Apple Finally Gets Whacked Over ITunes

[bountyhunter]

Some years back, my wife gave me an apple gift card so I could buy songs off ITunes. Seems good, you just download the song you want for 99 cents.

PROBLEM: I immediately found out they were not selling the standard MP3 music file everybody else on earth used, they were selling you something called an "MP4" file which was LOCKED..... why care?

Because I could not open it to edit the sound or adjust the volume and I could not play it in my car since my car had no way to play from my Ipod. I figured I would just buy the music and burn an MP3 disc and play it but not with Apple's files. Those files could be loaded onto an Ipod but nothing else.

Bottom line is that every song bought from Itunes had to be "burned off" to a disc as a WAV file then recopied back onto my computer in WAV then converted to MP3 before I could work with it. A major pain in the rear for music I had paid good money for.

Apparrently, Apple is finally getting a legal smackdown for selling people music that only works on an Ipod..... when what we thought we were buying was just regular music files. And Apple also had put "internal lockouts" into the Ipod so it could not play music files bought from other music sources.

The lawsuit claims Apple would only allow music bought from its iTunes store to work on the iPod. According to the plaintiffs, this required them to continue to purchase iPods in order to keep their music instead of competing cheaper music players.

Edited December 3, 2014 by bountyhunter

[outerlimits]

you would have been better off buying apple stock instead of griping about a $.99 song. just saying...

[bountyhunter]

you would have been better off buying apple stock instead of griping about a $.99 song. just saying...

I bought apple stock back in 1998 and made a bundle off it when I sold it last year. It split twice and ran from 20 up to 680 when I dumped it. No question that Jobs had the magic of making money.

Not really the point.

With all the whining Jobs did until his dying day about how Samsung and Google had stolen from Apple and all that, I think they (Apple) didn't need to put bombs in their Ipod software to make sure nobody who bought one could ever buy music from any service other than Itunes.... or screw up the music format to make sure it only transferred to an Ipod. They would have won without the cheating.

As one man put it: suppose you had a music store that sold CD's that only played on the CD players they sold at their own store....

I actually have always been a big apple fan and user, even at work. Which is why it annoyed me when I found out their Itunes service was screwed up.

Edited December 3, 2014 by bountyhunter

[Marv Z]

You can import any format into ITunes and put it on your phone, ipod etc. If you can't play ITunes content on a mp3 player, oh well. Doesn't sound like much of a problem to me. And Apple products actually work, unlike most of the android stuff I have owned.

[Graham Smith]

I've used iPods and iPads for quite some time now and generally like them and as far as I am aware, only have two songs that I bought from iTunes. Everything else was either ripped from CD's or purchased from Amazon. Amazon has their own little games they want you to play to get your music but there are ways around that if you are willing to do it "the hard way".

The controversy is over Copyright infringement and Digital Rights Management and takes many forms and has been kicked around in the courts for years and consumers are still the ones that get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. But I can tell you that it used to be a lot worse and not just Apple was involved. And services like Napster just fueled the fire.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with Apple using their own format for music. Others do it, Kindle books for example, and aren't being vilified. Apple just happens to be a good target, perhaps because iTunes is such a PITA piece of software. Apple also seems to have a certain high-handed arrogance about them which magnifies things.

[D.Hayden]

...Kindle books for example, and aren't being vilified...

But you can read Kindle books on almost anything.. not just an Amazon Kindle

I still think it's amazing.. that you aren't able to sell (or change ownership) of any of these (Kindle books, Amazon Music, Apple iTunes, etc) electronic items to anyone else... and I haven't seen that challenged..

Edited December 3, 2014 by D.Hayden

[56hawk]

They have been doing this kind of thing for years. Like the Apple only USB:

[bountyhunter]

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with Apple using their own format for music

If they were honest about it and warned people before they bought stuff.

[bountyhunter]

The controversy is over Copyright infringement and Digital Rights Management and takes many forms and has been kicked around in the courts for years and consumers are still the ones that get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. But I can tell you that it used to be a lot worse and not just Apple was involved.

The problem in that area is that they try to claim the copyright is on the format when, in reality, it is on the CONTENT (music or software or whatever). If I buy a song for my personal use and enjoyment, I am not stealing the song if I change the file format from WAV to MP3 or from MP4 (whatever the hell that is) to WAV and then MP3 to make me able to listen to the content I paid for on the equipment I happen to own.

I don't know what legalities need to get aligned to make the idiots who make music shut up and stop trying to double or triple charge users for the same song, but I ain't playing.

Edited December 4, 2014 by bountyhunter

[bountyhunter]

...Kindle books for example, and aren't being vilified...

But you can read Kindle books on almost anything.. not just an Amazon Kindle

I still think it's amazing.. that you aren't able to sell (or change ownership) of any of these (Kindle books, Amazon Music, Apple iTunes, etc) electronic items to anyone else... and I haven't seen that challenged..

It's funny..... I still remember back when the cassette tape was first used for music. The music industry declared it was going to be used for wholesale theft of music and they demanded a $2 royalty be paid for each blank cassette sold. Seriously, I am not making that up. They didn't get it and they declared the music industry would be destroyed.

8 Track tape? same thing, it was going to destroy the music industry unless they paid royalties.

Sony's DAT Digital Audio tape system? Was going to destroy the music industry again. They slapped so many complicated restrictions on it that it finally died.

Sony's Mini Disc MD system? That was going to ruin the music industry too.

And don't forget that when digital video recording became available, that was going to spell the end of the movie industry. Nobody would ever pay to go to a theater again when they could see a movie at home on their VHS.

sad to see the music and video industry is now just a wasteland, a shell of it's former glory.

Oh, wait.... that's right. It's rolling in more money than ever and rappers are driving million dollar Bentleys. And movies gross a half billion dollars.

But it's important that nobody ever be able to take their Itunes song and copy it onto their other dig audio player.....because that kind of "stealing" would bring down the music industry.

Edited December 4, 2014 by bountyhunter

[Graham Smith]

The problem in that area is that they try to claim the copyright is on the format when, in reality, it is on the CONTENT (music or software or whatever).

The argument that was used for a long time is that this gives them better control over piracy. The fact that this is a stupid argument is irrelevant since it's being sold to politicians and you can sell them anything if it comes with a nice campaign contribution. But that's a different topic.

There are ways of digitally binding any file to a particular owner, Kindle books and Audible audiobooks do a good job of that. It hasn't been done with music but I seem to recall that it has been tried. But Amazon has been smart enough to provide readers for all kinds of devices so you aren't limited to just their hardware. And that's where Apple is vulnerable.

[bountyhunter]

The truly hilarious thing about stealing music..... if you go to Youtube, you can find the music track of every song every recorded on earth even back to 50's doo wop and Glenn Miller. Seriously. And you can simply record it into a WAV file. Pretty funny.

[jhgtyre]

The truly hilarious thing about stealing music..... if you go to Youtube, you can find the music track of every song every recorded on earth even back to 50's doo wop and Glenn Miller. Seriously. And you can simply record it into a WAV file. Pretty funny.

I've been preaching that sermon to any who would listen for about the last decade..

[bountyhunter]

The truly hilarious thing about stealing music..... if you go to Youtube, you can find the music track of every song every recorded on earth even back to 50's doo wop and Glenn Miller. Seriously. And you can simply record it into a WAV file. Pretty funny.

I've been preaching that sermon to any who would listen for about the last decade..

I wish I had been in church that day.......

[Graham Smith]

Locks keep honest people honest. The only way you can copy protect digital media is to find a way to make the recording system makers cooperate. The industry has done that with many if not most DVD recorder makers which won't record a number of different things including many VHS tapes, other DVD's and some streaming media like Netflix.

[bountyhunter]

Locks keep honest people honest. The only way you can copy protect digital media is to find a way to make the recording system makers cooperate. The industry has done that with many if not most DVD recorder makers which won't record a number of different things including many VHS tapes, other DVD's and some streaming media like Netflix.

I don't really care if aple wants to sell locked MP4 files to people as long as they were honest about it so people can make a choice. That's my gripe. You spend money on an IPod and Itunes and then find out you are getting crap that only plays on an IPod. This was 10 years ago and most people didn't have a car stereo that lets you plug in an Ipod. But the bottom line is, playing off the Ipod in a car is a major PITA anyway and dangerous because I don't want to be screwing around with it while I drive. I just want to be able to take the music files I paid for, put them onto an MP3 disc and play them in my car. Apple should have been more honest and less paranoid. And apparrently some of their practices were illegal because they are about to settle with big $$$ for the screwing they gave their customers.

As for video: yes, modern video recorders detect the embedded anti copy signals off the discs and refuse to copy. That is all fine because nobody expects to be able to duplicate video. However, compare apples to apples (slight pun) the anti copy crap in videos does not require you to play the video disc you just bought only on an XYZ video player, it plays on ANY video player. Apple intentionally made their system so the audio tracks only play on their hardware because it's the only thing you can load it to. They also made their hardware to be incompatible with music from other sources. And they didn't tell anybody so you found out about it after you had spent all the money on their junk when it's too late.

Edited December 5, 2014 by bountyhunter

[BritinUSA]

Maybe I am confused here... If I go into iTunes and list my music I can select a song , press CTRL and CLICK and there is an option to create an mp3 version of the song

If I CTRL and CLICK that Mp3 version of the song and select reveal in Finder then I can Burn it to a disc in MP3 format...

Or is there something else I am missing here...?

[Nik Habicht]

Maybe I am confused here... If I go into iTunes and list my music I can select a song , press CTRL and CLICK and there is an option to create an mp3 version of the song

If I CTRL and CLICK that Mp3 version of the song and select reveal in Finder then I can Burn it to a disc in MP3 format...

Or is there something else I am missing here...?

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 3.20.04 PM.png

What you're missing is that it didn't use to be that easy......

The things you can do now, you couldn't do back then. You had to take weird steps like export the songs to CD, then reimport and convert to MP3 before reburning them to CD or sliding them onto an MP3 player. I may have the specifics wrong; but there were several conversion steps.

I did a little research before buying into the system, and knew it was pretty well closed -- so none of that bothered me. Much like Kindle is a closed system -- they may make their app available on multiple devices, but I still need an Amazon connection to be able to read the books in my Kindle library. Again, I'm ok with that, because I did a little research and figured out that those were the limitations.....

I was successfully using an iPod in the car via FM transmitter around 10 years ago. I didn't think it was particularly dangerous because I just built 80-200 song playlists, and would select one before I took off.....

[Jadeslade]

The truly hilarious thing about stealing music..... if you go to Youtube, you can find the music track of every song every recorded on earth even back to 50's doo wop and Glenn Miller. Seriously. And you can simply record it into a WAV file. Pretty funny.

Well...if you have time. I have about 20,000 songs on my iPod Classic. good luck on that wav thing. If you have time...

[bountyhunter]

The truly hilarious thing about stealing music..... if you go to Youtube, you can find the music track of every song every recorded on earth even back to 50's doo wop and Glenn Miller. Seriously. And you can simply record it into a WAV file. Pretty funny.

Well...if you have time. I have about 20,000 songs on my iPod Classic. good luck on that wav thing. If you have time...

Now you get my gripe: I don't want to have to rip the files I paid good money for off into a disk to convert it to WAV so then I can rip it back onto my hard drive so I can change it to an MP3 and use it.

If I am paying for the stupid file, I don't want it to be a fixer upper work in progress.

[bountyhunter]

Maybe I am confused here... If I go into iTunes and list my music I can select a song , press CTRL and CLICK and there is an option to create an mp3 version of the song

If I CTRL and CLICK that Mp3 version of the song and select reveal in Finder then I can Burn it to a disc in MP3 format...

Interesting. Maybe they finally got with the program. I haven't shopped there for a few years. I guess that proves complaining does lead to things getting fixed. I am going to tell my wife that I was right. But I'm going to wait until after she's asleep.

It still looks like Apple is still going to pay for the anti trust violations or whatever the suit has in it. Just because they finally corrected after many years doesn't erase the initial wrong doing.

Edited December 6, 2014 by bountyhunter

[bountyhunter]

Maybe I am confused here... If I go into iTunes and list my music I can select a song , press CTRL and CLICK and there is an option to create an mp3 version of the song

If I CTRL and CLICK that Mp3 version of the song and select reveal in Finder then I can Burn it to a disc in MP3 format...

Or is there something else I am missing here...?

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 3.20.04 PM.png

What you're missing is that it didn't use to be that easy......

The things you can do now, you couldn't do back then. You had to take weird steps like export the songs to CD, then reimport and convert to MP3 before reburning them to CD or sliding them onto an MP3 player. I may have the specifics wrong; but there were several conversion steps.

You have the steps right. You had to record the audio file to disc as an "audio file" (which is WAV). After burning the file to the disk, you then import (rip) the disk back into the computer hard drive. Then you could convert the newly imported WAV file to MP3 and end up where you should have started.

Edited December 6, 2014 by bountyhunter

[Graham Smith]

Well, a while back someone told me that you could do a batch convert in iTunes by selecting an album or artist or even all songs. I think you can also convert a song when you import it into your library.

And, no I have not tried this and no I have not tried, but I did Google "batch convert itunes to mp3" and saw a number of responses that implied it was possible and not that hard.

And that's something I cannot do with either my Kindle or Audible books, so perhaps Apple has the message.

BTW, this may be horse stuff, but there are some who claim that the audio quality of the Apple format is better.

Edited December 6, 2014 by Graham Smith

[outerlimits]

Maybe I am confused here... If I go into iTunes and list my music I can select a song , press CTRL and CLICK and there is an option to create an mp3 version of the song

If I CTRL and CLICK that Mp3 version of the song and select reveal in Finder then I can Burn it to a disc in MP3 format...

Or is there something else I am missing here...?

Screen Shot 2014-12-05 at 3.20.04 PM.png

What you're missing is that it didn't use to be that easy......

The things you can do now, you couldn't do back then. You had to take weird steps like export the songs to CD, then reimport and convert to MP3 before reburning them to CD or sliding them onto an MP3 player. I may have the specifics wrong; but there were several conversion steps.

You have the steps right. You had to record the audio file to disc as an "audio file" (which is WAV). After burning the file to the disk, you then import (rip) the disk back into the computer hard drive. Then you could convert the newly imported WAV file to MP3 and end up where you should have started.

Britainusa is right. You do not have to do what you suggest. Just convert to MP3.

[bountyhunter]

BTW, this may be horse stuff, but there are some who claim that the audio quality of the Apple format is better.

Better than what? Whatever their "MP4" file actually is, the total file size proves it is nothing more or less than some type of "MP3 like" compression system with whatever tags they put in to make it incompatible with other formats. The bottom line is that both MP3 and MP4 are significantly acoustically inferior to WAV which does not use a brute force compression device every time you create or save the file. Those of us who tweak audio files for volume level or equalization or trim length or whatever convert to WAV before editing so all the "saves" do not further adulterate the file and ruin the sound. When finished editing, convert back to MP3 using the best level available which is typically 256k though I had one software that did 320k file resolution. I thought that most files sold by Apple or other music services were the 52k variety or 125k which is poor to mediocre quality.

For the record: there have been double blind tests that showed some people can definitely hear the music adulteration caused by MP3 compression. So, I recommend doing as few "file saves" as possible in that format because every save mangles it further..... and once mangled, you can't reverse it unless you still have the source file and can start the whole process over. IMHO, you get the best sound if and only if you can start with the WAV file created from the master and make your own "one squeeze" MP3 file (in highest resolution) after you have tweaked up the WAV file. Obviously, that's not possible when the files bought online are already in the compressed format.

I once did experiments to see how many "MP3 saves" it took to make a music file sound noticably adulterated and for me it was about three. The first thing you hear is the "warbly" odd sound quality coming in.

Edited December 7, 2014 by bountyhunter