eMusic Also Took Away Right To Download Songs Already Purchased
from the thanks-for-nothing dept
In all the fuss over eMusic's poorly managed plan to sign Sony Music and raise prices at the same time, the company apparently also was able to sneak through another anti-customer move. For years, as an eMusic customer, you were able to go back and access songs you'd previously downloaded. This is, for obvious reasons, a very useful feature -- especially considering the fact that people change computers or lose hard drives and such. However, apparently, along with the price increase, eMusic has quietly dropped this feature as well. It's not clear why they would do this. Perhaps Sony didn't want this, but that doesn't explain why the feature was removed for everyone. It's like eMusic is punishing their loyal customers. The company claims that it will allow people to redownload if there's a technical problem, but the convenience feature is just gone.
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Not completely, as I understood it, though do not have a link to point to.
I believe that it has changed from unlimited re-downloading, to four times. Which is not as bad as never-ever.
However nice the ability, c'mon - backup your shiznit already...
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From their terms of service:
"6.13 eMusic may allow you to re-download each of your previously purchased tracks a limited number of times for any technical reasons at no additional charge; nonetheless, if you exceed a reasonable number of re-downloads (as deemed by eMusic) on any given track(s), you will be required to re-purchase such track(s)."
Uh, eMusic [I'll say this here, as I assume that you are checking in here as you have previously, and do not have the ability to squelch this comment as you have on your own boards] - you'd be very wise to be up front and lock this down to a fixed number instead of a vague, omninous, maybe, sort-of, if we're in the mood to help you policy. You're about to start another sh!tstorm.
ref:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090623/0415565326.shtml
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Re:
But I haven't seen any uproar over this... well actually, when it was first started, there were many people arguing against it, lol. Personal responsibility and other such nonsense, they called it.
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eMusic - Your documentation is out of synch with itself.
This page still eludes to unlimited downloading:
http://www.emusic.com/help/download.html#gen3
Please get your poop perpendicular.
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Also, the change hasn't happened yet. eMusic has said the Sony thing will occur in "early July". As far as I can tell the download policy hasn't changed yet.
Of course, since music comes and goes to eMusic like the wind, there are already tons of things I can't re-download that I've bought over the years, but I'm a compulsive backup-er, so it's not a problem for me.
I've used it a few times out of convenience, but never out of necessity.
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reDownloads
There are better ways to prevent/discorage piracy, like micro fees (1/10th - 1/2 cent) for each redownload, stated in the TOS. The line "To cover bandwidth costs" should have been used.
It is never a good idea to change the games rules half way through, unless its to the users advantage .....
190 entry/note) Unlimited redownloads
191) Fee for redownload set by artist/company.
192) Fee for redownload never increases and is tied to the person who downloaded the file.
193 ) Fee For Redownload can be decreased by artist/company/copyright holder
194 ) fee for redownload can be between 0 and the current value of the file to be downloaded, never above current value.
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Re: reDownloads
You're basically talking about them trying to squash sneakernet piracy. Best of luck to them with that.
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Re: Re: reDownloads
"More than likely this is the recording industry doing its we want you to pay for this multiple times, and statistical analysis shows that 50% of the people redownload more than 4 times in a three year period."
Which is what we all think is going on here. More than likely in a couple months they will remove the ability to redownload altogether.
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Re: reDownloads
196) Artists (Copyright holders) can set a Global Maximum download fee on their works
197) Sample/Sampling library and fees
198) Lyrics Library and fees
199) out of copyright / orphan poetry library
200) multi-channel library for saving Mixing/mixes
This place just gets the old creative juices flowing
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eMusic
Never to be used again.
Now that Sony is calling the shots and turning them completely anti-consumer.
They should have known better than to make any deals with Sony at all aside from possibly "we share all of your music at our current prices and all of our current features -- or take a hike".
I know they claim that all of their other changes have nothing to do with Sony, but how stupid do they think consumers are? (don't answer that ;) )
Pulling Sony on at all already felt like a slap to the face.
There are other sources and they will be used now.
And also thank gawd for RIAARadar.
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you lie down with dogs...
sony destroys everything it touches, it's too bad that emusic didn't know that ahead of time.
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so boycott eMusic already
there are virtually no barriers to entry to becoming a musician, you can find them everywhere, if you don't like the abuse then find someone who cares, otherwise you are just another perpetual victim always seeking a new dysfunctional abusive relationship, good fans finding bad music outlets, life is too short
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Cover-up
Because they're trying to cover-up that it was done for Sony. Doing it just for Sony music would make that too obvious.
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Mike - What was your source for this story? You only link back to the other, previous post...
At any rate, the only real issue here is the lack of clarity on the behalf of eMusic with this in light of the other changes taking place. It is not really unreasonable to limit the number of times a tangible [to use the term loosely] item may be re-downloaded.
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TechDirt is Wrong; Re-downloads still exist
They changed the way that you see them/get to them. You go to your profile->downloads page as before to see the list of previously downloaded items. There is a link to the Album page. There you will see the tracks you have already downloaded with a link to re-download them.
I understand from emusic customer service chat that this is temporary while they fix the download history.
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about emusic
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Re: about emusic
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