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MrGuy [soylentnews.org] writes:

Apple's latest press event was punctuated by a live appearance by U2 as well as an official announcement [apple.com] 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. [3news.co.nz]

To the point where Apple has apparently admitted defeat, and offered an official tool [apple.com]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"?

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