This is bullshit.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/0 ... downloads/

Apple is now scheduling an end date for paid iTunes music downloads, according to sources inside the company.

Apple is now experiencing meteoric growth on its streaming music platform, Apple Music. But that growth is directly impacting Apple’s old-line downloads store, for obvious reasons. And, ultimately hastening its demise.

Just last week, Apple executive Jimmy Iovine pointed to a shutdown when ‘people stop buying’. Now, sources inside the company are pointing to a firm date for a planned shutdown of the iTunes music download store. Earlier, these same sources pointed to an ‘early 2019’ shutdown, though internal roadmaps now include a March 31st, 2019 phase-out of the service.
The sources clarified that this would only be the announcement date. Effectively, that will set in motion the shutdown, with users given ample warning of the upcoming phase-out.

Additionally, the sources stressed that music downloads will always work on all Apple devices and the iTunes platform, across all versions. That includes music purchased on iTunes, or uploaded from any other source. So you’ll always be able to play MP3s, iTunes-purchased AACs, and even older, DRM-protected iTunes songs (many years ago, song downloads were ‘DRM protected,’ creating limitations on file-sharing and other uses).

Other variations, including ‘iTunes Plus’ downloads and video downloads, will always be playable.

You’ll also be able to manage your music download collection on iTunes without issue. Apple will only be ending its paid download offering.

I gotta be honest, I though iTunes had bitten the dust years ago

I always hated it and won't be sorry to see it go. just feel bad for people like my dad, who use it all the time.

It seems everyone is supposed to be in love with streaming music. I personally don't really get it. Sure, an mp3 is a digital copy, but at least it's yours to do with as you will, and you don't have to be connected to the internet to play your tunes. I guess though that this move by Apple is simply a sign of the times.

Amazon is doing the same thing within the same timeframe, I believe.

I used to get iTunes giftcards all the time when I was a kid, and that was one of the main ways I got new music for a while. I have not bought anything from iTunes in years though, and I should probably double-check to see if I have any credits I need to use haha. It's crazy to think that digital downloads are in such decline (I read somewhere that physical copies outsold digital in 2017), but with all of the streaming services doing so well, I guess there's not much need for it anymore. It really doesn't matter much to me though, because if I want an album bad enough, I will just buy it in one of the physical formats.

I hate iTunes, especially the app.

Info on Amazon Digital Download shutting down?

Sorry for being technologically retarded, but does this Apple Music streaming thing mean we will no longer be able to purchase and own digital versions of music after this shutdown? If so, fuck that. I've been waiting for a kick in the arse to physicalize all my digital music anyway... looks like I'll be spending a lot of time streaming music on my laptop while the good ole cassette recorder works to capture the sound.

I don't think I've bought anything on iTunes in at least six or seven years, pretty much all of my online music purchases are on Bandcamp or Amazon these days, but it is a bummer to see streaming get more prominent at the expense of buying actual product.

I buy CDs anc put them on my IPod Via ITunes, look like I’m fucked!

Why would you not be able to continue doing that? The store is shutting down not iTunes itself.

Weren't they destroying the music industry?

I hate the term, but this is Fake News. Digital Music News is the TMZ (or Metal Sucks) of the music industry. Spend 2 minutes looking at their clickbaity, fear-mongering headlines and you'll get the picture. It's just a rumor and DMN saying they have "sources" means nothing.

I don't even know what iTunes does.

In other words, this has been a wasted post.

I was misinformed. They are not shutting down their digital store, but they are shutting down their cloud storage for audio sourced from outside Amazon.

Basically, if you didn't buy it from Amazon, or get it as an "auto rip" from Amazon, or add it from Amazon's streaming service, it'll potentially be deleted by the end of this month. They've also disabled further uploading. So all the stuff ripped from CDs or bought on Bandcamp/elsewhere will be deleted. There is some kind of measure one can take to prevent the deletions, which I did, but you still won't be able to upload going forward. See links.

Obvious first step in forcing people's hands into streaming subscriptions. Which I don't care about, I already have an Amazon subscription. Whatever gets deleted, I'll just add it back via streaming, and if it's not available, then I'll have to look into third party solutions.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/1717 ... n-april-30

https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-music- ... pril-30th/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12 ... e-in-2019/

True. But it all depends on if the record companies will continue to do physical releases.

Maaaaaan, anyone remember the 2000's where CD's were "dead", HMV was shutting its doors, vinyl was a niche thing and everyone swore digital downloads were "THE FUTURE!!!"? Yeah, shitty mp3 singles sure haven't stood the test of time.

I never really used iTunes or many other digital download sites, mostly because I like booklets and the generally higher audio quality, aside from bandcamp. I stuck with CDs (more recently cassettes, possibly vinyl in the future) and I guess my broke ass got the last laugh.

Forgive my technological ignorance, but I've never understood how people use streaming services for any length of time without being on wifi? Doesn't it suck up your data usage? Or is there some aspect of it that I'm not understanding?

Almost every service lets you save tracks for offline use. This caches the tracks to your phone so you can listen without data, so you just download a bunch of albums/playlists before you leave home. In addition, some cell providers have contracts with certain services to not count music streaming as data. I have T-Mobile, for example, and they let you stream music from every service without counting against your data.

For a meagre monthly subscription fee, Spotify allows you to download thousands of tracks to your mobile device so that you can listen when offline. The quality is not brilliant, but it's definitely good enough for driving, waiting for the bus etc.

I used iTunes once, as I was borrowing a friends Ipod to see how the sound quality was. I had my Paypal account connected to it and ended up getting hacked. If I ever buy music, it'll be through amazon or the band directly.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I'm old school and still roll with my 80GB iPod Video. I do not like using my phone to stream music. I use iTunes to store all of my music library but I haven't purchased anything off of it in years.

I'm also an old schooler who uses his old sony vaio mp4 player with 4GB of space

God what a fucking nightmare that used to be, good riddance

You call that old school? I have a Difrnce mp3 player but I'm not sure if it is 2,4 or 8 GB. I don't use it anymore.

Sounds like from what I read it's not iTunes that is shutting down but rather the music downloads, but you will still be be able to put mp3s on your Ipod/Iphone.

I wonder, how does that count towards a band's streaming statistics? Because they are supposed to get paid when someone streams there music, right?



Same here, except mine is a classic 160GB. A lot of the stuff I have are either digital downloads from the past or CD rips.

That's right, AFAIK artists get paid based on the number of streaming "hits" their songs get, same as videos on YouTube... I can only assume they either also get paid for people downloading their music for offline use, or the service keeps statistics of what you've been listening to offline and sync it back to their servers.

... Though something tells me the monthly earnings for artists based on digital music downloads VS. music streaming is drastically different. On one hand, it explains why almost any artist (metal or otherwise) exists on streaming services, on the other, how does you paying (for example) €6.99 per month for Google Play Music translate to earnings for the artists you listen to, especially if you spend most of your time in shuffled playlists instead of focusing on only a handful of music (which is what I do 90% of the time, ending up streaming an album or a song only once per month). Just how little artists earn based on a single song streaming "hit" as opposed to a digital download?

Honestly, I prefer music streaming because it makes things so much easier. For a single (recurring) payment I get all the music I could ever want, need, or NOT need, online or offline. No hassle, manual format conversions, tagging, organizing, depending on physical media for storage (I've come to despise storage drives in general, having had multiple fail on me at once without hope of retrieving what used to be a giant music collection of over 350.000+ songs that I've been buying and collecting for close to 10 years) - just pay&play. Anytime, anywhere. Switching phones, computers, hard drives, tablets - who cares?

I've bought the odd single off iTunes over the years and never had a problem with the service, though there were versions of the iTunes application that blew, fucked up track orders, etc, but in general have had no major issues with it. I still use my iPod classic but its getting long in the tooth, and I'd rather not use my phone for that since outside of the car it just sucks down the battery. In general I'm a physical media guy and don't have any digital music I haven't paid for.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter. I'm almost positive I've had offline Spotify plays sync to last.fm when I regained an internet connection, which would suggest they are being tracked somehow.

Well then, there you go. I have a big data cap so personally I don't story my Spotify stuff offline (maybe like an hour or two of music just in case I end up in a situation without any internet) so I wasn't entirely sure.

I only used iTunes once in my life, and that was to buy Linkin Park's What I've Done when it came out, because I couldn't get my fingers on an illegal download in time before the hype destroyed me (11 years ago, fuck...)

Good. Fuck apple and their shitty business practices.

I'm not happy with apple right now so this is fine with me.

iTunes is not going to stop existing... it's the store that's closing...

Fuck this makes me feel old. When I was a kid there weren’t even CDs (or rather they were only just starting to come in).

Streaming hasn’t really taken off down here in Australia due to licensing issues and our backward ass phone/internet contract structures. I guess YouTube is used as defacto streaming (at least that’s how I use it when I’m at work on their broadband), but not through your phone when walking down the street - data is still expensive and speed is shit.

I think I’ve paid for digital music precisely once in my life, which was a friend of mine releasing an EP which I gave him a few bucks for just to help out.

I hate the iTunes media player so much. When I fire it up my computer grunts and wheezes like a senior citizen having an orgasm. I'm pretty sure the lights in my whole neighbourhood go dim as all the power gets sucked up by this horrifying bloatware turd.

I uninstalled the player on my mom's computer and replaced it with VLC player. I should get a medal of honor for this act.

I haven't used iTunes since about 2007 when I owned an iPod. Wanna add one album? Nah fuck you, no drag and drop. Sync your entire library and convert everything to some random ass format. What a piece of shit. That was the last time I ever bought an Apple product. I think I bought one song only ever, and that was because I was traveling and said iPod touch was my only media device. Dark days.

So... what has the better audio quality? A digital download of an album from iTunes or Bandcamp... or the actual physical CD itself? I've always assumed that the best audio quality possible of an album is listening to it from the actual CD itself.

I don't know about itunes, but for bandcamp you can choose lossless audio files like WAV for digital downloads. If the band uploaded 24bit wav files to their bandcamp page, then their digital downloads will actually be higher quality than their CDs (CDs are 16bit wav files). Not that you could even hear the difference in quality between 16bit and 24bit, but anyway.