Comments on: iTunes in the Cloud and Why This Scares Me

By: anyways

anyways — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:42:43 +0000

never say never…. growing up I never thought and mp3 would take over cds… now look where we are.

By: Amir Samary

Amir Samary — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:19:05 +0000

I did’t read all comments but I think everybody is missing the point here. Every change happens on the market first and, then on the juridical/government/regulation instances later. I am not sure we have seen much of these yet but I am sure they will happen.
For instance, here in latin america, countries’ governments like Brazil and Chile are implementing phone number portability allowing you to keep your phone number when changing carriers. I don’t see how this could be different from what you are talking about.
In short, we must fight to have good regulations to allow us to move if we feel we want to. The content we bought is ours and if we move to another “carrier”, it should be told so, so that we can see our content there too. If they are going cloud, they must pay the price for it. As we are giving them more power, they should deal with the additional responsibility as well.

Honestly, will you really trust the people to buy or not buy something as a way to protest about a model? Most people don’t think about the future as you do. If you really want to make a difference and interfere, try changing the speech and start talking about government regulations, portability, etc.

By the way: I also prefer to rent for $0.99 then to buy for what ever and I also agree that listening to must (and buying it) is different and seeing movies (and renting then). I think both models will be available in the future (rent and buying) and that is why I think portability and regulations are the most important thing to discuss.

Kind regards,
Amir Samary

By: Derek Martin

Derek Martin — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:15:34 +0000

DRM only hurts people who don’t pirate. People who do pirate never have to deal with it.

By: sw

sw — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:50:15 +0000

It is more interesting to think about whether you’ll be able to get the artist, filmaker or author. Will exclusivity deals limit your choice to particular services, want to buy the Beatles online, oh no, you can’t.

Those back catalogues, are the publishers going to bother to put it online. To date the answer appears to be no.

Used Apples iTunes search, found what your looking for? It’s not that good, a lot of metadata is missing that might make it useful.

A lot of this is fixable, but there has to be a will to do it. Most companies are only interested in their current offerings not the back catalogue. The real scare is that you might never be able to get the item you’d like because someone can’t be bothered to make it available to you.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 05:10:24 +0000

IMHO we should be thanking Steve Jobs for dragging the music industry into the 21st Century. The Big Four all hate Apple because we as consumers benefit more from iTunes than the oligopolies that control traditional music distribution. And have you forgotten that Apple REMOVED DRM from iTunes music? Where would we be without Apple? Stuck in a world where four multinational conglomerates conspire and collude to control the music we listen to while successfully stifling all attempts to bring music to the Internet.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 05:02:11 +0000

Bunk theory. There are plenty of things you can own but not sell. And even with CDs and physical media, you are still limited in how and where you can broadcast the music/movie/whatever.

But what makes any of us think we can “own” recorded performances, regardless of media? The notion is patently ludicrous. When we purchase music on CD, we really only own the CD, cover art, etc. Not the music itself.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 04:56:40 +0000

Er, wrong. Nice theory though.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:17:27 +0000

Absolutely right.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:16:40 +0000

What he said.

By: dan garrett

dan garrett — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:27:39 +0000

a minor point – you don’t, and probably never have, owned any software or music/movies/whatever. you _licensed_ it but you had a locally stored copy (on DVD, CD, diskette, vinyl or whatever). so it felt like owning it but it was (and is) a mirage. like many people i have my own doubts about not-my-managed storage. but the gory specifics about what you can/can’t do with the digital copies, even DRM-free licenses, isn’t your decision. IMHO a lack of tangible media in my control is the Really Big Deal, not how you’re connected to the storage mechanism with “your” files. my own solution is to get music/movies/software on some physical media _and_ put copies out in the cloud (clearly violating most license agreements). but that way if someone else closes my connection to some remote storage i can restore it elsewhere.