There is no cloud. It’s just someone else’s computer.

I have so far resisted the jump to streaming media. I do regularly buy Kindle books, which Amazon can send down the memory hole without my permission . James Pinkstone gives me another reason to continue resisting.Screen Shot 2016-05-05 at 1.36.35 PM

For about ten years, I’ve been warning people, “hang onto your media. One day… information will be a utility rather than a possession. Even information that you yourself have created will require unending, recurring payments just to access.” When giving the above warning, however, even in my most Orwellian paranoia I never could have dreamed that the content holders, like Apple, would also reach into your computer and take away what you already owned. If Taxi Driver is on Netflix, Netflix doesn’t come to your house and steal your Taxi Driver DVD. But that’s where we’re headed. When it comes to music, Apple is already there. —Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously.

2 thoughts on “There is no cloud. It’s just someone else’s computer.

  1. An opposing view: “In an ideal world, iCloud Music Library would work like Dropbox, or even iCloud Photo Library — whatever you upload is yours, it doesn’t get “matched” to anything, and as long as you re-download everything before you cancel your subscription, you’re fine. But DRM and downloading streaming tracks you don’t have ownership rights to mucks things up. iCloud Music Library is always going to be complicated, and people are going to make mistakes because of it. And if they don’t have backups, those mistakes might be costly.
    There’s also a possibility that some nasty bug wiped out Pinkstone’s original library unintentionally. We haven’t been able to reproduce this problem, however; I’ve queried Apple about that possibility, but haven’t heard anything to that extent so far.
    Whatever the case, Apple Music was never designed to delete Pinkstone’s source library, and it won’t delete yours. That’s simply not how the service works on your primary Mac. But if you’re not aware of how iCloud Music Library stores copies of tracks, you may delete your local copies to save space, thinking you can get them back — and get screwed as a result.”
    http://www.imore.com/no-apple-music-not-deleting-tracks-your-hard-drive-unless-you-tell-it

  2. True ish – cloud is somebody else’s many computers. The music issue is less cloud than iTunes. Amazon cloud does not revoke your music regardless of purchase channel … yet.

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