iTunes Match: $24.99/Year, Matches Ripped Tunes, Offers Them In The Cloud

[redfirebird08]

I'm glad they are finally offering the ability to download old purchases. Seems like this should have been a feature of online music stores to begin with.

EDIT: Damn, apparently it downloads 128 kbps protected purchases instead of upgrading them to 256 kbps files. That sucks.

 

[extradryny]

Audiogalaxy FTW! That streams all my music from my computer free.

My highest hope for iCloud was simply was that it was an AudioGalaxy where I didn't have to leave my home computer on when I left the house (and hopefully higher fidelity streaming). Sadly -- although I do see why iCloud is neat -- it's not that.

There is a actually a great opportunity for AudioGalaxy here. Most people don't realize that what they hoped iCloud would be pretty much already exists.

One thing AudioGalaxy needs to do ASAP is improve the UI in the app. It's bad.

 

[alent1234]

some of us pay for electricity and don't want to leave the computer on all the time. or mess with our wireless router/FW to open the ports

 

[legacyb4]

Rereading the iTunes Match blurb, I'd agree here too.

Apple is very specific about the ability to "listen to anytime" instead of simply "tap to download to your device" and your ability to "store your entire music collection" instead of "save to your device". Likewise, they point out that most of the unmatched tracks will likely be "in iCloud".

You are wrong. iTunes match is a streaming service. The other aspects of iCloud are not streaming. But iTunes match is. From what you have written Apple provided EXACTLY what you wanted.

 

[extradryny]

some of us pay for electricity and don't want to leave the computer on all the time. or mess with our wireless router/FW to open the ports

Agreed - thus my high hopes for iCloud. But until iCloud offers streaming (only a matter of time), you can just give your 25 bucks to the electric company instead of Apple and stream away for free via AudioGalaxy.

 

[Lord Bodak]

You are wrong. iTunes match is a streaming service. The other aspects of iCloud are not streaming. But iTunes match is. From what you have written Apple provided EXACTLY what you wanted.

There is absolutely no way that iTunes Match is a streaming service. Think about it-- if you bought your music from iTunes you don't get streaming, but if you ripped your music yourself, you do? That would be a big slap in the face to everyone who buys music from iTunes.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

What happens if you stop paying $25 a year after a few years, or switch to another device? Do your songs that you legitimised become unavailable on your devices?

I know what appears to be the majority here thinks that as little as one payment of $25 is going to result in being able to upgrade AND DOWNLOAD (to local storage) all of their music not purchased from the iTunes store. If so, that is a crazy good deal if anyone has much music- especially older tracks not already at 256K AAC.

BUT, I won't believe the speculation until it is proven. I really think that the media owners would not go for their individual cuts of just $25/yr as justification to go for this. For example, before this, the conversion was 30 cents PER SONG. Now, some here are believing that one could potentially upgrade thousands of songs for as little as $25. That means anyone with more than 84 songs that could be upgraded would find the $25 price to be the better deal. And if you have a lot more than 84 songs to upgrade it would become a bargain.

Thinking about the standard perception of the media owners as "greedy" and how they seem to assume everyone is a pirate until proven innocent, I just don't see this being sold to all 4 of them for their individual cuts of $25/yr. As many have posted, if you do get to download the DRM free replacement tracks permanently, you could just pay the $25 ONCE and largely be set. The incentive to maintain the subscription in year 2 would only persist if you aren't adding new music at 256K AAC (and it mattered to you to get it into that format), which seems less likely now that 256K AAC is the default in iTunes and the iTunes store has the music most easily available at relatively low costs.

What about the music-sharing pirates? If this makes it easy to upgrade tons of old music to 256K AAC, I would guess the new standard for file sharing will be these DRM free files at 256K. So even the crowd that would steal music if it was priced at 1 cent per song will probably be stealing this quality standard going forward. If so, they won't have the need to keep paying the $25/yr to not upgrade pirated 256K AAC songs.

Thus, I fully expect that after the excitement cools down and the realities seep out, we're going to find that the only way to access the 256K AAC masters of matched music not purchased in the iTunes store is via streaming it from an iCloud library. I bet we don't get to permanently download it to our local media libraries, and thus this fuels support for keeping a $25/yr subscription rather than paying $25 ONCE and downloading a bunch of higher quality replacement tracks.

All you have to do is think about the business pieces instead of the "what's the best scenario of me?" dreams. What arrangement is most likely to keep that $25/yr coming in? What arrangement is most likely to motivate all 4 of the "greedy" music companies to play ball? Etc. The answers are not one in which a 20K-song pirate can spend $25 ONCE replace all of his/her old 128K Napster downloads with 256K AAC DRM-Free tracks and thus proving "crime does pay".

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but even the carefully-chosen wording on the Apple website http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/ about iTunes Match almost entirely supports a stream-only scenario for non-iTunes-purchased content. The only wording that argues the other side is "for you to listen to anytime, on any device" without an asterisk that says "continuous internet connection required". All the rest of that wording- especially "automatically added to your iCloud library", which is not your "local" (hard drive) library.

As such, I would bet pretty strongly that it will be "stream only" from iCloud for non-iTunes-purchased media. No internet connection? Either those songs will be unavailable until you can reconnect, or in some protected space on the playback device not transferrable in any permanent way to local storage.

 

[imahawki]

I know what appears to be the majority here thinks that as little as one payment of $25 is going to result in being able to upgrade AND DOWNLOAD (to local storage) all of their music not purchased from the iTunes store. If so, that is a crazy good deal if anyone has much music- especially older tracks not already at 256K AAC.

BUT, I won't believe the speculation until it is proven. I really think that the media owners would not go for their individual cuts of just $25/yr as justification to go for this. For example, before this, the conversion was 30 cents PER SONG. Now, some here are believing that one could potentially upgrade thousands of songs for as little as $25. That means anyone with more than 84 songs that could be upgraded would find the $25 price to be the better deal. And if you have a lot more than 84 songs to upgrade it would become a bargain.

Thinking about the standard perception of the media owners as "greedy" and how they seem to assume everyone is a pirate until proven innocent, I just don't see this being sold to all 4 of them for their individual cuts of $25/yr. As many have posted, if you do get to download the DRM free replacement tracks permanently, you could just pay the $25 ONCE and largely be set. The incentive to maintain the subscription in year 2 would only persist if you aren't adding new music at 256K AAC (and it mattered to you to get it into that format), which seems less likely now that 256K AAC is the default in iTunes and the iTunes store has the music most easily available at relatively low costs.

What about the music-sharing pirates? If this makes it easy to upgrade tons of old music to 256K AAC, I would guess the new standard for file sharing will be these DRM free files at 256K. So even the crowd that would steal music if it was priced at 1 cent per song will probably be stealing this quality standard going forward. If so, they won't have the need to keep paying the $25/yr to not upgrade pirated 256K AAC songs.

Thus, I fully expect that after the excitement cools down and the realities seep out, we're going to find that the only way to access the 256K AAC masters of matched music not purchased in the iTunes store is via streaming it from an iCloud library. I bet we don't get to permanently download it to our local media libraries, and thus this fuels support for keeping a $25/yr subscription rather than paying $25 ONCE and downloading a bunch of higher quality replacement tracks.

All you have to do is think about the business pieces instead of the "what's the best scenario of me?" dreams. What arrangement is most likely to keep that $25/yr coming in? What arrangement is most likely to motivate all 4 of the "greedy" music companies to play ball? Etc. The answers are not one in which a 20K-song pirate can spend $25 ONCE replace all of his/her old 128K Napster downloads with 256K AAC DRM-Free tracks and thus proving "crime does pay".

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but even the carefully-chosen wording on the Apple website http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/ about iTunes Match almost entirely supports a stream-only scenario for non-iTunes-purchased content. The only wording that argues the other side is "for you to listen to anytime, on any device" without an asterisk that says "continuous internet connection required". All the rest of that wording- especially "automatically added to your iCloud library", which is not your "local" (hard drive) library.

As such, I would bet pretty strongly that it will be "stream only" from iCloud for non-iTunes-purchased media. No internet connection? Either those songs will be unavailable until you can reconnect, or in some protected space on the playback device not transferrable in any permanent way to local storage.

The massive graphic shows it pushing to, among other things, a Macbook. I am anxiously awaiting the specific feature set like everyone else but streaming doesn't do me a lot of good. I don't always have access to the internet and data caps are becoming MORE of a reality, not LESS.

 

[cyberfed]

I don't know man, if you watch the keynote it surely sounded to me like songs matched were available for download to any of your apple devices and would NOT require streaming. So once matched you have a "real" copy of that song local on your machine, forever, DRM free.

When I saw the Keynote I thought to myself as many have "um didn't this just open the door for music pirates to get legal copies songs they downloaded?"

Again from the keynote the answer would be YES, however it will surely be interesting to see how the fine print lays out.

My opinion, in theory, based on what was announced. The following scenario is possible.

Joe the 'music pirate' with 100,000 songs he has collected over the years could sign up for iTunes match. iTunes would scan his library and determine which songs it already has its in database, lets say it finds 95,000 songs. Joe would be provided 95,000 DRM free songs that are 'legal' and available for DOWNLOAD to any of his apple devices (up to 10). So Joe takes his other mac laptop and does a "download from the cloud", he now has those 95,000 songs FOREVER.
Joe cancels his $25 subscription and has essentially 'music laundered' almost his entire collection.

I know what appears to be the majority here thinks that as little as one payment of $25 is going to result in being able to upgrade AND DOWNLOAD (to local storage) all of their music not purchased from the iTunes store. If so, that is a crazy good deal if anyone has much music- especially older tracks not already at 256K AAC.

BUT, I won't believe the speculation until it is proven. I really think that the media owners would not go for their individual cuts of just $25/yr as justification to go for this. For example, before this, the conversion was 30 cents PER SONG. Now, some here are believing that one could potentially upgrade thousands of songs for as little as $25. That means anyone with more than 84 songs that could be upgraded would find the $25 price to be the better deal. And if you have a lot more than 84 songs to upgrade it would become a bargain.

Thinking about the standard perception of the media owners as "greedy" and how they seem to assume everyone is a pirate until proven innocent, I just don't see this being sold to all 4 of them for their individual cuts of $25/yr. As many have posted, if you do get to download the DRM free replacement tracks permanently, you could just pay the $25 ONCE and largely be set. The incentive to maintain the subscription in year 2 would only persist if you aren't adding new music at 256K AAC (and it mattered to you to get it into that format), which seems less likely now that 256K AAC is the default in iTunes and the iTunes store has the music most easily available at relatively low costs.

What about the music-sharing pirates? If this makes it easy to upgrade tons of old music to 256K AAC, I would guess the new standard for file sharing will be these DRM free files at 256K. So even the crowd that would steal music if it was priced at 1 cent per song will probably be stealing this quality standard going forward. If so, they won't have the need to keep paying the $25/yr to not upgrade pirated 256K AAC songs.

Thus, I fully expect that after the excitement cools down and the realities seep out, we're going to find that the only way to access the 256K AAC masters of matched music not purchased in the iTunes store is via streaming it from an iCloud library. I bet we don't get to permanently download it to our local media libraries, and thus this fuels support for keeping a $25/yr subscription rather than paying $25 ONCE and downloading a bunch of higher quality replacement tracks.

All you have to do is think about the business pieces instead of the "what's the best scenario of me?" dreams. What arrangement is most likely to keep that $25/yr coming in? What arrangement is most likely to motivate all 4 of the "greedy" music companies to play ball? Etc. The answers are not one in which a 20K-song pirate can spend $25 ONCE replace all of his/her old 128K Napster downloads with 256K AAC DRM-Free tracks and thus proving "crime does pay".

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but even the carefully-chosen wording on the Apple website http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/ about iTunes Match almost entirely supports a stream-only scenario for non-iTunes-purchased content. The only wording that argues the other side is "for you to listen to anytime, on any device" without an asterisk that says "continuous internet connection required". All the rest of that wording- especially "automatically added to your iCloud library", which is not your "local" (hard drive) library.

As such, I would bet pretty strongly that it will be "stream only" from iCloud for non-iTunes-purchased media. No internet connection? Either those songs will be unavailable until you can reconnect, or in some protected space on the playback device not transferrable in any permanent way to local storage.

 

[imahawki]

When I saw the Keynote I thought to myself as many have "um didn't this just open the door for music pirates to get legal copies songs they downloaded?"

This has been addressed OVER AND OVER. Just because you have a "clean" copy with pristine metadata etc. doesn't make it legal. If I shoplift a CD and then rip it to iTunes, just because you can't tell by LOOKING at the files that its not legal doesn't make it suddenly legal.

At best I guess it does provide a track LAUNDERING service so you don't have "ripped by XXXTREME!!!!" in your metadata but it doesn't magically make the tracks legal!

 

[helpinghand]

This is a streaming service of music you already own, with a max of 25,000 songs plus the songs you purchased. If you purchased 128K songs, that is what will be streamed to you device.

It does not replace your existing copy of the song in your itunes lib.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The massive graphic shows it pushing to, among other things, a Macbook. I am anxiously awaiting the specific feature set like everyone else but streaming doesn't do me a lot of good. I don't always have access to the internet and data caps are becoming MORE of a reality, not LESS.

I understand, but the massive graphic is in a section of content that is associated with iTunes store-bought content. This would be far from the first time that implied benefit presentations were used to make everyone think things would be a massive win for end users at other stakeholders expense. It's a very common ploy in advertising.

I think the massive graphic is illustrative of how iTunes store purchased (and thus fully verifiable) content is going to work. I think the bottom section of the page beginning with the title "Itunes Match" is actually self-contained in terms of what benefits that offers. Note how it's "massive graphic" appears to show our ripped content fully INSIDE a cloud image, not shooting out of a cloud to our iDevices.

 

[baleensavage]

As many have posted, if you do get to download the DRM free replacement tracks permanently, you could just pay the $25 ONCE and largely be set. The incentive to maintain the subscription in year 2 would only persist if you aren't adding new music at 256K AAC (and it mattered to you to get it into that format), which seems less likely now that 256K AAC is the default in iTunes and the iTunes store has the music most easily available at relatively low costs.

If you are just using iCloud to upgrade your old MP3s, then you are right, there will be no reason to renew. But I would guess that the songs you upload, etc. don't stay in your "digital locker" once you cancel your subscription. So if you want to download a non-iTunes purchased album to your iPod, then you're going to have to do it the old fashioned way, by syncing unless you pay the annual charge. I can't see how they could "downgrade" any upgraded songs from this service if you cancel and I also can't see how they would allow you to store a whole bunch of non-iTunes songs in the cloud indefinitely without paying.

The one thing that has me confused is how they are going to deal with piracy. It seems to me that if this works as it says it does, then people could start distributing extremely low quality MP3 files for people to just pop in their iTunes library to upgrade for $25 a year. At least before you had to download a large file if you wanted any semblance of quality in the song. Now, the pirates can just send out a small file that sounds like garbage with the sole purpose of upgrading it.

Of course if you're pirating music, are you really going to trust Apple with the info about all the songs you've stolen? You'd be only a subpoena away from being totally screwed, so maybe it's not a bad thing after all. This could just be an easier way for music labels to nail the people who are doing lots of file sharing.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I don't know man, if you watch the keynote it surely sounded to me like songs matched were available for download to any of your apple devices and would NOT require streaming. So once matched you have a "real" copy of that song local on your machine, forever, DRM free. When I saw the Keynote I thought to myself as many have "um didn't this just open the door for music pirates to get legal copies songs they downloaded?" Again from the keynote the answer would be YES, however it will surely be interesting to see how the fine print lays out.

Again, I know it looks like that in the Keynote, but all you have to do is think about the business "whys":

• Why would Apple be interested in their tiny little cut of 30% ONE TIME of $25 to facilitate this?
• Why would the music industry who always seems to choose the most "greed-oriented" option possible, now choose to be extraordinarily generous with end users for only their small slice ONE TIME of $25?
• why would the bandwidth partners already so in bed with Apple be happy with us downloading all this content ONCE rather than streaming all of it over and over and paying the iCloud connection tolls everytime we're away from free wifi zones?

Most simply, whenever something looks too good to be true- especially for the crooks- it usually is.

Keynote speeches never cover all of the fundamental details. The speech is also spun to maximize happiness & excitement NOT lay out the negatives. For example, in the iPad rollout speech it was "the entire Internet" when in fact, it was "the entire Internet*". The magic of the asterisk is that it can be visible even in Steve's teleprompter, but it usually isn't spoken in the speech. You find out later that it wasn't actually the entire Internet but only what Apple has deemed as the entire Internet in the future (which is not to include big chunks of the Internet that exist in the present).

More on point, in this case, it sure did sound like that. But I bet what we think we heard and the final implementation is different. If it is as we heard, there is a massive win for us end users with little-to-no tangible benefit for Apple, music industry, and AT&T/Verizon/Comcast/etc stakeholders (beyond tiny little slices of $25). When do WE get to win when there's money at stake and those kinds of players are on the other end of the see-saw?

 

[Scott549]

My head is spinning after reading this thread. I've got 17,000 songs in my iTunes library. Almost all legal. I've got my highest bitrate versions on the desktop computer. I've got an archive of about 15,000 pre-2011 songs ripped at 80kpbs on my iPod Touch. After I ripped the 80kbps versions I deleted them from my hard drive so I wouldn't have duplicates. I've changed metadata on probably half of my library -- e.g. I usually change the "alternative/punk" genre to "rock/pop." How is iTunes Match going to work in my situation? I guess time will tell, but if it's just going to make my head spin even more, it's not going to be worth using.

 

[DiamondMac]

Image

 

[baleensavage]

The other thing that I'd be curious about is what tech they are using to tell what the songs are. If they're just using MP3 ID tags and track length like the Gracenote database, it seems to me that you could just make a whole bunch of garbage audio files, label them up like a real album and then have iTunes upgrade them to the real song. It would take a little work to have all the songs be the right length, but with Garageband, it wouldn't be that tough, just time consuming. Of course, it's also very likely that they'd have some type of audio fingerprint tech in there (like what YouTube uses) to prevent this, which would mean you have to have a baseline of audio quality to get the upgrade.

 

[Scott549]

Another question -- if they intend this as an online backup, does that mean when I buy a new iPod I can download everything to the new iPod? 17,000 songs at 10 seconds per song (really fast connection) would take 170,000 seconds, which is about 4 months, which is obviously totally unworkable.

 

[redfirebird08]

Of course if you're pirating music, are you really going to trust Apple with the info about all the songs you've stolen? You'd be only a subpoena away from being totally screwed, so maybe it's not a bad thing after all. This could just be an easier way for music labels to nail the people who are doing lots of file sharing.

I think that's exactly what is going on here. I also think they will ultimately nix the "download" idea and go with a streaming service. The main thing here is getting a chance to scan people's libraries for pirated content.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The one thing that has me confused is how they are going to deal with piracy. It seems to me that if this works as it says it does, then people could start distributing extremely low quality MP3 files for people to just pop in their iTunes library to upgrade for $25 a year. At least before you had to download a large file if you wanted any semblance of quality in the song. Now, the pirates can just send out a small file that sounds like garbage with the sole purpose of upgrading it.

Again, if it works as I'm best guessing, the pirates will still have their files on their local iTunes hard drive. They DO NOT get to download replacements for ANY songs NOT purchased from the iTunes store. The pirate can enjoy streaming 256K AAC files from iCloud as long as they keep paying $25/yr, but as soon as they quit that subscription, they will only have access to their original files by sync.

This still rewards piracy but now the principal reward (music quality upgrade) comes at an annual subscription of $25 instead of nothing. It also makes the bandwidth gatekeepers happy (AT&T and Verizon, etc) will LOVE a model that streams most of your music from the iCloud much more than letting you download it ONCE and then potentially streaming next to nothing (I wouldn't be surprised to find out that maybe AT&T and Verizon even threw some subsidy money into the pot to get the iCloud price down to $25).

I just don't see the working model of upgrading songs at 30 cents per being switched to $25 to upgrade perhaps thousands of songs. At more than 84 songs being upgraded, the $25 plan yields less money for considerably more benefits than just the upgrade.

Furthermore, if you assume that people's music libraries are already populated with most of the music they want to possess, they'll only be adding relatively small amounts of new music going forward. If they buy that music from iTunes, they don't need the upgrade after ONE round of $25. If they pirate that music from file sharing sources, they will probably be dealing in 256K AAC DRM free copies so they won't need upgrades either. If they rip it from friends CDs, library, etc, they will probably rip it at 256K AAC, so they won't need the upgrades. Why maintain the $25 subscription beyond ONE round if it allows you to upgrade and then download 256K AAC replacements for permanent use?

The more I think through the business side concepts, the more convinced I become that this is going to be streaming only (of non-iTunes-purchased content). Quit the subscription and you lose access to the 256K AAC files NOT purchased in the iTunes store, reverting back to whatever quality of files you have on your local hard drive.

 

[baleensavage]

More on point, in this case, it sure did sound like that. But I bet what we think we heard and the final implementation is different. If it is as we heard, there is a massive win for us end users with little-to-no tangible benefit for Apple, music industry, and AT&T/Verizon/Comcast/etc stakeholders (beyond tiny little slices of $25. When do WE get to win when there's money at stake and those kinds of players are on the other end of the see-saw?

Oh, it's a massive win for Apple either way. It's just one more reason for you to buy iPods and iPads instead of the competition. Think about it. You can push all your pirated music on the fly in better quality to your iPod. With iTunes, Apple has one goal in mind, to sell iPods. That's it and there's no question that this will help sell iPods.

The real question is how Apple got the music labels to agree to this. And that's where the exceptions and restrictions are going to come into play. And it may be as simple as the fact that Apple may have just created an open channel to the music studios of information about what's in people's library, so they can file lawsuits. I'd look really close at the EULA if you are upgrading pirated music using iTunes match. Plus, whether they share with the labels or not, once you put your music in the cloud, your entire library is only a subpoena away from being in their hands anyway.

 

[redfirebird08]

Oh, it's a massive win for Apple either way. It's just one more reason for you to buy iPods and iPads instead of the competition. Think about it. You can push all your pirated music on the fly in better quality to your iPod. With iTunes, Apple has one goal in mind, to sell iPods. That's it and there's no question that this will help sell iPods.

The real question is how Apple got the music labels to agree to this. And that's where the exceptions and restrictions are going to come into play. And it may be as simple as the fact that Apple may have just created an open channel to the music studios of information about what's in people's library, so they can file lawsuits. I'd look really close at the EULA if you are upgrading pirated music using iTunes match. Plus, whether they share with the labels or not, once you put your music in the cloud, your entire library is only a subpoena away from being in their hands anyway.

Even so, what are the music labels going to get out of it? Satisfaction of putting people in jail? Because most of the people they would sue can't actually afford to pay the punitive damages (probably in the millions based on past lawsuits).

 

[baleensavage]

The more I think through the business side concepts, the more convinced I become that this is going to be streaming only (of non-iTunes-purchased content). Quit the subscription and you lose access to the 256K AAC files NOT purchased in the iTunes store, reverting back to whatever quality of files you have on your local hard drive.

I'm not convinced. Everything Apple has said, seems to imply download only. I'd actually rather a streaming service. It won't take up space on my iPod. If I want the files on my iPod, I'll just sync them.

I think Apple was able to convince the music labels to jump on this one because they just got screwed hardcore by Amazon and Google. I'm also sure there is some stuff they are not telling us in there to curb piracy, but like anything, the pirates will find a way around it. Of course maybe the music labels just finally realized that $25 a year is better than nothing (and no I don't think that last sentence is true BTW).

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

baleensavage, you make some excellent points there (post #346). I'm trying to think in business revenue upsides for the music industry and they may be heavily focused on how to win the individual lawsuits game. Instead, of thinking about how to increase revenues from music sales, they may have already decided to try to increase revenues by mass legal actions. That does seem to fit into why they would do this for only a tiny slice of $25.

 

[redfirebird08]

baleensavage, you make some excellent points there (post #346). I'm trying to think in business revenue upsides for the music industry and they may be heavily focused on how to win the individual lawsuits game. Instead, of thinking about how to increase revenues from music sales, they may have already decided to try to increase revenues by mass legal actions. That does seem to fit into why they would do this for only a tiny slice of $25.

They'll never get the kind of money they think they will. They've sued kids for millions of dollars in the past, as if the kid can afford to pay the punitive damages (which are ludicrous in the first place if you assume a song is worth $1). The best they'll get out of it is the satisfaction of putting thieves in jail. As far as society goes, however, it'll just be further strain on our already overcrowded prison system.