'Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously' (vellumatlanta.com)

Vellum's James has written about his ordeal with Apple Music which many people can relate to. Apple Music, the Cupertino-based giant's online music streaming service, deleted 122GB of music files that James had stored on his computer. He writes: What Amber (supposed Apple Support representative) explained was exactly what I'd feared: through the Apple Music subscription, which I had, Apple now deletes files from its users' computers. When I signed up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple's database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn't recognize -- which came up often, since I'm a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself -- it would then download it to Apple's database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted. This isn't the first time Apple Music has deleted a user's locally stored music files. Long-time Apple watcher Jim Dalrymple canceled his subscription last year and called Apple Music a "nightmare" after the service allegedly deleted over 4,700 of his previously bought songs. At the time, he wrote: At some point, enough is enough. That time has come for me -- Apple Music is just too much of a hassle to be bothered with. Nobody I've spoken at Apple or outside the company has any idea how to fix it, so the chances of a positive outcome seem slim to none.Incidentally, Apple Music is rumoured for a reboot at the company's developer conference in June. It's not clear if fixing the aforementioned glitch is among Apple's imminent agenda.

Comments

It can't be said too many times

[PvtVoid]

Backups, Dude. Backups.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[i.r.id10t]

Non-story? Maybe. Depends on whatever license he clicked thru, any changes made to that license agreement (one way only - from Apple - you can't change your end willy-nilly), and if clickwrap licenses/contracts are legal.

Otherwise it would seem on the surface that there maybe a copyright violation, when Apple copied his stuff (original compositions and recordings) from his machine to their machine ...

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Altus]

I'm pretty confident that is covered by the EULA, its a feature that it serves up a copy of your music from the cloud, only to you, if that music doesn't exist in the apple music library.

Deleting the original files is really bad form though and doing so without confirmation is a violation of Apple's own UI guidelines.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[NotInHere]

Cryptolockers do almost the same thing, they store a key on their servers and take away direct control over your files. But it seems apple is getting away with this. Because its headquarters isn't in a country with cyrillic or chinese writing systems, but in SV.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of software removes files from a local disk without even asking for user confirmation?

How do you make safe backups of things "stored" in the "cloud"?

This is definitely NOT a non-story...

Re:It can't be said too many times

[jareth-0205]

If you RTFA he recovered from backups. It's a non-story.

How can this be a non-story? It's a horrendous bug, and that's the best-case interpretation.

Re: It can't be said too many times

[dmoen]

"What kind of software removes files from a local disk without even asking for user confirmation?"

Malware.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[mlts]

He was lucky to have backups. Not everyone has Time Machine set up and working. Not everyone sets up backups, so this could have been catastrophic, had it been someone less computer savvy.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[gtwrek]

Its a very valid story, for a new generation.

Happened to my kids, and their music. "Hey let's sign up for this new Apple thing for a free 3 months - what's to lose?".
Then, all there previous music disappears... Blame siblings for doing something wrong. Yell and berate dad (me), well just because.

Backups? What backups? Everything's in the Cloud dad. They've never purchased a song on any physical media. Probably recognize the term "MP3", but it's equating "mp3" as a file, that can be copied and actually manipulated? That's grandpa talk.

It's a good lesson.

Of course he'll solve his problem another way - getting his "backups" from another source... Teenagers have no dearth of places to grab, *ahem* "free" music. They've no problem paying for it, if it's convenient, and reasonably priced. Now that that's all broken...
 

Re:It can't be said too many times

[TheGratefulNet]

isn't in a country with cyrillic or chinese writing systems, but in SV.

uhm, silicon valley is now dominated by chinese and indians. you walk down the hallways of bay area tech companies and you can go a whole day without hearing any english. not kidding; wish I was.

I'm also seeing lots of bay area job offerings that INSIST you speak chinese in order to get the job. no, its not just travel related jobs; desk jobs for software people are now 'asking' that you speak chinese.

hint hint, nudge nudge. but there's no h1b problem here. no sir!

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Maxwell]

Not iTunes, I just checked wifes laptop, everything still physically present, our trial expired months ago. I am sure there is some combination of switches that would cause OP's scenario, but out of the box it does not do what he described...sounds to me like he tried to do something more sophisticated than apple music could handle.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[pr0fessor]

I thought the story was that the service deleted files without confirmation, mismatched, and recoded the media and he had to take the time and hassle to restore them from a back up and when speaking to support they confirmed that they don't even use the service for that very reason.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What kind of software removes files from a local disk without even asking for user confirmation?

rm -f ?

Re:It can't be said too many times

[JoeMerchant]

If you RTFA he recovered from backups. It's a non-story.

How can this be a non-story? It's a horrendous bug, and that's the best-case interpretation.

Depends on your perspective - from the music industry perspective, this isn't a bug, it's a valuable feature.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[evilRhino]

It actually warns the user in the Terms of Service. Exact wording is quoted in the article.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[pla]

hint hint, nudge nudge. but there's no h1b problem here. no sir!

Ironically enough, that may actually make them technically more compliant with the terms of the H1B program. "We require Native speakers of Mandarin, and can't find any locally... Oh, and we need them to do some programming for us as well".

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Flavianoep]

isn't in a country with cyrillic or chinese writing systems, but in SV.

uhm, silicon valley is now dominated by chinese and indians.

Therefore, the writing systems are Chinese and Devanagari.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Aighearach]

It's a non-story.

Wow, that's how you expect users to be treated? Non-story? I'm so glad I don't own any Apple computers! Look at how bad they can treat users and many are simply trained to expect it.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Aighearach]

Well, I agree it's horrendous, but a bug? No, this is an intentional feature! Maybe it proves Apple's proprietary crap is malware, but it sure doesn't stop this from being a feature. That users tolerate being treated that way is shocking to me.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[whoever57]

its a feature that it serves up a copy of your music from the cloud, only to you, if that music doesn't exist in the apple music library.

Except that it doesn't. From the article:

That rare, early version of Fountains of Wayne's "I'll Do The Driving," labeled as such? Still had its same label, but was instead replaced by the later-released, more widely available version of the song.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[whoever57]

It actually warns the user in the Terms of Service. Exact wording is quoted in the article.

No, it doesn't. The ToS just say that you can't sue Apple if this happens. It does not say that Apple will delete local files.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[stealth_finger]

Please, less people read the ToS than TFA

Re:It can't be said too many times

[hattig]

What happens when you cancel your subscription to Apple Music? Does it redownload the original music you had before you installed the malware service onto your computer? Or are you forever stuck having to use Apple Music to gain access to your own files?

My best interpretation is that the software is a destructive virus. At worst it is holding your personal data to ransom.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry, if I'm a composer and have thousands of my own songs on my computer and have no back ups, I'm an idiot.

Luckily I'm not such a composer and not such an idiot.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[beelsebob]

Right - I mean, none of those Chinese and Indian people are in actual fact natives of California... California didn't ever have massive emigration from the east...

Oh wait... that's not right.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Grishnakh]

Well that's what they get for trusting Apple.

Seriously, it should be more than obvious now that if you trust your computer and your data to either Microsoft or Apple, you're an absolute fool and you're going to be abused for it. The only solution is to stop using these vendors. Otherwise, don't complain when you're spied on, your OS is forcibly "upgraded" to a different version that isn't compatible with all your software, or your music library is deleted.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Karlt1]

http://www.imore.com/no-apple-...

Re:It can't be said too many times

[bluefoxlucid]

hint hint, nudge nudge. but there's no h1b problem here. no sir!

At 4.9% UE3 and 5.6% UE4 (UE4 includes *all* people who would get jobs if there were unlimited jobs; it excludes people who would want jobs but can't get jobs because they have other demands on their time, such as single mothers who would not be able to afford daycare if they got a job), we're not hurting for jobs.

Trickle-down economics doesn't work: jobs don't come from corporate initiatives, small-business owners, hard-working individuals, and a college education. Jobs come from consumer buying power: consumers buy and buy and buy until their buying power is 100% allocated--to necessities, to discretionary purchases, and to savings. When they are no longer willing and able to buy, there is no source to support the wage of an employee.

Wealth, thus, comes from technology: as we find ways to expend less labor time to produce the same goods, we run rounds of lay-offs and reduce the wage-labor cost of said goods. Remaining consumers end with more money in their pockets, and buy more of the same good or buy other goods; the additional production requires additional labor, thus replacing the lost jobs. So long as you don't create unemployment too quickly and you have sufficiently fast re-employment, the amount of stuff produced per-capita and purchased per-income goes up.

Standard-of-living raises as the proportion of income allocated to each individual increases. This includes infrastructure income (running water, etc.), although that's hard to measure (so are a lot of things). That means wages fall as a percentage of total income, population expands, and everyone lives better.

This leads to the consideration of income concentration: you create fewer jobs if you concentrate income. In a given economic state, you can increase consumer buying power by reducing the wage-labor cost of a product through the direct action of reducing the wages associated with the laborers. This controls prices against inflation (they rise more slowly than inflation). The additional money in remaining consumer pockets, again, leads to more purchasing and more jobs.

At a point, you wind up with the ability to create more jobs than you can sustain. In America, for example, a little less than half (48%) of the income goes to the upper 10% of earners, and they take home around 1/3 of the total take-home pay after taxes. If you were to adjust and level out the other 90% (the incomes under $141,000) and move down some of the high-income money, costs would fall; and employment would increase dramatically. You'd experience labor shortages: people would necessarily have enough money to purchase more than 100% of the labor force can provide.

In fact, it's possible to create such a system that hits 118% employment with 4.5% lower corporate income taxes, 6% lower corporate payroll taxes, and less than a 43% top tax bracket. At that level, a married-filing-jointly household with $80,000 of income actually takes home more than $80,000. To compensate for the labor shortage, you'd have to make everyone ~20% poorer by amending the Fair Labor Standard Act to define Full Time Employment as 26-32 hours per week--a 4-day work week. Because this is blanket across the whole labor force, no raising of wages or other mechanism would compensate for the wage income loss (you'd only get inflation by raising wages). People would work 4 days per week, they'd have 20% less income, and our unemployment would rise to 5.6%.

Similarly, you could make people poorer and increase total unemployment in the American non-H1B workforce by replacing H1B laborers with more-expensive American laborers, thus increasing the cost of products, reducing consumer buying power, reducing the number of direct workers required, reducing the amount of logistics labor required, reducing retail labor required, reducing marketing labor required, reducing shipping labor required, reducing labor required at oil refineries and ene

Re:It can't be said too many times

[swimboy]

I concur. I actually *wanted* iTunes to delete all of the music from my local drive that had been uploaded to the cloud to free up space and had to jump through a few hoops to get it to happen. So the thought of this happening *automatically* is a bit suspect.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Geoffrey.landis]

user should learn to configure his stuff before setting a torch to his local content

No, Apple should learn to not set a torch to content on user's machine

Re:It can't be said too many times

[cpotoso]

rm -rf / is even better!

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Squiddie]

Or you can just refuse to use proprietary software that puts the interests of the developer over those of the user.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[sjames]

It may be one of the few cases of actual theft since the result is that Apple gains a copy and he lost one.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Altus]

Still a piss poor design, violates the principle of least surprise and apples UI standards.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Psst! you forgot the "-r"

Re:It can't be said too many times

[nikkipolya]

What kind of software removes files from a local disk without even asking for user confirmation?

Appleware.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[EvilSS]

The entirety of iTunes is a piss poor design. It's like there's some secret cave under Apple HQ where a bunch of early 90's developers live and work on iTunes and no one else at Apple can find it to put a stop to it.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[mlts]

Backing up isn't straightforward though, especially on Windows. Windows Server editions have a decent backup program (wbadmin), while the client side, the best out there is likely Veeam.

Even then, one needs to consider ransomware blowing away shares, so one needs to either backup the backups, use a WORM style for media, or use a pull based system like WHS. For a home user, arguably the best way to fix this is a NAS appliance that can pop snapshots of the shares, as well as back itself to an external HDD.

Of course, there is the biggest issue... I've seen rigorous backups done... but no restores tested, which lead to disaster down the road. Ideally, people need at least two different backup methods, so if something gets trashed, there is another available. Veeam on a BitLocker protected drive + Mozy might be one way. Time Machine and a cron job which dumps documents to a backup repository is another.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[YoungManKlaus]

Don't blame the developer. It's the corporation who pays the developer you have to look out for.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[HiThere]

I'm sorry if that was your honest opinion, but when I read it my first thought was "I wonder who's paying him to post.".

It that *is* your honest opinion, I hope I never use any software that you write.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[HiThere]

Does that still work? I thought that had been disabled.

Of course you could do:
rm -rf "/*[A-z0-9]"
I'm relatively sure THAT hasn't been disabled. But you also need to be logged in as root.

Or perhaps a variation on:
mv * /dev/null
I've never tried it, of course...

Re:It can't be said too many times

[HiThere]

It doesn't matter WHAT your OS. That this was intentional on Apple's part is just one mode of failure. Hard disks crash.

The answer is backups. Backups. Backups. So far usb hard disks are reasonable backup devices, but if it's important, don't rely on just one.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[whoever57]

That sounds more like an edge case mistake where it mis-identified the song in question

Your "edge case mistake" is my bug!

If you RTFA, you will see that this person experienced this "edge case" in more than one file.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck should they be deleting files they don't recognize?

In what universe does that even make sense?

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Anonymous Coward]

This also happened to me. If you don't use all Apple products to manage your music at all times, you are opening yourself up to problems. It didn't delete everything, but I would constantly find missing songs. It would delete mp3/wmas and re-encode as m4a. It would create multiple copies of songs.

The ONLY thing I did out of the ordinary was copy files to/from USB drive. I didn't use iTunes. I just fucking copied files. Maybe that makes me an advanced user, according to Apple software. But because they hide absolutely everything from the user, there's little way to know what seemingly-prosaic actions will trigger a complete failure on Apple's part.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[macs4all]

Backups, Dude. Backups.

Especially since Time Machine makes backing-up absolutely brain-dead simple.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[macs4all]

user should learn to configure his stuff before setting a torch to his local content

No, Apple should learn to not set a torch to content on user's machine

While I agree, I also understand that most people would whine even louder about DUPLICATES in their iTunes Library caused by the iTunes Match.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Gr8Apes]

It's not an edge case wrt to music, given the large large catalog of remixes and mashups people have locally, along with multiple releases over time of any popular song or even bootleg recordings. In fact, for large collections, I'd say the edge case would be the simple matches that Apple Music appears to have done, as any large collection is bound to have oddities in it.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[scdeimos]

Why the fuck should they be deleting files?

In what universe does that even make sense?

FTFY

Re:It can't be said too many times

[nfras]

If an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters will eventually write Romeo and Juliet, a handful of syphilitic code-monkeys with iMacs seem to have produced iTunes and unleashed it upon the masses.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[ColaMan]

And still do backups. Lots of backups.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[ChrisMaple]

This is deliberate action by Apple. It would cost Apple a lot more if they did what they lead you to believe they're doing, copy your music onto a cloud in a place exclusively dedicated to you. Instead they're storing a link to one copy for everybody, and failing even to ensure that the content is identical. Dishonest, misleading, incompetent, lazy: computers for "the rest of us."

Re:It can't be said too many times

[ChrisMaple]

Trickle-down economics doesn't work: jobs don't come from corporate initiatives, small-business owners, hard-working individuals, and a college education. Jobs come from consumer buying power

Just whom are you trying to mislead? Trickle-down is rich people having money to purchase stuff (consumer buying power), and those purchases are what drives the creation of jobs.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Guy Harris]

Psst! you forgot the "-r"

That's only necessary if you want to remove directories from the local disk.

(But if you want to remove files with more than one character in the name, you probably want rm -f * rather than rm -f ?. :-))

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Patchw0rk F0g]

Non-story? Bullshit! I'm a freelance composer myself. If Apple uploaded files from my computer (forget about deleting them!), and tried to resell them to me -- and to others! -- I'd sue their asses into the twenty-second century! Man, I'm usually pretty restrained and laid-back in my posts, but this really pisses me off. I hope someone out there is following up with a lawsuit if this happened to them.

Re: It can't be said too many times

[DThorne]

It's only a non-story to someone trying to be cool and more experienced than everyone else - you know, your average Slashdot user...
Come off it - buried in the EULA or not, this is inexplicably idiotic and arguably illegal behaviour. Once again Apple treats it's user base as perpetual noobs who are only aware of the apple garden.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[NotInHere]

Lol seems I opened a can of worms here

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Samizdata]

Use this one simple trick to free up hard drive space! Sysadmins hate it!

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Shirley Marquez]

They could remove it from the iTunes database without actually deleting the files. That would have been a more responsible thing to do.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[Samizdata]

So, yeah, I am going to believe a conflicting article from ANY site that starts their name with a lower case i and prominently features Apple online store affiliate links.

Re: It can't be said too many times

[Karlt1]

I am starting to feel like this is like the old canard that iTunes rearranges your music library and won't allow you to organize the music as you please when iTunes has always had an option to do so -since 2003.

Re: It can't be said too many times

[Samizdata]

Well, I can NOT see a single reason why any application should be allowed to delete ANY user files without it saying "HEY! GOING TO DELETE YOUR FILES NOW!" "ARE YOU SURE?" "ARE YOU REALLY REALLY SURE?" (excepting file managers, of course, but they usually warn you quite well, and you are in a file manager and not, say, a cloud music service)

Re:It can't be said too many times

[macs4all]

They could remove it from the iTunes database without actually deleting the files. That would have been a more responsible thing to do.

Maybe. But I think that, no matter what they did, it would surprise/tick-off SOMEbody.

Re:It can't be said too many times

[cthulhu11]

It's popular to make vague claims like this, but nobody ever describes what they consider so awful. I have to conclude that the real fault is "because it allows one to buy music". And WTF does iTunes have to do with the goofy rebranded Beats ?

Re:It can't be said too many times

[macs4all]

Made by the same company that will silently upload your files to cloud and them delete them? Yeah, not using that either.

You do realize, if course, that that story has been completely discredited. Look around in this thread, and you'll see...

Re: It can't be said too many times

[scotjam]

"I'm pretty confident it's covered by the EULA..." I'm afraid that's no excuse for deleting someone's property. EULA should never be sufficient to bind someone to this kind of agreement in practice. Explicit consent to this specific provision should be required, or better yet deletion should require end-user authorisation at time of deletion (so the user knows what is being deleted). It freaks me out when real life starts heading towards parody to this extent: https://youtu.be/sglZGSwK6ow

Re: It can't be said too many times

[scotjam]

"Warns in the ToS..."

That's no excuse - deleting my stuff should require explicit permission at time of deletion for the specific files it wants to delete.

Otherwise we're heading for the era of the HumaniCentiPad:
htps://youtu.be/sglZGSwK6ow

Re:It can't be said too many times

[peawormsworth]

Backups, Dude. Backups.

Read the EULA dude. EULAs.

Here is a clue: if you buy a computer and you do not like the license that is presented to you when your bring it home and first boot the computer, then TAKE THE COMPUTER BACK for a refund.

I don't know about the Apple EULA, but the Microsoft one says it can and will do exactly what Apple did to this guy. Basically they will delete your software and data at their discretion and with intent.

If you accept it, then you are the nutball.

Double-standard

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft had done this, people would be losing their minds. Since it's Apple, it's a non-story, wtf?

Re:Double-standard

[bazmail]

Because Apple knows best. It actually called "detuning" your laptop. Actually.

Re:Double-standard

[Lisandro]

Seriously. This is no different from some Russian malware encrypting your disk for a ransom.

Re:Double-standard

[AmiMoJo]

It's an interesting insight into Apple's view of the world. All music must be either ripped (and thus backed up) or bought from iTunes. Therefore, deleting it isn't an issue, you can now stream it and iTunes will re-download it if you have an iPod. There are no other use cases, all other workflows are incorrect. iTunes manages all your audio files, you shouldn't even be looking at them. You click play in iTunes, it plays (subject to internet connection, fees may apply), it works perfectly and in the most intuitive and revolutionary manner possible.

Re:Double-standard

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If Microsoft had done this, people would be losing their minds.

Well, at the very least, those of them who stored their minds onto their Windows partitions would.

Re:Double-standard

[Sir_Eptishous]

Yes, you are correct sir.

Re:Double-standard

[Aighearach]

RedHat never did this to me.

Maybe the problem isn't with Apple, it is with proprietary software in general? If it didn't even respect your freedom, why would it respect you at all?

Re:Double-standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine itunes deleting all the audio assets from your computer games.

Re:Double-standard

[Matheus]

Exactly why I continue to boycott Apple's products. Their view of the world has not meshed with mine since Woz left the company.

Re:Double-standard

[WarlockD]

It's an interesting insight into Apple's view of the world. All music must be either ripped (and thus backed up) or bought from iTunes. Therefore, deleting it isn't an issue, you can now stream it and iTunes will re-download it if you have an iPod. There are no other use cases, all other workflows are incorrect. iTunes manages all your audio files, you shouldn't even be looking at them. You click play in iTunes, it plays (subject to internet connection, fees may apply), it works perfectly and in the most intuitive and revolutionary manner possible.

Fuck. I can't tell if your trolling, being sarcastic, explaining or being a fanboy. Excellent Post!

Re:Double-standard

[Grishnakh]

Sometimes I really wish I could go back to the days when the Apple ][ was current.

Re:Double-standard

[ArhcAngel]

one of the healthiest foods on the planet

Healthy?
Humanity was immortal until that dimwit Adam ate one!

Re:Double-standard

[CronoCloud]

The ][? What are you a glutton for punishment? At least make it the //e

Re:Double-standard

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no other use cases, all other workflows are incorrect.

This sums up Apple pretty well.
If you fit their perceived use case then everything is fine and everything will "just work".

If you on the other hand "think different" then you are "holding it wrong" and are pretty much screwed.
Luckily I don't own any apple products so I don't get screwed by them and frankly he should have seen this coming. It's not like Apple don't have a history.

Re:Double-standard

[Xel]

Um, it IS a story. You're reading it on Slashdot. Actually its been all over my internet today. I've read it on Facebook, on Reddit, and god knows where else.

The reason it SHOUDLNT be a story because Apple didn't do anything. Do you honestly believe iTunes forcefully deletes local files off of every Apple user's hard drive? And it hasn't been talked about until just now? Apples terms of use and documentation explicitly state no files will be deleted. Ive set up iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud and iTunes Match (because the original blogger clearly doesn't understand they are different services, Im covering all of my bases here) countless times on countless devices. And Ive known countless people who have, as well. This has never happened to them. This is a case of user error and nothing more.

Re:Double-standard

[wanted]

You forgot to use "amazing" a few times at least :-)

Excellent comment.

Re:Double-standard

[R3d M3rcury]

Actually, that's an interesting argument!

So, okay, I'll be nice to Apple and rationalize it. According to Apple, the advantage to things like Apple music is that all my music is in the cloud, automatically updating across my plethora of Apple devices and giving me access even when I use a non-Apple device via the web(?). I'm freeing up space on my computer and my iPhone, which I can use for more Apps. This is a good thing!

Okay, fine. I'll agree.

But what happens if I stop my subscription? I call up Apple and say, "Hey, Apple, I'm not paying you $9.99 anymore." What happens to the music that I bought? Okay, I can understand that I lose access to the songs that I rented via the Apple Music service and that, if I want to listen to them, I have to go out and buy them. But what about that music that Apple "synced" to the cloud and removed from my machine. I should be able to get that back, right?

Nope. Sorry. Hope you had a back-up.

Re:Double-standard

[Koen Lefever]

No it isn't. It is lightening your hard drive. Because it doesn't hold as much data anymore. It is now lighter.

If you had ever used punch cards, you would know that data has a negative mass.

Re:Double-standard

[Gr8Apes]

iTunes allows for keeping your music as is or moving it to the Library. So there are at least 2 workflows....

Re:Double-standard

[Guy Harris]

No it isn't. It is lightening your hard drive. Because it doesn't hold as much data anymore. It is now lighter.

If you had ever used punch cards, you would know that data has a negative mass.

1 bits have negative mass on punched cards.

On NAND flash (which many newer Macs are using as the "local disk"), at least if the Wikipedia page is to be believed, 0 bits have positive mass, as there's a charge stored in the cell.

Re:Double-standard

[BrinkeGuthrie]

"it works perfectly and in the most intuitive and revolutionary manner possible." Sounds like Fake Steve Jobs to me. #WIN

Re:Double-standard

[Samizdata]

I loved my early Apples (and even my Basis 108 (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=92)), but I rather enjoy the increased abilities modern computing now offer.

Don't call it a "glitch"

[PeeAitchPee]

Sounds like Apple Music is functioning exactly as Apple designed it.

Re:Don't call it a "glitch"

[gyepi]

Between this and iTunes failing even in the most basic task of playing music, I wonder why anyone still uses Apple music services.

Re:Don't call it a "glitch"

[mccalli]

That bug looks like the 2003 iPod bug - Xing vs Fraunhoffer headers in an MP3 VBR. I posted about it at the time..

Re:Don't call it a "glitch"

[gyepi]

Many of my mp3-s from which iTunes jumps and skips to the next song are not VBR, but fixed bit rate mp3-s.

But thanks for the guess, for a second I hoped that this could be the source of the problem..

Re:Don't call it a "glitch"

[oldcarsmell]

Nobody I've spoken at Apple or outside the company has any idea how to fix it, so the chances of a positive outcome seem slim to none.

You mean to tell me nobody at Apple knows how to not delete files? Also just like iMessages, this will continue hurting iPhone users' data caps

no sympathy here.

[nimbius]

This isn't the first time Apple Music has deleted a users' locally stored music files.

You ran proprietary software on a closed source OS from a vendor that operates sweatshops with suicide netting and, most importantly, has a track record for disrespecting user rights. While I tune up the worlds tinyest violin and get going on my rendition of the Free Software Song, why not take a look at http://distrowatch.com/ for some examples of operating systems that put you in the drivers seat, and https://osalt.com/ for software that doesnt trample your ability to rock out mellow folk sensation Roger Whittaker at four in the morning.

Re:no sympathy here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple does not "operates sweatshops with suicide netting", Foxconn is contracted by Apple and a lot of other companies to build their stuff.

You can bash Apple all you like, but keep it to facts please.

Re:no sympathy here.

[ogdenk]

They might not "operate" them but they know full well what goes on there and purposely hunt down cheap companies in countries where workers are shamelessly abused to shave some pennies off their bottom line.

While not directly operating them, it shows that they don't give a shit which IMHO makes them complicit. And I'm willing to bet that Apple is Foxconn's biggest customer which means they could have influence to change the situation if they wanted to.

Re:no sympathy here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple does not "operates sweatshops with suicide netting", Foxconn is contracted by Apple and a lot of other companies to build their stuff.

You can bash Apple all you like, but keep it to facts please.

... and Hitler probably didn't kill anyone personally...

Re:no sympathy here.

[PraiseBob]

Right- Apple is similar to a jewelry manufacturer who gets their diamonds from conflict zones. People can throw about terms like blood diamond, but the jeweler is just paying for a product on the open market. Why should the jewelry manufacturer care about the working conditions, right? Just like jewelry manufacturers have zero responsibility to avoid blood diamonds, Apple has zero responsibility to care if a subcontractor who make iPhones uses slave labor or has horrible working conditions.

Re:no sympathy here.

[Aighearach]

Sure, sure, but the fact is that the suicide rate in those factories is low; they're simply big enough to be the city of cities, their population is large enough that there will be some suicides. The rate is low, and most of the workers are happy to be there.

A lot of the features like free on-site housing that people in the West complain about are perks. The workers are mostly migrants, they're not from across town. They're not there to live the good life in the city. They don't have their families there with them. They're there to work for a few years, save most of the money they earn, and then go back to where they are from and have enough money to start a new life, go back to school, open a small business, or even retire early.

Just like, if you're hiring people to work in a factory in Alaska, away from their families, a lot of people are more willing to do it if you make sure they don't have to spend money on expensive local products while they're there.

Hating Apple is great, but hating them on behalf of Foxconn workers is ignorant.

Re:no sympathy here.

[jedidiah]

As a "luxury vendor" they could operate their own factories that they have full control over in some 1st world country an they would still make obscene margins.

Re:no sympathy here.

[barc0001]

Whew. For a second there I was worried Slashdot was becoming something else, more inclusive, even compassionate. But you doubled down on tech elitism and victim blaming, so all is right in the world again.

Newsflash: Most people in the world don't have the tech skills to operate a Windows computer or a Mac properly, they're sure as hell not going to get on board with a linux distro that won't run the software they do their work with. And Apple and others go out of their way to sing the praises of their "just works" music services so how is the average non-tech literate Joe on the street supposed to find out about obscure incidents where music disappears. And this guy does deserve praise over and above the average non tech because at least he made a backup: "I recovered my original music files only by using a backup I made weeks earlier."

You're like that stereotypical IT troll who when they hear that someone's Lenovo or Dell workstation died on them and need help, launches into a 20 minute rant about how that wouldn't have happened at all if they'd just taken the time to learn to build their own bespoke workstation from the finest parts with a $200 power supply and water cooling setup, so how are they supposed to have sympathy for a useless pleb who just buys off the shelf computers like a mindless peasant?

Re:no sympathy here.

[jedidiah]

From an "IT perspective", if you bought a fancy brand name product then the only people that CAN help you with it is the vendor. Otherwise you run the risk of voiding the warranty on your very expensive toy.

Also, you don't need to build a "custom" system yourself. You never have. Not since the old days of Computer Shopper.

On the other hand, if you aren't building from scratch it's good to know what you're buying.

Some basic computer literacy and basic sense of organization (which has nothing to do with tech) are both very useful. That way you can easily back up your precious stuff with a single drag+drop operation. No "special tools" and no "cloud" required.

A little knowledge is just self-defense against a whole world of people that want to take advantage of you in some way.

You can protect yourself against a hostile world or pretend that the world will magically change to be safer for you. The latter mentality handicaps people in all sorts of ways (not just computing).

Re:no sympathy here.

[Grishnakh]

And exactly what is your proposal for fixing this problem? Beg Apple to stop doing this stuff? (And beg Microsoft to disable GWX while you're at it?)

These vendors don't care about users' needs; the only way you're going to avoid these problems is to stop patronizing these vendors.

As for a workstation dying, that's a dumb analogy. Hardware fails from time to time, because everything physical wears out at some point, not necessarily because some corporation decided to do something nefarious. If your workstation's power supply dies, you go buy a replacement and your data is still where you left it. But intentionally deleting a user's data, or forcibly "upgrading" his OS, or spying on him, is nefarious, and these vendors are going to keep doing it as long as users let them get away with it. The only way to stop them is to stop using their products.

Re:no sympathy here.

[barc0001]

> Some basic computer literacy and basic sense of organization (which has nothing to do with tech) are both very useful

For technically inclined people I think that's a given. Unfortunately for others, there are a lot of users of computers, tablets and smartphones out there who have little or no literacy because the things are sold as consumer commodity devices. Computers now are cars of 30 years ago in terms of user competence. Grandma can open Chrome but can't interpret a warning on a potentially hostile site correctly any more than she could change the oil in her car - or even know the oil needed changing! And of course it's easy to tut-tut her when her error becomes a costly mistake, but that doesn't change the fact that she and millions like her don't have the required literacy for that subject, and never will.

> You can protect yourself against a hostile world or pretend that the world will magically change to be safer for you.

While you're correct, part of the problem is that Apple's advertising over the last 15 years has stressed that they are going out of their way to make their products fulfill that whole "safer for you" bit. So you can see how a reasonable person would think that by buying an Apple product or service that they were doing something proactive to ensure they were safe(r). And at the same time it's a bit of a stretch to expect the average person to dig into the nitty gritty of how every software does certain things. Do you have Dropbox for example? Did you do a whole bunch of looking into if it would delete or consolidate files? What about Spotify? Before installing it did you poke around and see what it would do to all music on your system? So how is it reasonable to have someone defensively look for information on how Apple Music (a streaming service) might consolidate and delete existing music and sound files on your computer?

Re:no sympathy here.

[barc0001]

> And exactly what is your proposal for fixing this problem?

It's a complicated problem, but I am sure people posting with a title like "No sympathy here" doesn't do jack shit to help fix it either.

> But intentionally deleting a user's data, or forcibly "upgrading" his OS, or spying on him, is nefarious, and these vendors are going to keep doing it as long as users let them get away with it. The only way to stop them is to stop using their products.

But again we're back to the whole "tech literacy" problem. The only way for the general public to stop using their products are to either dramatically increase their tech literacy, or stop using computers/tablets/smart phones altogether. So which one of those "hell freezes over" events do you think will happen first?

I don't think there is any one "right" answer but this is why things like class action lawsuits and legislation get brought up - because you have companies playing fast and loose with products targeted to an uneducated customer base and the customer is in many cases incapable of looking after their own interests properly.

Re:no sympathy here.

[CronoCloud]

Most people in the world don't have the tech skills to operate a Windows computer or a Mac properly,

I would agree with that

they're sure as hell not going to get on board with a linux distro that won't run the software they do their work with.

But I can't "entirely" agree with this. Linux is much better than it was, even compared with 10 years ago. And most people who have Windows at home running iTunes or iMusic aren't doing "work". They're watching cat videos on Facebook.

So a Linux distro would work as well for them as Windows...as long as they're not tied to iTunes. (In other words Android users would find it easier)

Re:no sympathy here.

[barc0001]

Linux is way better, but it's still not "there". Is your tech illiterate cousin or uncle going to install it on a machine they bought or use what's already on there and they "paid" for the OS already? Plus the guy in the article works for a design and photo firm which implies probable heavy use of Adobe products like InDesign, Photoshop, etc.

The simple fact is that it's not reasonable to expect the majority of people to go through the process of switching their PC or Mac over to an open source OS for a variety of reasons, any more than it's reasonable to expect the majority of smartphone users will jailbreak their iPhones or root and install Cyanogen or similar on their android handsets, even if it was a 5 click process.

Re:no sympathy here.

[HiThere]

Very well: Apple knowingly contracts out production to a sweatshop, giving them billions of dollars in business year after year. One must assume they did due diligence and didn't find a problem with the labor practices. I don't believe anyone gets a pass just because they contract work out.

If I had mod points I'd dither between insightful and informative.

Re:no sympathy here.

[crunchygranola]

...Just like jewelry manufacturers have zero responsibility to avoid blood diamonds...

Jewelry manufacturers almost everywhere have legal obligations to avoid blood diamonds. The Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, which was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/56 is binding on all UN member states and requires all diamonds being imported or exported to be traceable through certification to be non-conflict diamonds. Member states in turn have laws and regulations enforcing these requirements. Further jewelry manufacturers and vendors are representing their products to the public as being conflict diamond free. So aside from legal, moral, and ethical (e.g. lying to your customers) responsibilities, they have zero responsibilities?

Re:no sympathy here.

[BasilBrush]

Where do you think your computer and smartphone are manufactured, dummy?

Re:no sympathy here.

[Grishnakh]

The problem here is that you only have a few actually viable solutions to improve the situation: 1) don't use the software, 2) lawsuit, or 3) government regulation. Begging the companies to stop being dicks isn't going to work, no matter how much some naive people may think that it does.

But the problem is that the government in the US sure as hell isn't going to do anything about this stuff (they haven't before now, the closest we've seen was the MS antitrust trial of the 90s and that wasn't even a slap on the wrist in the end; Apple does not have a monopoly so antitrust law doesn't apply here). That leaves lawsuits, but these companies have been doing this stuff for ages to some degree and they've never lost a lawsuit. Heck, has anyone ever tried suing Microsoft for their crappy software? Of course not. Good luck suing a company that size unless you have a real slam-dunk case and lawyers ready to take it on contingency. EULAs have already been upheld in court, so I don't think you're going to get far with that. And as others have pointed out, the user had the option to change this (even though the option wasn't well advertised and not the default), and the music wasn't completely deleted, they still have access to it in "the cloud".

That leaves #1: stop using these companies' crappy software.

So, if you have any better suggestions besides "it's a complicated problem" and some other vague hand-waving, I'd like to hear them. I've offered the only viable solution I see here and have backed it up with evidence and logic.

Re:no sympathy here.

[Uberbah]

You ran proprietary software on a closed source OS from a vendor that operates sweatshops with suicide netting and, most importantly, has a track record for disrespecting user rights.

Uh huh. And how many of your electronics have not been made by Foxxcon or another "sweatshop" contractor?

Engineering

[110010001000]

For as much money as Apple makes, their software engineering teams seem to be a disaster. Single line OSX exploits that give root, iTunes is a mess, etc. What a disaster. Time to replace the CEO and executive team.

Re:Engineering

[new_01]

Nobody's happy. The world won't be happy with an Apple CEO until Steve Jobs resurrects from the dead.

Re:Engineering

[JoeMerchant]

Lots of features are broken out of the box. OS-X has lots of situations where a minor hardware hiccough will do bad things, up to and including bricking your machine requiring a complete OS re-install (if you've encrypted your home folder and shutdown doesn't go perfectly smoothly.)

The assumption here is that they control the hardware, so it will be perfect every time - old news flash: it isn't.

Re:Engineering

[R3d M3rcury]

QuickTime wasn't so bad...
 
...on a Mac.

Re:Engineering

[PCM2]

I think it's telling that they gave me a Macbook at work and 90 percent of the software I use on it every day is made by Microsoft and Google.

All Apple really cares about is operating its online stores. The fact that the client for one of those stores turned out to be invasive malware is a trivial oversight.

Re:Engineering

[mfearby]

OSX is such a disaster that every Mac I've ever come across is riddled with spyware, browser toolbar add-ons, etc.... oh wait, they were actually Windows machines. My bad. I haven't yet seen a Mac infected thus (including my own, which has no so-called "anti-virus" or other such software on it).

Software should not think for users.

[captaindomon]

This is a classic example of when a software system is trying to make decisions, instead of helping them perform tasks, and it's a critical difference. I'm a big Apple fan, especially for mobile devices, but the fact that I still can't access the file system without hokey workarounds makes me really angry, for example.

quest for simplicity

[e432776]

Terrible design decision by Apple. No warning box that all your local copies would be matched/stored on their machines and then deleted? My guess is that this would be too "complicated". Putting a warning in the TOS is not enough in my opinion. The software is far too 'automatic', and now ventures into the area of being opaque and unmanageable by the user. Should be obvious that is you are going to delete a single bit of personal data off someone's drive you would give a warning. Also: silly headline on the story. Finally: backups or lack of them don't in any way excuse this appalling software design decision by Apple. That's just blaming the victim.

Re:quest for simplicity

[Mr D from 63]

Not having a very clear option/choice up front before it deletes local content is pretty bad if that's the case. There are many obvious reasons to keep a local copy. It is one way for Cook to achieve the 'can't live without' goal.

Also, read thei nstructions

[Anonymous Coward]

That is how iCloud music library works. It uploads your files and stores them. If there is a match, you can download a high quality version. If not, it stores your original version. You can download your music at any time, permanently. Nothing has been deleted or 'stolen'.

And yes, backups, welcome to digital file management. None of this has magically gone away because we use mobile devices as connection points, the underlying tech is the same as it's ever been. I blame silicon valley for its hyperbole causing people to believe we are living in the world of star trek when really under the surface not much has changed since the 90s.

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[ledow]

Should not delete LOCAL copies.

I mean, why would you? They aren't on Apple's storage, they don't cost Apple anything, it's stored on your own laptop or whatever. To delete, then giving ONLY ONE COPY of the user's files - original creations including commercial MP3's - is downright obnoxious behaviour from a piece of software.

It's like Google Drive deleting your My Documents but, don't worry, it's "in the cloud" so you can just download it again *

(*at your own time and expense, and assuming you aren't bandwidth limited and that you get them all before your subscriptions expire and your only remaining copies are deleted from the cloud).

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[Anonymous Coward]

They also do it with purchased applications. I lived in FL, moved to the UK with my gear, Apple decided to revoke access to everything I purchased through their store; support told me to fuck off - it's in the EULA. Strange that Microsoft, Stream, Sony and Google purchases were fine regardless of where I was.

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[Bootsy Collins]

That is how iCloud music library works. It uploads your files and stores them. If there is a match, you can download a high quality version. If not, it stores your original version. You can download your music at any time, permanently. Nothing has been deleted or 'stolen'.

Did you actually RTFA? He *couldn't* download a copy of rare alternate versions he had; those are gone, replaced with the standard version of tracks, because the band and song names are the same. Nor could he download his own music, the music he wrote and performed and recorded himself, in the full WAV 16 bit/44.1k form he had it in -- only in a lossy format, because Apple converted the WAVs to a lossy format and threw them away.

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[Aighearach]

Why? Because once they've uploaded your crap and deleted it all, you can't go back. You'd have to replace your whole media library to switch to a different OS. For a lot of users, this means Apple basically owns them.

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesnt. still have my local copies. guy fucked up or lied

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[R3d M3rcury]

I mean, why would you?

Because that's one of the advantages!

All your music is in the cloud, so it doesn't have to sit there taking up space on your computer or phone (and Apple can get away with selling computers and phones with fast but paltry storage).

And as long as you pay your $9.99 a month, you can keep listening to them. In fact, you'd better pay your $9.99 a month because, if you don't, you've lost all your music.

That's a nice music collection you have there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it...

Re:Also, read thei nstructions

[KozmoStevnNaut]

That kind of thinking makes my skin crawl, but maybe I'm as guilty as anyone else. I insta-upload all my photos to Google Photos and delete the local copy on my phone (to save space), so there is really only that one copy.

On the other hand, my music is stored locally on my PC, synced to Google Drive, backed up to a NAS and uploaded to Google Play Music. I do not ever want to rip everything by hand all over again.

Perhaps I really should follow the same philosophy with my photos.

REALLY BAD Design

[gurps_npc]

Any well designed system with a delete function should have an undo function.

Any well designed software should have an EASY way to designate which parts of a network it will have access to and which it will have no access to.

Any well designed software should make it very clear what it is doing and get permission, not assume it is granted.

Failing to do all three of these things in the hallmark of incredibly bad software - not being able to undo deletions, requiring full access, and unclear permissions are the kind of thing you expect from a Virus, not Apple

BS

[rexbinary]

I've got decade old music files that Apple Music did not delete from my Mac. Apple Music also properly uploaded those files to iCloud so I can stream them to my iOS devices.

Re:BS

[sl3xd]

+this. I have hundreds of CD's that I've ripped to MP3 or AAC over the past 17 years. I'm doing all of the Apple-y things (iCloud Music Library, Apple Music Trial, etc.)

Nothing has ever been deleted, or even modified from my iTunes library. The SHA1sums match my decade-old backups. It's amazing how easy it is to verify when you actually, you know, back up important data.

I'm wondering exactly what the article's author did differently, or if TFA's author is simply trolling fanbois of all persuasions.

Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[Lisandro]

After all, Apple is downloading his music from his machine and uploading it to Cupertino without permission.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[PRMan]

He gave permission. Didn't you read the EULA?

Even better, the MAFIAA can review his music now, because he signed up for that as well.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[Lisandro]

I'm dead serious. Even if Apple plastered that "right" on a EULA i really doubt it'd be enforceable.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: The letters EULA is not some kind of magic that makes any kind of shit fly. If you write some retarded EULA, and proceed to do shit on someones computer the "magic" EULA purportedly gives your right to, be prepared to have large swaths of it struck as "unenforceable" and similar, and get out that paddle, because you're way out in the shit creek.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[Mashiki]

EULA's aren't binding in a lot of places. In some countries, they're not even considered a form of contract or agreement because the EULA attempts to waive rights which can not be waived, which makes the entire thing void.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[Aighearach]

EULA's aren't binding in a lot of places. In some countries, they're not even considered a form of contract or agreement because the EULA attempts to waive rights which can not be waived, which makes the entire thing void.

No, it makes the narrow part of it they're suing you for unenforceable.

Courts do not throw out a whole contract because a part of it is not enforceable. Courts make the narrowest change possible that leaves the agreement in place. If you try to sue them for copyright infringement, and then try to claim it is a violation because you're challenging the permission you gave them, that is going to just piss off the judge. You'll never get any money out of that situation.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[angel'o'sphere]

Courts do not throw out a whole contract because a part of it is not enforceable.
Actually they do.
In Germany (and most of Europe) a contract is void if a single clause is against the law.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[DoofusOfDeath]

Newsflash: The letters EULA is not some kind of magic that makes any kind of shit fly.

Nope, that comes from the fact that only extremely rich entities can afford to pursue justice against Apple.

Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?

[Grishnakh]

Hahaha! Good luck with that. I'd really like to see you sue Apple over their EULA.

Apple's Walled Garden - the Walls growing

[QuietLagoon]

...removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted....

I am sure that buried somewhere deep in Apple's ToS and/or EULA you have given Apple permission to provide this deletion service for you.

.
But this is just another symptom of how Apple is taking more and more control of your digital life.

I recently gave away my new AppleTV gen4 because it was a giant step backwards for me. The UI was slow, buggy and generally difficult to use. I've reverted to using my old AppleTV gen2. That is, I'll be using it until I free myself and my media from the Apple media infrastructure completely. Which is odd for me to say, because a few years ago I had started to make a wholesale move to transition completely to Apple products. What happened to that transition? Apple convinced me that it was not a good idea.

Like the OP, Apple has demonstrated to me that it is not an appropriate vendor to help me with my media enjoyment, indeed, Apple has made my attempts to enjoy my media content more of a hassle than a pleasure.

Can't sue - but can press legal charges

[gurps_npc]

Their business model involves outright stealing.

No contract allows someone to steal from you, no matter what their lawyer thinks.

Don't sue them, insist on legal charges of theft being placed against them, specifically naming the programmers, lawyers, and CEO of Apple as the responsible party.

Agree to settle if they cancel the terms of their contract.

Re:Can't sue - but can press legal charges

[Orgasmatron]

You don't settle criminal complaints. If you convince a prosecutor that a crime committed and they file charges, the case becomes The State vs. The Defendant, because The State (aka the people at large) have an interest in law and order.

If you want to call it back at that point, the best you can do is recant your old testimony or try to convince the prosecutor to dismiss the case.

Re:Can't sue - but can press legal charges

[Aighearach]

It is a crime to make a false police report.

The cops will be a bit pissed when they find out you gave permission to take the stuff, and fibbed about the theft.

If you freely give away your software freedom, no crime was committed. Only a foolish act.

Re:Can't sue - but can press legal charges

[shawn2772]

Don't sue them, insist on legal charges of theft being placed against them

By "legal charges", I assume you mean "criminal charges". A couple of points.

1. You can't make a prosecutor file. Prosecutors are generally fairly receptive to citizen requests for prosecutions, but it's ultimately their decision and there's nothing you can do to either stop them from filing or make them file.

2. If your allegation is actually "theft", not copyright infringement, you're going probably going to run into the problem that for ripped music you can't allege theft since you should still have a copy, and for personally-created music you may have a problem substantiating enough value to raise it above petty theft. Also, if you can still download the music from the cloud, that may also prevent you from alleging theft, because you still have access to it.

3. If your allegation is copyright infringement, you need to be able to show that the infringement fits the requirements of the criminal copyright statutes. I don't think you could do that in this case, because it doesn't.

Agree to settle if they cancel the terms of their contract.

If you manage to get a prosecutor to file criminal charges, you can't "settle". Criminal actions are between the government and the perpetrator. The victim is at most allowed to express an opinion.

All in all, I think you'd have more luck with a civil suit for copyright infringement on the files to which you own the copyright. The EULA may try to limit your options, but it may not be successful. To be successful it would have to either (a) indicate that you agree to transfer copyright of your music to Apple, (b) indicate that you agree to grant Apple a license to your music or (c) indicate that you agree not to sue in the event Apple infringes your copyrights. I'd be flabbergasted if the EULA contained anything like (a) or (b), and even (c) is unlikely, and may not be enforceable even if present.

Keep in mind, I'm a computer programmer who likes legal stuff, not a lawyer. Everything above could be completely wrong.

Decision Making

[CodeArtisan]

Just wait until their self-driving car starts making decisions on your behalf.

When you lay down with a dog....

[GerryGilmore]

...you WILL get fleas. Seriously, why would anyone use such a super-suck-worthy product from such a notoriously greedy company that is known to give less than a bubbly-fart's worth of care about their customers?

Re:When you lay down with a dog....

[bluefoxlucid]

This is bullshit. Dogs climb in my lap and beg for attention all the time and they're all treated for worms and fleas and weird diseases, and they never shed anything but hair on my pants. Dogs are excellent!

Re:This is why i switched to Google play music !!

[cogeek]

Google Play kept doing the exact opposite to me... I have my entire music library ripped to MP3s, I have them on my phone and uploaded them to Google Play's cloud storage. Then every time I played a song through the Google Music app, it downloaded it again to a different folder rather than playing it directly from the existing Music folder on my Android device. I stopped using Google Music and just use the built in music player now.

Holy crap

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"...iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple's database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn't recognize -- which came up often, since I'm a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself -- it would then download it to Apple's database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me"

Wow, what a fabulous process. I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong with this. Oh, wait...

Seriously, the idea that Apple (or any company) could remotely reach into your PC and remove arbitrary files is mind-bending. Yes, I'm sure their EULA "allows" it, but still, WTF??

Re:Holy crap

[idontgno]

The only way this could possibly get better is if Apple started selling his music -- his original compositions originally self-recorded onto local storage and then involuntarily moved to the cloud -- to other Apple Music customers without his consent. That would be the cherry on top of the milkshake.

I wonder if this might actually be happening? Would Apple be that arrogant?

Re:Holy crap

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

The only way this could possibly get better is if Apple started selling his music -- his original compositions originally self-recorded onto local storage and then involuntarily moved to the cloud -- to other Apple Music customers without his consent.

It could get better- they could sue him for illegally downloading/copying his own music, like the filthy profit-killing pirate he is!

iTunes and not really owning your stuff

[Yergle143]

I have accumulated a modest Apple music "collection" -- giftcards.

I have an old firewire iPod and an old laptop. Old G4 laptop started to give up the ghost, I want/went to authorize a G4 iMac I got (to use as a music server it's cute).

iMac iTunes can't phone home to authorize the music library I legally purchased. Not stupid, it's no longer safe to browse the internet with this old thing but it
can't even update it's iTunes to allow this basic function.

I am well aware of other means to get my Apple music into another format but it is annoying.

The cloud is a consumer rip off.

My collection of 78s does not have this problem.

Not normal behavior

[jsdcnet]

I'm not disputing that this happened to this guy, but deleting local files is not the standard behavior. I am also an indie musician with dozens to hundreds of my own compositions in my iTunes library. I signed up for Apple Music and none of my local files were touched at all. Sounds like he got hit by an unfortunate bug. Sucks that it happened, for sure. Hopefully anyone who signs up for a streaming service in the future will think to make a backup first, but it stinks that you have to do that.

Re:Not normal behavior

[Aighearach]

Typical Apple user; the company confirmed it, but you still don't believe, because if true it would suck. And Apple can't suck, even if they admitted to the behavior! groooooaaaaaaan

Re:Not normal behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Apple user; the company confirmed it, but you still don't believe, because if true it would suck. And Apple can't suck, even if they admitted to the behavior! groooooaaaaaaan

http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/

It's not Apple Music, it's iTunes Match, purchased separately. It did exactly what it's supposed to do.

So when someone says they bought Apple Music and it didn't migrate their music library to the cloud, they're not full of shit, you're just misinformed.

If you don't retain your AUTONOMY!

[burni2]

Things like this will happen to you.

Transferring your tasks, duties and obligations to other entities and enjoy the bliss of being free from these enjoying a certain kind of freedom that really is none.

Not new.

[kuzb]

AppleTV used to do this to my TV shows as well. The fact that apple doesn't allow you to redownload a purchase from their store is the reason I stopped using them entirely.

Re:Not new.

[LDAPMAN]

Huh?? It lets me re-download anything I have purchased.

If someone torches your car, it isn't stolen

[kwerle]

Same goes for music. They didn't steal it, they torched it.

But seriously (http://www.apple.com/itunes/music/):
iTunes Match
With iTunes Match, we store your music collection in iCloud — even songs you’ve imported from CDs. So you can access it from any of your devices and listen to your library wherever you are. Subscribe to iTunes Match on your Mac, PC, or iOS device for just $24.99 per year.

How did you not know that 'storing your music in the cloud' means that it ain't gonna be stored on your PC? That's kind of the whole point.

Re:If someone torches your car, it isn't stolen

[angel'o'sphere]

How did you not know that 'storing your music in the cloud' means that it ain't gonna be stored on your PC? That's kind of the whole point.
It does not imply in any way that something gets deleted from my laptop.
You know: store in cloud means "store" not "delete" and my laptop should be completely unaffected.

And the point here is not that stuff got deleted and stored in the cloud. The fact is: Apple is actually not storing anything in the cloud. If 1000 people "store" Song XYZ, there is only one single copy in the cloud. And Apple has a list of who "owns" what.

The problem is in this case: Apple deleted stuff from which they had no copy, as they were original works of the original owner.

The whole Apple idea how clouds work/should work is nonsense.

And why people use clouds is beyond me. A single 1 Terabyte drive is cheaper than a one year subscription to a cloud service.

Re:If someone torches your car, it isn't stolen

[kwerle]

It does not imply in any way that something gets deleted from my laptop.
You know: store in cloud means "store" not "delete" and my laptop should be completely unaffected.

Actually, it kind of does.

There is a bag of peaches on the counter.
"I'm going to store these peaches in the basement."
Where do you expect the peaches to be?

And the point here is not that stuff got deleted and stored in the cloud. The fact is: Apple is actually not storing anything in the cloud. If 1000 people "store" Song XYZ, there is only one single copy in the cloud. And Apple has a list of who "owns" what.

"I'm going to store this file at this URL."
Do you expect to be able to access that file at that URL? Do you know anything about how that file is stored or how many copies there are or how many people have access to it? None of those things matter - because that file is at that URL and you have access to it.

The problem is in this case: Apple deleted stuff from which they had no copy, as they were original works of the original owner.

Which is pretty much what they said they would do - so no surprise. And he had a backup - so no big deal.

Wait - what was the problem?

The whole Apple idea how clouds work/should work is nonsense.

And why people use clouds is beyond me. A single 1 Terabyte drive is cheaper than a one year subscription to a cloud service.

You have 5 devices. 3 of them are mobile and only have a few GB space. Hey! Wouldn't it be convenient to be able to access your TB of music from all of them and have all the data and metadata be sync'd no matter which device or where in the world you are?

Some people dig that. I am not one. But I understand why they do.

Re:If someone torches your car, it isn't stolen

[angel'o'sphere]

Which is pretty much what they said they would do - so no surprise. And he had a backup - so no big deal.

In the fine print? And? So what? It still makes no sense, obviously people get hit by surprise by stuff that makes no sense!

Hey! Wouldn't it be convenient to be able to access your TB of music from all of them and have all the data and metadata be sync'd no matter which device or where in the world you are?

No it would not be.

I know which of my devices has which music.

And I neither want them all synched nor any of them needing to access the internet to play my music.

That idea only works in the USA or China. The rest of the world consists of people who regularily leave their country. And hence can not afford the absurd costs of internet access with mobile devices etc. in foreign countries.

And as I bring my laptop with me anyway, why the funk should I stream my own music that I bought in Germany via iTunes again and again via a cellular internet connection or via an wifi connection in Thailand or Denmark or France?

Bottom line it means: out of internet, out of music. As soon as I'm sailing 30 miles or even 15 miles off the coast: there is no internet.

I fly on an Airplane, most of the time: there is no internet. I'm running on an Autobahn through France: there is no internet. I'm in a freaking train in germany, yes they are fast ... so theoretically you have internet but it changes the radio cell so often and so quickly that streaming and even phoning is impossible.

The whole idea to stream stuff you own from the "cloud" to your device makes not much sense.
All the stuff Apple deleted because it could not be matched should either be uploaded or left alone. That is a no brainer. And bottom line, regardless if you use such a service: I never would accept or expect it to delete a local copy. That simply is completely counter intuitive. I delete the local file. And then I expect it to be streamed. Stuff often streamed should be cashed. And then we are back on square one. Again the stuff is on my device. As long as I have not deleted my local file it obviously should not be streamed.

Re:If someone torches your car, it isn't stolen

[kwerle]

Actually I think it's more clever than that. I think it stores "a reasonable amount" on your local devices. The stuff you listen to most or something like that.

Again, it's not a service I use. But I understand why folks do.

He chose that setting

[Anonymous Coward]

When you first set up iTunes Match and have it scan your library there is a box asking if you want it to delete everything or leave it. I do not remember what the default is, but I am fairly sure it was to leave the files alone.

Also, when you are running iTunes with match enabled there is an icon next to every song saying if it is local or from the cloud, and you can click that button to download it to the local machine. They should have big warnings about grabbing all your stuff down before you cancel your match account, but based on the fact that this guy didn't read all the initial setup and didn't notice the little cloud icon next to every song in itunes this seems like an unfortunate user error and not Apple's fault.

This is why I still buy CDs

[Morpeth]

Laugh all you want, but I still typically buy CDs for this reason (not too mention CD quality is still better than compressed mp3s).

I like using Amazon since I get the physical CD plus instant access to an downloadable mp3 version that it stores under my account. Even if Amazon were to go 'poof' tomorrow, I still have my music collection. Yes, I know I can back up the digital versions, etc., but there's still something to be said for a physical copy that I will always own, that no user agreement change will suddenly make inaccessible.

Re:This is why I still buy CDs

[Sir_Eptishous]

I do the same thing for the same reasons.
This just shows you know what you're doing, as opposed to those who blindly accept what Apple or the rest spoon feed them.
When I first heard relatives complain about how hard it was to transfer music to/from other "I" devices and all the headaches they went through I knew I had made the correct choice.
I've got around .5T of mp3's, and some flacs, and there is no way in hell I would let iTunes or anything else like that "manage" my music.

Re:This is why I still buy CDs

[Bootsy Collins]

Yeah. I still buy CDs; and I rip them to FLACs for when I can't play the CDs any more.

Re:This is why I still buy CDs

[Anti-Curmudgeon]

I am laughing. Because if you know how to use your mp3 encoder there will not be a perceptible difference in quality. But that's the only reason. I intend to keep my CDs too.

Music ratings stolen too

[Anonymous Coward]

With Apple Music, my iTunes library wasn't stolen but almost every song rating, that I'd put hundreds of hours into creating, was eliminated. It hit me hard. I knew that I could never justify going back and re-rating every song so I mostly gave up on this one.

A precursor to Farenheit 451

[Sir_Eptishous]

For about ten years, I’ve been warning people, “hang onto your media. One day, you won’t buy a movie. You’ll buy the right to watch a movie, and that movie will be served to you. If the companies serving the movie don’t want you to see it, or they want to change something, they will have the power to do so. They can alter history, and they can make you keep paying for things that you formerly could have bought. Information will be a utility rather than a possession. Even information that you yourself have created will require unending, recurring payments just to access.”

We all can see where this is heading.
Apple, Amazon, Google, et al will eventually control all media.
They will control all books, magazines, journalism, music, films, etc;
They will control ALL MEDIA period.

It is only a matter of time.
Once the "big three" or "big five" or whoever has this control, just think of how they can(and will) use that control to manipulate peoples views and opionions. They will manipulate history, the publics knowledge of virtually anything they want. They can(and will) "curate" the publics perceptions.

Yes, hang onto your media

Re:Yes.

[Forgefather]

You would know if you had read the articles that Apple's terms of use explicitly state that they are going to delete your local files. It was quoted in the article. This was an intended feature along with the inability to recover you music after cancelling the service. This is no bug. It is blatant theft of digital property.

Friends

[Monoman]

Friends don't let friends use iTunes.

Re:Friends

[angel'o'sphere]

Is there actually a good music player for Macs that organizes the music in Folders and Files with tittles of the albums and songs?

The only things I heard about are players that either use data bases or XML files or both: no, thank you.

Re:Apple...

[stealth_finger]

It just works, just not how you expect.

Re:Yes.

[jedidiah]

I've been using Macs since they made vomit noises when they ejected your floppy disk.

And yes, Apple is some sort of exception. They go out of their way to be stupid. They refuse to "play well with others" or "see the big picture". They assume that they are off in their own little universe and that they don't have to deal with anyone else or risk stepping on their toes.

They do their best to lower the bar in terms of end user expectations and pathetic Mac users actually put up with it.

THAT is the real difference... excusing this amateur hour nonsense.

Linux on the desktop

[LichtSpektren]

I'm happy to report that Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, and all of the other desktop Linuxes I have tried have never deleted any of my files without my permission. I also don't lose my work because my OS has decided to update or nag me to upgrade while I'm the middle of something.

My computer and my data belong to me. Not to Microsoft. Not to Apple. Not to Google or Oracle or HP or IBM or Samsung. Nobody but me!

Re:Linux on the desktop

[Cro Magnon]

I've never lost any files. I did, however, get a scare when a stupid UI change had what I thought was "MY Documents" showing the files in "Not Really My" stuff on a Cloud. For a second I thought I'd lost the stuff on my local machine, but it turned out it was still there, I just had to reach it via "This PC" because "My Documents" now pointed to OneDrive. Needless to say, the OS involved wasn't Linux, or even Apple.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[I'm not god any more]

My computer and my data are belong to me. Not to Microsoft. Not to Apple. Not to Google or Oracle or HP or IBM or Samsung. Nobody but me!

Fixed that for you. Reference: http://www.newgrounds.com/port...

Re:Linux on the desktop

[samwichse]

I'm happy to report that Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, and all of the other desktop Linuxes I have tried have never deleted any of my files without my permission.

I use an early version of EXT4 on a RAID, you insensitive clod!

Apple Music is WAY broken ....

[King_TJ]

Our family is pretty much all on Apple products. We have 3 kids who use iPads or iPhones regularly and my wife and I work in I.T. and both own Mac desktops and laptops. We're also all into music and my wife and I both have large music collections in iTunes on our primary computers.

So when Apple Music was first released with the 3 month free trial, we jumped at the chance. BIG mistake! We set up the "family account" pretty quickly, realizing that would be a better value. Problem was, soon afterwards, my wife's iCloud account essentially locked her out of all of her purchased content of ALL types. On any given Apple device, if she signed in with it, it would work (at most) for a few seconds, and then cancel any updates that were downloading and/or freeze up.

That became a nightmare of putting in multiple support tickets with Apple and not getting any resolution or promised callbacks. Meanwhile, it meant that 10+ years worth of applications, movies and music content she'd paid for was rendered useless. The obvious culprit was Apple Music. The problem only happened after she enabled it on her account and it started trying to sync all of her music content.

At the Genius Bar, a tech spent over an hour trying to help with the issue. He gave her a brand new iPhone 6 AND a brand new iPad, insisting it HAD to be some sort of hardware malfunction or glitch. But nope ... same issue crept up on the new devices shortly after she signed in to them.

At that point, someone in Engineering finally called us back (guess they got irritated the store was giving us thousands of dollars of unnecessary new hardware and not getting anywhere). They promised they were "working on it" and "had an idea where something was wrong". All of a sudden, her ID just started working properly again. No explanation was ever given.

iTunes/Mobile Sync has the opposite problem

[Solandri]

I've had two computer service calls from people with small (128 GB) SSDs complaining their drives are full even though they hardly have any programs or files. The culprit turns out to be Apple's Mobile Sync. When you plug your iPhone or iPad into your computer to transfer some files, it defaults to keeping a copy of everything on the mobile device on your C: drive. No user queries, it just does it automatically. I can sorta understand that for photos and videos, but it makes no sense for iTunes music since that can be downloaded again if needed. Somewhere buried in the software, I found an option to disable it. A better solution would've been to move the backup location to the mostly-empty 2TB HDD, but I wasn't able to fine a setting for that in the short time I had (there were other more serious problems to fix).

I really like how Apple simplifies user interfaces so a monkey could use it. But this has to be backed up with the ability for users to easily drill down and change options if they want. This "one size fits all" attitude which has become the mantra of many Apple fans after Jobs introduced the iPhone (any size screen you want, as long as it's 3.5") is pure poison.

Re:iTunes/Mobile Sync has the opposite problem

[Grishnakh]

I really like how Apple simplifies user interfaces so a monkey could use it. But this has to be backed up with the ability for users to easily drill down and change options if they want. This "one size fits all" attitude which has become the mantra of many Apple fans after Jobs introduced the iPhone (any size screen you want, as long as it's 3.5") is pure poison.

This "one size fits all" attitude pervades the software industry. It's even infected the Linux world; see Gnome 3.

Re:iTunes/Mobile Sync has the opposite problem

[ChrisMaple]

"It's so simple, so very simple, that only a child can do it." (Tom Lehrer, 1960's New Math)

Re:Sorry, but learn to backup your shit!

[Bootsy Collins]

You didn't read the article, did you? He *did* back up his shit; that's how he was able to recover from what Apple did. The blog post was informational, for people who might not have realized what could happen.

Re:Yea, Yea, Yea

[Aighearach]

It never "serves them right," it is always sad when people give up their software freedom, and are harmed. What is even more sad? Few of them will recognize their mistake, even in hindsight.

Why do people use this shit?

[Grim Beefer]

Seriously. What the fuck is the appeal?

You're holding it wrong

[Tough Love]

You're holding it wrong. The right way to hold your Apple thugware device is briefly, over a dumpster.

Re:Yes.

[angel'o'sphere]

I've been using Macs since they made vomit noises when they ejected your floppy disk.

That was a third party add on. Macs did not make any noises for stuff like that, I believe the one I was working on most at university made an female orgasm noise if you inserted one and a male orgasm noise when you ejected it ...

Re:Yes.

[fustakrakich]

Heh, thanks for reminding me why we needed a disinfectant

'Replace' vs. 'Merge'

[Dixie_Flatline]

This story is about user error, and making sure you have backups.

While the implications are unacceptably clear based solely on their one-word descriptions, depending on what you pick, Apple Music offers you the choice to 'Merge' your library, or 'Replace' it. He must have chosen 'Replace'.

iTunes Match did something similar. I had to forcibly delete my files if I wanted them off my computer when I was using it (for instance, if I'd only had the 128kbit copy and I wanted a higher bitrate one, which Apple provided).

The main fault of Apple Music (and why I won't let it scan my library) is that it uses a much more simplistic method to match your library than iTunes Match, which used a fingerprinting system. For some stupid reason, Apple Music uses a system that relies on meta-data, like the song title and album name, which can cause maddening conflicts if there's more than one release of an album.

I still ultimately pin the blame on Apple--interfaces need to be clear what their implications are, and the results need to be non-destructive. Barring that, it needs to be trivially recoverable from them without resorting to backups. So by the standards they've set for themselves, they've failed utterly. But his characterization of this problem is still wrong.

That's not a bug...

[meerling]

That's not a bug, that's a really poor and user abusive design choice.

severability [Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit?]

[Geoffrey.landis]

Almost every contract I've ever seen has a severability clause in it: "if one clause of this contract is found to be invalid or unenforcable, the remaining terms of the contract still apply."
Severability clauses exist in German contracts, so I won't believe your statement that they don't unless you give me a citation.

Three rules of thumb

[John Allsup]

1. Offline backups
2. Never trust the cloud: use it, but do not rely upon it
3. Never trust Apple: use them, but do not rely upon them

Re:severability [Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit

[angel'o'sphere]

Yes those clauses are in german contracts, too.
However as law is above contract, those clauses are most of the time void, too.

You can not simply make a bogus contract and put a clause like that into it to make it less bogus.

However I don't know to what extent that goes.

Re:severability [Re:Copyright infringement lawsuit

[Geoffrey.landis]

That is not a citation.

Apple deleted music files from my hard drive?

[khz6955]

"If you have tracks that aren't in Apple Music's library .. Once this matching and uploading process is complete, you have two libraries: your locally-stored library on your original Mac with all your old files, and an iCloud-stored library that you can access from other devices". ref

Shields up!

[AnotherBlackHat]

Long ago I had a program that let me know whenever another program was accessing the internet, and gave me a "allow, deny, ask" dialog.

I wish I had a program like that for file access, and for directory modification.

Duh...

[haggie]

It has been known for years that iTunes is a deeply flawed software and that Apple just doesn't care. Anyone using it deserves whatever pain Apple inflicts upon them.

Paid for Music

[sycodon]

I've lost paid for music.

RTFA

[Bootsy Collins]

"Third. What kind of idiot doesn't back up their stuff?"

What kind of idiot doesn't RTFA they're complaining about? He *did* back up his stuff; that's how he was able to recover his stuff. The blog post was informational, for folks who don't know about this issue.

Re:Yes.

[Gr8Apes]

It's not theft if you agree to give something away. Always always keep backups of your stuff.

Re:Yes.

[Gr8Apes]

Or Google (mail & calendaring) or any other large software company, for that matter.

Re:Yes.

[Ayanami_R]

If you're my family, you complain and keep buying. It's not just computers, cars, appliances, etc. They have been so trained by adverts to be loyal while taking it up the ass. As someone mentioned as another reply, I just let them suffer now.

Apple says,

[JoelKatz]

"All your bass are belong to us."

Re:Yes.

[Grishnakh]

Wow, you'd think that general common sense would dictate to find a new vendor when you have a bad experience with something. At least with computers you can fall back on the old "95% of everyone uses Windows and all the software runs on it" excuse. But for cars and appliances, it's just plain stupid to keep buying crappy brands because there's no shortage of competition there (even with the consolidation in appliances). With cars, there's about a dozen mainstream high-volume carmakers now (Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Subaru, VW, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo), not counting all their extra brands. And even in appliances there's several different brands (Frigidaire/Maytag/Whirlpool, Samsung, LG).

Re:Yes.

[Grishnakh]

Well in Google's defense, I will say that they do work to make their office software (Google Docs) compatible with MS Office file formats. There might also be some kind of work to make Google Calendar compatible with Outlook/Exchange, I'm not sure.

MS doesn't bother to make their software compatible with anyone. They really are the worst as far as "playing well with others".

Re:Yes.

[Grishnakh]

Where are these booth babes you refer to? I thought they got rid of those at conferences in recent years (though I did see them a lot when I used to get sent to conferences in 2000--those were the glory days!!!). I'll happily go chat up some booth babes. I'm not going to buy their shitware though.

I really wish I could go back to 1995-2000; times were better then. Booth babes, no Metro-like flat-UI user interfaces, houses were cheap, computers were actually fun, Linux was ascendant and hadn't gone off the rails with Gnome3 and general malaise, the only thing that sucked was the music (though newer music isn't any good either, but at least in recent years we've had a lot of classic rock bands return to the stage).

renting

[wyHunter]

But, but isn't this an example of the SHARING ECONOMY, you know, you don't own anything, you rent it all?

Re:Yes.

[Gr8Apes]

Regarding Calendar, Google has done a lot of work to make their calendaring solution incompatible with iCal standards. Then again, so has MS, Apple, and probably everyone else.

typical Hateboi

[Uberbah]

Typical Apple user; the company confirmed it, but you still don't believe, because if true it would suck.

First words in his post:

I'm not disputing that this happened to this guy

So, who's the fool here?

Re:typical Hateboi

[Aighearach]

You, because you didn't understand him or me. He said more than one thing. My statement includes the resolution to your supposed problem; you simply failed to correctly parse my intended communication. But that isn't my problem. If one person out there understands what I said, and everybody else thinks it is gibberish, that is greater success than internet content usually achieves.

Could be Illegal in spite of EULA

[herbierobinson]

Deleting files like this could be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. If it is, then the EULA doesn't apply (contracts can't make it legal to break the law).

Re:Yes.

[Forgefather]

Contracts have limitations on what they can allow a party to do. Contracts are found to have unenforceable conditions all the time, and there are also limitations on what rights can be signed away. Just look at Illinois, which is allowing a lawsuit to proceed against Facebook for its attempt to tag people in photos without their permission.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

A clause in a contract stating that Apple has the power to take your music permanently in exchange for using their service temporarily is almost certainly unenforceable.