I'd like to preface this post by saying that this is a story about a friend of a friend of mine and
definitely not my own experience with digital ownership. Ahem.
This friend, let’s call him Tyler, started using the Internet in 2005 and by “using”
I mean that he spent his waking nights click-clacking away on MSN (R.I.P),
making sure his screen-name was equipped with as many emoticons and Blink-182
lyrics as possible. Aside from this sorely missed mode of communication,
Tyler’s engagement with the Internet was minimal. He did little information
searching, preferring to stay within the safety of MSN’s cozy chat bubbles.
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| Source: http://www.plughitzlive.com/ |
Then,
suddenly, it was everywhere. Its circular, yellow and green logo is seared into
his memory. I’m talking of course about LimeWire – at times a friend, at others
an enemy. Did Tyler know exactly what LimeWire was, its illicit underbelly? No.
Did he know how to use it? You bet he did. As far as Tyler recalls, LimeWire was
the first Internet program he attempted to navigate for himself. He had not
engaged with the Internet on this level prior to LimeWire – it opened up the
web in new and fantastic ways so it couldn’t be all bad, right? Suffice it to
say, a subset of his digital music collection (mostly his Emo era) comes
directly from LimeWire. Before anyone wags a finger or the Internet Police take
Tyler into custody, let me emphasize that he was also buying the CD’s of much of this subset. He had just gotten his
pink iPod mini, but the appeal of CD’s was still very much in effect – he
wanted it all and, for quite awhile, he had
it all. It was only until very recently that his conception of ownership
shifted.
The previously
mentioned subset of digital music exists solely on Tyler’s iPod because of
digital rights management (DRM). As Maxwell suggests, DRM attempts to lock
“customers into one or another retail platform” (2013, p. 37) and, in the case
of the iPod and the iTunes store, “a layer of ‘lightweight’ DRM prevent[s]
customers from easily moving their purchases into any other software or
players” (p. 38). Tyler also no longer has these aforementioned CD’s due to his
family’s car being stolen several years ago. Additionally, this subset of music
does not exist in his iTunes library because of DRM. Thus, his beloved Emo
music exists only on his iPod and, once this device ceases to work, it will
disappear entirely. Some might say this could be for the best but, like books,
we form deep connections to the music we listen to.
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| Author's photo. Tyler graciously let me take a picture of his iPod. |
Though
Apple makes it fairly easy for users to transfer their iTunes library to other
platforms, they provide little help when it comes to transferring music the
other way around. While this measure is in place in order to prevent piracy,
there are a myriad of reasons why a user would want to transfer the music on
their iPod to their iTunes library. It is not so black and white. Say, for
example, your hard drive fails and you have not backed it up – all the music on
your iPod is legal, but what now? Tyler’s iPod is an iPod Classic and it shows
its age. It has been known to make strange noises and he swears he can
sometimes hear it whispering “killll meeeeee.” Knowing that a lot of his music
only exists on this cantankerous beast is concerning. It was as if these songs he loved, had grown up with, existed in the ether - ephemeral in the most disheartening of ways. Tyler started to question what exactly he did own. Were his thoughts even his? Tyler had a bit of an existential crisis.
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| Source: https://www.fadingred.com/ |
While
researching ways to help Tyler combat this issue, I learned that there are several
programs designed specifically to transfer music from an iPod to an iTunes
library. Senuti (I’m only just realizing that Senuti is iTunes spelt backwards)
is one such program. While these programs provide an answer to this issue, I
wonder how Apple feels about them? I was unable to find a comment but, given the loophole-ish nature of these programs, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple did oppose them. Again, the motives for using programs such
as Senuti are not always black and white – I'd like to think that Tyler’s instance
falls somewhere in a grey area. If anyone knows more about the validity of
these programs and Apple’s stance on them, Tyler and I would love to hear from you.
References
Maxwell, John E. "E-Book
Logic: We Can Do Better." Papers of
the Bibliographical Society of Canada 51,
no. 1 (2013): 29-47.
Accessed November 9, 2016. http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/bsc/article/view/20761/16996.
The same thing also happened to a friend of a friend of mine, let's call her Joanne. Joanne used Limewire until her mom was so afraid that she would be taken away in handcuffs and made her stop. To Joanne, Limewire was a way to experiment with music and see what she liked, and then would buy the CD later if she enjoyed a particular song or artist (because Limewire quality was not very good).
ReplyDeleteI've actually never heard of Senuti, or any software of the sort, so that's really interesting that it exists - but it doesn't surprise me because when people find a problem with technology they find ways around it.
My mom purchased a bunch of iTunes music (back around 2005/2006), but had a Sanza (an mp3 player that had a sound recorder - she's a singer so she wanted a device that had recording capability, unlike iPods at the time). She had issues with transferring her songs that she bought from iTunes to her Sanza, probably because the songs were protected by DRM and were incapable of being played on a device that wasn't Apple. I believe (I'm not 100% sure on this) that iTunes songs are no longer protected by DRM. If you buy a song, you should be able to play it on whatever device you own, right? Especially since today, planned obsolesce means we usually get new phones every 2 - 3 years, and many people use their phones as their music players. What if once we transferred a song to a device, it could never be transferred to another device again?
Oh interesting - I wasn't aware iTunes songs are no longer protected by the DRM! That makes sense given the turnover of technology now. Transferring to devices isn't so much my...er *Tyler's* problem, he just wants to be able to put the songs of his youth on his ITunes library so he can listen to them while he studies! He's pretty tired of streaming music from Spotify and listening to those obnoxious advertisements. He's honestly just spoilt though and needs to get over it, in my humble opinion. We should introduce Joanne and Tyler - I'm sure they'd have a lot to talk about ! ;)
ReplyDeleteI just found this link (https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201616) that says if you previously purchased a song protected by DRM from iTunes, you can purchase a subscription to iTunes match for $24.99 which provides you with DRM free versions of your songs on all of your devices.
DeleteThis link (http://www.macworld.com/article/1138000/software-graphics/drm-faq.html) says that iTunes stopped selling music protected by DRM in 2009, so it's possible that music we've bought over the past few years can be transferred to multiple devices! Yay!
I think introducing Joanne and Tyler would be great - so many technological misfortunes to discuss!
"the appeal of CD’s was still very much in effect." This is kind of unrelated, but I find it so interesting how much the "appeal of CD's" has disappeared! In my experience, people don't really buy CDs much anymore--they just get music off itunes or other online means. It seems like a kind of comparable situation to books vs ebooks, and I often wonder why the appeal of CDs just disappeared, when that of physical books is not doing the same. Maybe it's because the physical book is so much more involved in the experience of reading than the CD is in the experience of listening?
ReplyDeleteI love how you bring illicit or potentially illicit programs like Lime Wire and Senuti into the discussion! They're sooo relevant to the topic of digital ownership.