Pirate Bay’s Sunde On iTunes Match, Spotify & Cloud Music: ‘We’re Giving Up Control Of Our Music’
Most of the debate around iTunes Match is whether or not the new service legitimizes pirated music. But Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde warns that eager music fans are missing a huge downside to iTunes Match and other cloud music services. It doesn’t make sense to pay Apple, with its closed source system, $25 to have access to music you’ve already downloaded, according to Sunde. Fans could be ceding the future of sharing music to Apple..
When users put music in the iCloud, for example, Apple now controls it. “They might say, you can’t do that, so you have to remove it…they [could] also decide which music you can’t have. That’s what you’re allowing in the future.”
Sunde doesn't single out iTunes, however, but fears the end result of Spotify and all music streaming and music in the cloud services. “In the end if people are dependent enough on the services, there will be no more copies [on their local hard drives],” he told Forbes.
Mike Masnick of Techdirt agrees: "Almost all of the features Apple offers I already have set up through alternative means. And I'm not clear why I should pay Apple $25/year to gain access to the music I already paid for."
Music Hack Day in SF had some really cool prototypes where you could share playlists across multiple cloud services. Someone needs to apply social graph technologies to music. Music Graph? Who’s doing this?
Well, speaking of playlists… have you tried BuyMyPlaylist.com?
At BMP you can not only share your playlist with others, but also get paid for doing that 🙂 And, it is all legal, licensed by the labels.
Wait until Sunde realizes that some ATMs will charge him for accessing MONEY HE ALREADY OWNS!
No one is forcing anybody to pay for this service any more than any other music service. Don’t like it? Don’t use it. Apple isn’t charging for access to your music, they’re charging to sync your devices for you. Nothing stopping you from doing it yourself.
Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. They’re paying for convenience with Spotify or Apple’s new offering. Pirate Bay might be toast or greatly diminished once the masses accept the above.
He doesn’t like being out of the limelight so he has to make a comment, even if the comment is half-baked and paranoid.
I don’t know that it’s paranoid but it does sound childish to complain about paying for convenience. The the above poster said you aren’t paying to play your music, you’re paying to be able to play your music across your devices hassle free with no effort. Just what Joe public wants.
Chris – CoolProducts
“In the end if people are dependent enough on the services, there will be no more copies [on their local hard drives]” …. surely this is a good thing ? Especially for musicians !
Just wait until the day Apple gives your names and file list info (names, hash files, digital fingerprints, etc) up to the record companies (don’t think they won’t force it in a court of law?)…. Think about it; absolute evidence tied absolutely to your name… Some poor lady loses her house now because her 13 year old downloaded 1,300 songs; just think when they come for you with better proof on 25,000 songs… Mark my words you will regret the day you ever uploaded illegal songs to iTunes match….