“For his ‘one last thing’ announcement at Monday’s WWDC, Steve Jobs unveiled iTunes Match, a service that copies any music you have on your computer that wasn’t obtained through iTunes–ripped, or it appears even illegally downloaded–and puts it on your iCloud account, a replacement to MobileMe,” Parmy Olson reports for Forbes. “(Apple could not be reached for comment by phone or email to explain how iTunes Match worked with pirated music, but a number of reports suggest it will.) Apple then automatically puts that music on up to 10 devices that are wirelessly connected to the same MobileMe account, bypassing the fiddly USB process. Crucially, the service costs $25 a year.”
Olson reports, “Why does that $25 matter? Because Apple is reportedly splitting that money with copyright holders, many of whom have lost out on potential revenue because so many are downloading songs from bittorrent sites like The Pirate Bay. Some say this means Apple is not only legitimizing pirated music, it’s monetizing it too. Needless to say, the folks at the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) which represents the recording industry worldwide, really like iTunes Match.”
Full article, which confuses iTunes Match and iCloud with a music-streaming service (which it is not), here.
Are you sure it’s the Federation of Phonographic Industry and not Pornographic Industry? I’ve always felt that they screwed me in the ass every time I purchased a song for $1.29 on iTunes.
Seriously? You don’t think a good song (which it must be, if you want to buy it) is worth the same or more as a liter bottle of Pepsi? And you get to own it forever? DRM-free?
Well put. Good point. Now I feel bad about my “otherwise obtained vibes” Thanks dude
I walked into a 7-11, sang a song, grabbed a Pepsi, took a long pull on the bottle and walked out without paying.
Got arrested. Apparently, a litre bottle of Pepsi goes for more than a song is worth.
Did they hold a gun to your head to make you purchase the song, or did you buy it according to your own free choice?
“Steve Jobs unveiled iTunes Match, a service that copies any music you have on your computer ”
Um, from my understanding, iTunes Match does NOT copy any music you have on your computer.
iTunes Match matches what’s on your computer to the files on iCloud.
Is this writer wrong, or am I wrong?
If they have it already, you are simply authorized to access it.
However, if they do not have it, it will upload from your computer to the cloud.
You are correct based upon what I have read. The service attempts to match your content to the iTunes music catalog of millions of songs and then makes those songs available from your account at 256 AAC.
I have not heard of any implied amnesty regarding illegal music tracks. When you submit your iTunes database to the Match service, I suspect that you will be forced to agree with a pledge that you legally possess all of that music. I suppose that could bite you in the butt in the future if they ever attempt to pursue a lawsuit against you for file sharing.
I don’t know what the future holds for media. In my own CD collection, there are dozens of CDs exhibiting pinhole oxidation of the silver reflective layer. I ripped those CDs years ago before they deteriorated. Do I need to keep them to prove legal ownership? The long term implications are staggering.
You may be right about there being a future problem.
An issue with ripped music from CDs is that almost everyone presumes it is a fair use right. However, no court case made such a determination and the music industry has never stated that it is OK.
At best, ripping CDs is still just as much a legal grey area as it was when people first started doing it. At worst, it is definitely illegal.
I believe that ripping a CD which you have bought is considered legal under the current copyright laws as long as it is only for personal use and you don’t distribute it. What most people seem to argue over is what “distribution” actually means. The law basically defines distribution as any form of lending out of the copyrighted material regardless of any profit. So it is illegal to file-share copyrighted material. It doesn’t matter if you make money from sharing (distributing) the material. This aspect of the law goes back to the early days of cassette recorders. When cassettes were introduced in the late 60s the music industry went to court to stop the marketing of music quality recordable cassettes and worked out an agreement where they got a percentage of any sales of blank music quality cassettes. The same thing happened again with CDRs. At first they tried to trick people into paying more for “Music CDR”s which only worked in stand alone CD recorders, which were not connected to computers, so their only purpose was to transfer the content of LPs or cassettes to CDs.
The upshot is that all the fair use law regarding copying for private use have been worked out. Where the real grey area is – is what happens when the content goes online. Presumably apple has convinced the RIAA et-al that their Music Match service will not enable anyone to share their music beyond the scope of their own personal devices.
Ripping a CD is definitely legal in Canada. Making a few playable CDs of the ripped CD is also legal as long as you give them away.
We pay a tax on blank CDs to cover that. Don’t let a Canadian Label rep tell you otherwise.
It is correct that Apple is indeed offering income to the labels and publishers… the numbers that have been floating around about this are correct.
What bugs me is every time i play a song data is being transmitted at my cost – What data is being transmitted, to whom and why Apple?
Incorrect. The songs are downloaded to all your devices once they are matched. Once downloaded, no one tracks or cares how often you play them, unless you enable genius mode in iTunes.
That would be true, if this were a streaming service, which it is not.
It’s a synchronization service.
my thoughts exactly
Do you have to re-download every upgraded AAC individually or can you “download all” for previous iTunes purchases (pre-iTunes Plus) and ripped music from CDs?
@NHL
iTunes Match will match songs that you have that you didn’t purchase on iTMS with songs it has in its database. If for some reason you have tracks that iTMS doesn’t have (live versions, garagebands, etc) then you will upload those tracks to iCloud.
I *still* don’t get it…
A user with 25,000 (which is the limit) pirated songs which could be low quality, semi-corrupt, lacking artwork, missing ID3 tags, etc… could pay $25 to have all of these songs “legitimized”, purified, and cleaned to 256kbps AAC with all the trimmings.
I could see this heavily encouraging piracy. For example, why bother downloading higher quality files, when a 64kbps MP3 will convert via iCloud to nice 256kbps AAC?
And about that $25. For many people, that’s just going to be an upconversion fee which comes out to 1/10 of a penny per song.
Even if people want the service, beyond just the upconvert, but want to keep the music in iCloud, it would take 1,000 years to reach the $1 per song value if a pirate had the 25,000 limit.
The service and all sounds great though. I’m going to use it to avoid re-ripping my entire CD collection at a higher bit rate… which I ripped when drives were much lower capacity, and will likely continue to use the iCloud service, but I’m totally shocked that Apple got the industry to go along with this.
1% of somethin is better than a 100% of nothin…
Shhh…
The first rule of Fight Club is that no one talks about Fight Club!
iForget ®
You can’t create high quality from low quality. Sure the bitrate might “upconvert”, but the song is not really going to sound any better if you started with a poor one that was compressed so much it lost detail. Just like with image compression and video codecs — you can’t create detail from lost detail.
So, I think your premise is faulty: if you mean that piracy would be encouraged because people would simply grab the most readily available crappy copies of anything and everything, and then expect to get Apple to “launder” it into something they would otherwise have to make a bit of an effort to procure.
…That is, assuming we are talking about tracks that don’t get matched by Apple and get uploaded from your collection instead.
You can’t create high quality from low quality. Sure the bitrate might “upconvert”, but the song is not really going to sound any better if you started with a poor copy that was compressed so much it lost detail. Just like with image compression and video codecs — you can’t create detail from lost detail.
So, I think your premise is faulty: if you mean that piracy would be encouraged because people would simply grab the most readily available crappy copies of anything and everything, and then expect to get Apple to “launder” it into something they would otherwise have to make a bit of an effort to procure.
counterproductive, you missed something. Your pirated song is recognized on your hard drive. A 256 kbps AAC file of that song from the iTunes store is sent to your hard drive to replace that pirated song. Eventually all of your pirated songs are replaced by 256 kbps AAC songs from the iTunes store.
You pay $25 a year for access to these replacement songs for a year on up to 10 devices. You quit paying $25 and you get to keep one copy of the replacements on your primary device.
As long as The Labels don’t get your location details, it’s a big win for pirates.
Apple does not up-convert anything. They give you the same song at 256, even if your original is 128.
I don’t think there is a limit… 20,000 was just an example Steve gave during the keynote, when comparing prices to Amazon.
I believe he said that the quantity is unlimited.
Either way, it’s a helluva lot more songs than I have…
iTunes Match does nothing for my Lossless or FLAC files. Drobo setup remains intact. *sigh*
Riddle me this people…
What happens if you stop paying $24.99 per year? Do all your previously matched songs disappear? Or do you own them forever once matched?
99% of my songs (11.33 GB) are imported from CDs and not on iTunes. So I’ll have to upload. Have to see if this iCloud service is something I’d even use. So far have not minded syncing iPhone to iMac, or importing the CDs into iTunes.
What I really want is Apple to compile a huge Music Library of everybody’s songs, find the musicians and get authorization to sell. There are some amazing tracks from old cassettes I have not had time to digitize yet. I’d rather buy them from somebody who had the time to do it.
Anyone read through to the misinformed paranoid bullsh*t at the end of the article?
Sunde’s other big worry is that some day, Apple might actively remove music tracks from your iCloud account which are deemed illegal. “They might say, you can’t do that, so you have to remove it,” Sunde says, adding that when your music is put on iCloud, Apple essentially owns that data, not you. It’s stored on their server, not yours.”
This idiot has no idea what he’s talking about. Of course the music is still stored on your “server”. Apple isn’t “taking” your files, they’re making copies, and then only of the stuff they don’t already have. Under no circumstances will you be prevented from listening to your music.
Why do extremist freetards always treat a door opening as it if implies several other doors are slamming shut? To us, the Mac App store is a convenient way to browse and buy software. To them, it’s proof Apple is going to lock the Mac down! To us, iCloud is a handy way to backup and distribute all your music. To them, it means Apple will control everything you listen to!!!
‘Cuz you know, all those other ways of installing programs and listening to music will just go away, somehow.
And this crap is hosted by Forbes magazine.
——RM
Dude….SPOT ON!!!!!
I just couldn’t find the effort to write this down…..thanks for doing it!
How can clueless people like this Forbes reporter have these jobs??
Apple does say they’re “upgrading” your tracks to clean DRM-free 256kbps AAC files.
I took that to mean they are sending the new files back to all your devices (and possibly to iTunes on your Mac/PC as well).
I didn’t read it to mean they are deleting the original tracks/files from your drive.
iTunes match seems like it is a win, win, win for consumers, apple and the recording industry. Hopefully the residuals will make their way to the recording artists.
I personally can’t wait to cloud my CD collection and have all my music with me all the time. It’s a dream come true… as long as my unlimited monthly iPhone account doesn’t get capped.
It seems immoral if not illegal. Obtain as much as you can free / illegally and Apple will launder it for you. All for the low low price of $25 / year. Not only will they make it “legal” they’ll even improve the quality if need be. I don’t like high prices either but this just seems wrong. Maybe I’m missing the obvious. Wouldn’t be the first time.
On another point, how many of you buy iTunes music and never miss the Liner Notes? I just can’t bring myself to do that. I love having the complete product. I’d rather buy the CD and rip it than only have the music. I guess it depends on the type of music you enjoy most. I prefer various forms of Jazz and it’s nice to read about which musicians are on which takes, soloist, etc. You don’t get that if the iTunes versions doesn’t include the Liner Notes which is a deal breaker. The Ray Charles w/Basie download is a great example of how it should be done. But alas, most jazz offerings don’t include the Liner Notes. I usually just order the CD elsewhere because of it. Is there a better way?
And royalties will be paid to the record companies for everything that’s been “laundered”.
Apple indicated that it had 225,000,000 accounts tied to credit cards with 1 click purchasing. If 1% of those people opt-in for the iTunes-Match service, that would generate $56,227,500 – if it’s a 30/70 split, then the music industry gets $39,359,250.
The revenue from the music industry in 2008 was 10.4 Billion. That 39 million would be a 3.75% increase in sales without having to do anything new – that’s a pretty good deal.
Suppose 10% of the users opt-in – that would be a 37.5% increase in revenue for the music industry.
That’s why the music industry loves itunes match.
I wonder how it scans you drives to find your non-iTunes-bought music. I’m not sure what it will make of my thousands of scratchy 78s from labels long gone…
I’m thinking it will use technology similar or identical to Shazam.
I just tried Shazam on my vinyl copy of Pearl Jam’s Ten, Side C, which is an alternate mix of Side A, and it named the song no problem – in only maybe 10 seconds of playback over my computer speakers. I imagine scanning the actual files would only be more accurate.
It’s actually a little freaky how well Shazam works.
What kinda stuff you got there Mr. Alex? Any Muggsy Spanier by chance?
1. They could always limit the matching to songs that are in apple .mpa format. So downloaded MP3s can’t be matched.
2. I suspect that ripped songs have certain characteristics that ripped-and-copied songs do not. Non-lossy codecs generate noise, so when you see two identical copies, you know that one has been copied from another. Apple could say “this song looks copied — we can’t be sure, but we can’t add it to your iCloud.” Apple could also ding you for having too many suspect songs in your database.
3. Why does everyone say 25,000 songs is the limit. Steve never said there was a limit.
‘counterproductive’ speaks the truth. those of us with legitimate, lossless music archives (ripped from discs we bought) are not interested in paying someone else to make a low-quality reproduction of what we already have, and we known how to manage our media already.
But for the media industry, what’s not to love?
– the media industry is guaranteed a stable revenue stream when people rent their music access instead of continuing to use Apple’s previous Mac-hub model. Control shifts from user to media retailer and ISP.
– the media industry could cut its mastering quality, since it is actively training people to believe that 256 kbps sampling rate quality is “good enough”
– the media industry will use this as an excuse to halt physical distribution channels, no matter how many old-timers prefer physical media and the experience of buying music in a real store with a real person who actually knows something about music
– the media industry will do anything to kill the CD, which is both a high quality semi-permanent archive, but as a reusable/resellable physical commodity, it also has many indpendent used music stores that actually _significantly_ undercut the price of downloads
– the media industry is happy to have Apple’s “Genius” snoop the local hard drives of all iTunes users to find out what people actually listen to, and maybe even gather some evidence for more litigation
– the media industry knows that by playing nice with Apple, it will be able to influence the future development of iTunes. Watch for the day when iTunes won’t burn a mix CD for you.
– the media industry will attempt to play Apple against Netflix and Amazon to create competition in the retailing arena, helping preserve its middleman cut.
– using “Genius” as a marketing tool will allow the big 4 music labels to pare down the number of artists they choose to sell. So you bought the Clash’s epic ‘London Calling’? You might also like the new release from the Decemberists! Like Simon & Garfunkel? You might like the Decemberists! Do you listen to electic progressive electronica? You might like the Decemberists! Got a lot of classic honky tonk tunes? You should check out the Decemberists! Is your library entirely comprised of traditional Greek music? You need to buy the Decemberists!!!
and so forth. This isn’t conspiracy theory, this is essentially the strategy that “Cloud” salesmen have been advocating for years, and that the labels have slowly been doing one step at a time — grab back power and reduce variety under the guise of customer convenience. Sorry, but my iPod manged from my local music archive is plenty convenient, thank you. …and the Decemberists are boring, Pink sucks, Britney Spears is a twat, and all the other corporate-invented trash artists can take a long walk on a short dock.
Long live independent music.