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Apple, Google to Save the Music Industry from Decline by Offering Users ‘Song Insurance’

image from www.carlwozniak.com Apple and Google have confirmed plans that will revolutionize digital music and thwart rampant music piracy. After months of speculation, the two tech-giants have revealed their plans to offer users digital music lockers. Due to the widespread use of the Windows Operating System and its tendency to crash all the time, Apple and Google determined that users are in desperate need of "song insurance."

Spokespeople from both companies told Hypebot in a statement that they think piracy stems from Microsoft users having to always re-download their libraries after encountering software errors, i.e. The Blue Screen of Death, and viruses that are known to corrupt hard drives. Apple and Google admitted that providing users with digital lockers fails to address "the much larger problem" that people still use terrible computers, but in a Microsoft-dominate market they must "look out for the little guy," they said. Often users buy computers with Windows, download digital music, forget to back up their hard drives, and months later encounter a critical error, of a non-recoverable nature, that causes their entire system to "crash."

Next users take their computers in to get fixed, only to find out that all of their music is gone. Franticly, they call Apple, demanding that they be allowed to re-download their music. Of course, it is well known that Apple does not allow users to do that. Instead of rebuying their music from iTunes, the Apple spokesperson reported that users "torrent everything" and then "everybody loses." To help quell this problem and steer users away from piratic tendencies, Apple decided that it was time to create a cloud-based locker that automatically backed up song files.

Asked why, the spokesperson relayed that, "Microsoft users are lazy." Google concurred. They believe there is a "huge market" in selling them song insurance.

In an attempt to gauge industry reaction and the impact that this radical new development will have, Hypebot reached out to Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan who is known more famously for telling the New York Times that, "As things stand now, digital music has failed." Asked his opinion on the news that Apple and Google would provide users with digital lockers, Mulligan immediately told Hypebot in a phone interview that he "firmly believes this changes everything."

At MIDEM, Mulligan told major labels that their products must have S.P.A.R.C., which stands for "social, participative, accessible, relevant, and connected."

After hearing Apple and Google's plans to provide Microsoft users with song insurance, Mulligan rewrote his acronym and told Hypebot that the major labels must follow the lead of Apple and Google and adopt a music strategy that is "safe, predictable, antiquated, reliable, and contrived." Despite Apple's misstep with Ping and Google's blunders with Buzz and Wave, Mulligan believes that they will "definitely save the music industry and thwart rampant music piracy." The Financial Times reports that the "digital music market is set to be shaken up as soon as this summer" once Apple and Google roll out their cloud-based lockers.

Contrary to speculation, neither Apple or Google's plans involve offering unlimited subscription music. When asked, both companies agreed, "Digital lockers are the future of music." Mulligan added, "Consumers will love cloud-based storage."

Mircosoft users failed to comment at the time of this writing. Their computers are broken. In an e-mail to Hypebot, CEO Steve Jobs said, "Please leave us alone." 

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14 Comments

  1. …Guys, this story is fake. The news is certainly real, but this is intended to be satire. Read more closely, the trail of breadcrumbs is there. No quotes are real.

  2. This is silly. People don’t steal music because they had bought it & somehow lost it. They steal music because its FREE and requires very little effort with a very small likelihood of being penalized.

  3. Apple and Google are coming out with digital music lockers. They consider lockers to be "song insurance."  The music strategy adopted here has lots of SPARC; it's "safe, predictable, antiquated, reliable, and contrived." 

  4. Okay, apparently some need a “snark alert” logo. I for one wholeheartedly endorse this dripping sarcastic Fake News Story, which sadly is pretty close to the truth and mirrors my unenthusiasm for the Big Ones’ great digital music plans.

  5. It might be fake…but it’s dripping with so much truth. You really do have to wonder if the music biz fully understands that without these two muscle bound tech companies, their business is going to die. The only part of the music business that seems to be making any money is the live concert area (and I’m talking about packing 80,000 people into a stadium) I mean small venue (heck in home shows) with less than 100 people. Artist are taking this music thing on their own without the labels.

  6. I agree with Lynn S., below.
    The article is so close to what the real “gurus” of music industry think and endorse that it’s really hard to realize that it is satire.
    Whoever heard Levy complaining at MIDEM about the governments of the world “not doing enough” to protect our music heritage knows how out of touch with reality these people are….

  7. Thanks for the good laugh, Kyle.
    I especially loved the bit about piracy being down to The Blue Screen of Death.

  8. Apple and Google must be having a laugh! If I’m reading well, they’re saying that online piracy have to do mainly with user’s re-downloading their lost music? How on earth are they tackling online piracy when they aren’t tackling the sharing sites? I’ve been working for years as copyright agent for http://www.copyrighthandler.com and this is the most ridiculous way to tackle piracy, let alone copyright infringement.

  9. Apple and Google must be having a laugh! If I’m reading well, they’re saying that online piracy have to do mainly with user’s re-downloading their lost music? How on earth are they tackling online piracy when they aren’t tackling the sharing sites? I’ve been working for years as copyright agent for http://www.copyrighthandler.com/ and this is the most ridiculous way to tackle piracy, let alone copyright infringement.

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