Comment By the time you find out how it can be bad... (Score 2, Interesting) 779
...it will be too late to complain.
Consider: The record industry is looking for ways to justify multi-tier pricing, where some songs cost 75 cents, and other songs cost $2, or $3. What better way to justify that than to say, "People really play <this> song more than <that> song, so we deserve much more money for it!". I would actually be happy to do that, if I thought that the artist would get the extra money, but I'm pretty sure any extra money will magically vaporize somewhere in the record labels. "overhead", or "promotional copies" or something.
Consider: If I understand this right, they are tracking what songs you play. Not what songs you buy from them, but what songs you play from anywhere you obtained it. First off, if the song is not one that you bought from them, then how can they tell what you're playing? From the artist name and song title that you typed in? Geez, people can't even get consistent data into the gracenote database (which is why I still avoid that), so just how accurate is the data going to be when the names are based on what a million different people type in? For that matter, I rename some of the songs I do buy from iTMS, because they even they don't name things completely consistently (although they do better than Gracenote).
Consider: Let's say the RIAA feeds certain songs into the file-sharing networks, which have unique markers in them (either spellings of artist names, or MD5 digests of the song, or something). Then they come knocking on Apple's door saying "Have you noticed anyone playing <this> song? And you can tie that playing to a specific authenticated user? Hey, that's Great!".
Consider: Let's say the government finds out that "terrorists" really like to play "Desert Rose" from Sting. Or they want to know everyone who listens to the podcasts from Al Franken. Gee, maybe Apple would know. Once there is a database, then who knows what "interesting" things someone might want to find out from mining that data...
I don't know if any of these are going to happen, but the thing is that we won't know the downside until we see it. And all of this is for what? So they can recommend more songs for us to buy? They do an awful job with the "Just for You" recommendations as it is. I don't need someone tracking down more songs for me to buy -- particularly not the person who directly profits from me buying stuff. Real live human beings have a tough-enough time agreeing on what which albums are good, even if they agree on an artists they like. Anything the store recommends is still going to be nothing more than a random guess. The "up-side" of this is extremely insignificant. If you want to find more interesting music to listen to, then search for it yourself. You can spend months on amazon reading reviews (both pro and con) from real live people who have bought a variety of albums, and get a much better idea of what music to try than you'll get from database-mining and a 30-second snippet of some song.
disclaimers: a) in general, I like Apple. I like MacOS much more than Windows. I own four ipods. I buy songs from iTMS (not a lot but some). b) I think Sony should be completely boycotted for their recent DRM fiasco. c) I think it's hysterical that Microsoft claims people should hate iPods because they "lock you into" a single vendor. d) I prefer to buy CD's over digital downloads, and my iTunes music collection is about 99% songs ripped from legit CD's that I personally bought.
Consider: The record industry is looking for ways to justify multi-tier pricing, where some songs cost 75 cents, and other songs cost $2, or $3. What better way to justify that than to say, "People really play <this> song more than <that> song, so we deserve much more money for it!". I would actually be happy to do that, if I thought that the artist would get the extra money, but I'm pretty sure any extra money will magically vaporize somewhere in the record labels. "overhead", or "promotional copies" or something.
Consider: If I understand this right, they are tracking what songs you play. Not what songs you buy from them, but what songs you play from anywhere you obtained it. First off, if the song is not one that you bought from them, then how can they tell what you're playing? From the artist name and song title that you typed in? Geez, people can't even get consistent data into the gracenote database (which is why I still avoid that), so just how accurate is the data going to be when the names are based on what a million different people type in? For that matter, I rename some of the songs I do buy from iTMS, because they even they don't name things completely consistently (although they do better than Gracenote).
Consider: Let's say the RIAA feeds certain songs into the file-sharing networks, which have unique markers in them (either spellings of artist names, or MD5 digests of the song, or something). Then they come knocking on Apple's door saying "Have you noticed anyone playing <this> song? And you can tie that playing to a specific authenticated user? Hey, that's Great!".
Consider: Let's say the government finds out that "terrorists" really like to play "Desert Rose" from Sting. Or they want to know everyone who listens to the podcasts from Al Franken. Gee, maybe Apple would know. Once there is a database, then who knows what "interesting" things someone might want to find out from mining that data...
I don't know if any of these are going to happen, but the thing is that we won't know the downside until we see it. And all of this is for what? So they can recommend more songs for us to buy? They do an awful job with the "Just for You" recommendations as it is. I don't need someone tracking down more songs for me to buy -- particularly not the person who directly profits from me buying stuff. Real live human beings have a tough-enough time agreeing on what which albums are good, even if they agree on an artists they like. Anything the store recommends is still going to be nothing more than a random guess. The "up-side" of this is extremely insignificant. If you want to find more interesting music to listen to, then search for it yourself. You can spend months on amazon reading reviews (both pro and con) from real live people who have bought a variety of albums, and get a much better idea of what music to try than you'll get from database-mining and a 30-second snippet of some song.
disclaimers: a) in general, I like Apple. I like MacOS much more than Windows. I own four ipods. I buy songs from iTMS (not a lot but some). b) I think Sony should be completely boycotted for their recent DRM fiasco. c) I think it's hysterical that Microsoft claims people should hate iPods because they "lock you into" a single vendor. d) I prefer to buy CD's over digital downloads, and my iTunes music collection is about 99% songs ripped from legit CD's that I personally bought.
