Apple iTunes -- MATCH! Amazing new iTunes feature!

[nighttime]

"Matched" songs will not count; you are not purchasing the song. You are receiving a copy of the track you already have/purchased.

[badrobot]

Jun 6, 2011 15:06:59 GMT -5 nighttime said:

"Matched" songs will not count; you are not purchasing the song. You are receiving a copy of the track you already have/purchased.

I don't know how you could possibly say that definitively. Of course they won't count initially, but Billboard updates its formula all the time. If at some point the data is available and seems relevant to Billboard, they may decide to eventually include it.

While the industry will frame this as songs you already "bought" elsewhere (not on iTunes), in reality I would guess the majority of songs being matched would be songs people had illegally downloaded, which would not have registered on a chart at all, and thus it would make sense to have that factored in to any chart attempting to determine overall popularity.

[nighttime]

That would be acknowledging that this service signficantly supports illegal activity and validating it. Won't happen.

[badrobot]

The cat is out of the bag -- people download illegally all the time. The labels and the RIAA have tried a million ways to stop this over the years and have always failed. iTunes Match doesn't "support illegal activity" -- it allows the labels to get paid *even if you engage in that illegal activity* -- albeit a much smaller amount than if you had actually purchased it -- because they will be reimbursed a portion of that subscriber fee (likely based on how many times songs on their label have been "matched").

I have no idea if Billboard will ever include it, but making a definitive statement that they WON'T is utter nonsense. You can't predict the future, especially about something that was announced 3 hours ago and hasn't even been made available yet.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Jun 6, 2011 15:35:02 GMT -5 nighttime said:

That would be acknowledging that this service signficantly supports illegal activity and validating it. Won't happen.

That's a good point...potentially but if people are paying for this service then it's no longer illegal... right? Either way I think they should have a chart to track this. It would be nice to see.

Nice it already updated my Iphone Itunes without me knowing it! That's HOT!

I'm totally throwing away my hard drive. I no longer have to have a ridiculously HUGE hard drive just to store my music. I can limit it to documents. It's such a relief.

[Deleted]

It's still illegal. You are paying the streaming service fee to be able to play music you own. The record labels are making more money if you are paying for the song as well as the streaming fee. If you download illegally they are only making money from the streaming fee.

[nightshade]

Jun 6, 2011 16:26:00 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

It's still illegal. You are paying the streaming service fee to be able to play music you own. The record labels are making more money if you are paying for the song as well as the streaming fee. If you download illegally they are only making money from the streaming fee.

There's no streaming going on whatsoever so...I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Billboard's Take

If you've been following the speculation surrounding Apple's iCloud keynote speech today, then the details that finally emerged proved very little in the way of surprises.

Steve Jobs & Co. laid out a vast array of cloud-based products and services designed to eliminate the home computer as the hub of our digital lives, replacing it with cloud-based servers connected to multiple Apple-made devices. Going forward, at least in the Apple ecosystem of devices, the home computer is just another device, on equal terms with the iPhone and iPad from a content perspective.

Music, of course, is a big part of the iCloud strategy (so large that Jobs saved details on the music portion of the service until the very last item of the day). It consists of three basic features.

- Any song previously bought from iTunes now appears in a searchable purchase history, which can be access from any Apple device. Users simply select the song they want to hear, and it downloads to that device for playback. Free.

- Going forward, any new song purchased in iTunes will automatically be synched to any Apple device-iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and so on. No extra downloading needed. Also free.

- Any music managed by iTunes but acquired through some other means than the iTunes store can be synched to a scan-and-match style music locker-a feature called "iTunes Match"-which would then give it the same synching benefits of iTunes purchased music. The songs provided will be at 256 kbps. Any songs not matchable to iTunes' 18 million-strong catalog will be individually uploaded. This feature costs $25 a year.

All these "iTunes in the Cloud" features are just one of nine total iCloud services offered at launch. The others include photos, books, documents, apps and utility functions like email, calendar, and contacts, plus a general backup feature. For those other types of content, the system is simple: any content created or acquired on one iOS device is automatically synced to the cloud and pushed down to all other iOS connected devices. The three different features of the music element are the only exception.

iCloud replaces the entire MobileMe line, which Jobs on stage said "wasn't our fines hour." The MobileMe syncing feature for mail, calendar and contacts was a rare misstep for Apple, and the iCloud feature was long expected to replace it.

As for the music, it flatly beats both music locker offerings from competitors Amazon.com and Google in terms of both cost and features. As the only licensed service, it does not require users to spend days, or longer, uploading every individual file from their music libraries for online backup. And in the context of the broader Apple iCloud strategy, its certainly a nice addition to the many other features Apple introduced today.

But in the grand scheme of digital music, this is not the revolutionary new music experience so many had hoped for. There's no music recommendation features, no sharing functions, no discoverability. It's hard to consider this anything but a minor step, albeit an important first one.

We'll break out the bigger-picture analysis of this news in a separate post. Details soon.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Fading, we don't know if there is or isn't streaming at this time. It won't be fully released until the fall. Streaming on WIFI is not as good as having it on your device. It just isn't but I understand wanting the option to stream. There may be some edge cases where you would want to.

[Deleted]

Jun 6, 2011 16:29:00 GMT -5 nightshade said:

Jun 6, 2011 16:26:00 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

It's still illegal. You are paying the streaming service fee to be able to play music you own. The record labels are making more money if you are paying for the song as well as the streaming fee. If you download illegally they are only making money from the streaming fee.

There's no streaming going on whatsoever so...I'm not sure what you're talking about.

If you are playing it from the cloud service, that is essentially streaming.

[nightshade]

Jun 6, 2011 16:34:19 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

Jun 6, 2011 16:29:00 GMT -5 nightshade said:

There's no streaming going on whatsoever so...I'm not sure what you're talking about.

If you are playing it from the cloud service, that is essentially streaming.

You're not though...There is no streaming going on whatsoever.
Perhaps you're getting confused with that Google and Amazon seem to be offering.

The music file is either on your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac or not. From the cloud, it'll be sent to all your devices.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Jun 6, 2011 16:36:09 GMT -5 nightshade said:

Jun 6, 2011 16:34:19 GMT -5 @jazzysoul47 said:

If you are playing it from the cloud service, that is essentially streaming.

You're not though...There is no streaming going on whatsoever.
Perhaps you're getting confused with that Google and Amazon seem to be offering.

The music file is either on your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac or not. From the cloud, it'll be sent to all your devices.

Right, Apple hasn't offered up streaming as far as we know. Unless you have wifi, streaming is of no good use. Plus streaming on the web right now requires flash as HTML doesn't do streaming. Flash on a mobile device is atrocious at best and it's a battery hog....yep even on Thunderbolt and other Android devices with Flash enabled.

[badrobot]

I interpreted it as downloading the files you want to a device, then playing them. Since they're talking up 256kbps files I doubt that it will be streaming. You can't stream files at that quality on a 3G network. I think this is the same concept as a backup hard drive.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Jun 6, 2011 16:50:09 GMT -5 badrobot said:

I interpreted it as downloading the files you want to a device, then playing them. Since they're talking up 256kbps files I doubt that it will be streaming. You can't stream files at that quality on a 3G network. I think this is the same concept as a backup hard drive.

But it's not a backup hard drive...that's why there is Itunes match. There is no incentive anymore for record companies to hold onto records that have been leaked online if they plan on releasing them.

[David]

Holy shit. I need to find more info. I am so confused. (After reading this thread I'm apparently not the only one. Lol)

[badrobot]

Jun 6, 2011 16:52:59 GMT -5 Adonis the DemiGod! said:

Jun 6, 2011 16:50:09 GMT -5 badrobot said:

I interpreted it as downloading the files you want to a device, then playing them. Since they're talking up 256kbps files I doubt that it will be streaming. You can't stream files at that quality on a 3G network. I think this is the same concept as a backup hard drive.

But it's not a backup hard drive...that's why there is Itunes match. There is no incentive anymore for record companies to hold onto records that have been leaked online if they plan on releasing them.

iTunes match would just be the equivalent of putting more files on that backup hard drive.

Most labels already release singles to iTunes quickly if they leak early. I don't think Match will really change their release strategy there.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Jun 6, 2011 16:58:15 GMT -5 badrobot said:

Jun 6, 2011 16:52:59 GMT -5 Adonis the DemiGod! said:

But it's not a backup hard drive...that's why there is Itunes match. There is no incentive anymore for record companies to hold onto records that have been leaked online if they plan on releasing them.

iTunes match would just be the equivalent of putting more files on that backup hard drive.

Most labels already release singles to iTunes quickly if they leak early. I don't think Match will really change their release strategy there.

I know. I think it's wonderful. However, it will discourage record companies from holding back singles....but it could potentially promote illegal downloading. There are some interesting ramifications of this. I am still thinking through all of these. I am curious to see the follow up article that Billboard is going to write.

[Push The Button]

Ugh, I keep getting sent to 10.2.

[nighttime]

Jun 6, 2011 16:53:03 GMT -5 David said:

Holy s**t. I need to find more info. I am so confused. (After reading this thread I'm apparently not the only one. Lol)

Simplified

iCloud
What? Download ALL purchased iTunes material again anywhere.
When? Today.
How? Free, Download 10.3 Update
Where? "Purchases" right-hand side of the store in iTunes app.

iTunes Match
What? ALL music on your computer - purchased from iTunes or not - will be accessible to download anywhere. iTunes will scan the original file, match it to a store item, and then simply mark the song as "owned" in your account. You can then download it anywhere at iTunes+ quality, even if the original wasn't. Alternatively, if the song is not found in the itunes store by the scan, it will upload the original file - which you can then download anywhere.
When? Fall 2011
How? $25 A Year Subscription Fee

[SPRΞΞ]

what happens after the first year? I think it would be worth it for a "one-time" thing to translate all my old music (from Limewire, etc.), which sound crappy, and then covert everything to iTunes quality. Sounds good to me for $25. Not so sure of anything more than 1 year tho.

[David]

Jun 6, 2011 17:23:56 GMT -5 nighttime said:

Jun 6, 2011 16:53:03 GMT -5 David said:

Holy s**t. I need to find more info. I am so confused. (After reading this thread I'm apparently not the only one. Lol)

Simplified

iCloud
What? Download ALL purchased iTunes material again anywhere.
When? Today.
How? Free, Download 10.3 Update
Where? "Purchases" right-hand side of the store in iTunes app.

iTunes Match
What? ALL music on your computer - purchased from iTunes or not - will be accessible to download anywhere. iTunes will scan the original file, match it to a store item, and then simply mark the song as "owned" in your account. You can then download it anywhere at iTunes+ quality, even if the original wasn't. Alternatively, if the song is not found in the itunes store by the scan, it will upload the original file - which you can then download anywhere.
When? Fall 2011
How? $25 A Year Subscription Fee

Thanks!

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Jun 6, 2011 17:31:22 GMT -5 SPRΞΞ said:

what happens after the first year? I think it would be worth it for a "one-time" thing to translate all my old music (from Limewire, etc.), which sound crappy, and then covert everything to iTunes quality. Sounds good to me for $25. Not so sure of anything more than 1 year tho.

That's what I wondered. But then when I thought it was a streaming service, I figured if you didn't renew it, you lost access to all your files. But maybe the files will have some sort of a time-stamp on them that lock up/delete if not renewed?

[badrobot]

I imagine you lose access to the non-iTunes purchased songs on other devices and just have your original source files on your desktop/laptop.

[Adonis the DemiGod!]

Wow Apple has so much information on what music listeners buy. I wish we could have access to all of it through a series of API's.