I foolishly purchased an album or two from Google Play Music, which will be defunct by year end. Maybe the 'ownership' license will transfer over to Youtube Music if I migrate my subscription, but what if I don't? It doesn't seem logical that I lose the ability to listen to music that I purchased just because the intermediary that I purchased it through has gone. Do not the rights holders keep track of who owns licenses to listen to what? Shouldn't they be tracking this information on the other side of their business than the one that sends questionable DMCA(-ish?) take-down notices to github for potential copyright infringement usage?
I won't be migrating my subscription to YT Music. I won't be purchasing any more music, movies, or TV shows that I can't store locally and backup via simple scripts with tools like rsync and robocopy.
Purchasing a license to stream a specific item via a specific service is, literally, buying nothing.
The Internet remembers everything. Except your digital copyright licenses. It's anti-consumer turtles all the way down.
> It doesn't seem logical that I lose the ability to listen to music that I purchased just because the intermediary that I purchased it through has gone.
It is very logical, and this is the point that many of us, advocates of owning over renting, try to explain to people, unsuccessfully. You didn't purchase a license to content. You purchased a temporary license to listen to a piece of content on a particular service - a license that's valid only as long as the service wants it to, and definitely won't outlive the service itself. Basically: you're renting, not owning. It's all there in the terms you agreed to. Except, of course, services design the UX to make it seem like you're buying, and not borrowing.
(EDIT: this applies to most services people use for music, videos and other digital goods, even when they offer you to "purchase" copies instead of paying subscription fees - like Amazon here, or Steam games. That said, I see there is an option to download MP3s from Google Music, so perhaps the licensing terms there technically give you permanent license for the content itself. iTunes would be similar, IIRC.)
> Do not the rights holders keep track of who owns licenses to listen to what? Shouldn't they be tracking this information on the other side of their business
They do not, because they don't want to. It's against their interests. With the way things are, they get to charge you multiple times for the same piece of content.
Let's be happy that books predate modern IP laws, because otherwise bookshelves and libraries wouldn't be a thing now.
> Purchasing a license to stream a specific item via a specific service is, literally, buying nothing.
> It is very logical, and this is the point that many of us, advocates of owning over renting, try to explain to people, unsuccessfully. You didn't purchase a license to content. You purchased a temporary license to listen to a piece of content on a particular service - a license that's valid only as long as the service wants it to, and definitely won't outlive the service itself. Basically: you're renting, not owning. It's all there in the terms you agreed to. Except, of course, services design the UX to make it seem like you're buying, and not borrowing.
That is not true for music. DRM-free downloads of purchased music have been the industry standard for pretty much all digital music stores for over a decade now - from iTunes to Bandcamp.
In that regard music differs from video and gaming since the fact that it's sold DRM-free enables you to truly own your digital music collection. Obviously this doesn't apply to streaming options which are much closer to renting, but that's self-explanatory I think.
Allowing customers to download the content in a common format seems like a solution to lots of problems. Maybe that should be legislated as a requirement of selling digital goods?
It does -- and if Youtube Music lets you upload music files like GPM did (not sure if they've added this feature yet or not, I know they claimed they would), that's one avenue.
However, I've noticed that the one album I've ever purchased through GPM is not available on YTM and even though I purchased it, it is still greyed out in my transferred playlists.
Lesson learned -- I'm just glad I only ever made that mistake once and didn't lose a library (or would have to painstakingly download each album manually and reupload)
EDIT:
To be clear, not only did the "ownership" of the music not transfer, but (presumably) because of a change in licensing agreements the music has become entirely unavailable in any form. At least, it will once GPM goes offline.
You just admitted you were able to download the album. If you want to own the music then you download it. You don't buy a movie and then keep it at the store and say whenever I want to watch this to you have to keep it here for me indefinitely until I decide to watch it and then when I do you gotta keep holding onto it until next time.
You and the other comments are right -- this isn't the same as Amazon or other digital stores where you have no ability to download the content.
However, I wouldn't compare this to a movie store, or a music store. At least while I used it, GPM wasn't positioned as a store where you buy music and take it home, it's an app/ecosystem where you listen to music.
So I'd argue a more apt comparison is it's like buying a movie at a store with sofas and televisions for watching the movies, where you can purchase content and ask for it to be displayed, and can optionally take the disk home.
Stretching the analogy too far probably, but GPM didn't exactly encourage downloading FWIW -- can only download a song twice ever through the web interface, or all at once through takeout, or through a chrome extension/app, otherwise it's all on the GPM app, where you're "supposed" to listen to it.
You do have the right to download DRM-free music though, so at least GPM had that.
>>this isn't the same as Amazon or other digital stores where you have no ability to download the content.
Admittedly I haven't done this for a year or two, but last time I bought an album on amazon it came with a digital download which was just DRM-free MP3 files. Maybe that's not the case anymore, I don't know.
Well put, I’ve had to learn the same lesson. Now I use Bandcamp where I can properly purchase/own/download archival DRM-free music. It’s a great service.
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that rings hollow considering youre able to download them at the moment as mp3. just because you paid money in an online service once doesn't mean you can expect to be able to redownload it forever going forward.
they might've given you that service, but thats a very different complaint then what this article is about - which is that people that bought it cannot download it and its amazon's choice to revoke their access at their will.
> I foolishly purchased an album or two from Google Play Music, which will be defunct by year end.
I never used Google Play Music, but don't they sell DRM-free music like every other digital music outlet from iTunes to Bandcamp? If so, the files are yours to keep, aren't they?
Obviously Google (or iTunes, Bandcamp and others) aren't responsible for hosting and backing up your media indefinitely. That's the buyer's duty in my opinion.
You can download owned music up to 3 times, maybe more now. When I stopped buying albums in GPM and subscribed I downloaded everything, including uploaded music, and saved off for Plex.
The problem with downloading locally is that, if the police comes (assuming privacy is illegal in your country), you'd still have to explain how you got a hold of them.
Glad I live in a country where (a) the state can not enforce private intellectual property disputes so police can not get involved, only lawyers who can write letters and rent court time and (2) it is explicitly legislated that possession and even copying of digital materials is not an offence, only the distribution of the same could be.
That's an interesting take. It would mean you need to keep purchase receipts of all digital stuff forever. Now, how does it compare to physical media, like CDs/DVDs/BRs? They could have been stolen too, you know. Shouldn't the onus be on the accusing party to prove you stole them?
I've heard of people being caught pirating because of their isp monitoring their traffic. I've never heard of someone being retroactively accused of piracy because they owned unexplained mp3s. I'm sure it's never happened anywhere.
I don't know the laws in other countries, but in Poland owning unlicensed media is not a crime, only distribution is. That's why there are vulture litigators who sue you when you connect to a torrent network and start seeding, but they can't do anything about you downloading.
I won't be migrating my subscription to YT Music. I won't be purchasing any more music, movies, or TV shows that I can't store locally and backup via simple scripts with tools like rsync and robocopy.
Purchasing a license to stream a specific item via a specific service is, literally, buying nothing.
The Internet remembers everything. Except your digital copyright licenses. It's anti-consumer turtles all the way down.