Apple's latest press event was punctuated by a live appearance by U2 as well as an official announcement that Apple was giving away the band's latest album to over 500 million iTunes users. Apple called the mass giveaway "part of music history."
And it was, but maybe not in the way they intended. Apple's heavy-handed approach forced the album to download on every device of users who enable their purchases to download, whether they wanted it or not. And there was no easy way to NOT have the album on your device - many users found that even if they deleted the album, it would simply show back up again, unless they disabled all automatic syncing (even for albums they chose and purchased). Apple users were not impressed.
To the point where Apple has apparently admitted defeat, and offered an official tool to allow users to remove the unwanted album permanently from their iTunes library.
In other words, Apple mishandled a free giveaway of an album so badly that they actually had to create a special tool to allow people to decline to receive something they gave away for free (after Apple paid the band for the album). They could have generated more goodwill and generated less anger by making the album temporarily free in the iTunes store. But hey, how often can you make "music history?"
(Score: 2) by Shijiyaku on Tuesday September 16 2014, @02:48PM
Glad they caught it early; lest it spread among the pure-breeds. meh*
Born too late for sail;too early for space
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Blackmoore on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:00PM
Big content (apple in this case) admitting defeat as the public didnt WANT "free music" that was being shoved down their throat.
(Score: 2) by Caballo Negro on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:02PM
It was like somebody walking into my apartment, and saying "This place would look a lot better with this vase I'm going to give you right there."
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:30PM
Only the vase has painted on it a picture of Bono smirking at you, and every time they visit they keep turning it around so Bono is smirking at you again.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by francois.barbier on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:03PM
It's not like you own your fruit branded device anyway...
By the way, I made some music too,
Can Apple push me to everyone's device? I need a little exposure.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tonyPick on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:15PM
This and then some. From the twitter outrage you'd think they'd done something seriously offensive, but I suspect the backlash is as much to do with Apple buyers suddenly being made aware that they don't own[1] the shiny devices, no matter how much they paid.
([1] Own as in the sense of control; without the software the bits you do own are an expensive paperweight, and it's Apple's software, and they say what goes on there. Not you.)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Random2 on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:34PM
Clearly someone didn't think this through.
Really, what they need is a better way to manage what one has downloaded to their device from the store (rather than a carpet-bomb 'download everything or not). I suspect that's more or less what the tool does; edit whatever local file records what tracks are part of a user's library and removes the U2 entry (why that isn't managed server-side is somewhat baffling).
If only I registered 3 users earlier....
(Score: 3, Informative) by pendorbound on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:24PM
There’s a setting to not auto-download purchases when on cellular data. The default is to NOT auto-download purchases over cellular that you didn’t make explicitly on the current device.
It would suck if I turned that on deciding I wanted purchases on my desktop to be pushed over cell to my phone and then got stuck with Bono I didn’t want, but I can’t imagine why I’d turn that option on with a metered data plan.
I have my phone set the default way — IE auto download purchases, but NOT over cell. I got Bono’d when I got home that night, but not while I was on cell all day.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday September 16 2014, @07:01PM
With respect, what they need to do has nothing to do with content management.
What they need to do is realize they don't own the device. All of those other concerns are secondary, and can be solved by respecting the rights of the owner in the first place.
People are upset because it's incredibly obvious that Apple didn't have full and informed consent to be operating the way they do now, and never should have been from the start.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:46PM
Actually, this is a good point, but it's a major shift from Apple.
Back In The Day, when record companies were up in arms about digital music and demanded heavy handed DRM, it was Steve Jobs who pointed out "music customers are tired of being treated as potential criminals." And it was iTunes' recognition that customers wanted to own the music they purchased that really launched iTunes - at the time, they had deliberately permissive DRM, and they've since switched over to completely DRM-free.
If I buy a song on iTunes, and downloaded it to my computer, it's a DRM-free playable mp3 file. I can do whatever I want with it. I can play it on any MP3 player I choose. They can't take it away again (from my computer, anyways - I can delete it from my library, and iTunes app can "helpfully" do this for me in theory, but I don't think ever has, and it would be legally dubious to do so).
But it hasn't been the case in a long time that Apple has asserted any "ownership" of their customers' music collections. And it was this very commitment to "your music is yours" that really made iTunes succeed where many contemporaries failed.
So I'm actually surprised to see them taking a big step in the other direction now. This really seems to me like a case of exploratory surgery on the goose that lays the golden eggs...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @11:01PM
> launched iTunes - at the time, they had deliberately permissive DRM, and they've since switched over to completely DRM-free.
That is pretty revisionist. Their DRM was hardly permissive - you could not copy music out of your ipod (even today, even with drm-free music it is pretty hard to copy music files out of an ipod or iphone) and for years if you lost your files you could not just re-download for free even though Apple knew exactly what files it had sold you.
Furthemore the only reason music is DRM-free on itunes is because the RIAA had to make a choice - suffer at the hands of Apple's monopoly (Apple would not let any other music service license ipod-compatible DRM) or dump DRM and stop letting Jobs dictate terms. If there is one thing the MAFIAA hate more than letting their customers have freedom it is to suffer the same loss of freedom at the hands of someone else.
And that is why itunes and everywhere else still has DRM on video - the MPAA learned from the RIAA's experience and made sure that no single video player manufacturer ever achieved the kind of market power that would let them dictate terms to the MPAA.
The moral of the story is that everybody wants control. Apple, the MAFIAA, etc. They all want to control anybody they can get their claws into in order to get some of that sweet-sweet rent-seeking moola.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:44AM
No, it's not. If you download it from iTunes, it's a DRM-free AAC file.
Since there is no appreciable difference in quality (especially for reasonably high bitrates), I prefer to get my music in MP3 format since it will be patent-free sooner than AAC.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Tork on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:12PM
From the twitter outrage you'd think they'd done something seriously offensive, but I suspect the backlash is as much to do with Apple buyers suddenly being made aware...
Or it's mostly Fandroids with their perpetual axe to grind.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DECbot on Tuesday September 16 2014, @05:59PM
It's not just the Fandroids who have an ax to bear. More than once, I've met somebody who refuses to listen, much less buy, U2 music because of Bono's egotistical, ass-hat personality. From the U2 foes I know, they would go out of their way to make sure U2 was not only removed from their devices but also purged from their library of accessable content.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:22PM
I'm sure you know eleventy million people like that, but at least 3/4ths of the comments I've seen on the matter so far are from people who don't even have an iOS device. They don't even know that the auto-download is NOT on by default, but they sure have a heated opinion about it.
There is definitely a point to be made about not wanting Apple to use this approach to marketing albums, but seriously this is mainly a fanboy-fueled-pitchfork-party.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DECbot on Tuesday September 16 2014, @07:10PM
Yeah, I think you're correct. Most of the arguments made here are those that are upset that Apple would dare violate our device with files we did not ask for. I know less than 5 people that I'd call U2 foes, and yes, they did have iPhones and no, you wouldn't find them here in SN. I wish there was more here than Fandroids venting about their device rights. Honestly, I wish my Nexus was more open out of the box.
None the less, U2's broad palatability makes thier music offensive to the militantly selective, pretentious few (Bono's personality is a free kick in the head too). Instead of throwing U2 onto people's devices, I think it would have been interesting if Apple used their iTunes Genius algorithm to give away albums matching a person's listening tastes. That would be the obvious marketing win. As much as people bemoan and lothe Steve Jobs, he would get that a broadly palatable 80s band recommended by the marketing MBAs after scores of research directly conficts with the cool, hipster image of the Apple brand. Here we see that Apple has lost its marketing innovation. The MBAs have the reigns, and it will be a slow march to BlackBerry equivelent obsolesense as they burn through the billions in capital.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:36PM
1. The majority of The Edge's riffs sound the same and, beginning with Pop, not in a good way.
2. Bono's loveable personality.
3. U2's penchant [independent.co.uk] for paying tax [dailymail.co.uk], which (surprise, surprise) is also shared by Tim Cook [nypost.com].
-- LentilSoupIsMentalFruit [soylentnews.org]
(Karma cannot stop me.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:07PM
Found this article [mashable.com] after submitting the story above.
Set aside the "we're not in the least sorry this upset anyone" bit and note that, after this happened, a bunch of U2 albums (OTHER THAN the one they gave away) started trending in the iTunes store.
If you're a music marketing exec (or an iTunes exec), the lesson to take away is that "all publicity is good publicity" and "no matter how vocally some people complain, this is provably a great way to get people interested in your band."
There are times when I'm really mad at humanity...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by metamonkey on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:49PM
Also, the people who were pissed weren't going to buy a U2 album, anyway, so who cares what they think.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:08PM
I hope Apple - and technocrats in general - learn something here. It wasn't that Apple gave people something for free, it was that they forced something on people. Personal autonomy is a basic human need. Even such a small encroachment on people's dignity as this was inevitably going to piss people off to no end.
No one likes the crapware that comes pre-installed on phones and PCs, but at least you have a choice to buy the system or not buy the system in the first place. This situation was one were no one had a choice. There was no opt-in or even opt-out (a much shittier but still acceptable form of choice for at least some portion of the population).
Treat people like they are in a cage, even a metaphorical cage and they will be very angry. Let them choose to walk into a cage and lock the door behind themselves and most of them will love you for it.
(Score: 1) by pankkake on Wednesday September 17 2014, @09:05AM
> Even such a small encroachment on people's dignity as this was inevitably going to piss people off to no end.
Indeed I am pretty proud of my music library and very attached to it. If someone pushed something I didn't want there I'd be really pissed off.
I don't care if it's "downloaded" or not, if it ends up in my music library, it's like making a stain on my walls. I just don't want it to show. Last.fm for example knows this, and allows you to remove artists and plays from your library.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @12:45PM
Debian.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:14PM
Because Apple knows better than you what's good (or harmful [wikipedia.org]) for you.
And if you don't like it, go buy an Android [wired.com]... no, seriously, why wouldn't you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:26PM
Oh man, I had two responses. I don't know which is better, so pick whichever one makes you chuckle harder.
Nah man, this is classic Apple, forcing crap on you that you don't even want.
Yeah, it's like what I've been saying for years. U2 sucks so hard, you'd have to force their music on people to move albums!
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @02:24AM
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 1) by deathand on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:26PM
It sounds like something Microsoft would have done late 90s early 00s. Just goes to show you that once you've gotten big enough your are plagued by the same problems about consistently delivering a great product/service.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:54PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:47PM
The only way to make a Corporation change it's business habits, is to vote with your wallet. Then the corporation is forced to do something different. Assuming enough of their customers agree with you and also vote with their wallets.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:56PM
> The only way to make a Corporation change it's business habits, is to vote with your wallet.
And since a relative handful of people have really fucking big wallets that dwarf everyone else's, we might as well just give up.
Maybe the only real way to make a corporation (how weird it is that you capitalized that) change its ways is to give blow-jobs to the people with the really big wallets.
(Score: 5, Funny) by WizardFusion on Tuesday September 16 2014, @03:54PM
I saw an funny image yesterday about this...
(Score: 4, Funny) by dyingtolive on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:04PM
I'm still trying to figure out who the fuck it was that made U2 popular anyway? At least Aerosmith I've been able to find fans. I've never spoken with anyone who's admitted to being a U2 fan.
Forget 9/11 and the moon landing. This is the REAL conspiracy: Who made U2 popular!?
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:10PM
> I'm still trying to figure out who the fuck it was that made U2 popular anyway?
It sounds like you still haven't found what you're looking for.
(Score: 1) by TechnoTrickster on Wednesday September 17 2014, @06:32PM
It might be because he is looking where the streets have no names.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:21PM
"This is the REAL conspiracy: Who made U2 popular!?"
This is the part thats weird. U2 is boomer rock. I'm about 40-ish and even I categorize U2 as dad-rock. Lets just say they are way before my time and sound it. Black Sabbath is also before my time, but they sound modern(ish), in comparison.
And where it gets really weird, is are iDevices for cool yuppie kids and wannabes who won't think grandpa's favorite band is cool solely because its grandpas band, or are they marketing toward the boomer generation because they have all the money and youth unemployment is (some ridiculous number) etc?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:47PM
And the odd thing is that this isn't the first time it's happened either. Apple's been using U2 songs for advertising for a while now. I just can't reconcile "muzak safe mainstream radio lite-rock" with "think different", ya know?
I guess Jobs was (and now Cook is) in his 50s. Maybe that's the magic generation that U2 stops sucking at. I mean, most experience with people of that generation would still argue otherwise, but I got nothin' otherwise.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @07:01PM
U2 made U2 unpopular. They changed their style, got all political, and frankly suck ass. I really don't give a fuck what a rock star thinks about things, and I really don't give a fuck if his rad new style is revolutionary and what he really always wanted to do but the system wouldn't let him. I liked the old stuff because of the way it sounded, whether they were forced to write their music that way by labels or not. U2 is a classic example of too much success poisoning the whole process.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:37AM
Yep. Same thing that happened to Metallica and countless others.
Of course that doesn't change the fact that they did at some point write and perform decent music, which I download DRM-free from a popular service called The Pirate Bay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:50AM
> U2 made U2 unpopular. They changed their style, got all political,
U2 has been political since nearly the beginning.
Their 3rd album was named "War" for chrissakes.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday September 16 2014, @07:35PM
I kind of liked U2 way back in the 90's. They had a couple of songs that were alright to listen to and that one strange music video.
That's *it*.
I always thought they were a one-hit-wonder band and have felt nothing but astonishment that they are that popular or that anybody gives a shit about Bono.
If you think about it, U2 were the *original* Kardashians. A conundrum of which came first... the chicken or the egg.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:30PM
> I always thought they were a one-hit-wonder band
This thread reeks of high-school faux elitism. Like to the point of parody.
Every single album they've released has gone platinum, the last 10 have gone multi-platinum in multiple countries and most of their albums, including ALL of their more recent albums, have hit #1 on the charts, despite having a completely different sound than the first 5 albums that made them famous. I don't even like anything after their first 5, but "one-hit-wonder" is just so profoundly wrong that I have to wonder if your post has made me succumb to Poe's Law. Because no matter your taste, your take on reality is completely without foundation.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:39PM
Hey guys, I found the guy who did it!
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @12:16AM
Maybe you need to sit down and figure out who decides which albums get to go "gold" and "platinum" in the first place, and if you think it is in any way related to actual retail sales figures then I have a bridge to sell you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @12:46AM
> if you think it is in any way related to actual retail sales figures then I have a bridge to sell you.
Right. Absolutely no relationship between retail sales and platinum status.
In fact, my garage band jumpin beanz is actually the biggest selling band of all time.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:27PM
(Score: 1) by thegothicguardian on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:42PM
I think this podcast [earwolf.com] should give you a better understanding.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:27PM
It's also ironic that Apple built their reuptation for cool, slick, hip advertising by building on "not quite mainstream yet" music by the likes of JET, Gorillaz, and Feist now decides "Hey, you know what will really impress the cool kids that love music demographic we want to appeal to? A band that hasn't been relevant in 20 years!"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:35PM
"A band that hasn't been relevant in 20 years!""
My dad listened to U2. I'm just barely old enough to be a grandpa without any teen pregnancies although I'm currently just Dad status. U2 was formed as a band a couple months after my little sister was born. So I'm about a generation too young for U2.
Its a nursing home band. Remember when Microsoft included that Wheezer video in about 96x64 resolution on windows 95 cdroms? It would be like if they stuck Laurence Whelk or Glenn Miller instead.
Going super retro is cool. Ship something from the roaring 20s, that would be cool. Or ship something from 2014 and 1914, that would be cool. But nobody likes great grandpa's music except great grandpa.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:07PM
Not even Grandma likes Grandpa's music.
Turn your music down! It's too loud! If you can't hear it, try putting new batteries in your hearing aids!
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by Groonch on Wednesday September 17 2014, @07:30AM
I'm probably going to regret wading into this, but...
Assuming that a stunt like this was a good idea in the abstract (questionable), then it could only work with a very popular band. Pushing a whole album is different than using 10 seconds of a Gorillaz song in a commercial. This has to be an album that a whole lot of people are going to want even before they listen to it. It's not going to work with something niche or obscure.
So take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists [wikipedia.org]
Frankly, there aren't any currently-active artists in U2's tier or above whom I'd rather listen to. Maybe Madonna or Mariah Carey could have been an alternate choice (although I wouldn't be interested), but it also hinges on Apple being able to work out a deal agreeable to the artist, to the artist having an album ready at that time, etc.
(Score: 3, Informative) by francois.barbier on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:16PM
http://i.imgur.com/TT3vHyO.jpg [imgur.com]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday September 16 2014, @09:41PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Wednesday September 17 2014, @08:13AM
That's the one. :)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:59PM
This is just the tip of the iceberg of walled garden that Apple and other corporations tries to steamroll onto the autonomy of users. The main principle is that once you buy something, you have the ownership of the device and decides for what it's used for and how.
The whole smartphone (zombiephone!) and tablet business with locked down environment and infrastructure is plain wrong approach. And your corporate masters are subject to the standard repotaire of human flaws that will rear their ugly head eventually.
To repeat the words of the Minecraft owner: "Stop trying to ruin the PC as an open platform" (2012 when micksoft tried to "certify" said game on Win8)
An analogy would be "Make the mobile computing platforms open or get out of the way".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:06PM
A story about people complaining they were given an album for free. No story about the actual tech: new iPhones, Apple Watch, Apple Pay.
Heh.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:18PM
When apple bashing, don't ignore the low hanging fruit? *shrugs*
I think this falls into YRO or the deptofyouthinkyouownyourdevice. Either way, it's still apple bashing. Honestly, I don't mind the bashing articles, as long as it is done fairly to all OSes (as in they have done something worthy of the ranting). I guess here we're specifically impressed that Apple was collectivly told no by the mob of BOFH. Unfortunetly, I don't this will strenthen our rights, it just tells apple that a lot of people don't like U2.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by Open4D on Tuesday September 16 2014, @08:43PM
When I saw "Click here to remove U2", my mouse finger moved faster than it ever has before.
But turns out all it did was delete their album from my iTunes ...
(Score: 1) by chewbacon on Tuesday September 16 2014, @10:22PM
See subject
(Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @02:27AM
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @09:18AM
They had to push it to the devices. Had they simply made it available free in iTunes, they would never have made 500 million downloads.