Apple Finally Allows iPhone-Ers To Nix That U2 Album They Never Wanted From Their Phones
from the me-three dept
In the wake of the somewhat confusing move by mega-band U2 to release their latest album for free on iTunes, we noted the comments from frontman Bono, who rushed to decry the concept of free for music and who insisted that because he was paid it didn't really count as free. These comments must have been especially confusing for those that suddenly found the band's album in their iTunes cloud account, despite never having requested or wanted it there. Indeed, given some of the comments reacting to the promotional move, it seems the problem with free might not be on the content producer's side, but on the consumer's instead.If you’re trying to convince me that the stuff I store in my cloud is safe, don’t open up my cloud without permission. It’s easy to imagine Apple’s thinking here: What’s better than a free gift? A free gift that you don’t have to go get! But a gift on my doorstep is one thing. A gift that you left in my house, after letting yourself in, is something different.Indeed, and it's not difficult to understand why some reacted less than favorably to the free album. First, despite Bono's insistence to the contrary, this was indeed the use of the concept of free as a promotional tool. Perhaps not for U2 as much as Apple, but that's what it was nevertheless. The problem wasn't that the album was free, but that the album appeared unbidden in the repository for a service that feels quite personal to the consumer. These were our cloud accounts that Apple invaded to leave their free stuff. You know what it's called when someone leaves you something you didn't want for free in your domain? It's called litter. And, in this case, it was litter that you couldn't even clean up. Just browse through a few of the reactions on the site WhoIsU2.com to get a sense:
It should take a couple steps, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. Head over to this page, which Apple put up this morning. Now you can make your collection Bono-free, or just “Songs of Innocence”-free, or whatever. The only catch appears to be that if you decide you do want your new free U2 album, you’ve only got a month to change your mind: After October 13, the only way to get it from iTunes will be by actually spending money.Think about this for a second. For the first time in history, it seems, someone had to write some code to deliberately remove free music that was forced upon people. Like it was malware. How many people expected the digital music revolution to end up here?
Look, it's a great thing to see musicians and distributors continue to experiment with this sort of thing, but it's also important that lessons be learned as they do so. Today's lesson is that the internet is a back-and-forth, not simply a distribution channel that can be used to force products into the consumer's space. Perhaps next time they'll get this a bit more right.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: deleting, free, free music, music, u2
Companies: apple
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
/Hollywood accounting 101
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When the album automatically downloads to a device with limited storage capacity it can become a problem for some users.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
I find it amusing that they're having difficulty giving it away for free.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Plus, I'm not sure if the addition of the music actually counted towards the usage cap on your iCloud account. If so, your service capacity being automatically reduced by something you didn't ask for and don't want but can't remove is a valid complaint.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Amazon doesn't like the version of 1984 on your rented kindle...so they remove it...just like that.
Apple thinks that because they showcase U2 on their stage, you will like it on your rented iDevice.
slightly related...but ...
some guy paints his car, and the manufacturer gets upset...
another guy sells stereo speakers, and that manufacturer gets upset...
some guy adds functionality to the PS3, and all of the sudden, no PS3's function correctly (where correctly is what is advertised on the box)...
what kind of world do we live in where we rent paid property?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
cigarette manufacturer sues ... a lot of countries...because of laws enticing youth to smart smoking.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Heh. That's the main reason why I de-DRM anything I purchase for my Kindle (also everything my wife purchases for hers) and save them to a USB drive for safe keeping.
It's also in case I end up getting a non-Amazon reader in the future. I've never had to re-purchase my entire dead-tree book collection whenever I got a new bookshelf in the past and I'm not going to start now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Me too. That was a watershed event for how I relate to e-books. The first effect was that I reduced my e-book "purchases" by a LOT, and the second was that I immediately convert purchased ebooks into a standard format sans DRM.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tim Cook, there are kids on your lawn. Better yell at 'em!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
no one wants u2's bs no more
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: no one wants u2's bs no more
- how much was illegally downloaded (without owner consent)
-how many devices were brought back into compliance / uninstalled
- how many people actually cared
- how many man hours were lost cleaning up this malware
- how much U2 actually lost due to this
Does DRM get the 6 strikes law? or does that only apply to us who want to spend cash for a product?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Spam
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nice security hole you've got there, Apple
That's a massive security hole and it was apparently designed in by Apple. Its existence reduces the attackers' problem considerably, as they don't need to create the hole: they only need to figure out to exploit it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Nice security hole you've got there, Apple
- Apple
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Nice security hole you've got there, Apple
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In about 3 years, Microsoft will be doing this in Windows, claiming it's an innovation of theirs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
A leader in copying peoples ideas for sure. They are as bad a M$ but with a slightly prettier façade.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just like parasites
I'm sick of this iCrap hype!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
We need to pass the "Stop Online Purchasing Act" which will make it illegal for anyone to delete the "free" albums we forced onto their music devices and purchasing their own. We can't keep making money from Apple/Amazon/Google if people keep deleting our works. If music "merchants" could buy and listen to the music of their choice, then artists would suffer as nobody would have to listen to the songs the music service providers paid for.
Support the artists and stop "merchandising" today!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
In U2-Apple Cloud, music pirates you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hmmm... no sign of him. Perhaps even he realised how idiotic that line of argument was. Perhaps.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Tried deleting U2 album, now Bono is doing entire acoustic set at my bedside plz send help its been 9 hours like this my family is crying"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]