SQL Murder Mystery - <AUTHOR> https://mystery.knightlab.com/ <comment><USER3> Ah, fond memories :) I once made a javascript implementation of an sql engine for a weekend game.

[http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum- dare-27/?action=preview&uid...](http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum- dare-27/?action=preview&uid=10313)

It was a very long time ago and, then, everyone was wondering where Snowden was. I think this was after he was identified, and just before he ended up in Russia.

Anyway, you are given an NSA Prism terminal, complete with Windows 95 look and feel and a paperclip.

You have to use your leet SQL skills to find out what flight he was on, and then book your agents onto intercepting flights.

Because it was all client-side javascript, and hosted on github pages, its still playable all these years later:

[http://williame.github.io/ludum_dare_27_snowden/index.html](http://williame.github.io/ludum_dare_27_snowden/index.html)

Of course it was a complete flop!

But making an sql engine under that kind of time pressure was pretty intense.

[https://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/59997353762/runn...](https://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/59997353762/running- sql-in-your-browser)

Hard to believe that whole Snowden thing was 6 years ago now!?

<comment><USER4> Interesting!

But wasn't Emscripten already a thing in 2013? SQLite requires nearly no dependencies so it should have been possible to compile it.

<comment><USER3> This was a Ludum Dare contest entrant. Sometimes, the journey is the destination.

Writing an SQL engine is like writing a ray tracer or implementing a compression algorithm: every programmer should do it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the better link from kevindong:

"A crime has taken place and the detective needs your help. The detective gave you the crime scene report, but you somehow lost it. You vaguely remember that the crime was a murder that occurred sometime on Jan.15, 2018 and that it took place in SQL City . Start by retrieving the corresponding crime scene report from the police department's database."

<comment><USER6> Whaaat, I wasn't supposed to muck around the DB for 5 minutes trying to find the starting point?

<comment><USER7> Were you successful at solving the puzzle without the starting clues?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I accidentally revealed the solution after running the .schema command (the solution is in the trigger code on that table).  Might be a record though - <USER2> got the answer in only a few seconds.

<comment><USER5> Looks like that's blocked now.

<comment><USER9> Not really: `select sql from sqlite_master` still reveals the solution.

<comment><USER10> For me it shows the hexcode of the name but not the name itself.

<comment><USER11> yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It looks like this should help:

[https://github.com/NUKnightLab/sql- mysteries/blob/master/pro...](https://github.com/NUKnightLab/sql- mysteries/blob/master/prompt_experienced.pdf)

<comment><USER13> Thank you. Perhaps the OP should link to [https://github.com/NUKnightLab/sql- mysteries](https://github.com/NUKnightLab/sql-mysteries) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A few years ago I ported IBM's SqlDetective from informix to postgresql and mysql. [https://github.com/verpeteren/SqlDetective](https://github.com/verpeteren/SqlDetective)

</comment><comment><USER15> As I have a working knowledge of SQL this was very simple but my friends who use it sparsely in their financial jobs had a blast racing each other.

This type of gamification is awesome and as someone who loves coding but doesn't find Sudoku's or whatever very enjoyable, I would love a place I could do little coding challenges like this in break times!

Anyone know of any? I'm thinking "Escape Rooms" via coding could be a big thing!

<comment><USER16> Here's a super fun one where you SSH into different servers and have to use Bash/unix tools to find clues to get to the next one: [https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/](https://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is a Lot of crime in SQL City. I wonder if ORMTown is just as bad. ;)

<comment><USER18> "We built SQL City on GRANT and ROLE."

<comment><USER19> "too many script kiddies... playin' injection games."

:-D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Time to break out the champagne!

This was a lot of fun; I'd definitely play level 2.

The nice thing about it was that you had some flexibility around getting the exact SQL query, and just visualizing a slightly larger superset of the data.

</comment><comment><USER21> I always wanted do invest my 20 hrs into SQL.

I've already put 10 with a data analyst course so i know what a sqlite , select and joins are. I've created a not trivial query once. Is this OK for learn some more ?

<comment><USER22> Sure thing. I think learning SQL is never wasted time.

Try looking into SQL functions & TRIGGERs, LATERAL JOINs, ROLLUP & CUBE.

If you have even more time, check out the different things an SQL server can do when you DROP a row that contains references, how you define CONSTRAINTs, and some particular features that only some subset of SQL dialects have, such as LISTEN/NOTIFY for PostgreSQL.

<comment><USER23> >Try looking into SQL functions & TRIGGERs, LATERAL JOINs, ROLLUP & CUBE.

If you're a developer, I would look into CONSTRAINTS way before getting to anything like this. Learning how to model your constraints correctly in the database (preventing duplicates, etc) is one of the most important bits of schema design because it will save you tons of code and likely a bunch of race conditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> reminds me of the command line / unix tools murder mystery

[https://github.com/veltman/clmystery](https://github.com/veltman/clmystery)

<comment><USER25> Indeed, Noah's project was a direct inspiration for us, and we tried to clearly credit it.

We love that people are enjoying this so much, so we're also grateful to Simon Willison for reviving attention on the original project, and Zi Chong Kao, whose SQL tutorial site showed us the possibility of mounting the whole thing in a browser page.

(I'm the person who guided the Knight Lab students' original work and ported it to the web hosted version at mystery.knightlab.com)

<comment><USER26> Really enjoyed playing through the game, and especially enjoyed seeing your name in the credits and thinking hey, I was pretty suspicious of you at one point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> OMG I love this. I just sent it to my buddy who as a PM is learning SQL to not rely on the BI team since the turnaround can be days.

Ultra tiny desire - I only wish there was more on the story line/intro framing. Took at look at the schema and was like "What is Get fit now? - ohhhh, it's a gym... got it..."

<comment><USER28> well for me not looking at the schema made it more fun and I guess the plot was also pretty involving ^^

<comment><USER29>
      >  ... not looking at the schema ...

Wait, you just guessed the table names? what am i missing here?

<comment><USER30> probably means looked at SELECT * from each table and interpreted the FK relationships vs. querying the schema table or looking at the ERD...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Good clean fun :) Knight Lab does lots for journalism and the web. Here's one of my favorite projects of theirs: [https://timeline.knightlab.com/](https://timeline.knightlab.com/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Be warned that there are spoilers built into the DB, if you look too closely. The trigger on the solution DB has the answer built into the SQL, as I learned when I ruined the game for myself.

<comment><USER33> To be fair, a hex of the answer, so you only spoil yourself if you're very good at reading base-16-encoded ASCII data.

<comment><USER32> I saw an unhexed answer in the original datasette link.

<comment><USER33> Oh, might be outdated. I played it locally from the latest master.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Cool to see more SQL role play games, goes next to this bookmark of my former colleague: [http://sql-island.informatik.uni-kl.de/?lang=en](http://sql- island.informatik.uni-kl.de/?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER35> I was surprised I actually got the solution! I'm no SQL expert beyond basic queries, so I definitely had to do a lot of really basic steps to get there, but I did it nonetheless!

<comment><USER30> well the nice thing is that you can break down each step if you're not confident with joining virtual tables and aggregated results but also after finishing I think you can right a single query to insert the answer, so it's quite widely accessible!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just spent some nice 30 minutes figuring it out, got the bonus ending too! It's a very cool concept for a game! Wish it was a bit longer.

</comment><comment><USER36> I played along on the web based ui but for the life of me can't figure out how to check my solution? I see that there is an insert statement given on the github page but I get a 'Statement must be a SELECT' error when I try to execute it. What am I missing?

<comment><USER37> This link is better: [http://mystery.knightlab.com](http://mystery.knightlab.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Very nice except the fact the whole page breaks for me when using joins.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've never come across an "SQL game" before, this was great fun!

I got it in around 15 minutes though, really wish there was a bit more too it, or that more complex queries were required.

<comment><USER40> I haven't played it but I'm intrigued by the idea. This is MIT so forking it and creating _sequel_ mysteries wouldn't to far fetched.

<comment><USER25> we'd love to see that happen!

And really, the most valuable piece, IMO, are the SQL web components, from SelectStarSQL, which are CC0 public domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I love this type of story-based learning! I was playing with twilioquest this weekend, I really appreciate the developers' creativity. How can I find more tools like these?

<comment><USER42> If you're into logic puzzles and python, I built Jindosh.com. If you like javascript, there's this great game at [https://alexnisnevich.github.io/untrusted/](https://alexnisnevich.github.io/untrusted/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Fun game. The query engine seemed to die on me if I gave it certain syntactically wrong queries though and only a refresh of the page would solve it.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm lazy, so for both the first and second stage I narrowed down the selection to 2 to 3 people and then tried them all.

<comment><USER7> You were about one join away from narrowing it down to the killer.

</comment></comment><comment> tim-- Very smart! I love how the `solution` table works to add some additional fun to the challenge.

</comment><comment><USER45> Here is a single query to get you both solutions. [https://pastebin.com/P7LN9jMz](https://pastebin.com/P7LN9jMz)

This was after I solved it the old fashioned way though :)

<comment><USER30> I thought you had created a single massive join to find the answer and was pre-impressed. This is fine in the strict "correct solution" answer but totally against the spirit, so boo!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> That was a fun distraction. Not too difficult though.

</comment><comment><USER47> Fun game ! lol. Though time consuming

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't get it, with just a "select * from sqlite_master" you can see the trigger and solve both mysteries

</comment><comment><USER49> This is super cool

</comment><comment><USER50> love it

</comment><comment><USER51> This version doesn't support INSERTing the solution from the web. [https://mystery.knightlab.com](https://mystery.knightlab.com) does, though, and provides some guidance out the door.

Fun little thing, thanks!

<comment><USER52> Ok, we'll change the URL to that from [https://sql-murder- mystery.datasette.io/sql-murder-mystery](https://sql-murder- mystery.datasette.io/sql-murder-mystery), since it seems to be the original source also.

<comment><USER51> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Svgs are cool, but icon fonts are just 10% of their file size - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pictonic.co/post/32869817328/svgs-are-cool-but-icon-fonts-are-just-10-of-their

<comment><USER2> Great dissection, thanks for sharing!

Similarly argued, icon fonts are cool but have x-browser rendering issues, dependence on webkit for accurate anti-aliasing (currently), require sticking to a 32x32 grid, and altogether lead to a massive headache for nimble development. In most cases, especially for new products and low traffic, it's premature optimization. Github's speakerdeck gives a great rundown of their experience:

<https://speakerdeck.com/u/jonrohan/p/say-hello-to-octicons>

And note, this is Github, who actually has reason to optimize for >2MM users, saying the process was is too complex and tedious.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for your comment, and the link, really interesting points!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> SVGs are XML, which can be compressed transparently by the web server using GZip, which from my reading on the web typically gets around 70-80% compression on XML files, thus reducing the deficit fairly heavily.

Also, that first comparison chart? "Most browsers don't support the full SVG featureset" - Firefox 3.1, Chrome 1.0, Safari 3.2?

<comment><AUTHOR> here is a followup post comparing gzipped versions: [http://blog.pictonic.co/post/33163844823/icon-fonts-vs- svgs-...](http://blog.pictonic.co/post/33163844823/icon-fonts-vs-svgs-part-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first graph has the wrong label for the x axis.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I go about learning machine learning? - <AUTHOR> I've finally found an interesting field that gets me really excited to program! I learned python a month ago but haven't had any interesting ideas but I just found out about Machine learning, AI, and data science. Really interesting stuff so I'm wondering what HN would suggest as a general learning path! What math should I know to really understand this stuff? What books do I need to read? Some beginner project ideas? Anything at all! I'm a HS Senior and I plan to really focus on machine learning, data science, and AI once I'm in college.<p>Thank you. <comment><USER2> A lot of the advice you will get is going to be in the spirit of the American way of teaching various scientific disciplines. I would decribe it as a hands on approach, that gets you started really fast and doing exciting things. This is true of computer science, statistics, and physics as far as I know. It's probably a good way to go about learning these things.

The French method for teaching these things (the one I'm used to) is to first do a lot of mathematics and then to introduce these topics through powerful mathematical formalisms, from the get go. All else equal, for most people, it's probably a worse approach.

However, the American way does err a little bit on the side of too little mathematics, and it can come and bite you. My suggestion would thus be to follow all the advice given, but give 50% more emphasis on mathematics than people would otherwise suggest. Fortunately, the mathematics of machine learning aren't too complicated, but you want to be able to breathe that stuff. In particular this means:

\- linear algebra

\- real and complex analysis

\- multivariate calculus

\- topology (just a bit)

\- probability theory

It's like touch typing. It may be tedious at first, but once you know this stuff really well, learning new things will be a breeze.

<comment><USER3> I recommend _Understanding Machine Learning_ for a textbook, as I rather enjoyed a class using it.

[http://www.cambridge.org/al/academic/subjects/computer- scien...](http://www.cambridge.org/al/academic/subjects/computer- science/pattern-recognition-and-machine-learning/understanding-machine- learning-theory-algorithms)

<comment><USER4> As someone who came into this field with only an average high-school-level grasp of mathematics I found that particular book incredibly worthwhile. It's taken me almost 12 months to start understanding it enough to actually apply it but it's worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote about this here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8767092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8767092) and here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9433316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9433316)

Long story short, the biggest mistake I see people making is not actually rolling up their sleeves and learning the math.

People are often content to watch hour after hour of Udacity, Khan academy and Coursera videos but the applied follow up is where most people drop off. At the very least any course work should be followed up by something practical like a kaggle exercise to prove that you can apply the technique you just learned. Consider the benefit of just watching videos vs doing actual applied work.

On one hand if you just watch videos you might learn alot but how do you prove that to someone hiring you? On the other hand if you sit down and spend a week attaching a Kaggle excise then at the very least you have something to point people to, to show that you can apply machine learning techniques.

My recommendation has always been to read the first 5 chapters of Introduction to statistical learning: [http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/](http://www- bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/)

and if you fly thorugh it then sample Elements of statistical learning [http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/) for the topics that you want to learn.

If intro to statistical learning is too advanced, then go to Khan academy and work your way through their statistics videos.

From my experience you can bucket people into skill level by looking at how they attack a new problem.

Beginners tend to start by saying they'll need a hadoop cluster and spend the next week setting up a pipeline.

Intermediate people tend to jump into R or scikit and try to model the problem with a small subset of data and the library and technique they know best.

The advanced people tend to flesh out their hypothesis first and then work out the math and then jump to modelling with a small set of data and finally move to a cluster.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can try "Data Science from Scratch" [0] to get some taste. It uses Python to teach essentials of data science, and ML altorithms. The code quality is very good, and there is an introduction to Statistics, Maths and Python to start.

Then you can continue with improving your maths (Linear Algebra [1], Calculus [2], [3]) and moving on with Statistical Learning [4] [5]. I am personally going now through this plan.

[0] [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033400.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033400.do)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-Undergraduate- Mat...](http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Right-Undergraduate- Mathematics/dp/3319110799)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-4th-Michael- Spivak/dp/0914098...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-4th-Michael- Spivak/dp/0914098918)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Manifolds-Approach- Classical-...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Manifolds-Approach-Classical- Theorems/dp/0805390219)

[4] [http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/](http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/)

[5] [http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/)

<comment><USER7> _An Introduction to Statistical Learning_ [0] is also good. It's a little less technical than _The Elements of Statistical Learning_. We used it for our statistical learning course at my university. The full PDF is available for free as well [1].

[0] [http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/](http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/)

[1] [http://www- bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20Fourth%20Printing....](http://www- bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ISLR%20Fourth%20Printing.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Machine learning is applied statistics. Elements of Statistical Learning was written by profs at Stanford and is free on the internet. It might be a bit hard since they don't really teach stats in high school. O'Reilly has a few ml books. I liked Programming Collective Intelligence it is beginner friendly and would probably help you come up with project ideas.

</comment><comment><USER9> See previous discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9432952](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9432952) . My advice in particular is at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9433981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9433981)

</comment><comment><USER10> I recommend starting with Andrew Ng's ML course on Coursera. He teaches and presents the subject in a way that is both fun and non-intimidating to a beginner. You get a good overview of techniques, and get to try out fun exercises like digit recognition.

</comment><comment><USER11> Get your fundamentals down. Focus heavily on linear algebra and probability theory.

If you think you've nailed Python, go ahead and look at NumPy and SciPy - they're different enough from Python, and they crop up very often in ML.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is one possible resource for you www.codecloud.me - what it does, people can code together on projects. The focus is on learning and unfortunately no payment. They do have some machine learning projects on there which could help you to start off & it comes with mentors.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hi! I've compiled a list of the best resources that I'm aware of: [http://digitalmind.io/post/deep-learning](http://digitalmind.io/post/deep- learning)

</comment><comment> bra-ket [https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-learn-machine- learning-1](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-learn-machine-learning-1)</comment>


Show HN: I built a Launcher App that helps stop phone addiction - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.aswinmohan.nophone <comment><USER2> This is Awesome!</comment>


Apple Stole My Music - <AUTHOR> https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/ <comment><USER7> I am surprised at people trying to rationale Apples wrongdoing by pointing at Google and bringing some crazy examples.

There is no rationale in this - this is outright breaking your privacy and ownership rights. No terms and conditions can be above law. It doesn't matter what others do - Apple is doing those crazy things here and there trying to test the ground which indicates they are not pro privacy and pro user, but rather are willing to go huge lengths to please music industry.

Only because you eating in the restaurant it doesn't mean waiter can run to your house and smash all of your food in the fridge reasoning "from now on you are covered".

<comment><USER8> Remember the U2 fiasco, when Apple decided to break into your computer and push their new album through iTunes? It seems like whenever Apple decides to take control of your files, shit happens.

Back in the day, I tried to use iTunes for a while when I bought my iPod. One of the first things that it asked me was to take control of my music, as it would reorganize it by itself. I agreed, but tested it first with a small sample. When I saw the mess it had done to the way I organized my music, specially with the files' names, I backed out of the auto-organize option and preached heavily against it to everyone I knew.

I learned my lesson: never let whatever service control your files. And always, ALWAYS have backup. Remember: The answer to life, the universe and how many backups you should keep of your stuff is 42.

<comment><USER9> I've survived for 20 years now with zero backups (across at least 10 mechanical hard drives, some of them Seagate) and have never lost data.

<comment><USER10> "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Every time I am asked to set up someone's Apple device, I find it incredibly difficult to:

* Get it synced properly

* Determine what is stored in iCloud/on-device

* Ensure that device contents are actually backed-up, unless done manually

* Set up simple things like email accounts

Just a month or two ago, I was helping someone whose iTunes music wouldn't sync to their iPhone. It turned out that, when they signed up to Apple Music, iTunes had silently flipped on a setting that prevents this. Working out what on earth was happening took me almost an hour.

Yet everyone tells me that their Apple devices 'just work'. I don't have the same experience - I find their behaviour to be utterly opaque and non- deterministic. Am I alone?

<comment><USER12> No -- you aren't alone. Whenever I connect my daughter's iPhone to iTunes (say to add more music) we take our lives in our hands. You get scary popups that ask you a question and provides two options -- neither of which is what you want.

I don't know whether this is deliberate on the part of Apple to discourage the use of iTunes, or whether they really think that it works well and is intuitive. For anybody from Apple reading this -- iTunes is not intuitive. It is horrible.

<comment><USER13> Itunes is the worst.

It can, without asking, delete the music from your device or your folders, reorganize your folders, rename your songs and reset their id3 tags.

The mentality of "our users are stupid, just do everything for them" seems pervasive throughout apple's products.

<comment><USER14> I only just started using a mac/iphone after many years of only using Linux and Android, and my impression is that although they'd object to the language, yes, that's pretty precisely their business model, and its an insane success. I'm not saying most people actually are stupid, but I'm saying that probably the set of people who either (a) are not stupid and want their computer to do something different than what iTunes automatically does, or (b) somehow, whether by ignorance or villainy, get screwed by a situation like the one in the post, barely register in Apple's statistics. I'm (a). The author is (b). We're edge cases. The moral flavor of Apple's business model will continue to not matter while people keep shoveling over the dollars.

<comment><USER15> Although (b) is small, it does tend to produce truly vocal enemies enemies of the company.

I had the joy of buying a product that Apple swears doesn't exist ("Our records say we never made a machine with that serial number, so I'm not allowed to put you into the support system.") Three dead logic boards later, I'm done with the company altogether.

I'd like to think that with market penetration nearly complete, Apple will start to face consequences for this. They're depending on beating competitors and pushing upgrades now (instead of selling to new buyers), so lost customers are a bigger threat. I'm not holding my breath, though, it's just too rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At first I thought the tone of the article was a bit hyperbolic, but upon reading further, no, this totally fits with the emotions that I'd probably feel upon such a situation. Shock, then horror, then anger. Then solution minded...then when hitting a wall...

> _When giving the above warning, however, even in my most Orwellian paranoia > I never could have dreamed that the content holders, like Apple, would also > reach into your computer and take away what you already owned._

It just feels dirty, and, as my Software Developer Uncle probably would've called it, "Playing outside the sandbox." I mean, sure, as the article notes, the TOS gives Apple a lot of consent, but "Loss or Damage" via incidental use vs. outright deletion via intentional coding feels...different. Maybe legally they're not...

I do remember ranting at the top of my lungs after an online jam software installed an update and crashed my Win7 PC laptop so hard it had to rebuild via a command prompt screen. By then, I already had CD backups, a USB HD 500GB full of projects, and it was a cold reminder. The laptop restored fine, but whoa, not fun. Not what I signed up for in the agreement, risk-wise, I felt, so I've essentially stopped using that software.

...and I'll close by reminding myself I'm perfectly reasonable with my Win laptop setup, not running iTunes (Winamp), and backing up to a local cloud or other media (another USB HD coming soon). Life happens, accidents happen...but there's some funky software out there.

Heck of a story, and one I will point to gladly when discussing paths for audio DAW hardware/software platforms.

<comment><USER17> Corporations have spent decades conditioning their users to accept all ToSs and EULAs, using a combination of forbidding the software outright (often with no ability to get a refund) and applying scary language that they have limited the abuse of only as much as they thought would escape the public's notice. Now that their investment has been completed, they want their returns.

My solution to this (and to issues like this outside of software) is extreme but it will fix the problem. When one side creates a contract of any sort (ToS, EULA, phone contract, home buying contract) which primary purpose is to be signed by numerous other individuals who have little to no ability to alter the contract, the other parties are allowed to use lack of understanding to break the entire contract unless the creator can show beyond reasonable doubt (I would use clear and convincing, but that would be abused) that the signer did understand the entirety of the contract.

It would break contract law as we know it, but it would force simple, easy to understand contracts and it would penalize any robo signing practices. (Personal story: last time I went to a phone company, they gave the contract to read on a small device where I could only read 2 lines at a time and where part of the display was broken. I wasn't allowed a print out of the contract until after I signed. I walked away and have to this day not gotten a smartphone because of the downright evil practices of cell phone companies).

<comment><USER16> Oh I can totally agree with you on a lot of those points - the balance of power has shifted to the point of even taking away legal recourse, a la "BINDING ARBITRATION" which I'm skeptical of, re: conflict of interest.

I've honestly kicked around a legal-ese type write-up of 'Personal Terms of Service' type disclaimers - subject to change at any time - <USER2> stating that by taking payment for a service there is a negotiating platform to reconcile conflicting claims. As in, I claim that I should never be subject to an early termination fee if I'm personally unstatisfied with the service, and the service provider says they alone are allowed to waive the fee. Well then, that's a conflict of terms, and by taking my money for a service, they implied they would allow my ToS to usurp theirs (e.g. it's written in my ToS that accepting money creates a binding agreement for such a thing), etc, etc.

I thought it was an exercise in basically being selfish, but the more times examples like this surface, the more it actually starts to sound reasonable. That's...pretty wild to me. I mean, I have a lot of respect for contracts and see them as the ties that hold a lot of commerce together, so they've got real, practical use that should be encouraged. But when it comes to "wiggle room" that sounds a bit like gamesmanship to tilt the power, then I also think fighting back is a natural result, childish as it might seem at first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apple iTunes Match (and Apple Music) subscriber, with 23,000 hand ripped songs, only about 18,000 able to exact match by Apple, 5,000 are less common versions.

Also have enabled iCloud Music Library. Note these are three different services, and iCloud Music Library has been the most likely culprit for monkeying with your music, not Apple Music.

The combo of all three has deleted or auto-replaced exactly zero of my custom rips. I can use a series of steps (smart playlist to find matched songs, then manually delete that set) to shift to using Apple's high quality unprotected version, or not.

I wonder if the key to everything working as you imagine is the Match subscriptions:

[http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes- match/](http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/)

If using Match, then after matching, manually deleting local, then re- downloading, you end up with a very high quality file without DRM that will continue to work fine and be portable, even after you cancel.

I'm not sure what happens if using only Apple Music without Match.

The linked article sounds a lot like the iCloud Music Library beta problems in July 2015:

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/01/apple-music- users-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/01/apple-music-users- complain-icloud-music-library-deletes-renames-itunes-content)

And similar support experiences:

[http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/07/24/i-got-my-music-back- at...](http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/07/24/i-got-my-music-back-at-least- most-of-it/)

<comment><USER19> Fellow iTunes Match subscriber - been using it since the release with zero problems.

<comment><USER20> Me too. I really like iTunes match and it seems to work well. For those that are unfamiliar, it makes all your music on your main machine available from the cloud for a small yearly payment (25$?). It does this by matching your music to its own library and uploading the stuff it doesn't have.

One of the strange things is I have 2 mp3 rips from CD with skips. When I play over the internet with iTunes match the files still skip. These are common songs, so whatever they are doing to determine if that song is in their library is working (I guess).

My only complaint is sometimes it breaks up my albums if it decides that songs are by different artists. (Bob Marley, vs Bob Marley and the Wailers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't think of a single reason why Apple would want to delete the files from the user's computer apart from an intent to lock the user in to the service by making it tremendously hard to leave. That's the black hole of UI dark patterns.

<comment><USER22> "I can't think of a single reason why Apple would want to delete the files from the user's computer..."

Well, to save precious local storage space of course. Apple's just being helpful here.

But seriously, sounds like a "good idea" gone wrong - "I know! Let's save the user some space by serving all their music from the cloud!" The moment that file deletion came up in the design, the option to opt-in should have been added. Unless someone at Apple did indeed intend lock-in ...

<comment><USER23> > Well, to save precious local storage space of course. Apple's just being > helpful here.

Yeah, storage that was made precious by apple by not supporting an SD card slot. Very "helpful".

<comment><USER24> This isn't about a lack of expandable storage (all Macs have at least one USB port, some come with SD card slots), but rather that a lot of Macs come with very small SSDs.

I can totally see how this might have seemed like a good idea. Shame it's just... not.

<comment><USER23> I was kinda assuming the iphone here. Didn't think the app on a desktop OS would show that behavior. Is this true? Do people really run out of space on laptops and desktops due to photos?

I just checked the apple website and it seems you're right. 3 out of the 5 available Macbook pro variants have <= 256GB storage.

<comment><USER24> > I had just explained to Amber that 122 GB of music files were missing from > my laptop

This is very much about a laptop rather than a phone. And yep, I'm also suffering from this. I've got a 2010 MacBook Air with 256GB storage. I'm down to 10GB free space and struggling to decide how to cope with the now 160GB Photos library.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's worth noting that Google Photos actually does something similar... the photos are "backed up" even in their "original" form... but I don't believe it's possible to actually restore (download all) from Google Photos.

I thankfully have a local backup of the photos I took, but when a phrase like "backup" is used, it is implicit and understood that there is a "restore" mechanism.

Google Photos lacks a "restore" mechanism, and it sounds like the same is true of Apple Music.

Google Play Music also does the matching/mismatching thing.

An uploaded Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer was replaced by a remix album but remains tagged as if it's the original. This is probably due to them not having the original, and this was a 90% match based on tags... but 90% is not good enough. I worked in the music industry and have so many demo tapes, master cuts that were not subject to post-production, etc. I want the version I have, and not some approximate guess at something similar-ish.

This isn't just an Apple issue.

<comment><USER23> This is exactly why I use OneDrive to backup my photos along with the google photos thing. I've tried explaining my logic to several people but usual replies are "but I can still see them on the website!". "But you won't have the image files anymore." "But I can open the website and see the pics, right?" At this point I just sigh and give up. Oh there's a download all button too, but it does NOT return the original files. All the files are much smaller than the original images.

<comment><USER26> > Oh there's a download all button too, but it does NOT return the original > files.

It _does_ return the original files.

Here are two files, one that got backed up off my phone by google photos, which I then downloaded from google drive, and one that I copied directly off my phone via USB:

       $ md5sum IMG_20160504_160057648_HDR*
        4bcb38a2e3869b4c769301c1664f5846  IMG_20160504_160057648_HDR (1).jpg
        4bcb38a2e3869b4c769301c1664f5846  IMG_20160504_160057648_HDR.jpg

The files are identical.

<comment><USER23> How big are your files? How many megapixels? I just see that the pictures in my phone are ~4-5 megabytes big and when I download them from google.com/photos, they are just a bit under a megabyte mostly.

<comment><USER27> There's an option to upload the pics at 'Original Size' or 'High Quality' (reduced). If you use the Original quality (which counts against your storage), you should see the same image.

<comment><USER23> OK yeah that does make sense. I had that on earlier but my google Drive quota ran out. So I switched to 'High Quality' (reduced). Maybe that's why I do not get the original pics.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, I have set that as high quality as well, as though reduced in size, the pictures are are _almost_ the same in appearance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Similar what happened to me years ago - i got new iphone, installed itunes, it synced all local files. Few weeks later, i de-synced the phone or something like that, and all my local files were gone! Still not sure how or why, there were no warnings or anything. From that day, i stay as far as possible from iTunes and similar "smart music sync" apps. Spotify doesn't see my local music collection, and vice versa. All music streaming services and their apps are total crap, they try to lock you in and manage everything like you're an idiot.

<comment><USER29> I had an iPod that I won in a contest ( I don't think Apple hardware is ever worth its price, wouldn't buy one ).

My sister borrows my iPod, plugs on her Windoes machine that had iTunes, and it offers to sync, and she clicks "ok" on autopilot.

ITunes couldn't recognize the iPod, since it was mine, not hers, and decide thr best course of action is wipe it clean...

<comment><USER30> My mother has an iPod she bought to listen to music. She interfaces through Itunes, and doesn't know what a file is. She's bought maybe 250 tracks from Itunes, out of a 2500 track library. She is not especially emotionally stable.

We finally bought her a new computer.

She plugged it in to charge it. The iPod wiped itself clean. She had not even installed Itunes on the new PC yet. It took us a solid day and a half to get through her traumatic reaction and get the music back on with the new Itunes install through a thumb drive, using Windows Explorer and a new 'import library' pass to bypass Itunes' asinine UX decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It might be worth filing a criminal complaint with the FBI, under the "exceeds authorized access" provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.[1] Apple's EULA [2] does not give them unlimited access to your computer. It just keeps you from suing them in civil court over it. You probably need a lawyer and a press agent. Someone really needs to take this to court.

See the Justice Department's CFAA guide [2], under "Intentionally Damaging by Knowing Transmission". Also read the section on "Exceeds authorized access", starting at page 11.

This guy was told that the software was operating as intended. That shows criminal intent. It eliminates the defense in the CFAA under "No action may be brought under this subsection for the negligent design or manufacture of computer hardware, computer software, or firmware." The CFAA has a civil suit provision: "Any person who suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of this section may maintain a civil action against the violator to obtain compensatory damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief." That may override the EULA, but this needs legal advice.

[1] [https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal- ccips/l...](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal- ccips/legacy/2015/01/14/ccmanual.pdf) [2] [http://www.apple.com/legal/internet- services/itunes/appstore...](http://www.apple.com/legal/internet- services/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula/)

</comment><comment><USER32> iTunes is the driving reason behind why I got rid of my iDevices.

First of all using iTunes for Windows has a way of making its users feel like something of an afterthought.

Secondly I was always _scared_ to sync my devices. Is this the day it tries to undo my jailbreak? Is this the day that deleting a playlist actually removes all the songs from my device? Is this the day that it removes an app I depend on because Apple decided to kick it out of the app store?

Somewhat relatedly I never felt comfortable plugging my iPhone into my secondary computer. The whole process of authorization and syncing is just horribly opaque.

It's some of the most opaque software I've ever had the displeasure of using. How they managed to fuck up a file copy[1] so badly is beyond me.

Android isn't without it's own faults, but at least it feels like it's own independent device, with its own _copy_ of my library. I don't want a complicated sync mechanism: I want to put this new album onto my phone.

[1]: [https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dop](https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dop)

</comment><comment><USER33> > "Amber relayed to me that she's had to suffer through many calls from people > who cancelled their Apple Music subscription after the free, three-month > trial, only to discover that all of their own music files had been deleted > and there was no way to get them back."

The Apple Music three month trial had a positive affect on my listening habits. I tried it, hoping to discover new music. But the UX was a slog. No easy pivot points on artists and songs. A DJ workflow vs listener workflow, which added complexity. No collaborative filtering.

So, I switched to Spotify. The "Discover Weekly" section that uses Echonest (I think) has surfaced new artists and songs to explore. Pivot points on songs, artists, and playlists are straightforward.

Have spent 100s of hours hours ripping and curating high 100s of CDs over the last 25 years. Barely touch em. At this point, if you'd ask me to choose between my old catalog and Spotify, I would choose the later. Heh, thanks to the Apple Music 3 month trial.

<comment><USER34> The problem with Spotify is 25% of their library has that horrible UMG watermark on it. It makes any UMG music before 2013 unlistenable. Apparently, UMG fixed the problem on their side but Spotify don't give enough of a damn about quality to redownload the UMG library.

<comment><USER33> Wow! Just listened to an A/B test: [http://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible- watermark](http://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark)

Pretty awful. I wonder why Spotify doesn't correct? Have been listening mostly to electronica on Premium account. So, this is the first I've heard.

UMG. Had suggested a mobile collaboration on iOS to UMG, a few years back. But, they were focused on Blackberry, back then.

[EDIT] Just tried the example song from the above link. And, yes, the watermark is still there. Wow!

<comment><USER33> Followup: found the following comment on a UMG watermark thread:

> This watermark is embedded in UMG tracks on Rdio, Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, > and others.

I would subscribe to a service that allowed me block watermarked files.

[edit] removed patent tangent

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Enjoy your cloud service.

"FUCK THE CLOUD" by Jason Scott: [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1717](http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1717)

Proud user of Linux and SELinux (mandatory access control system, which protects your data from your apps).

<comment><USER35> Oh, I should have rather said "enjoy your closed source applications". Who's next? Skype? Acrobat Reader?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> As the post mentions, in most cases of mainstream media, we all agree to licensing our purchased media, not owning it, and so publishers and resellers assume that all media in our possession must be purchased, and so are under their control.

Of course this ignores user created media, or freebies, or gifts... but even for the purchased access, I always wonder about that forced (dare I say clickwrap?) licensing aspect. Why should I pay again for different format of same info (amazon format vs. epub)? Why should NYT force me to pay extra for tablet AND phone access to same content? Why should I pay extra for a digital copy of a movie that I already have on Bluray? And of course, why should I be forced to allow the publisher to control media on my drive?

We see this with books (printed books say that you have a license to read them, but not to redistribute in any way electronically without permission, even snippets or out of press books (the long running Google books issues) or Amazon revising kindle books on your device) and as the post mentions, we see it with music and movies/shows as well.

It's not as easy to distribute content these days as we may think; many book publishers tried direct to consumer ebook sales over the last few years and are pulling out of that game (the fact that o'reilly and tor worked so far is because they give flex and target techies). Libraries are shifting to emedia services like BiblioBoard and Hoopla which don't even let you download the content except in very restricted apps; instead, you read images online in a browser or stream only. The goal again is to enforce the licensing and get consumers out of the "own" mandate.

At the end of the day, content creators should have a say in how their content is consumed and sold, publishers have demanded a say, and resellers want to own the customer and their data. The current model is too adversarial; I hope we can come up with a way to reward content creators while still allowing a reasonable flexibility of consumption and appreciation.

PS: We seem ok when Netflix drops a movie because we understand we are renting access to their basket. I guess publishers want that too, only they want a higher per unit price with even more control. Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've been telling people for a long time to avoid Apple because it's an organisation which has demonstrated a pattern of contempt - to its customers, to its competitors, to the developers who use its app store and to the courts. The replies I get are so depressingly apathetic: "but the iPhone is nice"; "I like how simple it is to use"; "the design is so pretty". How can people be so easily charmed into bending over for out-of-control megalomaniacs? Maybe the secret to Hitler's popularity was the uniforms, which were admittedly really snazzy (Godwin's law, I know, I know...)

<comment><USER38> Don't pretend for a second that Microsoft's "Telemetry Services" (and forced telemetry updates to Windows 7 users who refused to upgrade) or even Ubuntu's search tracking for Amazon coffers is ANY different.

Or even worse, the malicious firmware code shipped with some Windows-based machines.

The _entire_ industry is fraudulent to consumers - turning consumers into products themselves.

With this industry, you pick your poison.

Do you want your hand held every step of the way in owning a computer? Get Apple.....or alternatively use the UNIX environment it comes with instead.

Do you want all of your data tracked, shipped off and sold to a company like Commscore or Nielsen that builds a dossier on you that puts Lexis Nexis to shame? Get Windows or Chromebook.....or alternatively install a Linux distro like Debian or Mint. I wouldn't even touch Ubuntu.

<comment><USER37> I don't single Apple out (although this wasn't clear in my original comment) - there are plenty of other organisations and systems out there which are just as pernicious, and my stance is to simply not use them. Remember Sony and the rootkit stuff?

There are plenty of good alternatives out there. The price you pay for getting to use computer systems which don't betray you is the cost of learning to use Linux or BSD (these days, nothing like as painful as it used to be) and going without some "conveniences" like magical available-everywhere cloud-synced everything. In my book that's a tiny cost for the ability to keep proper control and ownership of my own shit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is ridiculous, but that's what you get by trading ownership and privacy for convenience. I keep all my music in .mp3, movies in .avi and books in .pdf, which means I can access them on any computer, using any software and I don't need to worry that one day I may loose access to them. The world is going mad, I wonder when (or if) people will realise how much control over their stuff is in 3rd party hands, and it's just the beggining - we're now entering the era of IoT, autonomous cars and so on. Fuck all of that, I'll use "dumb" stuff as long as possible, even if sometimes it's less convenient - <USER3> least I don't feel like a sheep following trends while getting more and more dependant on corporations, whose only interest is to squeeze you as much as possible.

<comment><USER40> I have my photos on Google and have easy access.

More importantly for me, no matter what happens to my devices I will have some form of backup. This is miles better than the default for people even 5 years ago. You have to try really hard to lose data now! Well, so long as you're not picky about the file size....

Granted Google has the keys to my kingdom. I have things like Backblaze but...

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What would cause iTunes to actually delete the music? AFAIK, it doesn't have an "Optimize Storage" option like Photos does, and it's never deleted any files for me even when my disk is down to 0 bytes free.

<comment><USER42> It most certainly doesn't and the post is a load of FUD. It leaves the originals in place unless you chose to delete them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wow. It's hard to believe they were capable of fooling us this long. I mean, how can we rationalize after they saying they will keep our files and if we end business with them, good bye? This should be unacceptable, things like this makes me sympathize a bit more with Stallman's hardcore philosophy about software.

</comment><comment><USER44> All I can think of is my Wife's photography collection. She has terabytes of photos. Imagine the day "iPhoto" works like this (which is probably not too far off).

We have her do a manual backup periodically, but now I am going to automate that and make it robust. I am honestly afraid for the future of that data. This is just another part of why I am glad all of my own important data is on Linux machines that I have relatively strong control over, and backup automatically.

What a time to be alive! I can't wait until they can edit your memories out of your brain and store them on the cloud, you know for more capacity and safer recall.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm surprised that it's not the re-encoding of the victim's compositions that grab this headline.

Could I copyright a piece of unpublished music, then use the converted copy to show a case against Apple for copyright infringement ?

<comment><USER46> Under the terms and conditions for these services, you typically grant the host the right to do whatever actions they need to in order to perform the service you ask of them. So you'd be unlikely to have a case on these grounds. I am not a lawyer.

<comment><USER47> >in order to perform the service you ask of them //

Do they need to modify your copyright works to provide their service - is that in the user agreement explicitly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> A long time ago I started to use the iPhone music app. Then I quickly discovered that songs sent to the iPhone could not be sent back the other way. This was just the beginning of Apple's lock-in. I got out of it right then and there. Now I store my music on my own server and use one of the many third party music apps to play them.

If a service smells of lock-in, you can be sure things won't become better, they will become worse like the issues people get with Apple Music and iCloud. You care about your files? Then you manage them, don't trust some service you have no control over.

</comment><comment><USER49> I had a non-English song on my Mac and iPhone prior to Apple Music subscription. Now, my iPhone has a very different non-English song altogether.

What seems to have happened is, Apple incorrectly matched the original song to another non-English song. Later, it deleted the original song on my iPhone and gave me the incorrectly-matched version.

</comment><comment><USER50> So, let's be clear about one thing: This is officially NOT how the software is intended to function. According to Apple, original files are never deleted: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204962](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204962)

I realize the blog post says an Apple rep told them otherwise, but if true, they were wrong.

Also, who says "the software is functioning as intended"? That's not the style of casual speech that Apple support reps are trained to use with real customers.

<comment><USER51> I have complaints about Apple Music, but it's never deleted any of my files, and frankly I don't see any setting that would say, in effect, "please delete songs from my original library when you feel like it in order to save space." Yes, I have unique files that iTunes failed to match and just uploaded. No, those files weren't deleted, either. I've encountered some fascinating problems with their matching algorithms but "I am destroying your music library because that's what my evil masters in Cupertino have instructed me to do because something something DRM! Ha ha ha!" just ain't one of them.

 _That 's not the style of casual speech that Apple support reps are trained to use with real customers._

That seemed kind of off to me, too. The whole "Oh, yeah, it just deletes your stuff, stop bitching" attitude is...not my experience with Apple. But it sure does fit the the "let me confirm your worst fears about how terrible Apple is" narrative better.

And, yes, I'm sure I'll be accused of being an Apple apologist, but really it's just a certain level of weariness at this point. I hate iTunes, too. I have problems with iCloud. I think Apple Music may be built around an irreparably flawed paradigm (trying to maintain one unified library between music you've added to iTunes on your own, bought from the iTunes Store and added with Apple Music, rather than just maintaining "Local Library" and "Cloud Library" as separate entities). But I'm just not seeing the Grand Evil that's being ascribed throughout a lot of the comments here. In practice, my Apple products still actually work pretty well. I'm not interested in proselytizing to others, but I'm also not interested in constantly being told, in so many words, that Apple products only appeal to the stupid or the incompetent.

</comment></comment><comment> V-2 Looks like RMS was onto something after all ;)

<comment><USER52> I want to buy a shirt that says "Richard Stallman was right :-("

edit: I'll be content with the subreddit for now:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/stallmanwasright](https://www.reddit.com/r/stallmanwasright)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Never understood why people use iTunes. If I'd ever had to name the worst Mac app - this is it.

Store your music, listen via [http://swinsian.com](http://swinsian.com) (for example), back it up, be happy.

<comment><USER54> As someone who can't bear to let go of his 160gb iPod classic (but still hates iTunes with a burning passion), is there an alternative like Swinsian that will still sync my iPod?

I've been handcuffed to iTunes for years because of the iPod syncing mechanism but I'd love to switch.

<comment><USER53> Never owned one, so I'll have to look for a solution when I'm home (I remember Foobar2k had a pluging for this, but F2k is win-only).

After I've switched to Apple and used Apple music for a couple of months I just bougth Fiio X3 II. Great thing for a good price.

<comment><USER54> I've actually toyed with the idea of getting one of these. Can you tell me a little more about it? IIRC the main thing holding me back was cost (~$200 for the player and ~$50 each for two 128gb MicroSD cards), but at some point in the relatively near future I'm going to outgrow the 160gb limit on the iPod classic and I may as well bite the bullet and shell out the ~$300.

<comment><USER53> Well, the usability is okay, menus' navigation is done with the wheel, while commands like Play\Pause, FF,RW etc are done with middle and rear buttons. The device came in with a plastic protection case.

Two outputs - headphones and Line out\COAX. Can be used as an external DAC with windows PC (maybe other devices too, never dug too into it).

The UI theme is customizable: [http://fiio.me/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=40141&extra=page...](http://fiio.me/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=40141&extra=page%3D1)

Firmware is updated pretty often even for older models.

PS: Oh, and it has Apple in-line headphone control. (Android in-line control works too, but only for Play\Pause\Next|Prev. No sound control.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> It is a known fact that Apple tries the same ideas more than once, sometimes years apart. If at first they fail, they will try again.

I recall an idea from the past where they wanted users to disclose to them all the user's non-itunes music in return for some perceived benefit. At the time I thought of this as a way for someone at some company to assess out how much CD-ripped, Napster-shared, or other indepedently-sourced music was still out there. Needless to day it didn't fly.

I have never in my life used itunes. I can tolerate most of today's "walled- gardens" but not one that seeks to place a surcharge on friends sharing music, which has always been the essence of how my music collection was built (pre- digital). I would give up music before I would sign on to letting Apple control my music collection.

If there were a robust, tiny command-line version of "itunes" that would run on any computer, I might reconsider. But that's not happening either. That's the true reason I have never used itunes. Strong distaste for the proprietary Apple-only graphical software.

<comment><USER56> > friends sharing music, which has always been the essence of how my music > collection was built (pre-digital)

I remember how excited I used to be when friends and I would drive to an out- of-town show and stay with other friends who had big record collections. You always brought a box of fresh blank tapes; and that's the same thing they'd do when they came over your house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Reasons to pirate number 567839234

<comment><USER58> Let me paraphrase it - if there's a dozen of streaming services, and one of them does misbehaves, it gives you a reason to pirate? That's a really poor excuse (or if that's a joke, then it's a poor one too).

<comment><USER59> You're basically trying to reason with a troll comment about pirating. They don't need 5 billion reasons. There's only one. It's free.

<comment><USER29> I am from Brazil, we have stores and street vendors that sell pirated stuff, frequently more expensive than the original... people buy it due to better service and ease of payment. (example: pirated freeware, that was fan translated, while the original is only in a language noone knows here.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I've had this same thing happen.

Not only do I have countless files gone, if you let the subscription lapse... You don't get your music back and it wasn't there when I renewed.

Also, the cellular providers have to love how much of my own music I'm downloading over their costly data services.

</comment><comment><USER61> tl;dr:

 _" through the Apple Music subscription [...] Apple now deletes files from its users [...] iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple's database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn't recognize—which came up often, since I'm a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself—it would then download it to Apple's database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted."_

</comment><comment><USER62> The power of backups! Also the power of not using cloud services...

</comment><comment><USER63> This is awful and I'm glad I stayed away from the 3 month trial because I would hate for this to happen to me.

Also: I know of a few people who would love for this to happen because it would open up a lot of space in their hard drive which is almost completely full. "I subscribed to Apple Music and freed up 100 GB! Sweet!"

That being said there should definitely be a way to avoid this and I would personally prefer it to be opt-in than opt-out.

</comment><comment><USER64> > iCloud Music Library is turned on automatically when you set up your Apple > Music Subscription…When your Apple Music Subscription term ends, you will > lose access to any songs stored in your iCloud Music Library.

That wording does not suggest to me "all of the music in iTunes will become part of your iCloud music library." You can't sue for damages, but you can sue them for lying or concealing information in the EULA

</comment><comment><USER65> When I used iTunes Match they wouldn't delete your files unless you specifically asked for it... which seems to me like a more sensible default behavior, but I guess Apple is getting pretty aggressive about trying to change user expectations.

e: Although one very rich thing is when I wanted to cancel it was impossible to do without installing iTunes on my new computer until I contacted support to complain.

</comment><comment><USER66> I like a lot of what Apple does. I love their computers and phones. I've posted here numerous times about that.

But I have not turned on Apple Music, or iCloud Photos, for this very reason. Cloud syncing services are a DISASTER for Apple.

I recently bought my wife an iPhone SE, and upgraded some older computers to El Cap--fresh install + migrate files so I could get a clean start. But turning on the cloud services, and configuring them to do what I expect, was so complicated and scary that I just gave up. I'm syncing Safari bookmarks and Notes, and that's it.

And even the Notes are a mess. I'm stuck with separate local and iCloud folders of notes, because I simply don't trust Apple to not screw up or delete my local notes in the course of trying to sync them.

Rule #1, #2, #3 of cloud syncing should be "do no harm." DropBox has largely figured this out. Apple _has not_.

It's funny to think back to when Steve Jobs said that DropBox is a feature, not a business. Well, it's a feature I use and happily pay for, and it's a feature that Apple has yet to figure out.

</comment><comment><USER67> Apple deleted my backups from icloud, my win7 laptop, and all copies made on flash drives. I had successfully backed up music not purchased on itunes for years but now Apple says, "Oops, sorry. Just use apple music" How can I restore my music? I'm not paying for apple music and my cds were stolen last year so I cannot reload.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm a long term Mac user (primary desktop/notebook since mid 90s), but I do feel Apple is cavalier about the Hippocratic oath of data ("First: do not lose or transform the user's source data").

Since my mac is basically a unix machine it's trivial for me to make sure this rule is followed, but it's not trivial for most people.

</comment><comment><USER69> Nothing beats offline data.

<comment><USER70> Unless I'm misunderstanding, this _was_ offline data, apple decided to make it 'online'.

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I don't see how they can say this is a feature - because it didn't happen to me. I have a huge amount of music that they wouldn't be able to match and they didn't delete any of it. Maybe this is because I'm also using iTunes Match. Your issue might be iCloud Music Library (not Apple Music).

</comment><comment><USER71> I don't understand why deletion would even be necessary in a case like this. Are people filling up their drives that quickly? If a "service" thinks that some data has become redundant, just _move_ the original out of the way and tell the user where it went and what's in that stash.

</comment><comment><USER72> This is _exactly_ why I've held onto all my CDs, and why I continue to buy the majority of my music in a physical format. I once had Apple ... iTunes match? iCloud? I can't even remember what it was called ... decide that an Eminem album I had was too racy and serve me a censored, unlistenable version instead. And the complexity involved in keeping any kind of sizeable music library in check using iTunes is overwhelming. I have two apple ids, some music on an external hard drive, some on an internal hard drive, some subset/superset/overlapping set of which is 'somewhere' in the cloud; it's a nightmare. Is there a sensible alternative to iTunes that will a) not do anything with 'the cloud' b) sync to my iPod?

<comment><USER73> MediaMonkey and Fidelia are the two products that seem to be tossed around most frequently as iTunes alternatives, and which seem to be reasonably close to feature-parity (at least, as music players; they obviously don't do all the garbage that Apple has stuffed into iTunes related to the iPhone). If you want to basically get back to what iTunes was originally ("rip, mix, burn" plus a good music player and organizer), those are probably the best bets.

Personally, I've been slowly moving to having my main music collection on a home server, and then distributing it out to clients via Plex. I'm not 100% pleased with the web interface compared to iTunes' thick-client interface, but as iTunes' UI has gotten worse over time and Plex's has gotten better, they're starting to approach each other in terms of usability.

The main complaint I have with Plex right now is that there's not an option to specify the quality of the streamed music. It will do realtime transcoding (so you can store lossless CD rips on the server), but the destination format is hardcoded based on the client (I think web clients get 256 kb/s MP3, Android gets something else, etc.). There's an open feature request to let the user select it as a preference, and allow different codec/bitrate combinations based on whether the client is on the LAN, on WAN, or on mobile.

Plex is, IMO, the best game in town for approximating the functionality of a proprietary ecosystem (play all your stuff on all your devices anywhere) but without the lock-in. You do need to be a reasonably intelligent person to set it up, though.

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that MediaMonkey no longer works on recent versions of Mac OS X, but that Swinsian ([http://swinsian.com/](http://swinsian.com/)) is the new hotness anyway. Can't vouch for it, but it looks good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I went all-in on Mac in 2001. Pretty unix and awesome hardware. I used iTunes as soon as it was available. As a matter of fact I'm actually looking at a 1st generation iPod on my desk right now (preparing it for eBay).

I have steered clear of this service from the beginning, partly because I'm old and want my own old library and partly because I am very aware that Apple can NOT do services of any kind, at all. They have botched everything they have ever tried to do online. .me, .mac, accounts (I have 3 and they cannot merge them).

I feel for this guy but, given their history, it's pretty much a slam-dunk that Apple would drop the ball if it's a service.

</comment><comment><USER75> Stuff like this often makes me question using any DRM or platform-locked services, particularly steam. If valve decided to make a shady decision there is very little that its users could do about it.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'd sue em regardless of the EULA. But I don't use apple anything, and I run my own "cloud" and run my own backups. So nothing for me to worry about.

<comment><USER77> That EULA probably wouldn't fly here in Australia. The argument would be "you can't say solely at the user's risk, as you position yourself as a premium quality brand - you're misleading consumers". IANAL, though.

This was the reason Apple had to extend warranties on their hardware here - <USER4> was pretty funny watching Apple try to argue to the government that they made non-premium stuff just like everyone else, and therefore didn't have to have the extended warranty. To which the government said, paraphrased, "cool story, bro".

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> While this is entirely unethical, it is an amazing business decision if they get away with it without any harm to their reputation. I wonder if they reputation risks were considered when they rolled out this "feature". It's a good example for Bruce Schneier to add to the next edition of "Liars & Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive".

</comment><comment><USER79> Might this also be a problem with dealing with big a provider?

If this were a much smaller smaller company you might actually get to talk to someone who can do something i.e "let me see what files we uploaded from you... oh we'll send you a link...". With larger companies you usually talk to "explainers", or people whose job is to explain to you that you are screwed rather than explore solutions to your problem.

</comment><comment><USER80> Once again we have criminal action covered by the CFAA completely ignored by the government because a large corporation is doing it. Serving malware knowingly? No problem. Overstepping your access and deleting files that aren't yours? No problem. But good fucking forbid an individual even types a wrong url and they're in jail. Double standard much?

</comment><comment><USER81> I've had exactly one iDevice, an iPhone 3G, and the experience with iTunes turned me off to them forever.

What should be a relatively simple task, plugging in a drive-like device to my computer and moving files from one place to another is made needlessly complicated and restrictive by forcing it to slog through the tar pit that is iTunes. Never again.

</comment><comment><USER82> Oh yeah. Never allow iTunes to manage your music (there's a checkbox.) In 2010 it wiped out the metadata from about 3000 songs and decided they were all united by unknown. I tried a few autotagging libraries but had to do at least half of it manually.

Sadly I haven't found a decent replacement for it.

</comment><comment><USER83> Not an Apple user, but I never sync streaming services to my personal collections for fear of cross-contamination. I always set up a dedicated folder for the streaming service, and if necessary, copy my collection to that. Plus nightly full backups to a separate internal drive and Carbonite.

</comment><comment><USER84> Really sad about what happened to blog author. This reminds me of the South Park episode [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HumancentiPad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HumancentiPad) manifesting in reality.

</comment><comment><USER85> There's obviously some kind of bug here, and one that Apple should rightfully be lambasted over, but given that plenty of people, including me, have used Apple Music without anything local getting deleted, it's pretty obviously not intended behavior.

</comment><comment><USER86> I unsubscribed from apple music when I found out about this and discovered iTunes would not allow me to sync music I bought from bandcamp onto my iDevices whilst using the iCloud support.

Does seem to be working times for apple, product wise they are making of decisions.

</comment><comment><USER87> iTunes has readonly access to my music stored on my NAS. This is precisely why.

</comment><comment><USER88> I believe there's a setting when you initialize your library that allows iTunes to manage your library. If this is turned on, when you drag a file into iTunes, Apple copies the file into its own local storage so you have two copies of it. If you delete a file in iTunes it will delete it's local copy. Usually digital collectors will have this turned off if they're using iTunes since they like to organize and name their files elsewhere and they don't want to have two copies of the file. If you manage the library yourself i'm 99% sure you would avoid any funny business, even with an Apple Music subscription. The interplay of Beats, Apple Music, iTunes Match, audiobooks and iTunes was definitely a blunder. In my opinion they should all be separate apps.

<comment><USER65> What if I want iTunes to manage the structure/location of my music, but without modifying the files themselves? That's what I thought "Manage my library" was supposed to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Isn't this a felony under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? It's intentionally exceeding authorized access to a computer and intentionally (not even recklessly) causing damage.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is this a setting or something? I use iTunes Match and most certainly still have all my existing local copies. I know because I regularly back them up and they are certainly still there.

</comment><comment> loup-vaillant Proprietary software working against the interests of the user is not really surprising. What _does_ surprises is how visible and immediate the effects are.

Seriously, just use free software.

<comment><USER90> While free software is good, the real problem is not being in control of your data and trusting the cloud blindly.

<comment> loup-vaillant And how do you think you lost control of your data in the first place?

Free software would never have deleted your files without asking you. Or maybe once before it would be fixed as a critical defect in a matter of hours.

<comment><USER90> I'm agreeing with you. However, when you move your data into the cloud, even if the software is supposedly free, you have no ability to verify that. You also don't control when or how that critical defect is fixed.

<comment> loup-vaillant One little detail: I've read the official page for the Apple Music Subscription, and nowhere do they tell you they _move_ your content to the cloud.

This app is not supposed to move anything. Just copy it. The deletion part of "moving" is a fraud, and possibly illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> wavs having "more samples" is a new one to me. Neat.

<comment><USER92> It's... a misleading statement. Usually technically incorrect. Possibly technically correct in this instance. But philosophically true for the purposes of the article.

WAVs support sampling rates up to 192khz, whereas mp3 only supports up to 48khz. However, you're unlikely to come across anything higher than 48khz anyway unless you specifically look for it, or record it yourself (as the author did).

Sampling rate has (basically) no effect on audio quality beyond the highest frequency the file can contain - you can drop the sampling rate right the way down to 8khz and it'll just sound a bit muffled but otherwise fine. The primary reason to prefer WAV files over MP3 is that encoding something to MP3 irreversibly mangles it, and the author would be justified in being _extremely pissed off_ that Apple decided to unilaterally do this and delete the originals. It would be like deleting someone's RAW photos and providing Facebook-sized jpegs as replacement, or deleting their home movies and offering back gifs of them. Apple have committed a cardinal sin here, the seriousness of which can't really be overstated.

</comment></comment><comment> Dorian-Gray I am a published music producer, and I would suggest pursuing legal action against apple if their policy has resulted in a person's self-created music files being copied and manipulated. This is copyright infringement, and would be damaging to any artist - especially if the served self-created tracks are compressed significantly prior to their storage in apple's servers. I know that my self-created music files represent years of my life, and for those files to be permanently damaged would be a huge blow.

</comment><comment><USER93> I was going to come here to say that this was noted behavior when Apple Music Match debuted, but apparently very few people are aware of it.

</comment><comment><USER94> All I can say is that I'm sooo glad to find out that I'm not the only one who struggles with and is afraid of iTunes.

</comment><comment><USER95> This behavior also occurs in the traditional iTunes store if a record label alters the track list of or re-releases an album.

</comment><comment><USER96> Apple was overstepping the boundaries a decade ago. I guess this is turning out to be a multigenerational struggle.

</comment><comment><USER97> Any lawyers around? I feel like this case would be simple to win in court. Intentional property damage.

</comment><comment><USER98> What is a good alternative to iTunes to manage music (not cloud related) on Windows?

<comment><USER99> What's wrong with cloud related?

Google Music is the cat's meow - and will locally sync all of your music down to your local folders. Seems like the best of both worlds - you get a secure backup, and the ability to have local copies

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> I rebuttal to the idea that Apple is "stealing" music was posted: "No, Apple Music is not deleting your music – unless you tell it to"

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11638308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11638308)

<comment><USER100> s/I rebuttal/A rebuttal/

Didn't notice the typo within the edit window; didn't mean to imply I wrote that other article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> At this point I am really glad I could never afford an apple product.

</comment><comment><USER102> Cue the Apple rationalists in 3... 2... 1...

That really sucks, but I do hope you have a local backup and/or offsite backup and not mentioning that for effect?

It's still amazingly evil by Apple, but I hope you still have your files.

<comment> d--b He did, as per the article.

<comment><USER102> Heh, sorry, I actually did stop reading just at the middle finger, which was right before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Am I the only one who recalled the 1984 ad an cringed?

</comment><comment><USER104> VOX is the answer. And ... geeks backup.

</comment><comment><USER105> This is not directed at anyone in particular, but:

"syncing" with a cloud service - <USER6>

not backing up - <USER6>

<comment><USER106> syncing is supposed to leave at least two copies which is clearly not the case here. have you read the article?

<comment><USER105> I did. And I know the article isn't about syncing - it's about Apple deciding they know best how to manage your digital media files. I'm just making a general comment.

The problem with "syncing" is if I delete a file on one device, what does sync semantics say should happen? It is ambiguous, which is why syncing is a stupid semantic. Copying files and deleting files is unambiguous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> I smell a lawsuit.

</comment><comment><USER108> It just works ;)

</comment><comment><USER109> iTunes is malware. It's the #1 reason why the first thing I do when I get a Mac is install Windows on it.

<comment><USER110> I have a VM just for iTunes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> Buy a NAS

</comment><comment><USER112> use computers not apples

</comment><comment><USER113> Lie with dogs, you get fleas. I have zero sympathy for those who fall prey to closed ecosystem BS like this, including my own wife. People just don't listen.

<comment><USER114> I expressly disavowed family support for all Apple devices about 4 years ago. If my spouse has a problem with the iPhone, it goes straight to the Apple store without landing in my lap first. I'd rather be in the doghouse than use iTunes.

Tough love, people. Time to stop enabling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> exactly! every time i read about someone having a problem with something, i always check to see if my friends have had the same problem. if not, then clearly the problem doesn't exist. pri.ck

<comment><USER116> Personal attacks and name-calling are not allowed on HN, regardless of how bad another comment is. We ban accounts that do this. Please read the site guidelines and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11635410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11635410) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Apple stole my stolen music" ftfy

<comment><USER117> > I also mean original music that I recorded and saved to my computer.

> As a freelance composer, I save WAV files of my own compositions rather than > Mp3s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> Sounds harsh but all I read was that someone had 122 gig worth of files they considered precious to them and _no backup_.

Computer systems fail for all kinds of stupid reasons. What will you do _when_ that disk fails?

I admit this is a particularly stupid and infuriating reason for data loss, but how little would it cost to have a backup of 122gb?

<comment><USER119> " _I recovered my original music files only by using a backup I made_ "

<comment><USER118> Ah. I saw they part about needing 30 hours to redownload his collection and thought this was his recovery strategy.

So it all factors down to "this software didn't do what I thought it would; had to restore from backup. Careful everyone" but was then radically over dramatized with "Apple _stole_ all my music!!!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Writing histrionic nonsense like this does not advance your cause. Apple did not "steal" your music any more than "rm -rf" or 300 million poorly manufactured Seagate drives did.

"Matches found, press OK to delete [list of files] from your computer and phone FOREVER" is what 99% of customers want.

Debate the quality of the match algorithm (it sucks), argue the proper UX for a pretty basic function (it also sucks), but knock off the Orwellian sky is falling stuff. Because that's obvious bullshit.

Apple has its own view of the culture, and has a pretty obvious way of mining it for profit. You ain't changing them. You can perhaps however nudge them if you're not a total asshole about it.

</comment><comment><USER121> My real question is if you truly are a composer and making your own music why are you just storing it on your Mac? Wouldn't you want to have a NAS for that or some sort of other storage option? I would not rely on my Mac for storage of music I thought was very important. Including rare copies of songs or songs I created myself. I would have a different more reliable storage option.

However, that is really shady on Apple's part to make that mandatory, and should be looked into.

<comment><USER122> He said he had a back up and restored his music. As a user I would not expect Apple Music to wipe my existing music collection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER123> To be fair, they probably came up with that in a way to reduce the /other/ army of people coming to see in the 'genius' to restore the laptop they've never backuped EVER and have accidentally wiped, containing 10+ years of their digital life...

<comment><USER124> If it's the case, somebody at Apple is seriously incompetent.

\- Copy files that don't belong to them without the owner's explicit permission: some people call that piracy. I believe individuals caught doing that with movies have been faced with some hefty fines.

I understand the purpose, but it needs to come with a big, massive, _Allow Apple to pirate your data, trust us, it 's for your own protection_ checkbox. Who knows, it might even initially be true.

\- do you know of any good backup solution that forcefully deletes the files it's backing up? Do you think there might be a reason why not?

I find this entirely unacceptable behaviour from Apple, and I say this as someone who has been using OS X almost exclusively for 10+ years now.

<comment><USER125> > _I believe individuals caught doing that with movies have been faced with > some hefty fines._

I doubt it. The only hefty fines were for redistribution, not mere copying/download.

<comment><USER117> Apple are re-distributing. And they're doing as part of business, which usually tips it from civil[1] to criminal[2].

[1] I think the US term is "a tort"?

[2] Fines and prison time, not damages.

<comment><USER125> > _Apple are re-distributing._

Only to the user they got the audio themselves. Any proof they're redistributing random X users not tagged in their collection files to others?

In any case, the whole "piracy" angle is BS (not to mention it lacks intent and profit from explicit piracy).

What's at stake is plain bad program behavior -- deleting users files without explicit confirmation, making bad matches to different versions of songs, etc.

<comment><USER126> > Only to the user they got the audio themselves.

How do you know that?

And it is irrelevant either way. That you are the sole owner of the rights of a piece of music does not grant Apple an automatic license to distribute it "just to you".

<comment><USER125> > _How do you know that?_

I'm smart like that. Or rather I have read in detail about how Apple Music works. Besides, the burden of proof is on those making that claim.

> _That you are the sole owner of the rights of a piece of music does not > grant Apple an automatic license to distribute it "just to you"._

I call BS. That's exactly the same as Dropbox/Google Drive whatever making a copy of your files and distributing them just to you, and tons of other Cloud services handling your files besides.

At the moment you use Apple Music (which is a services for moving your music collection to the Cloud among other things) you are implicitly allowing Apple to upload and serve you your music files. Plus, you explicitly approved the whole process and granted that right when you clicked on the iTunes/Apple Music license agreement. Nothing different than what happens with thousands of other services.

<comment><USER30> The work was not merely backed up, but repackaged into a format that Apple is more comfortable selling in; .wav files were converted to AACs, and rare remixes were converted to the popular hit versions. The old stuff was then deleted from local storage without permission, which is intent to make these privately owned tracks an excludable good, not to mention theft.

A further problem arises when a user has a non-transferrable IP that Apple doesn't sell in his left pocket and some generic track that Apple sells in his right pocket, and Apple picks both pockets with the intention of becoming a redistributor. The user does not have permission to transfer, nor has he indicated to Apple that he's given permission, for Apple to acquire the proprietary IP and redistribute it. It is entirely plausible that this proprietary IP was never intended for sale, was a trade secret, was a nude tape, or was a classified recording.

There's all sorts of issues with Borg-style cloud IP assimilation under the "Fair Use Doctrine", and commercial usage of the IP for "backup" while simultaneously being a vendor of the IP (and competing products) make it unlikely that you could apply fair use credibly for something this expansive.

<comment><USER125> This clears things out:

> _On your original Mac, Apple Music will never delete songs without your > knowledge. Your original library is scanned into iCloud, but your songs are > yours, and Apple will not automatically delete them, or replace them with > its own proprietary copies._

[http://www.imore.com/no-apple-music-not-deleting-tracks- your...](http://www.imore.com/no-apple-music-not-deleting-tracks-your-hard- drive-unless-you-tell-it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER127> I sympathize with OP and I generally _really_ hate Apple's direction when it comes to software and user experience ever since OS X Lion.

However, OP shouldn't claim that Apple 'stole' his music files. He signed up for a paid service and he should have checked how the service will affect his computer. We as users are responsible to know what software we're running on our machines and what it does to our data. I understand that a standard TOS agreement is ridiculously long and impractical to read, and I guess that's how we are _trained_ to be lazy about protecting the integrity of our systems and our data, but that does not give OP the right to blame Apple for delivering exactly what they promised. I hate Apple but I don't think that it is intellectually honest to claim Apple stole OP's music.

<comment><USER65> Nobody on Earth reads the entire manual before starting up some software; it's the vendor's responsibility to not have insensible defaults like "delete my local versions of files without asking me"

<comment><USER127> True. We have reached this level because of our complacency, and not due to Apple inherently trying to be malicious towards people like OP. The vendors are responsible to have sensible defaults, but we can't buy their products, use their software, sign up for their services, and then complain about malice when the vendors are delivering exactly what we signed up for and agreed upon. I'm just trying to say that OP should focus his energy on being more self conscious about what he signs up for rather than claiming that Apple is stealing his data. He gave up ownership of the data the moment he agreed to the TOS. What Apple is doing is counterproductive and just illogical from a UX point of view (in my opinion) but they did not _steal_ OP's data. The title is a bit clickbait-y in that sense.

<comment><USER65> Well, they took a copy of it, compressed and maybe in a different version (which is more or less what they advertise) but then also irretrievably deleted the original, which is what he's upset about. Maybe "steal" is the wrong word; it still seems outrageous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER128> I read the whole thing and all I hear is waaaahhh I don't keep proper backups of data I care about, nor do I learn about the service functions before signing up... This is ABSOLUTELY NOT the way it works, it's not a shady practice, I use it daily and have lost nothing. Sorry you ran into a bug but the is just Stupid. I would be shocked if the phone agent he spoke to is a real person.

<comment><USER129> The author explicitly said that:

"I recovered my original music files only by using a backup I made weeks earlier."</comment></comment>