'iTunes Match' Allows Both Streaming and Downloading of Music

[ChazUK]

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For $25 this sounds fantastic. Looking forward to a European rollout.

 

[Žalgiris]

Also the music industry agreed to try this out with Apple knowing people were gonna put lets say..nefarious collected music onto their computer.

That's the point they have that music anyway no matter iTunes Match exists or not, but with iTunes Match they at least will be getting some money from those people (not all obviously). The way i see it it's a win from record labels anyway.

 

[314631]

Feel free to enlighten me then. They must have come to a conclusion similar to what I stated otherwise they wouldn't have gone through with the deal. The record companies aren't daft enough to have not worked out that users would attempt to use illegitimate copies to gain ones from Apple.

When I said "They make $25" that was inclusive of Apple, they also sell music after all and thus are part of the industry and are also affected by piracy.

The labels and rightsholders received huge upfront guaranteed payments to give Apple the go ahead to launch this. I wouldn't be surprised if theres compensation clauses in the contracts too should sales/revenues fall as a result. They know what is going to happen in terms of legitimizing some music sourced by questionable means. But it all comes down to money. If they end up making a lot more cash as a result of iTunes match everyone is happy. If revenues fall I am sure it will be Apple's problem to solve.

 

[Mattsasa]

at this point it appears that I can stream music videos on my iPhone, but not on my iPad. un sure on mac so far

 

[TrickyTree1984]

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Thank god I get unlimited data with my tesco contract

 

[314631]

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Thank god I get unlimited data with my tesco contract

Yeah but you wont be getting ITunes match for at least a year, maybe longer....

 

[TrickyTree1984]

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True. That's sucks. Guess I will have to buy a bigger iPhone (Please give us 64gb apple)

 

[monoskier]

Feel free to enlighten me then. They must have come to a conclusion similar to what I stated otherwise they wouldn't have gone through with the deal. The record companies aren't daft enough to have not worked out that users would attempt to use illegitimate copies to gain ones from Apple.

Zalgiris beat me to it...

Agreed.
If someone obtains an illegitimate copy of a track, the record labels aren't seeing anything from it financially. Sure, maybe that person goes on and actually buys/legitimately downloads the rest of the cd, but I'd be willing to bet that doesn't happen as much as people suggest.

The record labels are coming out even better from this because they are finally collecting, albeit a small portion, from the illegitimate users plus their collecting again from the people who actually paid for the songs in the first place.

Besides, it's not like the person who pirated the song really gets more music now. They still have the same illegal copy, and that copy was in their iTunes folder, and thus on their iDevices anyways.

Sure, maybe they now have a better version of the song, but what was to stop them from pirating a better copy? Obviously their morals aren't, because they've already pirated the song in the first place.

 

[Azzin]

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Thank god I get unlimited data with my tesco contract

Are you sure?

I *think* Tesco are one of those providers that advertises "unlimited" data, but tucks away an FUP in the small print...

 

[vodouman]

Are you sure?

I *think* Tesco are one of those providers that advertises "unlimited" data, but tucks away an FUP in the small print...

I can't speak for Tesco 'cause I can't remember off the top of my head. O2 used to offer truly unlimited (which own Tesco) so the user may be on an old contract.

The only UK company I know that offers truly unlimited data is Three. I'm just hoping they continue to offer it once the new iPhone comes out.


EDIT
Sorry, to clarify, O2 and Tesco are part of a joint venture. I believe Tesco uses the O2 network and gives O2 a slice of the profits.

 

[dankly]

Good idea but seriously i personally dont need access to 50+gb of music over cloud.
Just make a few genius playlists and add the music you think you'll want to hear...its not rocket science. If you don't have something you want then deal with it and move on life's like that.

 

[Azzin]

I can't speak for Tesco 'cause I can't remember off the top of my head. O2 used to offer truly unlimited (which own Tesco) so the user may be on an old contract.

The only UK company I know that offers truly unlimited data is Three. I'm just hoping they continue to offer it once the new iPhone comes out.

O2 still offer truly unlimited data to those who are still on those contracts and haven't upgraded anything since.

Tesco also aren't owned by O2, they merely rent bandwidth from them, much in the same way Virgin Mobile don't have their own network, they (invisibly) use T-Mobile's.

 

[monoskier]

The labels and rightsholders received huge upfront guaranteed payments to give Apple the go ahead to launch this. I wouldn't be surprised if theres compensation clauses in the contracts too should sales/revenues fall as a result. They know what is going to happen in terms of legitimizing some music sourced by questionable means. But it all comes down to money. If they end up making a lot more cash as a result of iTunes match everyone is happy. If revenues fall I am sure it will be Apple's problem to solve.

As someone who until recently worked in the industry for 5+ years, believe me, the record labels aren't hurting as much as they want you to think. The artists, and mainly the "smaller" ones, are the ones who took the biggest hit.

(And one could argue that any artist that has entered the scene in the past couple of years doesn't know any better anyways since they were never a part of the pre-Napster revenue generation. Them saying that they are losing revenue is largely based on speculation of what they think/thought they should be making on record sales as they have nothing to compare their current sales to.)

[/Topic Hijacking]

 

[vodouman]

O2 still offer truly unlimited data to those who are still on those contracts and haven't upgraded anything since.

Tesco also aren't owned by O2, they merely rent bandwidth from them, much in the same way Virgin Mobile don't have their own network, they (invisibly) use T-Mobile's.

I am aware, I have edited my post if you look

I know O2 still offer truly unlimited for old contracts, If you'll go back and read I originally said that! I know this first hand as I have an unlimited O2 contract. However, they still cut you off if you use around 6GB bandwidth a month even if there is no fair use policy. That's why I left O2, because they're evil, the only reason i'm not taking legal action against them is because i'm a student with no money!

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Or maybe some people will go through hoops if this can be done with iTunes gift card.

I have a US account I set up years ago with a free song, unfortunately it looks like it's only going to function with a Credit Card.

If anyone was able to get this to work using just an iTunes card please feel free to correct me.

 

[monoskier]

Has anyone turned off the option "Show All Music"? Maybe with this off it allows the user to sync as normal but also select other songs to have available through iTunes Match...

 

[Žalgiris]

I have a US account I set up years ago with a free song, unfortunately it looks like it's only going to function with a Credit Card.

If anyone was able to get this to work using just an iTunes card please feel free to correct me.

Yes, i just tried that too. Asks for god damn credit card.

 

[spasm321]

Yes, i just tried that too. Asks for god damn credit card.

I obtained iTunes beta 6.1 from another source and signed up for iTunes Match with a non-developer account which I'm surprised it let me do so. I also was able to pay with itunes credit. I had 79$ credit on my account from a 100$ itunes gift card I got for my birthday and I now have 54$. It didn't even ask me if I wanted to use a credit card instead, it just asked if I wanted to buy and then subtracted from my account. It's matching my songs now, will report back if any issues.

 

[bushido]

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damn this sucks i hoped it would work with a giftcard on my fake account

 

[bmk]

Here's what I think will happen.

You put a CD in your Mac, rip it into iTunes. iTunes Match will scan it. The result will be

a. If it finds it on iTunes store, it will give you access to 256kbit versions of it for both streaming or downloading on your iPhone.
b. If it doesn't find it, it will upload your files to iCloud, still giving you streaming or download access on your iPhone.

So, it works as you want it to either way.

As for managing the local vs remote songs on your device. I'm not sure if there's a better way then just picking and choosing them on your device.

arn

Just a hypothetical question, re your point b. Suppose you have pirated music and you use the iTunes Match service. If it uploads a pirated copy of a cd doesn't this technically mean that Apple is then hosting and streaming a pirated copy of a cd? How does that work legally?

I still don't get how Apple or record companies agreed to exchanging thousands or even millions of pirated tracks (because let's face it there are a lot of people with pirated stuff and who are looking to use this service to legitimise it) for legal copies, or even hosting illegal copies on Apple servers. Am I missing something obvious?

 

[MrSmith]

So let's say I've got a thousand songs at 64kbps. Does that mean I can pay $25, download all thousand at 256kbps to my machine, then cancel my subscription from the second year and keep the tunes? And the disadvantage would be...I wouldn't be able to stream them to other devices?

 

[ghoward1619]

icloud

So basically, this will save you harddrive space for $25 a year with putting all your music in the cloud instead of saving it to your harddrive. I'm trying to think why would I need this service.

 

[RobQuads]

So now they are confirmed to provide downloads as well its essentially $25 to legitimise & standardise "most" of your downloads i.e. You have 20,000 songs of varying quality from 64-bit to 265-bit. All illegal. Pay $25. Upload all your songs. All that have been "matched" can now be downloaded and are legal.
End subscription.

As said by others its a clever deal. I would do it to straight away to my itunes as $25 is nothing for what your getting and the Studios are also getting money they would not be otherwise.

 

[paulsalter]

So now they are confirmed to provide downloads as well its essentially $25 to legitimise & standardise "most" of your downloads i.e. You have 20,000 songs of varying quality from 64-bit to 265-bit. All illegal. Pay $25. Upload all your songs. All that have been "matched" can now be downloaded and are legal.
End subscription.

As said by others its a clever deal. I would do it to straight away to my itunes as $25 is nothing for what your getting and the Studios are also getting money they would not be otherwise.

Unless I am misreading, something doesn't sounds quite right here

I can now download illegal music
iTunes match will make it legal

I now pay $25/year for all the music I want instead of buying albums

 

[SirHaakon]

Unless I am misreading, something doesn't sounds quite right here

I can now download illegal music
iTunes match will make it legal

I now pay $25/year for all the music I want instead of buying albums

Yes, you're paying the general license fee. I'm sure the thought is better to have everyone paying $25 a year (in addition to everything they purchase legally) than just have you torrenting music and the record companies making nothing. You'll still be a douche, but at least they're getting something for it.

With streaming being an option, this service is going to flat out dominate.