immediately over their cellular connection and would not expect to have relatively large downloads forced upon them.

There are separate settings for auto-downloading music and apps. You can enable one and not enable the other.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[organgtool]

Thanks for pointing that out. It sounds like iOS has grown since I've last used it.

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[Anonymous Coward]

No - it doesn't "download" to the device automatically.

I have 2 Apple laptops, 3 mac pros, an iPad and 2 iPhones... all set up to automatically download purchases... and NONE of the automatically downloaded the U2 album.

It shows up as a "purchased" album that is available from iCloud... but does NOT automatically come down to your devices unless you explicitly tell it to. In fact, if you have your device set up to only show downloaded music then you won't even see the U2 album at all...

This is very much ado about nothing...

Re:Biggest concern is the data usage

[ObiWanKenblowme]

And downloading purchased music is also off by default, as well as using cellular data plans to do it...so that's THREE settings your hypothetical user EXPLICITLY turned on to put them into that situation. And you somehow think it's Apple's fault?

link?

[MagicM]

I read TFA and couldn't find a link to the tool. I AM OUTRAGED!

Re:link?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bono

Re:link?

[krakelohm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... You're welcome.

Re:link?

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Well Played.

No it does not

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has absolutely no business pushing music down to people's phones. It doesn't matter that it's free, that is unsolicited pestering and it is bullshit.

Mr. Goatse poured few time into gap.zip

[Anonymous Coward]

And hello.jpg still prevails on slashdot for more than 10 years. A nice example of how internet time differs from human time.

Misleading links

[zerosomething]

Yet another /. article with links that don't actually give you any useful content. When you select the link in the text "tool to make it possible to remove the album from your iTunes library in a single step." wouldn't you expect to see an article about the tool and actually have a link to the tool? Oh no can't have that because you have to prop up what ever favorite news feed you are promoting.

Re:Misleading links

[Chelloveck]

When you select the link in the text "tool to make it possible to remove the album from your iTunes library in a single step." wouldn't you expect to see an article about the tool and actually have a link to the tool?

I clicked the link and got a Philadelphia NBC affiliate site. The article is titled "Apple Releases Tool to Remove Free U2 Album", so I'm definitely seeing an article about the tool. Within the article, in the first and last paragraphs, are links to the tool.

So what the hell are you bitching about?

Good as a frequent user of shuffle feature

[Anonymous Coward]

If U2 had come up randomly while i was driving I'm not sure how i would have handled it. I suspect I would have immediately reacted by driving into oncoming traffic to make the audible torture end.

Oh, and one more "one more thing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Never before in history has a computer program been created and released with the soul purpose to delete a specific band's specific album from your computer and devices. Nice first, Apple.

Re:Oh, and one more "one more thing"

[amxcoder]

Apple is getting their Patent Lawyers ready again?

Meanwhile....

[MAXOMENOS]

I downloaded the album (Free U2? Okay!) and have listened to it a couple of times in the car. It's not bad. Not exactly world-shattering --- they haven't done world-shattering in 20 years --- but enjoyable.

Re:Meanwhile....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I gave it a listen (it's free... why not?) and it's fine. Had it on while I was coding and it's perfectly decent background music.

Not something I would have bought... but.... ummm... it's free.

I don't see any reason to complain. After I've listened to it a bit I'll just move on and ignore it (like I do to the several hundred other crappy albums I have in iTunes...).

Re:I think Apple

[OhPlz]

Right, because not having control over your own music library is perfectly fine. Sure, there's bigger shit going on, but if people don't want to hear U2 from their own music collection, they shouldn't have to. Apple could have done what they always do and it made it free to grab off of the iTunes store. The fuck the whiner crowd is as annoying as the fuck U2 and fuck Apple crowd.

Downloading music for free? Scandelous!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I guess I can leave a flaming bag of shit on your doorstep, because hey - it's a FREE flaming bag of shit!

Re:I think Apple

[93 Escort Wagon]

should have made it permanent and not removable, because fuck those whiners.

Yes - make it a mandatory download! In FLAC!

It's a relationship argument about control.

[DutchUncle]

I don't have an iProduct that got force-downloaded. Today is my anniversary (a big number). So I don't see a first-world problem; I see a relationship problem.

It's not about the album. It's about control. It's about changing the station in the car radio when someone else is driving. It's about putting up with his sports posters and her frilly pillowcases. It's about changing the address list so it's alphabetical by first name instead of last name, and rearranging the desktop to be organized horizontally instead of vertically.

I feel your pain. But I can assure you that you can get through this.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Just Some Guy]

It's not about the album. It's about control. It's about changing the station in the car radio when someone else is driving.

No, it's about someone starting a U2 radio station that you don't have to tune into unless you want to, but now it's there if you want to hear it.

I swear to God, if my kids whined as much as the Internet has about me giving them a copy of an album I like, I'd ground their ungrateful asses until their iPods decayed into lead.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Anonymous Coward]

Force-download - at least we've established that it's a Sith ability now.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[DutchUncle]

Sorry, forcing a download of an entire album is *not* giving you an option that "you don't have to tune into". This is not you giving the kids an album you like, this is you strapping them to a chair to listen to it à la "Clockwork Orange". If everyone got an email saying "Click for a free download of the album!" there would be no complaints. (Mockery, perhaps, but not complaints. :-) )

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[DutchUncle]

I find your lack of U2 . . . disturbing.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Roogna]

Um... who has yet forced them to listen to it? So it's in your iCloud account, you don't -have- to download it, and you most certainly don't have to listen to it. And if you hear songs from it on iTunes Radio, well, Radio, that's what you get. No one gets to listen to the radio and never ever hear a song they don't care for. Seriously, this is overblown and the Internet should put their collective outrage towards something that actually matters.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Just Some Guy]

Sorry, forcing a download of an entire album

Stop. Apple just adds the album to the list of music you have access to. Everything else you describe flows from your incorrect understanding of this key point.

this is you strapping them to a chair to listen to it à la "Clockwork Orange".

They absolutely do not in any way make you listen to it.

If everyone got an email saying "Click for a free download of the album!" there would be no complaints.

That's basically what they did. They gave everyone access to it, so you now have a link to download the music by clicking one of the songs and tapping "play.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Yaztromo]

Sorry, forcing a download of an entire album is *not* giving you an option that "you don't have to tune into". This is not you giving the kids an album you like, this is you strapping them to a chair to listen to it à la "Clockwork Orange". If everyone got an email saying "Click for a free download of the album!" there would be no complaints. (Mockery, perhaps, but not complaints. :-) )

Except this is pretty much exactly how the system was setup.

In "releasing" the album, Apple pretty much just added a database entry for every user on iTunes to say that they had already purchased the album. It was then supposed to[0] show up in your iTunes library as "in the cloud", with an option to download it.

Nobody was forced to download the album. The only way you'd download it without needing to do so specifically is if you had previously turned on the option to automatically download all new iTunes purchases (which defaults to off). And the only way you'd have to worry about using cellular data for this is if you had the option to download iTunes Music purchases over mobile enabled as well (otherwise, it would wait until you're on WiFi). So yeah -- this is completely a tempest in a teapot from people who don't like U2 seeing a free album available for download showing up in their libraries.

Hopefully Apple have learned their lesson. It was a publicity stunt, and while it upset some people, here we are talking about it. I don't think it went off the way they were hoping it would, and hopefully they've learned some lessons in the process.

[0] - Here in Canada at least, it appears the setup for this album didn't work for a very large number of users. I know in my case, the U2 album did not show up on my iPad as it was supposed to, nor did it show up in any of my iTunes libraries. And I do have the auto-download option enabled. In order to get the album, I had to go into iTunes and find the section that shows all your existing purchases, and then select the "Not on This Device" list, and only then could I download the album. And looking at the album reviews on iTunes Canada, it seems that I was hardly the only person to experience this -- nearly every review when I last checked last night was form people trying to figure out how to get their "free" album. I haven't seen this level of complaints outside of Canada, so I'm assuming either a) something screwed up with the iTunes Canada edition of the album's launch, or b) iTunes Canada did something different in order to not run afoul of some legislation (although I can't for the life of me guess what legislation that might be). This situation seems to have been lost in the noise of everyone else complaining about getting a free album, so I haven't heard much commentary on the situation.

Yaz

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is about someone stuffing something on *my* computer, in *my* library.

Would you complain if I broke into your house to leave a free book on your table? A free shampoo sample in your bathroom? A free cologne on your pillow? I think you would.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[DutchUncle]

Regarding the "making people listen" - this was in response to Just Some Guy's " if my kids whined ... about me giving them a copy of an album..." , and does not correlate exactly with the original Apple situation. My bad.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Just Some Guy]

I'm Just Some Guy. And yes, I'd be furious if I gave my kids a CD and they whined as petulantly as half the posts I've been reading here and on Twitter. It's OK not to like any particular band, but I lack an understanding of the amount of entitlement required to rant about someone receiving a free gift that they have every ability to ignore./p?

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[DutchUncle]

So did you force them to get the proper cultural education? Beach Boys, Beatles, all the good stuff? And make them watch black-and-white films, like the Marx Brothers (so they'd know what Animaniacs was referencing)? :-) :-) I did. My son has since thanked me profusely. Mark Twain: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were your kid, I would have punched you in the face. You are an obnoxious, overbearing parent.

Re:It's a relationship argument about control.

[Just Some Guy]

Let me guess: you're currently grounded?

Which one?

[chinton]

You're going to need to be more specific about which "unwanted U2 album" you are talking about.

Re:Which one?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to need to be more specific about which "unwanted U2 album" you are talking about.

I unwant all of them.

Where's the outrage?!

[Anonymous Coward]

When politicians are pushed onto our ballots? Ah, but they're not. You voted for them during the primaries.

If you decide to use iTunes, you are getting what you want.

First world problems indeed

I am blind

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite get this part:

picture of Heath Ledger as the joker

Can you describe it in more detail, maybe a 1000 words or so?

Re:I am blind

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, the picture may be worth 1000 words, but all I can give you for it is 7. See 1000 is the retail cost. I've got to put it on my shelf, and wait for someone to buy it. I gotta be able to make a profit here. Tell you what, best I can do is 10 words. How does that sound? We'll ring you up right over here.

best tool ever... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

tool removes U2 and installs nickelback instead

Re:best tool ever... ?

[ZorglubZ]

Bah... http://static.fjcdn.com/pictur... Just Say No!

Just a bunch of talentless cunts

[oldmac31310]

U2 are. Just saying.

Re:Just a bunch of talentless cunts

[NoImNotNineVolt]

It sounds more insightful in latin: ludit musica ergo sunt.

Yes, U2 are. They exist. Descartes kinda beat you to the punch by a few centuries though.

Also, I don't know latin.

Re:Just a bunch of talentless cunts

[geekoid]

Please, explain in what way there aren't talented?
It's fine you don't like their music, but to say they don't have talent indicate you have some professional music creation detail they are doing wrong.
Wrong notes? off timing?
I look forward to a detail analysis of their work.

Re:Just a bunch of talentless cunts

[Anonymous Coward]

... talentless AND pretensious -- the perfect band for Apple users!

Re:Just a bunch of talentless cunts

[Anonymous Coward]

This presumes that U2 "thinks". There is plenty of room for doubt in this area.

Re:Just a bunch of talentless cunts

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I was shooting for "They play music, therefore they are", a more complete form of GP's "U2 are".

Better Than U

[Anonymous Coward]

A bad U2 album is still 100x better than most of the crap people have on their iPods. They should be thankful that their music quality got elevated.

Ties between Apple and Disney

[tepples]

I will not be satisfied until Apple provides a tool to remove Bono entirely.

Given historic ties between Apple Inc. and the Pixar Animation Studios division of The Walt Disney Company through the Jobs estate, I find it unlikely that Apple would support repeal of the Bono Act.

Good

[rebelwarlock]

People acting like users have no right to complain about free shit need some perspective.

For example, do you like tofu? No? Well tough shit, it's free, and I'm going to force feed you three pounds of it. You have no right to complain about free food. Hell, I'll opt for stinky tofu while I'm at it. Here in Taiwan, people love that shit. Everyone who doesn't thinks it smells and tastes like raw sewage.

U2 is the stinky tofu of the music industry. You have people who like them, and people who can't imagine why you would find it necessary to inflict such pain upon yourself.

Re:Good

[Just Some Guy]

For example, do you like tofu? No? Well tough shit, it's free, and I'm going to force feed you three pounds of it.

The correct analogy would be: do you like tofu? No? Well, here's a coupon for free tofu anyway. If you like it, pick it up at the store. If not, don't. Either way. Free tofu.

Re:Good

[squiggleslash]

Wait, iPhones autoplay music? As in, not only did Apple push the unwanted album to phones, but they then set up the iPhone to play it at full blast whenever you were nearby, forcing you to listen to it?

If that's the case, then that has been left out of the widespread news coverage of the story, which has just concentrated on the "Being uploaded to phones that were set up to automatically download new purchases", which most of us consider a minor inconvenience, if that.

Re:Good

[frd1963]

Probably more like this: Do you like Tofu? Well we don't care whether you like it or not; lots of people do like it so we are going to keep it in your fridge in case you change your mind and decide to try it. Either way, it is there taking up space. You can search for it and put it somewhere else to make room and it won't go bad, but as long as you own that fridge, you own that tofu and it is there for your enjoyment or torment.

Not exactly free

[tepples]

Who would have thought getting free music would have caused such an uproar?

Major label music is not free music.

its apples device, not yours.

[nimbius]

Once a company can questionlessly assert the music you like, add and remove content, and that content is no longer in your immediate control, then no, its not your device. One could argue that the DRM structure imposed upon apple devices alone should be enough to convince the buyer to re-evaluate their purchase. Apple users should seriously question what it is that theyve invested in, if anything, and review the terms and conditions of their iPods, Pads, and music service to determine just what it is they dropped $200 or more on to listen to the music they like.

And if it comes to it, consider alternatives. You're the customer after all and your privacy and conditions should largely be non negotiable. Amazon sells DRM-free music, as does beatport. Use LibMTP for your mtp transfers, or better yet pick a device that hasnt adopted a slower, serialized transfer standard designed to cripple the users rights.

Re:I think Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take it if it means iPhones now support FLAC.

Sorry..didn't have the link before..

[Ronin Developer]

Apple has now launched a tool to help disgruntled customers easily remove the album from their iTunes library.

To remove the album, users need to:

• Go to http://itunes.com/soi-remove
• Click Remove Album to confirm you'd like to remove the album from your account
• Sign in with the Apple ID and password you use to buy from the iTunes Store

Apple warned that, once the album has been removed from a user's account, it will no longer be available for them to redownload as a previous purchase. If they later decide they want the album, they will need to get it again.

The album is free to everyone until 13 October 2014, and will be available for purchase after that date.

Re:I think Apple

[geekoid]

", but if people don't want to hear U2 from their own music collection, they shouldn't have to."
When did Apple force anyone to listen to it?

It wouldn't be stuck in your library if you setting didn't allow for it.

Sing it with me

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuz I'm one step closer to The Edge
And I'm about to break
(my iPod)

Bad

[Subm]

If you twist the EULA
If you push your album on me again
If I could delete it, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate

If I could throw this
Overreaching iPhone to the wind
Leave this walled garden
See Apple and U2 walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame

If I could like speech and beer
Make my software free
I'd lead your marketing away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day

Delete it! Go!
And so to fade away
Delete it! Go!
And so fade away

I'm quite annoyed
I'm quite annoyted
Wide awake
I can't delete it
Oh, no, no, no

If I could delete it, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...

This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go

And so fade away
Delete it! Go!
And so fade away
Delete it! Go!
And so to fade away

Wow, i kan reed trolling on behalf of apple now?

[Rujiel]

Labor for sixteen hours because the workers are paid so little that they can't afford food otherwise.. is fucking slavery. Other examples of slavery don't diminish this one.

Re:Mommy's Poor Little Babies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it's more like someone broke into your house and left you a gift you don't need.

While a nice thought the person shouldn't have broken into my house. They should've asked first.

For me it doesn't matter since it just shows up in my Purchases tab in iTunes but that's because I turned automatic downloads off. If someone has that on then suddenly the album is now downloaded onto their phone, iPad, PC etc.

While not too big it does waste space, especially if you don't realize it's there and you have a 16GB model.

Also could be annoying if you really hate U2 and suddenly it starts playing when you shuffle your music.

They should've just made it free on iTunes but you'd still have to "purchase" it before it would be linked to your account... Which is what happens if you delete it from your account. Once deleted if you decide you want it again you can just go into iTunes and get it as it's still free (until Oct 13).

Re:Mommy's Poor Little Babies!

[NotSanguine]

Although it's more like someone broke into your house and left you a gift you don't need.

While a nice thought the person shouldn't have broken into my house. They should've asked first.

Actually, it's more like you gave them the keys and said, "Come on in anytime you like, boys!" when enabling the auto-download feature. Whether or not they should have done it differently is a useful question, but (as you correctly pointed out) you have to enable auto-download manually. If someone did so and didn't realize that they were giving Apple carte blanche to rummage around in their device, that's thier mistake, not Apple's.

I'm not an Apple fan. I don't own any of their hardware, nor am I interested in purchasing any. I'm not even defending Apple's distribution choice in this case.

It just seems ridiculous to me that people are getting all mad at Apple about something that was in their control (again, as you and others have pointed out) all along.

Complaining about someone trying to do something nice for you (whether you want them too or not -- I guess you've never gotten a gift you didn't like -- as for not asking for it, the best gifts I've ever received were from people who just wanted to do something nice for me). It smacks of childish behavior, IMHO.

Not that you really "own" your iTunes library...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, you're just "licensing" the music, and when you're banned or die, no one gets to keep it.

Free books

[phorm]

If you installed Google Books when it first came out, then you would have automatically have "bought" (for free) copies of various classic literature items that automatically dropped into your library. The main difference is that these were presumably out-of-copyright books and not being pushed as a marketing stunt, but the end result was rather similar. I wasn't overly offended by it but it seems a result of similar thinking on the behalf of the "store" manager ("oh, we'll just mark these as purchased and free so anyone can get them" without thinking about whether people *wanted* them).

Outrage VS the future

[phorm]

I'm really of two opinions on this. In terms of "hey, an album appeared that I didn't wanted", meh just get rid of it. In terms of "hey, a company whom I am a customer of basically dropped a package on my device for free", well that's not as cool.

So in terms of the current negative publicity, I'd hope that the current backlash makes them and others think twice about doing so in the future. It's like companies that - after I buy a product from them using paypal - have decided to bomb my paypal email address with ads for other shit I don't really want. It's a new form of SPAM, and certainly not something we need. What if it wasn't a big-name artist?
How would people feel if Apple decided that maybe you want "Best of American Gospel Music"? How about if there wasn't a huge backlash, so they signed a deal with a few dozen other bands and decided "hey, let's drop a bunch more stuff in people's accounts, it's *free* so that's OK right?"

Companies like Netflix make "suggestions" based on your history. If Apple wants people to hit a "Suggested for You" section and a "Free/Promotional Music" section where people can browse, that's cool. Jamming it into somebody's library for a marketing promotion is spammy and breaks the lines between "your service" and "my account".

It's about the youth identifying with their music

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging from your ID, you don't get the social aspects of this. U2 is listened by likes of Tim Cook, old people, parents. Having this album pushed to billion teens who detest everything their parents listen is a problem.

If someone sets their device to "automatic downloads", it means automatically download stuff I buy there is explicit agreement here. Not whatever Apple decides to send you.

iTunes? one step?

[DogDude]

I gave up on iTunes a LONG time ago because the software was, quite simply, a piece of shit. Why do people still use music software that takes *more* than one step to delete some music? That seems really insane to me. I can't imagine trying to fight with software in order to simply delete a file.

Re:I think Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The device isn't the library, only the portable copy of it.

How can I get it?

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Huge U2 fan, but not an Apple one ... with all these people "throwing away" this album that they were given (and therefore are the rightful owners of), is there any way for someone like me to legally come into possession of this thing these other people are taking to the curb? Is there an digital trash can somewhere I can go pick it out of?

Thanks!

Re:How can I get it?

[Yaztromo]

Install iTunes somewhere, sign up for an account (you can do so without providing a credit card number), and download the album. Apple has been selling music DRM free for the last several years, so it's just standard AAC. Once you have it, remove your account, delete iTunes, and add the music to whatever music program you prefer to use.

Unless, of course, you live in Canada, where copying music from a friend is still perfectly legal.

Yaz

Re:iTunes? one step?

[bussdriver]

I think iTunes was an extremely well designed program. Since around version 10 or 11 it has gone backwards significantly. It is pretty good for what is a essentially a database front end with tons of records... and then it added a customized web browser... and other junk.

As far as making it hard to delete something; it isn't that hard and it shouldn't be too easy because you don't want accidental deletions... think of all the computer illiterate people out there.

Somebody at Apple needs to be fired... perhaps he was? Mr. Pseudomorph is gone so maybe iTunes 12 will undo the damage?? Also, somebody at Mozilla also needs to be fired as well-- or we just need to know which person is to blame so we can start an internet rumor about him being anti-gay so he can at least get fired...aka "resign."

Re:I think Apple

[OhPlz]

Say what? It's in your library whether you want it or not. That's why Apple had to create a special web page to remove it.

Yes, you can disable auto-download to specific devices, but that's BS. I shouldn't have to opt to manually manage the songs on my devices just because Apple decided upon themselves to throw unwanted crap in my music library.

That's like saying telemarketing calls are fine. If you don't want to talk to anyone, don't answer your phone.

No it does not

[ObiWanKenblowme]

Even if they only do it after the users explicitly turn on the feature to push music down to their phones, and then it still will only work over wifi unless the users explicitly turn on another feature to "download over cellular"? You really think they have no business doing exactly what the user has asked for?

Hate on Bono, AT&T, Apple, etc. all you want,

[Anonymous Coward]

Free album. I'll take it.

Re:iTunes? one step?

[DogDude]

Part of what makes iTunes so hard to use, in my opinion, was the creation of a completely superfluous extra layer of a "playlist library" or some nonsense. People who use iTunes don't even know where their actual music files. A file system isn't a complicated thing for anybody to use, so I don't really see the point. Of course, all of the nasty memory-leaking hooks it puts into Windows is what got it banned from my company, but I still don't understand why it's so damned complicated to use. I just click on the music files I want to play with Winamp and play them.

Bono is a disingenuous prick....

[erp_consultant]

There I said it. All the so called "Progressives" just love this guy because he is supposedly out in front of all these social issues. U2 has made hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, almost all of it funneled through companies in Ireland and the Netherlands with the express purpose of avoiding taxes. In 2007 they transferred most of their music catalog to a tax-free jurisdiction in the Netherlands.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...

Just like the rest of these celebrity do-gooders he just loves to get up on stage and implore YOU to donate YOUR money to such and such a cause. But he, despite his vast resources, give little or none of his OWN money. Yes, he donates his "time" but all of his expenses (and those of his huge entourage) are paid for by the charity. So not only does he not contribute any money, a good portion of your donation is going towards paying his expenses.

The ONE Campaign, founded by Bono and U2, urges governments around the world to give more money to poor nations. Fine. Noble cause. But don't ask me to take this guy seriously when he is an obvious tax dodger. If it were not for people like him maybe governments would have enough money to hand out.

I'm not against making money. Far from it. But you can't have it both ways. Either you are a Capitalist or you're not.

So do us a favor, Bono. Get back on your private jet and go count all that money you've made by NOT paying your fair share of taxes.

Re:Bono is a disingenuous prick....

[WOOFYGOOFY]

You're so completely full of shit. What does Bono DO with that money?

He invests it in socially responsible investments, 0promotes (spends money on) pro-social causes, gives it to charity . He does what any rational person who wants to achieve a goal in this world and has access to capital- he creates it, he invests some as principle, he uses the earnings to effect change. Rinse and repeat.

I just love conservatives who attack liberals for having *anything* to do with making money. It's a completely cynical attempt to get their opponents to divest themselves of any real power.

It's also a cynical attempt to demoralize people to whom Bono et. al. are role models- "See, they're just as greedy as the Koch brothers! People are just greed machines! Get used to it... "

Ditto the attacks on Gore and his "carbon foot print".\

The facts are, if everyone were and did as Bono and Gore do, we wouldn't have crushing poverty and war. Fact. And we wouldn't be facing extinction through environmental degradation. Fact.

So shut the fuck up you little asshole. Go read some more Ayn Rand , snort some more coke and cruise some more really vile S&M porn. Those are the points of your moral compass. That's what's *real* to your reptilian brain.

Re:Bono is a disingenuous prick....

[erp_consultant]

I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to this but it's a slow day so.....

"You're so completely full of shit" - Nice to meet you too.

I see that you have conveniently sidestepped the two main points of my post. 1) He is a tax dodger. 2) There is little if any evidence that he actually donates any of his own money to these various causes.

The link above describes it in more detail but why would U2 move their corporate operations to a region of the Netherlands that is tax free? The same reason Facebook does it. Same reason that the Kennedy family set up overseas Trusts in places like the Isle of Man. Same reason that Mitt Romney set up offshore accounts. To avoid paying taxes. That's not my opinion. That's a fact.

As much as I'm sure it irks you, these people are all playing the same game. These people have all made a lot of money and don't want to give more of it than they have to to their respective governments. So they set up these elaborate schemes to move money offshore to places with lower (or no) tax burdens for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of dodging taxes.

In your little world it's ok to do that - as long as their politics agree with your politics. Bono gets a pass because he is a "progressive". Meanwhile, Mitt Romney/Dick Chaney, etc. are vilified as "tax cheats". Well you can't have it both ways, pal. All of them are tax cheats, regardless of politics.

So don't give me your sanctimonious bullshit about how Bono is such a great guy. Sure, he talks a good game but when it comes time to step up and donate some of his vast fortune he's not getting it done.

The ONE Campaign, which I'm sure you are familiar with, was started by our good friend Bono. You might also be aware that it has come under fire due to the fact that only 1.2% of everything collected was actually given to charities.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

I'll do the math for you. That means that if I donate $100 to the ONE Campaign then only $1.20 is going towards the cause. That ain't getting it done, son.

"The facts are, if everyone were and did as Bono and Gore do, we wouldn't have crushing poverty and war" - Ummm no. If everyone did as Bono did then 98.8% of all charitable donations would be wasted. Not only is that disgraceful, it will have no meaningful impact on poverty whatsoever.

Geekoid loves free stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

He gets free iTunes gift cards for giving handjobs to Apple Store employees. He is huge fan of Bono and the free U2 album spared him some arthritis pain due to repetitive stress injuries. Quite naturally he is very defensive of this promotion. Please cut him some slack. You have no idea on what he has to go through to get the Iphone 6.

Where's my free album?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that this was only added to the libraries of iTunes users in particular regions. I actually wouldn't have minded a free U2 album, but once again Australia misses out.

Bono *is* a tool

[Anonymous Coward]

In both senses of the word: he's used by Apple; and, more euphemistically, a wanker

Re:iTunes? one step?

[bussdriver]

No, a filesystem is actually complicated for many people. The metaphor is rock solid-- but haven't you known people who can't even manage their few real-world filing cabinets? If they can't handle the real world one, they are going to have trouble with the metaphorical one in the computer with relatively unlimited space.

iTunes started out less complicated. I don't know about iTunes leaking RAM on windows but it does include all the mac frameworks which make it take up more RAM. It's built-in browser can expand RAM use significantly, but it's not like they could have used Windows browser library... with IE being so broken. It's still a classic monolithic app (like most are) and doesn't learn from the unix it is designed to run upon.

Part of the problem is that they know there are millions of users who can't learn so they've shoehorned everything into their 1 app --- just like Flash had to do because getting people to use another plugin/app is a huge huge barrier, even if it works exactly the same-- getting it installed is the primary problem.

Personally, I've been looking for replacements since they started to bloat it up. I've not found any yet. Nothing compares so far. WinAmp doesn't either (plus I wouldn't go to anything that doesn't have a linux port.)

U2 shove

[Anonymous Coward]

This was shoved down my throat, much like Obamacare was shoved up my arse. Both need to go