This was the curious bit for me as well. So for $25 all my music 'upgrades' to 256 bit AAC, can I replace the MP3's I ripped with 128bit MusicMatchJukebox in '99 and are sitting on my filer?
And what is this $25 really paying for? Is Apple empowered by the labels to license me a DRM free digital copy?
If I pay the $25 annual fee will it automatically 'upgrade' any songs that come on over a torrent link? Is this really a one time license to every single song in the iTunes store? (Seriously, there is probably an mp3 or ogg file of every song in the iTunes library out there) If I put them all on my machine and then pay my $25 does it go 'ding' and now I own a legitmate digital copy? (if so its a screamin' good deal)
Can I get immunity from prosecution by this? I mean if I've got the insta-legit card in my iTunes and a metallica song comes across the intertubes and metallica comes calling can I just show them the itunes copy?
It's a bold move, and one which I support, but I wonder how its going to look once its put into practice.
My guess, is that if you have a $25 subscription you can put a CD into your Mac and it will 'register' those songs as being available to you. But we will see, could be very very interesting. Or not.
1. Yes, that seems to be what Apple is selling. "You had CDs that you ripped to MP3s with crappy quality a while ago. Pay us $25 and we'll trade your crappy-quality MP3s for 256k AACs."
2. I don't think they're giving you a license. You're supposed to already have a license for the song you already have. Apple is merely replacing a likely lower-quality copy with a higher-quality copy.
3. Doubtful (to the point that I almost said no). You aren't going to get immunity from prosecution, but I'm guessing that Apple isn't going to try too hard to find people that have pirated their collection and I think the music industry knows that. It isn't Apple's style (there's no product key on their OS, no activation on their products, etc.). They might do something that tries to figure out if it was a legitimately acquired track, but maybe they'll just go the "we can't match that track" route if it's flagged. Just like #2, you're going to be in the same license and legality position that you were in before.
This is a convenience measure - for you and Apple. For you, this syncs your music between all your computers/devices. For Apple, if they can match the tracks, they don't have to store all the extra tracks as duplicates on their storage. A syncing service wouldn't be useful to you if it only dealt with the music you bought from Apple. They know that it's only useful if it does all your music and so they created a matching service to be bandwidth, time and space efficient. The service costs money to create and run and so they're charging a small fee for it. It's highly doubtful that it will change anything on the legal end.
"2. I don't think they're giving you a license. You're supposed to already have a license for the song you already have. Apple is merely replacing a likely lower-quality copy with a higher-quality copy."
This is the curious bit. The music companies have argued in the past that I didn't get a license to convert my audio into digital form (aka rip an MP3) when I bought my CDs. So your postulate that 'you already have a license' would not be valid to a company that held I didn't get any rights other than the court stipulated 'archive copy'.
Anyway, I don't know one way or the other. But I have seen other companies take a similar approach unsuccessfully, and its interesting to see how Apple is moving the conversation about digital media along.
Since it would be possible to keep a non-DRM copy in perpetuity on disk, I'm really curious about how this will implement. It seems on its face to be something the music industry is currently very invested in preventing. And frankly I don't think 150M$ + some fraction of $25 one time from iCloud subscribers is going to cut it for them.
It isn't a subscription to your music, it's a subscription to the matching service. The point of iCloud is that they'll sync all of your music that you've bought from iTunes to all your devices. No more connecting your iPhone to your computer or managing the 2 computers you have with iTunes and how they get copied and such. Now, for music that you've ripped or bought from other sources, Apple is offering a matching service. Basically, it'll look through your collection and if they're in iTunes Apple will note that you already own those songs and allow you to also sync those songs via the new iCloud sync mechanism.
So, the tracks don't expire and you'll always have them. It's unclear if the subscription is for the syncing and the matching or just the matching. If it's just the matching, you can basically import your old music into your iTunes purchases and then not have to continue paying for it (assuming that you don't get new music outside the iTunes Store). The subscription also seems to cover syncing music that isn't in iTunes via uploading your MP3s.
So, it isn't a music subscription as much as it is a service/convenience subscription.
" Basically, it'll look through your collection and if they're in iTunes Apple will note that you already own those songs and allow you to also sync those songs via the new iCloud sync mechanism."
I know that is what was said, but its like saying "you just add extra water to your gas tank and you'll get mileage based on the number of gallons in your tank, whether or not its all gas."
The sentence construction is coherent but conceptually it doesn't pass the sniff test. Here is the rub.
"music that you own"
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years you know that there are two interpretations of this phrase. There is the consumer interpretation:
"I bought the CD at the store, I can do anything I want with it, copy it, transcode it, destroy it, use components in a playlist I've created, or use parts in my amateur video on squirrels."
There is the RIAA/Music Label interpretation:
"You don't own the music you own a piece of polycarbonate plastic which can reproduce the performance of the noted artist in an sanctioned playing device that has not been modified in any way. You and no more than 12 friends present, and who have not paid you any consideration for hearing said performance. Any other use is strictly and unequivocally forbidden."
For years, even though the record labels had no way to enforce their view of what you could and could not do with the music in your possession, they really haven't varied all that much in their opinion what rights they didn't give you.
So when you say "music you own" it reads like you have the consumer interpretation of that phrase, and yet Apple isn't a consumer, they are animated pile of cash which sells player devices, so it is incredulous to me that the music industry would simply "let" them do what you have described they are offering to do.
If you (and Apple) had instead said to take advantage of this services it is required that you go to an Apple store with your original CD, which would be photographed with you by an Apple employee where they would record your name, birth date, receipt or other information you brought along to prove you had acquired the CD legally, and a sample of your DNA. Then they would exchange your CD for a unique identifying code that you could apply to your iTunes account which would enable you to listen to that CD via iTunes on any device connected to iCloud but would not allow you to transfer the song from the iCloud for 'offline' playing.
If you told me that that was what Apple was offering I'd just nod my head and believe you.
This was the curious bit for me as well. So for $25 all my music 'upgrades' to 256 bit AAC, can I replace the MP3's I ripped with 128bit MusicMatchJukebox in '99 and are sitting on my filer?
And what is this $25 really paying for? Is Apple empowered by the labels to license me a DRM free digital copy?
If I pay the $25 annual fee will it automatically 'upgrade' any songs that come on over a torrent link? Is this really a one time license to every single song in the iTunes store? (Seriously, there is probably an mp3 or ogg file of every song in the iTunes library out there) If I put them all on my machine and then pay my $25 does it go 'ding' and now I own a legitmate digital copy? (if so its a screamin' good deal)
Can I get immunity from prosecution by this? I mean if I've got the insta-legit card in my iTunes and a metallica song comes across the intertubes and metallica comes calling can I just show them the itunes copy?
It's a bold move, and one which I support, but I wonder how its going to look once its put into practice.
My guess, is that if you have a $25 subscription you can put a CD into your Mac and it will 'register' those songs as being available to you. But we will see, could be very very interesting. Or not.
1. Yes, that seems to be what Apple is selling. "You had CDs that you ripped to MP3s with crappy quality a while ago. Pay us $25 and we'll trade your crappy-quality MP3s for 256k AACs."
2. I don't think they're giving you a license. You're supposed to already have a license for the song you already have. Apple is merely replacing a likely lower-quality copy with a higher-quality copy.
3. Doubtful (to the point that I almost said no). You aren't going to get immunity from prosecution, but I'm guessing that Apple isn't going to try too hard to find people that have pirated their collection and I think the music industry knows that. It isn't Apple's style (there's no product key on their OS, no activation on their products, etc.). They might do something that tries to figure out if it was a legitimately acquired track, but maybe they'll just go the "we can't match that track" route if it's flagged. Just like #2, you're going to be in the same license and legality position that you were in before.
This is a convenience measure - for you and Apple. For you, this syncs your music between all your computers/devices. For Apple, if they can match the tracks, they don't have to store all the extra tracks as duplicates on their storage. A syncing service wouldn't be useful to you if it only dealt with the music you bought from Apple. They know that it's only useful if it does all your music and so they created a matching service to be bandwidth, time and space efficient. The service costs money to create and run and so they're charging a small fee for it. It's highly doubtful that it will change anything on the legal end.
"2. I don't think they're giving you a license. You're supposed to already have a license for the song you already have. Apple is merely replacing a likely lower-quality copy with a higher-quality copy."
This is the curious bit. The music companies have argued in the past that I didn't get a license to convert my audio into digital form (aka rip an MP3) when I bought my CDs. So your postulate that 'you already have a license' would not be valid to a company that held I didn't get any rights other than the court stipulated 'archive copy'.
Anyway, I don't know one way or the other. But I have seen other companies take a similar approach unsuccessfully, and its interesting to see how Apple is moving the conversation about digital media along.
Since it would be possible to keep a non-DRM copy in perpetuity on disk, I'm really curious about how this will implement. It seems on its face to be something the music industry is currently very invested in preventing. And frankly I don't think 150M$ + some fraction of $25 one time from iCloud subscribers is going to cut it for them.
It isn't a subscription to your music, it's a subscription to the matching service. The point of iCloud is that they'll sync all of your music that you've bought from iTunes to all your devices. No more connecting your iPhone to your computer or managing the 2 computers you have with iTunes and how they get copied and such. Now, for music that you've ripped or bought from other sources, Apple is offering a matching service. Basically, it'll look through your collection and if they're in iTunes Apple will note that you already own those songs and allow you to also sync those songs via the new iCloud sync mechanism.
So, the tracks don't expire and you'll always have them. It's unclear if the subscription is for the syncing and the matching or just the matching. If it's just the matching, you can basically import your old music into your iTunes purchases and then not have to continue paying for it (assuming that you don't get new music outside the iTunes Store). The subscription also seems to cover syncing music that isn't in iTunes via uploading your MP3s.
So, it isn't a music subscription as much as it is a service/convenience subscription.
" Basically, it'll look through your collection and if they're in iTunes Apple will note that you already own those songs and allow you to also sync those songs via the new iCloud sync mechanism."
I know that is what was said, but its like saying "you just add extra water to your gas tank and you'll get mileage based on the number of gallons in your tank, whether or not its all gas."
The sentence construction is coherent but conceptually it doesn't pass the sniff test. Here is the rub.
"music that you own"
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years you know that there are two interpretations of this phrase. There is the consumer interpretation:
"I bought the CD at the store, I can do anything I want with it, copy it, transcode it, destroy it, use components in a playlist I've created, or use parts in my amateur video on squirrels."
There is the RIAA/Music Label interpretation:
"You don't own the music you own a piece of polycarbonate plastic which can reproduce the performance of the noted artist in an sanctioned playing device that has not been modified in any way. You and no more than 12 friends present, and who have not paid you any consideration for hearing said performance. Any other use is strictly and unequivocally forbidden."
For years, even though the record labels had no way to enforce their view of what you could and could not do with the music in your possession, they really haven't varied all that much in their opinion what rights they didn't give you.
So when you say "music you own" it reads like you have the consumer interpretation of that phrase, and yet Apple isn't a consumer, they are animated pile of cash which sells player devices, so it is incredulous to me that the music industry would simply "let" them do what you have described they are offering to do.
If you (and Apple) had instead said to take advantage of this services it is required that you go to an Apple store with your original CD, which would be photographed with you by an Apple employee where they would record your name, birth date, receipt or other information you brought along to prove you had acquired the CD legally, and a sample of your DNA. Then they would exchange your CD for a unique identifying code that you could apply to your iTunes account which would enable you to listen to that CD via iTunes on any device connected to iCloud but would not allow you to transfer the song from the iCloud for 'offline' playing.
If you told me that that was what Apple was offering I'd just nod my head and believe you.