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'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.
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.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
After all, Apple is downloading his music from his machine and uploading it to Cupertino without permission.
"What kind of software removes files from a local disk without even asking for user confirmation?"
Malware.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
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...
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
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.
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!
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.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.