Isn't this a felony under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? It's intentionally exceeding authorized access to a computer and intentionally (not even recklessly) causing damage.
Apple Stole My Music
401–410 of 472 posts
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember the U2 fiasco, when Apple decided to break into your computer and push their new album through iTunes? It seems like whenever Apple decides to take control of your files, shit happens. Back in the day, I tried to use iTunes for a while when I bought my iPod. One of the first things that it asked me was to take control of my music, as it would reorganize it by itself. I agreed, but tested it first with a smal…
While the U2 fiasco was a bad move, I don't think that "break into your computer" is a fair characterization of what they did. They added it to your available downloads and, depending on your sync settings, it was downloaded to devices. I'm not a huge fan of having my media managed by the companies I buy hardware from, but when I found a user's manual document on my Kindle I didn't consider it 'getting hacked' by the…
A more appropriate analogy than a user guide would be finding Fifty Shades of Grey or Harry Potter on your kindle one day, because Amazon did a deal and decided you should have it, or perhaps having your copy of 1984 erased because of copyright violations. ++ungood.
A user manual is expected on a new device, having media on your device added and deleted by a corporation on their whim is not so pleasant, mostly because it makes their view of your true relation to them apparent.
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
You just described the reason for the existence of ID3. But, if you insist on using files that don't have a metadata standard, the only way to organize them is in the database of the library application. Which generally won't be portable to other applications.
"But, if you insist on using files that don't have a metadata standard, the only way to organize them is in the database of the library application." Again, I disagree - see my response further up the thread for how to get around this problem with verbose naming: Ferry, Bryan - Taxi - 03 - Answer Me - 2m46s.wav
Your proposal to store track info in with verbose naming isn't very robust and doesn't solve even the most basic problems that a simple metadata scheme does.
For one, even in your specific limited case of Bryan Ferry's album _Taxi_ there are 5 different versions of the album from 5 different countries[0].
Furthermore, your verbose naming proposal is not only unequipped to handle something as basic as alternate versions and international releases, it has no affordances for providing basic information such as year of release, publisher, and composer, let alone information about bitrates and compression schemes.
Even were we to restrict our attention to just the metadata your scheme does encode, your proposal would fail when cataloging an entry where the band/album/track name contains a hyphen surrounding by whitespace. There are also some albums which have more than 99 tracks (archival records, for example, which are distributed in multi-CD collections).
My response may seem a bit like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer but, having worked in a library and taken classes in information science, it's crucial to illustrate why hastily-conceived proposals to replace metadata with file naming conventions should never be taken seriously. In fact, I believe they should only be taken jokingly!
Metadata schemes are so important to information and library science that, in my opinion, any proposal to replace metadata schemes with "verbose naming" should be shown to be untenable unless the goal is to index fewer than 100 files in a restricted-access repository (and maybe even then).
From the standpoint of a librarian or digital archivist, you may as well have proposed storing the binary data in the file name, too, essentially eliminating the file name which itself is a piece of metadata.
[0] https://www.discogs.com/Bryan-Ferry-Taxi/release/1120442
EDIT: readability
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#404It's worth noting that Google Photos actually does something similar... the photos are "backed up" even in their "original" form... but I don't believe it's possible to actually restore (download all) from Google Photos. I thankfully have a local backup of the photos I took, but when a phrase like "backup" is used, it is implicit and understood that there is a "restore" mechanism. Google Photos lacks a "restore" mech…
Thanks, I didn't know about google photo's no restore issue, I'm going to check! But I recall there's a setting somewhere in the app that lets you choose if you want to delete photos from your device or not after they're backed up, but maybe I'm wrong. I'll check this evening and let you know.
I've just checked and actually you can choose if delete them or not.
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#405I am surprised at people trying to rationale Apples wrongdoing by pointing at Google and bringing some crazy examples. There is no rationale in this - this is outright breaking your privacy and ownership rights. No terms and conditions can be above law. It doesn't matter what others do - Apple is doing those crazy things here and there trying to test the ground which indicates they are not pro privacy and pro user, b…
Some people in this post are assuming that this is something iTunes does to everyone intentionally. Other people are saying this is not something iTunes has ever done to them. I'm not sure it's worth debating whether this practice is ethical or not unless we know whether iTunes will actually delete your MP3s under normal circumstances. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that iTunes is too hard to use.
This is part of a push from Apple to move users' data from devices to the cloud. They're doing the same thing with photos (optimised storage deletes local copies), videos, and documents on iCloud.
The advantage for users is that your data is available everywhere you have an apple device and Internet. The disadvantage is a corporation manages and controls increasing amounts if your life, private and public, and leaving them for another becomes unthinkable, and of course the corporation chooses what information it is appropriate for you to rent access to.
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how do you think you lost control of your data in the first place? Free software would never have deleted your files without asking you. Or maybe once before it would be fixed as a critical defect in a matter of hours.
I'm agreeing with you. However, when you move your data into the cloud, even if the software is supposedly free, you have no ability to verify that. You also don't control when or how that critical defect is fixed.
One little detail: I've read the official page for the Apple Music Subscription, and nowhere do they tell you they move your content to the cloud.
This app is not supposed to move anything. Just copy it. The deletion part of "moving" is a fraud, and possibly illegal.
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple fundamentally does not understand software. A shame, as the software, really, was their original special sauce with the Mac 128k and beyond. Today, however, the company really doesn't understand how to make, maintain, or market software. It sees software as a way to spread their control of their hardware further into your life. It's going to be the death of Apple, mark my words.
I worked with a Google engineer once and he offered me advice as I was considering buying a new phone, namely the HTC One: "Phone manufacturers know how to make hardware. Google knows how to make software. When you marry the two with both knowing their place in the world, things work out. When one tries to make what the other does, you get crappy stuff on top of your system. Stick to vanilla Android, man." Having sai…
Maybe Apple should hire one of the many software engineers and UI designers who are visionary in the same way that Ive is in hardware.
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sentence is from the iTunes Music Match section, not the Apple Music section. They are different.
>When iTunes Match adds these songs to your iCloud Music Library, iTunes Match doesn’t change or alter your original music files that reside on iTunes for Mac or PC or on your iOS devices from which they were added. >When Apple Music adds these matched songs to your iCloud Music Library, Apple Music doesn’t change or alter your original music files that reside in iTunes for Mac or PC or on your iOS devices from which…
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Re: Apple Stole My Music
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very surprised that they would perform such a destructive operation based only off of metadata (instead of some sort of audio fingerprinting).
I was under the impression they did do audio fingerprinting. Otherwise, you could gain access to a ton of music.
Sort of ironically, the older iTunes Match system did audio fingerprinting, but Apple Music does not. I have gotten some very weird new metadata occasionally since the switch.
For the record, I've never lost any music, and I'm not entirely sure how that's possible short of a catastrophic iTunes bug[1] -- I'm not disputing anyone's stories, but even "post-Cloud" I've never seen iTunes delete files without me actually clicking on delete somewhere. Despite what the blogger was told by the rep, I'm pretty sure that's not how Apple Music is supposed to work. You enable it on a "primary" Mac, it matches tracks to the iTunes Store library, and then it uploads tracks that aren't in that library to iCloud. The files in your original library will be left alone unless you delete the original files.
[1]: Not that "catastrophic iTunes bug" sounds unlikely. I've heard friend-of-a-friend stories about deletion bugs in the recent past.
Re: Apple Stole My Music
#410wavs having "more samples" is a new one to me. Neat.
Wav is (normally, unless already corrupted) an uncompressed , lossless , audio format. The OP's statement was a little off, but the premise is correct. Mp3 is lossy . Many audiophiles and audio engineers argue that Mp3 actually sounds better (the compression gives the drums a "crunch" not normally present), but the point is you can go from WAV to Mp3, but you can't go back the other way around. Apple is irrevocably d…
> Many audiophiles and audio engineers argue that Mp3 actually sounds better (the compression gives the drums a "crunch" not normally present)
Quote please! Don't specifically mean it as a challenge to you, but as a musician, composer, and audio engineer (I'm not sure I identify as audiophile since that has baggage, but I know friends who do) I have never heard such a thing even mentioned and have a hard time believing there are serious engineers that think this.
The data reduction in the MP3 algorithm is designed around the frequency masking principles of human hearing[1] (EDIT: Spelling and citation), this technique can lose a lot of data with a small impact on perception when applied to harmonic sounds. Enharmonic sounds (e.g. is where the MP3 algorithm falls down); as I said, I've never heard any engineer say they think this sounds better.
Again, I don't say this to argue, I'd just be curious to know what these unicorn engineers have to say about this.