Amaya Toman They say the best things are free. But does it also apply if the new album of the Irish band U2 is in your iPod against your will, and you have no way to get rid of it? In today's article, we will briefly recall how Apple gave users a free U2 album in good faith, but it did not receive a standing ovation.
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Flying around the world with Apple Apple's collaboration with the band U2 was nothing new. For example, the company used the Irish band's song Vertigo as the soundtrack for an iTunes ad, and Apple also supported singer Bon Vox's charity Product (RED). At that time, she was engaged in activities related to efforts to eradicate the HIV virus and the related AIDS disease in African countries.
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Another collaboration with U2, from which Apple promised a huge success, on September 9, 2014, the effort became give the band's album to the apple growers. After less than 1% of iTunes users downloaded the album for free on the first day, Apple simply forced it onto users by automatically downloading it to their devices. The intense negative effects were not long in coming. The unconventional (and rather unfortunate) way of distributing the new album immediately came under fire from users and the media. The Washington Post compared Apple's move to spamming, while the editors of Slate magazine expressed their concern that "the condition for owning an album is no longer consent and interest, but the will of society." Musicians also spoke up, according to whom free distribution reduced the value of music.
The appearance of iPods has changed over the years:
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The unwelcome addition to the iTunes library initially had one major problem – the album could not be deleted in the usual way. Users had to launch the desktop version of iTunes and hide the album in the purchased list. It wasn't until a week later, on September 15, that Apple launched a page dedicated to removing the album, telling customers: "If you wish to have U2's Songs of Innocence removed from your iTunes music library and iTunes purchases, you can choose whether to you want to delete. Once an album is removed from your account, it will no longer be available to download again as a previous purchase. If you later decide you want the album, you'll have to buy it again.” Bono subsequently apologized for the trouble he apologized. After noting that if the user wanted the album after October 13th they would have to pay for it, the page asked: "Would you like to remove the Songs of Innocence album from your account?". Below the question appeared a button that said "Delete album". U2 frontman Bono Vox later stated that he had no idea that the album would be automatically downloaded to users' libraries.
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In the fall of this year, the book Bono's memoirs was published, in which the musician, among other things, returns to the affair with the album. "I accept full responsibility. Not Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue. I thought that if we could just put our music in front of people, maybe they would choose to listen to it. Not quite. As one wise person wrote on social media: 'Woke up this morning to find Bono in my kitchen drinking my coffee, wearing my bathrobe and reading my newspaper.' Or a little less kindly: U2's free album is overpriced," the singer states in the book.
