Apple accused of deleting songs from iPods without users' knowledge

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 79
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    Hmm...9to5Mac claims Apple admitted they did this but it was for security reasons.



    http://tinyurl.com/p852ulb



    This quote was in the WSJ story;
    Quote:

    Apple contends the moves were legitimate security measures. Apple security director Augustin Farrugia testified that Apple did not offer a more detailed explanation because, “We don’t need to give users too much information,” and “We don’t want to confuse users.”



     

    That was with regard to the code in the iPod that would see things gone awry and force a restore. So this was legitimate something crashed bad, or someone stuck something on their iPod that was not supposed to be there (like fake Apple FairPlay music).

  • Reply 22 of 79
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by DroidFTW View Post

     

    If one were to only read this recent articles they may be left with the impression that the iPod was the only mp3 player around at the time.  This isn't the case.  There were many people (myself included) that didn't want DRM with our music collection and therefore stayed away from the iPod.  There were alternatives.  Apple didn't have a monopoly so I'm not sure I see how this lawsuit has legs.  Apple currently has a closed ecosystem with iOS and OSX as well and that's allowed.  I fail to see the difference.  Is it anti-competitive that Apple doesn't allow anything and everything into their closed ecosystems?  I don't think so.  That's how Apple designed it from the beginning.  It's not like it was open to begin with and then they started closing out competition once they became popular.  I could see a problem with that, but that's not the reality of the situation.


     

    The iPod could always play non-DRM music. No reason to stay away from iPod for that. It couldn't play Windows Media and other formats I wouldn't store my music in, but it supported MP3. Does everyone forget iPod came out before the iTunes store and FairPlay existed?

  • Reply 23 of 79
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by boredumb View Post

     

    Not going to be popular, but it might be possible in unusual circumstances...

    For a while there, Amazon would very occasionally disappear a Kindle book, when for some contractual reason

    or other they'd lost rights to a title...no reason a similar thing couldn't have happened in iTunes,

    if iTunes got confused about what they'd sold you versus what you'd ripped.  

    Not suggesting it's likely, but perhaps not impossible.

     

    More currently, ripped titles are regularly disappearing from my cloud match -

    about 100-150 at various times.  That's out of almost 7,500 titles, so again,

    not common and I'm sure not intentional, but not "never" happening.


     

    That happened with Movies on iTunes for sure during a Disney issue. What they are saying is that the iPod would have to be restored which would delete everything. Then the legitimate non-DRM and FairPlay music would sync back. It makes it sound like Apple deleted the bad music, but I do not believe that is what would happen. It would wipe the whole thing based on what they are saying above with the "restore" comment. First thing after that iTunes will sync back what it can. 

  • Reply 24 of 79
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost View Post





    You surmise accurately.



    I own Beauty and the Beast from iTunes. It was removed by Disney for a few years. It's now back, but a different version. Therefore, if I delete it from my Mac, I won't be able to redownload it unless I buy it again.

    This happened to me with the PlayStation Store. I'd downloaded The Wrath of Khan a few years back, deleted it during a hard drive replacement. When I downloaded it again, it'd been replaced by the remastered version they did a few years back for the Blu-ray releases.

  • Reply 25 of 79
    dewme wrote: »
    These attorneys must have flunked out of Clown College before refocusing their life ambitions on extorting money from Apple. Another sickening waste of the court system and people's time.

    I wish it was just our time that was being wasted...
  • Reply 26 of 79
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member

    Everyone that I know that owns an iPod knows that if they were to sync their iPod to my iTunes and load it with my music, that they will lose the music as soon as they re-sync it to their own iTunes. There was no deception on Apple part. As soon as they plug their iPod in to their computer, their iTunes will state that the iPod is synced to another iTunes and if they choose to sync it  to their iTunes, everything in the iPod will be lost. This was to applease the Music industry. Otherwise a person can easily load his iPod with music that he didn't own by plugging his iPod into each of his friends iTunes library and loading it up with the songs he wants. An iPod is designed to only be loaded with the music from the owners own library. If a person wants his friends music, then he has to go the round about route by having his friends burn a disc with the music and then importing the music into his own library.

     

    There's also a technical reason why an iPod does this. That is that all the music in an iPod is one big file. A table of all the songs points to where the song begins and ends in that file. When songs are added or deleted from the iPod, the table and music file are restructured in iTunes and then loaded into the iPod. Individual song files do not exist as separate files in an iPod, though they are separate files in the iTunes library. Which is the reason why music can not be easily transfered from an iPod. (Though I do remember a program that did it but was not 100% accurate in finding the begining and end of the song. Plus it was a hassle to do.)       

  • Reply 27 of 79
    When did Apple allow uploading your own CDs into iTunes? That might be an element of Apple's defense. It seems I've always been able to import CDs but I wouldn't doubt that that functionality was not initially present.
  • Reply 28 of 79
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by waldobushman View Post



    When did Apple allow uploading your own CDs into iTunes? That might be an element of Apple's defense. It seems I've always been able to import CDs but I wouldn't doubt that that functionality was not initially present.

     

    When the iPod was first introduced, it was about the only way to load music into iTunes. There was no iTunes Store to buy music from at the time. The iTunes Store came about 2 years later. The slogan when iTunes first came out was "Rip, Mix and Burn". 

  • Reply 29 of 79
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jungmark View Post



    This is a joke, right? Most Of my music is ripped, stolen, or Amazoned. My iPod still had all the tunes.

    This was an issue specifically to Rhapsody and Realplayer and was happening during the DRM days.  Apple did specifically cause this issue because they were attempting to keep those players out of iTunes.  I remember the back and forth version wars that happened in iTunes when Apple blocked these products from reaching into iTunes.  Apple pretty much did what they are being accused of.

     

    Apples (very reasonable) defense is that they allowed unprotected CD's to work perfectly and never blocked them.  Even more so, Apple had to contend with the record label demands on the iPod and iTunes (which they mostly did) which at that time basically REQUIRED them to keep control over their platform. 

  • Reply 30 of 79
    Yeah, ve vill protect you from yourselves vether you vant us to or not@!
  • Reply 31 of 79
    When did Apple allow uploading your own CDs into iTunes? That might be an element of Apple's defense. It seems I've always been able to import CDs but I wouldn't doubt that that functionality was not initially present.

    It has always been present.
  • Reply 32 of 79
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by michaeloftroy View Post



    People seem to forget what digital music was like prior to the iPod and iTunes. Either it was illegal (via napster), and you burned it to a CD. Or it was legal and DRM'd to hell, on a device that sucked.



    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips

    Anyone remember this thing?

     

    Gee, thanks for reminding me... I bought my daughter one of these for either birthday or Christmas, back in the day.  Pretty sure the included cart was "Oops, I Did It Again".  She might have bought one more cart, for giggles.  Probably something N'Sync.

     

    And yes, it surely did sound worse than your average small AM radio.  And no headphones.  But the idea of playing music at will, without an electromechanical device, was novel for that age group at the time.  :\

  • Reply 33 of 79
    For this case to have got this far likely means that Apple has made pretty unconvincing arguments so far. That's shocking (and frustrating), given just the posts here in this one thread, about facts relating to the iPod.

    You really have to wonder about the quality of Apple's legal team. Perhaps they should start reading the comments section of Apple fan sites, for starters. They might actually learn something.
  • Reply 34 of 79
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post

    You really have to wonder about the quality of Apple's legal team. Perhaps they should start reading the comments section of Apple fan sites, for starters. They might actually learn something.



    They’re probably burnt out from fighting Samsung worldwide and have lost their heart from seeing BLATANT MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE PERPETRATED ON MOST OF THEIR IP CASES. :grumble:

  • Reply 35 of 79
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post





    It has always been present.

     

    Even before iTunes became iTunes. iTunes is derived from a program call SoundJam. Which was a CD ripping, mixing, burning and converting to MP3 program for a Mac back in the late 90's. I believe several MP3 players used it to manage the music in them from a Mac. At the time most, MP3 players only worked on a PC. Apple bought out the program and if I recall, hired the original programer to work on converting SoundJam into iTunes.  

  • Reply 36 of 79
    davidw wrote: »
    Everyone that I know that owns an iPod knows that if they were to sync their iPod to my iTunes and load it with my music, that they will lose the music as soon as they re-sync it to their own iTunes. There was no deception on Apple part. As soon as they plug their iPod in to their computer, their iTunes will state that the iPod is synced to another iTunes and if they choose to sync it  to their iTunes, everything in the iPod will be lost. This was to applease the Music industry. Otherwise a person can easily load his iPod with music that he didn't own by plugging his iPod into each of his friends iTunes library and loading it up with the songs he wants. An iPod is designed to only be loaded with the music from the owners own library. If a person wants his friends music, then he has to go the round about route by having his friends burn a disc with the music and then importing the music into his own library.

    There's also a technical reason why an iPod does this. That is that all the music in an iPod is one big file. A table of all the songs points to where the song begins and ends in that file. When songs are added or deleted from the iPod, the table and music file are restructured in iTunes and then loaded into the iPod. Individual song files do not exist as separate files in an iPod, though they are separate files in the iTunes library. Which is the reason why music can not be easily transfered from an iPod. (Though I do remember a program that did it but was not 100% accurate in finding the begining and end of the song. Plus it was a hassle to do.)       
    Uh, say what? Have you ever examined the file system of an iPod? All MP3 files are individual, and not clumped together as one huge file... Their file names were changed, and later referenced by some type of DBS table, but the individual files were always uploaded in that state, and maintained that way.
  • Reply 37 of 79
    splifsplif Posts: 603member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by DroidFTW View Post

     

    If one were to only read this recent articles they may be left with the impression that the iPod was the only mp3 player around at the time.  This isn't the case.  There were many people (myself included) that didn't want DRM with our music collection and therefore stayed away from the iPod. 


    Wrong. The iPod allowed DRM free music from the start. Not sure what you based your opinion on back then but you were obviously mistaken.

  • Reply 38 of 79
    moreckmoreck Posts: 187member
    These clowns should be suing the recording industry for imposing DRM on Apple. Oh wait; you're supposed to sue those with money. It makes sense now.
  • Reply 39 of 79
    swiftswift Posts: 436member
    All because the head of REAL thought he could make a deal with Apple over sharing DRM. Apple wanted to get out of DRM in music altogether. There was no deal to offer. But real went ahead anyway. Anything to get into those iPods of the mid-oughties.
  • Reply 40 of 79
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mpantone View Post

     

    Pure poppycock.

     

    I purchased my first iPod in 2003 (3rd generation). 99% of the music in my iTunes Library was ripped from CDs and not one song has ever been "surreptitiously deleted." 

     

    This lawsuit should be thrown out of court if the plaintiffs are going to manufacture this kind of nonsense. This is an utter disgrace to the judicial system and an unapologetically disconsiderate waste of taxpayers' money.

     

    Appalling.


     

    Maybe they weren't deleted because you didn't purchase them from an alternative source.

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