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Apple Music and the Terrible Return of DRM
An anonymous reader writes: Apple's rumored music streaming service looks set to materialize soon, and a lot of people are talking about how good it might be. But Nilay Patel is looking at the other side — if the service fits with Apple's typical mode of operation, it'll only work with other Apple products. "That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music) and a fourth set of content exclusives and pricing windows to think about instead of just listening to music." He points out Steve Jobs's 2007 essay on the state of digital music and notes that Jobs seemed to feel DRM was a waste of time — something forced on Apple by the labels. "But it's no longer the labels pushing DRM on the music services; it's the services themselves, because locking you into a single ecosystem guarantees you'll keep paying their monthly subscription fees and hopefully buy into the rest of their ecosystem. ... Apple Music might be available on Android, but it probably won't be as good, because Apple wants you to buy an iPhone.... There's just lock-in, endless lock-in. Is this what we wanted?"
Nobody is actually forcing you to participate in any new service, are they?
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I never wanted monthly music rental to begin with, so ... no.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I'm not ever going to go back to the difficulty of vinyl, it's just too damn much work to keep both the physical media and the player maintained such that they produce good quality output, but I can honestly say that having CDs has helped. I rip my CDs to a non-DRM digital format. I can play them on my phone, on my computers, on most DVD players from either disc or from flash, and even on some car stereos that support mp3 from CD or from flash. If I have a device failure I can copy back off of other devices, or worst case I can re-rip again from source media.
No one's digital store method has ever satisfied my want for being able to always access the content that I have paid for. Sometimes things are removed from the catalog, so they could later no longer be downloaded again, or the content is streamed instead of stored locally, or other things.
I want control over my stuff. If I own media then I have control.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I know this is Slashdot and all, and Apple bashing is kind of a national sport, but TFA is nothing but conjecture. How about we wait until there's an actual fact to talk about before fueling the servers with anti-fanboi rage?
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life (Spotify, Google Play Music, Prime, and Apple Music) and a fourth set of content exclusives and pricing windows to think about instead of just listening to music.
Talk about first-world problems...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
This seems like a false dillema - how much agonizing do you do over whether you'll subscribe to DirecTV or DIsh or both or neither? If you want one you pick one, and if it turns out you don't like it you switch.
Really the music situation is much better than that, there are more choices and none of the awful contracts. You can switch easily if you wish and some of them offer free trials, or even entirely free versions. This is no worse than any other subscription service and better than many. Of course it's different from actually owning the music, but no one has claimed equivalency there. You can always just buy the songs if you want, from many sources.
We do that and the article won't be posted on Slashdot until six months after the thing starts up. This gives us some time to get the dupe ready on a timely basis.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That means I'll have yet a fourth music service in my life...
Apparently that is what you want, or you wouldn't plunk down money for this service. Apple isn't holding a gun to your head forcing you to comply with their business model.
If you want it, pay for it. If you don't want it, don't pay for it. Paying for something you don't want and then bitching about it is useless and stupid.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The author isn't technical, and doesn't understand the words he uses. He thinks that if his device won't pair with his bluetooth speakers, it must be because of DRM. If Google Play Music is better on Android than on iPhone, it's because of DRM.
He is slowly coming to an awareness that interoperability is hard. The author is a "bro" who describes himself as "married to a babe." That's cool but all he wants to do is listen to music and all this technology is inconvenient to understand. It won't let him listen to music the way he wants (the subtitle of his article is "give me convenience or give me death"). It's hard to feel sympathy for him.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Sales up 240 per cent, Lies Damn Lies and Statistics Last year they could have sold 10 records this year 24 thats 240% of last year What are the raw numbers ?
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you