4 ms·

consider Apple iTunes -- if your hard drive fails you have to re-purchase everything Or you could, like, make backups. Which iTunes even pleads you to do.

by tumult 17y ago

randomwalker 17y ago
I'm guessing his point was that it is perfectly technologically feasible for iTunes to let you re-download songs if you lose them. The Kindle does that. I have to agree that except for the occasional SNAFU (which affects a small handful of users), the Kindle DRM doesn't inconvenience the user much, or at all.
- sjs382 17y ago
  it is perfectly technologically feasible for iTunes to let you re-download songs if you lose them They have let me do this once before.
  - grandalf 17y ago
    you get one per lifetime :) I used mine.
    - sjs382 17y ago
      Is that really a hard restriction? Curious whether anyone has tried to do it more than once. I needed to do it for only a few songs because my backups were corrupt (or incomplete) when a drive died.
- ajg1977 17y ago
  Apple will actually let you do that, they just don't advertise the fact.
  - grandalf 17y ago
    You get one per lifetime. I used mine already. Is it my fault that I have had two hard drive failures? How much energy should I have to put into backing up something that Apple could easily let me re-download if it wanted to?
    - CamperBob 17y ago
      Where is it documented that you get one re-download per lifetime?
      - grandalf 17y ago
        I was told this by Apple customer support when I informed them that my hard drive crashed and that I didn't have a backup.
    - ajg1977 17y ago
      No, but it is your fault that you didn't learn about the value of backups after the first time.
      - grandalf 17y ago
        My point is that DRM is a technology that should remove the annoying requirement of having to back up songs -- I could see having to back up songs downloaded via bittorrent, etc. Apple offers the worst of all worlds by imposing DRM and also not allowing a simple re-download option. I really don't want to spend $100 on a backup drive and then have to back up my iTunes folder after every purchase. That is totally not how things should work in 2009. Notably, all my other data (code, documents, etc.) is easy to back up (documents on google docs, code on github)... so the only thing I ever need to worry about is music.
- grandalf 17y ago
  Apple now lets you restore content from an iPod, but at the time my drive crashed, iTunes would immediately delete songs from an iPod that were "purchased" by some other iTunes instance (even if it was under the same account). For the second crash, I had way more content than the 30GB capacity of my iPod -- my backup drive died and only 30GB were on the iPod. This is just silly considering that I've spent probably thousands of dollars in the iTunes store and I haven't downloaded any illegal content since the first day I started using iTunes years ago.
grandalf 17y ago
I consider it an example of a bad business decision. Suppose I buy a bunch of content on iTunes -- soon I have about 200GB of video and music... so now I have to be able to engineer a reliable and convenient backup system for this... all because Apple doesn't make it easy to deactivate old DRM and re-download the content? The point of DRM is that it should be able to allow Apple to risklessly let me re-download content. As it stands, and as someone else pointed out, Apple gives you one "lifetime" re-download for whatever music you own at the time. I have used mine, and incidentally I ended up losing about $50 worth of music which Apple claimed it no longer sold, even though the items were clearly still available in the iTunes store. My point in mentioning backups was to show how unfriendly Apple's overall service is to customers. DRM is a technology which should be able to elimiate Apple's risk, allowing it to deliver superior customer service. But sadly Apple has gone in the other direction...

consider Apple iTunes -- if your hard drive fails you have to re-purchase everything Or you could, like, make backups. Which iTunes even pleads you to do.

by tumult 17y ago

consider Apple iTunes -- if your hard drive fails you have to re-purchase everything Or you could, like, make backups. Which iTunes even pleads you to do.

randomwalker 17y ago

I'm guessing his point was that it is perfectly technologically feasible for iTunes to let you re-download songs if you lose them. The Kindle does that. I have to agree that except for the occasional SNAFU (which affects a small handful of users), the Kindle DRM doesn't inconvenience the user much, or at all.

sjs382 17y ago
it is perfectly technologically feasible for iTunes to let you re-download songs if you lose them They have let me do this once before.
- grandalf 17y ago
  you get one per lifetime :) I used mine.
  - sjs382 17y ago
    Is that really a hard restriction? Curious whether anyone has tried to do it more than once. I needed to do it for only a few songs because my backups were corrupt (or incomplete) when a drive died.
ajg1977 17y ago
Apple will actually let you do that, they just don't advertise the fact.
- grandalf 17y ago
  You get one per lifetime. I used mine already. Is it my fault that I have had two hard drive failures? How much energy should I have to put into backing up something that Apple could easily let me re-download if it wanted to?
  - CamperBob 17y ago
    Where is it documented that you get one re-download per lifetime?
    - grandalf 17y ago
      I was told this by Apple customer support when I informed them that my hard drive crashed and that I didn't have a backup.
  - ajg1977 17y ago
    No, but it is your fault that you didn't learn about the value of backups after the first time.
    - grandalf 17y ago
      My point is that DRM is a technology that should remove the annoying requirement of having to back up songs -- I could see having to back up songs downloaded via bittorrent, etc. Apple offers the worst of all worlds by imposing DRM and also not allowing a simple re-download option. I really don't want to spend $100 on a backup drive and then have to back up my iTunes folder after every purchase. That is totally not how things should work in 2009. Notably, all my other data (code, documents, etc.) is easy to back up (documents on google docs, code on github)... so the only thing I ever need to worry about is music.
grandalf 17y ago
Apple now lets you restore content from an iPod, but at the time my drive crashed, iTunes would immediately delete songs from an iPod that were "purchased" by some other iTunes instance (even if it was under the same account). For the second crash, I had way more content than the 30GB capacity of my iPod -- my backup drive died and only 30GB were on the iPod. This is just silly considering that I've spent probably thousands of dollars in the iTunes store and I haven't downloaded any illegal content since the first day I started using iTunes years ago.

grandalf 17y ago

I consider it an example of a bad business decision. Suppose I buy a bunch of content on iTunes -- soon I have about 200GB of video and music... so now I have to be able to engineer a reliable and convenient backup system for this... all because Apple doesn't make it easy to deactivate old DRM and re-download the content? The point of DRM is that it should be able to allow Apple to risklessly let me re-download content. As it stands, and as someone else pointed out, Apple gives you one "lifetime" re-download for whatever music you own at the time. I have used mine, and incidentally I ended up losing about $50 worth of music which Apple claimed it no longer sold, even though the items were clearly still available in the iTunes store. My point in mentioning backups was to show how unfriendly Apple's overall service is to customers. DRM is a technology which should be able to elimiate Apple's risk, allowing it to deliver superior customer service. But sadly Apple has gone in the other direction...