Apple Deleted Music From Users’ iPods Purchased From Rivals

[Apache]

Apple scanned for music purchased from rival services such as Amazon and forced users to delete all music from their iPods, it is claimed. Apple intentionally deleted music not bought from iTunes from users’ iPods between 2007 and 2009, a court was told in a antitrust suit against Apple.

The complete article here.
http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...als-steve-jobs
Apache

[doctorow]

Not sure if it was just until 2009. This seems related, and it's dated Sep 2013:

After both updates (iTunes 11.1 and ios 7) everything was fine for a few days. Yesterday however I noticed my iPod was skipping songs as I had it on 'shuffle', most of them just wouldn't play. I tried selecting these songs from my iPod but the text was grey instead of the usual black colour. There were also squares next to these songs with circles around them.

and

I do not purchase music from iTunes. I buy CD's, download music using codes provided when I buy Vinyl records or download free music online.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5368528

[robko]

Please tell me he didn't actually say the 2nd half of this....

“The system was totally hacked,” said Farrugia [Apple security director] and that the music was deleted for security reasons, saying that “we don’t need to give users too much information” because “we don’t want to confuse users.”

[whitearrow]

That sounds exactly like something someone from Apple would say. Isn't that their whole mission statement in a nutshell?

[Apache]

I avoided this since I was using a Zune back then. It recently died and I bought an iPod Classic 160GB. I hate iTunes, but I wanted something that would hold all of my music and podcasts. I bought more music from Amazon than I did from Apple. I would be seriously upset if they had done this to me. I would not have lost anything though since all of my music and podcasts are backed up in multiple locations.
When I saw this I was not surprised that they did it although I did wonder how they thought they would be able to keep anyone from discovering their crime.
Apache

[pidgeon92]

This sounds bizarre. I've been buying music from Amazon for a long, long time already. Never had a problem with syncing the music to any of my iPods.

[cromag]

I have Itunes. I use it mostly for podcasts, but I do have some music that I got when friends and relatives have given me gift cards. But I don't use Itunes as my media player and Itunes doesn't "know" where my music library is. As soon as I get a song on Itunes I convert it to MP3 and copy it to my library.

Also, I don't have an Ipod, so Itunes doesn't manage my player.

So far, both Apple and Amazon have lost the rights to host a few songs that I have bought in the past, which means that if I hadn't saved them locally (on a disk drive) I would have lost them -- they're no longer in their respective "clouds."

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Apache

The complete article here.
http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...als-steve-jobs

That makes me happy I never used iTunes.

[thewitt]

I don't believe this is true. My music collection is from dozens of sources, 15,000+ songs. Never had any issues.

[robko]

Originally Posted by thewitt

I don't believe this is true. My music collection is from dozens of sources, 15,000+ songs. Never had any issues.

Considering this was high level Apple execs admitting to it in court, I'd have to say it was true. However, it sounds like it was an issue from 2007-2009 not something you'd encounter recently.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by robko

However, it sounds like it was an issue from 2007-2009 not something you'd encounter recently.

Indeed, but I'd surely remember it. I'm daft on a number of items, but this would have stuck in my craw.

[thewitt]

Originally Posted by robko

Considering this was high level Apple execs admitting to it in court, I'd have to say it was true. However, it sounds like it was an issue from 2007-2009 not something you'd encounter recently.

I bought the very first iPod made and filled it with music, so I would have seen this if it was widely spread. Maybe it happened to some, but it never happened to me.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by thewitt

I bought the very first iPod made and filled it with music, so I would have seen this if it was widely spread. Maybe it happened to some, but it never happened to me.

Maybe it was a specific model of iPod?

[HarryT]

I've never bought a single tune from Apple: all my music is either recorded radio programmes, or MP3s ripped from my own CDs. I think I've probably used every iPod since the first one. Never had a problem.

[Jessica Lares]

The whole case might be thrown out because Apple can't verify the serials of the devices in question.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/1...laintiff/?_r=0