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

[HobeSoundDarryl]

It doesn't legitimize anything. Once someone has pirated a song the file itself is just as legitimate as a song from itunes. You can't go back and trace whether a song is pirated. The 320kbps MP3 someone gets off a torrent site is just as legitimate as the 256 AAC file you get from iTunes in terms of validity. The only thing that isn't legitimate is the means by which you got it. Simply trading one file for another doesn't change the fact that the original file wasn't obtained legally.

What I'm saying is that once someone has a song in their possession there's no way to tell anyway so why would someone go through the trouble to 'legitimize' their collection?

If the music industry lawyers decide to sue someone for music piracy, you prove you own your entire collection by pulling out the CDs and/or showing receipts for purchased music and/or freebie music from other sources. Yes, that's "guilty until proven innocent" type stuff, but when has that stopped those with the money from going after the pirates that probably don't have the money to mount much of a defense.

Now, if this works as implied- that a person can pay $24.99 and get a DRM-free copy of all the songs not attached to the stack of CDs in our households- that ONE receipt becomes a receipt for EVERY matched song. Even if someone was unsure about some of their music collection (do I still have all these CDs, is some of this music from a roommate(s) who has long since moved out, etc), ONE $24.99 transaction would potentially act like an "amnesty" transaction for up to all the music you own before the date of the transaction.

I still believe it's going to turn out to be "stream only". I don't think the music industry would grant amnesty for only $24.99.

 

[bulldoze]

This announcement was a big disappointment to me: I wanted Apple to announce a better service than Spotify but it appears to be vastly inferior.

I love Spotify but it has holes in its catalogue that Apple does not, I pay Spotify £10 a month for its service and I will keep on subscribing.

Spotify: All I can eat for £10 a month and can hold 2000 song playlists for offline access.

Surely this is the future? why are Apple holding off competing with this?

 

[essinger]

You don't "get" more music from a larger library, you get better choice. You can't monetize choice by simply dividing by the total. If every song was 3.5 minutes long, you can listen to 150,000 songs per year, if you don't sleep or work or anything else to interfere with the listening. (you can sleep every Feb 29th, I ignored those in my calc) So, assuming you don't sleep or work, it would take you 40 years to get the benefit you claim. If you do sleep and work, 120 years. Or, you could just worry about the music you'll actually have time to listen to instead of mythical stuff.

Where did I say I wasn't talking about choice? I said it pretty simply: $25 for no new music vs. $96 for, as you point out, enough new music that you never, ever, have to listen to the same song twice.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

True, but this part: What if I don't have cellular or wifi access? I can't listen to that music.

Yes, I think you won't be able to listen to that music or maybe it will be in some specially protected space (but not in a permanent form where you can add it to your local libraries) where you can for some period of time but it will be lost if you don't reconnect to the iCloud soon.

 

[AaronEdwards]

It doesn't legitimize anything. Once someone has pirated a song the file itself is just as legitimate as a song from itunes. You can't go back and trace whether a song is pirated. The 320kbps MP3 someone gets off a torrent site is just as legitimate as the 256 AAC file you get from iTunes in terms of validity. The only thing that isn't legitimate is the means by which you got it. Simply trading one file for another doesn't change the fact that the original file wasn't obtained legally.

What I'm saying is that once someone has a song in their possession there's no way to tell anyway so why would someone go through the trouble to 'legitimize' their collection?

If you download a scene release of an mp3 album, then yes, the songs can definitely be identified. If you copy a song that your friend has ripped from his CD, then most likely no.

 

[redfirebird08]

If the music industry lawyers decide to sue someone for music piracy, you prove you own your entire collection by pulling out the CDs and/or showing receipts for purchased music and/or freebie music from other sources. Yes, that's "guilty until proven innocent" type stuff, but when has that stopped those with the money from going after the pirates that probably don't have the money to mount much of a defense.

Now, if this works as implied- that a person can pay $24.99 and get a DRM-free copy of all the songs not attached to the stack of CDs in our households- that ONE receipt becomes a receipt for EVERY matched song. Even if someone was unsure about some of their music collection (do I still have all these CDs, is some of this music from a roommate(s) who has long since moved out, etc), ONE $24.99 transaction would potentially act like an "amnesty" transaction for up to all the music you own before the date of the transaction.

I still believe it's going to turn out to be "stream only". I don't think the music industry would grant amnesty for only $24.99.

Which is probably why they haven't made the service active yet. It's supposedly coming in the fall. They are probably still trying to figure out the exact details on it.

 

[AaronEdwards]

If this actually turns out to be right, that Apple have convinced the record companies that for $25/year they will allow people to convert pirated songs into legal songs, then this will be the biggest news from WWDC. Nothing else will come close.

Which is why I think people are misunderstanding it.

Also, Apple has sold 5 billion songs through iTunes since February 2010. Letting people convert illegal songs would seriously impact that revenue stream.

 

[NightFox]

You upload 20,000 songs that you have illegally downloaded. Even if you paid for this service for the next 50 years, you would still only have paid 6 cents per song.

People wouldn't have to buy music at all, then can just download a song illegally and then have it sync on iTunes Match for an allowed copy.

Artists would get no money what so ever.

If anyone actually thinks Apple got the record companies to agree to this, then you're delusional.

Most likely the terms for the service will be clarified.

So what's changed for the record companies? You've already pirated the 20,000 tracks. What's putting them through iTunes Match suddenly going to change? The record companies don't suddenly "lose" another 20,000 tracks. Sure, you've now got access to a 256K AAC version of a pirated song as well as the original 320K MP3 you pirated. So what?

And as for this now "legitimising" piracy as other people have suggested, with the ease by which music can already be illegally downloaded over the Internet, it's more a matter of conscience and morals than any actual prevention, and that doesn't change with this.

 

[rWally]

If the music industry lawyers decide to sue someone for music piracy, you prove you own your entire collection by pulling out the CDs and/or showing receipts for purchased music and/or freebie music from other sources. Yes, that's "guilty until proven innocent" type stuff, but when has that stopped those with the money from going after the pirates that probably don't have the money to mount much of a defense.

Now, if this works as implied- that a person can pay $24.99 and get a DRM-free copy of all the songs not attached to the stack of CDs in our households- that ONE receipt becomes a receipt for EVERY matched song. Even if someone was unsure about some of their music collection (do I still have all these CDs, is some of this music from a roommate(s) who has long since moved out, etc), ONE $24.99 transaction would potentially act like an "amnesty" transaction for up to all the music you own before the date of the transaction.

I still believe it's going to turn out to be "stream only". I don't think the music industry would grant amnesty for only $24.99.

How would that be amnesty? People who get caught pirating music get caught in the act of actually downloading it. The RIAA gets your IP address and they sue you. Telling them you paid $25 to have your pirated song converted by Apple doesn't prove your innocence at all.

The way you explain makes it sound like they scan your computer for songs they think you pirated and then make you explain how you got it. In reality, they're watching you as you download the file. By your reasoning you could just as easily delete the song rather than have apple convert it for you and you'd be in the clear as well. That is not the case.

 

[rWally]

so what's changed for the record companies? You've already pirated the 20,000 tracks. What's putting them through itunes match suddenly going to change? The record companies don't suddenly "lose" another 20,000 tracks. Sure, you've now got access to a 256k aac version of a pirated song as well as the original 320k mp3 you pirated. So what?

And as for this now "legitimising" piracy as other people have suggested, with the ease by which music can already be illegally downloaded over the internet, it's more a matter of conscience and morals than any actual prevention, and that doesn't change with this.

exactly

 

[Eric S.]

Any songs that are not matched will be uploaded. I am sure you have a choice as to whether said to upload said song(s) or not.

I wonder if "uploaded" songs remain your private data? Or does Apple get to add all of them to the general library, available for matching with other subscribers? If so, it would appear to be a cheap (free) way for Apple to increase its own database.

 

[jns2001]

Has anyone able to download itunes 10.3?

 

[AaronEdwards]

So what's changed for the record companies? You've already pirated the 20,000 tracks. What's putting them through iTunes Match suddenly going to change? The record companies don't suddenly "lose" another 20,000 tracks. Sure, you've now got access to a 256K AAC version of a pirated song as well as the original 320K MP3 you pirated. So what?

And as for this now "legitimising" piracy as other people have suggested, with the ease by which music can already be illegally downloaded over the Internet, it's more a matter of conscience and morals than any actual prevention, and that doesn't change with this.

Just because nothing has changed doesn't mean that the record companies would agree to allow this. Why would they? What do they get from it?

A lot of pirated songs aren't 320K, so in a lot of cases Apple would upgrade, not downgrade, the quality of the song.

Apple mainstreams, simple as that. (If this actually is true, which I seriously doubt.)

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

So what's changed for the record companies? You've already pirated the 20,000 tracks. What's putting them through iTunes Match suddenly going to change? The record companies don't suddenly "lose" another 20,000 tracks. Sure, you've now got access to a 256K AAC version of a pirated song as well as the original 320K MP3 you pirated. So what?

What changes is that pirate goes from worrying about any potential personal risk to having no personal risk. When Limewire went down, every potential user of that service could have become a target of legal actions... and still could. If this is as you assume, pay $24.99 and replace anything you are not 100% sure about and it wouldn't matter if this 20K song pirate was first on a hypothetical Limewire list. One receipt would completely defend them of their crimes.

Amnesty is the concept here. If you're view is right, Apple has apparently convinced the music industry to sell Amnesty for their small shares of $25/yr. Or, this might be viewed as a favorite song (everything in each person's library) subscription service priced at only $25/yr. I just don't see the music industry buying into either. I can grasp your take on it, but I just don't believe your take is correct.

 

[rWally]

Just because nothing has changed doesn't mean that the record companies would agree to allow this. Why would they? What do they get from it?

A lot of pirated songs aren't 320K, so in a lot of cases Apple would upgrade, not downgrade, the quality of the song.

Apple mainstreams, simple as that. (If this actually is true, which I seriously doubt.)

They would get $25 a year from pirates rather than $0.

 

[gnasher729]

For that matter, how would Apple know if 3min of silence called Borderline by Madonna isn't what it claims to be. Could you sneak in such sound files and get a real match?

I can't say how Apple is doing it, but I can tell you how I would have done it.

There are three problems that the matching software has to solve: 1. Take a song from your hard drive and find whether it matches any of 18 million songs on the store, without missing any songs. 2. Take a song from your hard drive and find whether it matches one specific song on the store, without being tricked into a false match. 3. Do it quick.

I would first go by artist/song title to find a likely match. So if you have a song "Madonna/Borderline" and there is a song "Madonna/Borderline" on the store, I try to take a fingerprint of the music on your drive and compare it with a pre-calculated fingerprint of the song on the store. 3 minutes silence won't match the song. On the other hand, for some people this could match 80 or 90 percent of their songs. This method would be very quick, because Apple only needs a fingerprint good enough to match one song against one song.

Everything that isn't matched that way, a better fingerprint is needed to look up the song in the 18 million song database, which would take a bit longer. That would work by taking the actual music and nothing else.

Amnesty is the concept here. If you're view is right, Apple has apparently convinced the music industry to sell Amnesty for their small shares of $25/yr. Or, this might be viewed as a favorite song (everything in each person's library) subscription service priced at only $25/yr. I just don't see the music industry buying into either. I can grasp your take on it, but I just don't believe your take is correct.

Take Apple's own software. They don't care how much is pirated, they care how much money they make. They do nothing to punish honest people (unlike for example DVDs that don't let me skip their stupid anti-piracy rubbish), and they give dishonest people a chance to give Apple _some_money (you can buy _one_ copy and install on multiple computers; unlike Windows where you have to pirate _all_ copies if you don't want to buy one for each computer). That's maximizing profit. I suppose they convinced the music industry to do the same. That way, the pirate pays $25/yr instead of $0/yr. Which is $25 pure profit.

 

[rWally]

What changes is that pirate goes from worrying about any potential personal risk to having no personal risk. When Limewire went down, every potential user of that service could have become a target of legal actions... and still could. If this is as you assume, pay $24.99 and replace anything you are not 100% sure about and it wouldn't matter if this 20K song pirate was first on a hypothetical Limewire list. One receipt would completely defend them of their crimes.

Amnesty is the concept here. If you're view is right, Apple has apparently convinced the music industry to sell Amnesty for their small shares of $25/yr. Or, this might be viewed as a favorite song (everything in each person's library) subscription service priced at only $25/yr. I just don't see the music industry buying into either. I can grasp your take on it, but I just don't believe your take is correct.

I still don't understand how you think $25 would amount to a receipt for thousands of songs? That receipt just says that apple swapped out files for you.

 

[hpman247]

I wonder if "uploaded" songs remain your private data? Or does Apple get to add all of them to the general library, available for matching with other subscribers? If so, it would appear to be a cheap (free) way for Apple to increase its own database.

I would think so. I can't imagine them not being private data.

As for everything else I stated, it's all based on what we know so far. Everything else that people are repeating here is mere speculation. I too think that this service as it has been described to us is too good to be true. Legalizing our entire music collections for $25...but who knows. Maybe it's a turn of the tide. As of right now, that's exactly what it sounds like though.

 

[Bertmg]

Doesn't anyone noticed! or I am reading it wrong?

They would get $25 a year from pirates rather than $0.

... or, they are getting $25.00/year for music you already legally purchase but not from iTunes?. What about when you stop paying the fee? I hope they don't make it to be deleted from your iTunes library.

If they are legitimizing pirated music, ok. But if they are re-profiting (of curse I don't know if this is a real word ) not cool!!!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

How would that be amnesty? People who get caught pirating music get caught in the act of actually downloading it. The RIAA gets your IP address and they sue you. Telling them you paid $25 to have your pirated song converted by Apple doesn't prove your innocence at all.

The way you explain makes it sound like they scan your computer for songs they think you pirated and then make you explain how you got it. In reality, they're watching you as you download the file. By your reasoning you could just as easily delete the song rather than have apple convert it for you and you'd be in the clear as well. That is not the case.

That's not what I'm saying at all. They don't watch you download it on the fly. There's not enough of "them" to monitor all Internet traffic to effectively catch that; else online piracy would have been stomped out long ago. What they do is just assume piracy and use any justification for targeting individuals or a group. Then, those served mount a defense. The easy defense is pulling out the CDs and receipts for all of your music. Do that and the case is over. However, if you can't do that, there's some room there for the case to persist. It's the persistence of the case that racks up the bill for the defendant. Even if you win, you lose in all the legal bills to cover your defense.

Yes, that's "guilty until proven innocent" which is wrong- even illegal in and of itself. But that hasn't stopped them from not necessarily winning cases by reaching an ultimate decision, but instead wiping out the targets from having to pay for drawn out defenses.

 

[Blu-Ray]

This is crazy - almost everything I've read around the web related to iCloud and iTunes says that it will be "streaming". example Yahoo article. Hopefully Apple will clarify soon so we can put this to rest.

iCloud, in many ways, is an update to Apple's MobileMe service, but with no price tag and a major new cloud music-streaming service for iTunes users. For music, iCloud is fundamentally different from its rivals because of the way it operates. Apple will offer consumers a digital music locker to upload songs that they purchase from iTunes. These songs are then streamed back to multiple devices using an Internet connection. In addition, Apple will offer iTunes Match for $24.99 a year which will allow users to stream music from the cloud that they may not have purchased directly from the iTunes store itself.

 

[hpman247]

I still don't understand how you think $25 would amount to a receipt for thousands of songs? That receipt just says that apple swapped out files for you.

I think he is trying to propose this concept on a legal front. In other words how these actions would be seen by our legal system here in the states. And for that I am not your man to be making comments hahah

 

[redfirebird08]

I would think so. I can't imagine them not being private data.

As for everything else I stated, it's all based on what we know so far. Everything else that people are repeating here is mere speculation. I too think that this service as it has been described to us is too good to be true. Legalizing our entire music collections for $25...but who knows. Maybe it's a turn of the tide. As of right now, that's exactly what it sounds like though.

Which is why they're waiting until the fall to get it figured out. I think in the end they will release it as a streaming service. Then someone won't be able to pay $25 one time and download a ton of good quality DRM-free AAC files for stuff that they pirated in the first place. They'll be forced to either pay the $25 per year if they want to use the Cloud streaming service for their library, or simply stick with old fashioned transferring of pirated files to the iPod/iPhone/iPad.

 

[AaronEdwards]

They would get $25 a year from pirates rather than $0.

I doubt that they are getting $25/year, nor that they would settle for just $25/year.

For example. $25 for 20,000 songs would be 0.125 cents per song.

Compare that to what Apple charges for them in the iTunes Store.

 

[essinger]

If this actually turns out to be right, that Apple have convinced the record companies that for $25/year they will allow people to convert pirated songs into legal songs, then this will be the biggest news from WWDC. Nothing else will come close.

I really don't think this is the way Apple presented this to the record companies. Rather Apple sold them on a subscription service where people pay money for access to music they were already "stealing" for free. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the artists are paid their share of the fee based on number of song plays just like every other subscription service. It is a significant slice of their usual charge for such services for a rather paltry slice of their catalog. It is just a rather novel way of determining what that access catalog will be.