That U2 Apple Stunt Wasn't the Disaster You Might Think It Was 201
journovampire writes with this interesting bit about the fallout of U2's partnership with Apple. "Remember U2's album giveway with Apple at the end of last summer? And how the world seemed to become very annoyed that its contents had been "pushed" to their devices without permission? Well, the naysayers might have been loud – but that hasn't stopped the stunt having a lasting effect on the band's popularity. That’s according to new research from retail insight experts Kantar in the US, which shows that nearly a quarter (24%) of all US music users on iOS devices in January listened to U2, nearly five months after Songs Of Innocence was released for free onto 500m iPhones across the world. In a survey of iOS users, Kantar found that more than twice the percentage of people listened to U2 in January than listened to the second-placed artist, Taylor Swift (11%)."
By accident (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Shit, I listened to it by accident by apparently butt 'dialing' into the music player (empty on my work phone except for the U2 album apparently) and starting the damn album.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the only music I store on my phone. Whenever my friends connect their phones to bluetooth audio in my car, the second they disconnect I hear U2 playing since that's all I have in the phone.
So what? (Score:2)
How does that relate to listens on Spotify/Pandora, concert attendance, or other album sales? You know, how the band actually makes money.
Re: (Score:2)
isn't that the same as listening to it "by accident" on the radio? so it would seem to count.
Re: (Score:3)
you think the band gave this away to all the iTunes users? More like, tim cook paid the band $$$$ and gave it away to his customers. they got paid, don't worry about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
if I were them, I wouldn't be worrying about long term viability, I would be worried about cashing in so I can finally afford that island to retire to.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea was a good one, the execution poor (Score:3, Interesting)
Not asking permission is theft. The playback devices are owned by their OWNERS, not the company that they connect with to download content. Pushing content onto it, rather than asking for permission to push content is stealing the playback device and using it for your own purposes.
No one likes someone stealing my electronics, even if they add give it right back after they fiddle with it.
Re: (Score:2)
I think aside from the Slashdot crowd and like-minded folk, nobody really cared that these were pushed down. also, I don't feel strongly one way or the other if somebody steals your electronics.
Re: (Score:2)
I think aside from the Slashdot crowd and like-minded folk, nobody really cared that these were pushed down. also, I don't feel strongly one way or the other if somebody steals your electronics.
They didn't "push" it per se. It showed up in your purchased music, and you were prompted to see if you wanted to download it. I'm not a huge U2 fan, but I did download it and give it a couple of listens. It's not a bad album, but yeah, the better approach would have been to just say it was free and let the user decide.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The idea was a good one, the execution poor (Score:5, Interesting)
If you give me your phone for 30 seconds, I can download software on it to let me track your location anytime I want to. Other people can download software to turn on the microphone and listen in without having the phone ring.
The only real difference between your cellphone and a spying device used to track you, listen to every word you say, is the software on it.
Just because all they CLAIMED to download was a 'free song' doesn't mean it really was a free song.
Doing the download indicates:
1. The ability to treat pwn your electronics at their convenience.
2. Weak morals, ethics and lack of respect for us such that they see nothing wrong with pwning our devices.
This is a matter of trust - and they proved they are not trustworthy.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you're looking at several phenomenon combined into one.
First, it's Apple. Apple is newsworthy. If you need ad clicks, mention Apple. Did I mention Apple generates traffic? It's at the point where I'm sure we'll see headlines like "Apple CEO Tim Cook Scratches
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly, I'm still baffled so many people were upset about getting a few album from a popular, well respected, rock band, simply because it found its way directly onto people's devices. It's not as if it woke you up at 3am and started playing it!
Image, instead, that Apple broke into people's houses and left a physical copy of the U2 album on dining room table. How do you think you / everyone would feel about that? While you might argue that digitally pushing the album out isn't really the same thing, it kind of is. Apple entered (violated) people's personal space w/o permission.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Does the iTunes Terms of Service, to which users presumably agreed, specify that Apple may add (or remove) things to (from) your device that you did not request and/or w/o your specific consent? If so, then your analogy holds (at least technically) else it doesn't.
I suspect that people got bent out of shape because either Apple wasn't really allowed to do this sort of thing, or people didn't realize Apple actually was allowed to.
Re: (Score:3)
Did it matter that they used it? They used it to give you a free gift. Why is this a major problem?
Yeah, just like when your dog leaves you a "gift" on your favorite rug. Why is this a major problem?
It's been a long time since people who have never heard of U2 before wanted to hear U2. A long, long time.
Re:The idea was a good one, the execution poor (Score:5, Insightful)
Not asking permission is theft.
I'm a fan of U2 and I can see how some people might consider what they did rude or presumptuous, but theft? - No, just leave the contorted 'theft' analogies to the MAAFIA. No offense intended, but they are much better at it than you are.
Re: (Score:2)
Not asking permission is theft.
I'm a fan of U2 and I can see how some people might consider what they did rude or presumptuous, but theft? - No, ...
Not theft, but how about "breaking and entering"? Apple entered (violated) people's personal space w/o permission.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah. Remotely downloading something onto a device belonging to someone else is exactly the same as stealing that device. Because once you've done using it, they are deprived of its use totally from that point on.
Just like you'd stole it. This is the legal definition, you'll find it in all the legal books.
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably this was not good enough for U-2, so we have this intrusive method of stuffing iTunes user accounts with unwanted music. For the record I was never a U-2 fan, and now it just seems like some desperate cut rate band.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a setting to select whether songs bought in iTunes are automatically downloaded to your device. That setting existed prior to the U2 debacle. I had already disabled it, and thus my device never downloaded the song.
So really all they did was add the song to your online iTunes music collection. It was your device, under your control via a setting you had chosen (by not adjusting it from default, perhaps, but that's on you), that downloaded the song.
Did they use bandwidth you didn't intend to use?
Re: (Score:2)
It's theft of time using drive-by advertising.
Re: (Score:2)
1) If you didn't have "download all purchases automatically" checked (not checked by default), then it didn't happen
I want my phone to download MY purchases automatically. What this stunt did is it reduced the value of that option. What should have been put in place was a free voucher for U2 on iTunes. But then, the album wouldn't have found its way onto everyone's phone, reducing its value as an advertisement. That's what spam marketers found out long ago -- it's fine to push their spam to 95% percent of the people who didn't want it as long as they can get a payoff from that 5%. The 5% may like the product being sold,
Damnit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you mean a nearly identical new party that can continue the same bad policy while blaming the other identical old party.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like electing a new party every few years to 'punish' the old one?
If only it was actually a new party..
Re: (Score:2)
^this times a million.
Really, as if we needed more proof that the majority of humanity (never including us, of course) are just vapid, moronic sheep, driven by impulse and entirely unable to understand long-term cause effect or act for their own good.
Maybe the Democrats/Republicans are right, and we should just let them in Washington think for the rest of us. I mean, could it be worse than us doing it ourselves?
I listened, BY ACCIDENT!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Complaining on the Internet, Makes you feel good (Score:2)
Sure you complain on the internet, you join a group of others doing the same thing, you feel like you are part of some grand movement... However you just some whispers in the wind.
In short you may get some media notice, But if the grand scheme comes down to the hard numbers.
What about shuffle? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
U2, sitting innocuously near the bottom of your Artist list, it always syncs and whenever it comes up on random you're reminded yet again to go sort that shit out, but you always forget. And the cycle continues.
... It deletes like everything else in iTunes, if you mean take it out of the iCloud list ... You click the X on it in the iCloud list ... Just like everything else.
Other than it being added to your account without consent, it's no different than anything else
Re:What about shuffle? (Score:5, Informative)
Did you know you actually have to follow special instructions just to remove this one "Gift" album, since it registers as a purchase in your iTunes library? You can't just delete it as you suggested.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201396 [apple.com]
Similar to how you have to opt-out of iMessage when you quit having an iPhone through some obscure form on Apple's website, I can tell you I have actually heard people tell the story of how frustrating it is to "lose all of your messages" when giving up your iPhone. Every time you have an expectation of regular people to perform some minimally technical menial task, be prepared for 90% or more of those people to give up and fall off the edge of the funnel instead. This is not even a discussion of "the intelligence of Apple's targeted market segment."
You already know how that conversation ends, every time. "I just gave up and got another iPhone." And... wait for it... Apple's scheme really works! They (lusers) never ever connect it on their own as being "something bad/anti-competitive that Apple did," and something that Apple ostensibly should be punished for (with market forces moving away.) Network effect = gravity. Seems that Apple is well past the critical mass.
https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage [apple.com]
That page honestly could not be any simpler or easier to find, but I don't know anyone who can say they actually used it. Most people won't even connect the dots for the first two weeks and realize they are not receiving iMessage or any messages from any of their friends with iPhones anymore. If they can even find someone who will explain it to them, they will usually just hear "bad user, should have stayed loyal to Apple; Apple good, new phone problem."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, they are pseudo fixes, because Apple won't fix what works. They love this "outrage." It is entirely on purpose. 100% agree.
Mildly annoyed ... (Score:2)
So no, its not surpri
In the days of radio... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The day after the payola scandal ended they invented the job 'program director'.
Because payola laws prevent DJs from accepting money from record companies. They say nothing about program directors accepting bribes.
These days all clear channel stations have one program director. Simplifies the bribery.
Re: (Score:2)
Back in the grand old days of radio when they played vinyl records over the air, bands were pushing their music onto my radio all the time. With the collusion of the radio station! And it totally locked up the radio for a good three or four minutes at a time. And it wasn't illegal! But hey, if you enjoy having some radio station decide what you are going to listen to ...
If only there had been some way of not listening to those records, and apparently some people are still forced to listen to music they
You didn't complain enough (Score:3, Insightful)
So now Apple has your implied permission to do it again.
Measure badly, get bad measurements. (Score:2)
I don't know how we're supposed to draw inferences about popularity based on giving things away for free. You want to compare an artist that gave an album for free to 500 million people (prompting an outcry from people who didn't want it) to one where people actually had to deliberately buy her music. Shockingly, people listen to things that are free. I listen to free music on the radio and on Pandora, but that doesn't mean I necessarily like it that much. Sometimes the criteria for leaving it on is jus
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes the criteria for leaving it on is just it being acceptable enough that changing it isn't more important than whatever else I'm doing.
This is the part of the entire streaming service payout values which artists appear to entirely ignore. Many of my singer/songwriter friends complain about the value of a stream relative to a permanent digital download or CD track cost (50:1 to 400:1 depending on the service and the analysis) as if a "listen" is someone enjoying the track as their primary activity. I suspect it often is neither.
The root problem was the album wasn't wanted.... (Score:2)
.
Of course there are going to be more people listening to the album, whether by accident or intent. The album resides on more devices. For all we know, cats could be listening to it (and if you search youtube, you'll probably find a video of a cat listening to the album).
In order to determine whether or not the stunt was actually a success, you need to look at the future U2 sales increase or decrease vs. the ne
where did they do the survey?? Sandy Hook? (Score:2, Funny)
Taylor fucking Swift?? Come on! That is so Middle America Teen Pop bullshit!
The real issue is (Score:5, Interesting)
that U2 live in the past. Joshua Tree, Boy, and even Zooropa were great albums, because they spoke to a specific time and place. I'm not a huge fan of their music, but I can certainly appreciate what they brought to pop music at the time. For that reason I'll listen to them every now and again.
But this latest Apple album is just an attempt to re-do Joshua Tree. I mean, if the Edge started playing the Keytar and succeeded in making it cool, or Bono stopped writing songs with abstract lyrics, that could be new and interesting. But if people want to listen to Joshua tree, everyone can listen to Joshua tree.
The best classics are classics because they encompass a specific time and place. U2 had their time and place, did it really well, and now they either need to do something completely new (at the risk of their legacy), or go enjoy their royalty cheques for the rest of their lives, doing reunion shows whenever Bono needs a new private jet.
Oh yeah I listened to U2 in January (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I thought Songs of Innocence was a return to form for U2, and thus more enjoyable for me than their 90's work, which was mostly, IMHO, dreck.
Statistics (Score:2)
Be careful, this was worded to make it seem bigger than it really is.
So, this was pushed on 500 million iOS devices (the iPad and iPod touch still exist) worldwide but 24% of U.S.A. iOS users listened to it. That doesn't equal 125 million people li
Was this a good measure? (Score:2)
Personally, the U2 thing demonstrated to me that I can't trust iTunes (and therefore Apple) very much, and so it is a good reason to avoid purchasing devices that need to use it. Whether or not people actually listened to the songs does not measure whether or not this was a good thing for Apple to do.
Re: (Score:3)
while all of you are arguing about the U2 album... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is "play" (Score:2)
Kantar’s survey showed that nearly every iOS device user who listened to U2 in January 2015 – 95% – played at least one track from Songs Of Innocence.
What is "played?" Does it include all the users who didn't realize their iDevice had been unilaterally infected with Songs of Innocence, and who hit skip just as fast they can when U2's intrudes uninvited into a shuffle mix?
I'm not surprised at all (Score:2)
Re:Capital M, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
In any case, it's an error. Fix it.
Re: (Score:2)
No, you're wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
My wrong what?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
People with an IQ know that 500M = 500 Million. 500m = 0.500
Wow, a whole IQ?
Compulsive disorder not high IQ (Score:5, Funny)
People with an IQ know that 500M = 500 Million. 500m = 0.500 Everyone else are low IQ losers and what is wrong with the world.
Actually the low IQ losers are the ones who read things in an absolute sense. Those with higher IQs are more interpretive and use context and are more tolerant of minor capitalization typos.
Getting all upset over the mis-capitalization is more a sign of some degree of compulsive disorder than high IQ.
Flawed Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh.. yeah.. they should really be accounting for that.
Seriously, if you think this makes the statistics "flawed"... then you don't know anything about statistics.
Re: Flawed Statistics (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:5, Insightful)
Music, like sex, is a young person's affair. Just drop it after 40, nobody wants to hear it, and no one wants to think about it.
Hey kids! Old guy here dropping in just to let you know that contrary to what AC claims, you'll still like sex and music even when you're over fifty. You just won't be staying up late to enjoy them.
Since I'm here I might as well give you a heads up on some of the things that will change. On the sex front, expect your standards for what is "hot enough to do" to fall straight through the floor. I know this sounds awful to you now, but trust me on this, you've got hold of the wrong end of that stick.
On the music front, at a certain age most people stop being interested in listening anything new. However that age isn't 40; it's more like 22. And notice I said "most". If you make it to, say 26 years old and are still listening to new music, you'll still be doing that at 50.
And same goes for being a miserable person. I know the stereotype is that older people are miserable, but trust me, most miserable older people were miserable young people. They just let it out more, because as you get older you have fewer inhibitions (see the point about sex above).
Anyhow, thought I'd let you know that getting older isn't bad at all, and it sure as hell beats the alternative.
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, since when is 50 old? I hear 70 is the new 50, and soon it's be 80.
Also, classic rock never gets old - your kids will be listening to the same songs (at least until they find out you grew up with those songs).
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:4, Informative)
Take your age and multiply by 3/2 . In most cases that'll be close to the line where you think of someone as "old".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
On the sex front, expect your standards for what is "hot enough to do" to fall straight through the floor.
If this is true for women as well, then great news for the Slashdot crowd! Don't give up hope just yet, guys!
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm over 40, still go to concerts, and listen to new music. I might be a special case since studied music, play piano, and strings {not a lot any more you know job etc..}. My brother is in a band {indie type label} sometimes they will play with a big name band or just popular indie and I get to meet them this makes concerts much more fun.
Re: (Score:3)
you'll still like sex and music even when you're over fifty. You just won't be staying up late to enjoy them.
You need to tell my wife that bit about staying up late. She likes to keep me up until 3 am having sex. I am tired all the next day.
Women in their fifties are amazing sex machines.
Re: (Score:3)
" On the sex front, expect your standards for what is "hot enough to do" to fall straight through the floor."
As a fellow chrono-American, let me add that you dating ritual will eventually include the early bird special.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure why you're saying this.
I've gotten quite a bit older and my standards for what I will fuck certainly haven't dropped?!?!
Sure, the women are a bit older than before, but they still have to be good
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:5, Funny)
The effect may be correlated with having a sense of humor.
Re: (Score:3)
Hey kids! Old guy here dropping in just to let you know that contrary to what AC claims, you'll still like sex and music even when you're over fifty. You just won't be staying up late to enjoy them.
Indeed, except even the "won't be staying up late" is going to far. I stay up late often to enjoy them. Sometimes all night. Here's a secret that might surprise the younger set: sex (and music) is much better at this age than when younger. A friend of mine summed it up nicely: "I really savor and enjoy sex a lot more now that it isn't the constant fucking emergency that it is when you're young."
Re: (Score:2)
And same goes for being a miserable person. I know the stereotype is that older people are miserable, but trust me, most miserable older people were miserable young people. They just let it out more, because as you get older you have fewer inhibitions (see the point about sex above).
Good job on this post but I disagree on this part. Experience in life makes you less patient to ignorance. I'm not talking about ignorance as in "lack of having lived" but rather the ignorance that is people just not caring about other around them. It's usually the same issues that have been around for a long time that you can tell will never be fixed since it hasn't changed in 15 years. E.g. Making sure there's toilet paper for the next person. Not having your high beams on everywhere you drive. Being poli
Re: (Score:3)
Music, like sex, is a young person's affair. Just drop it after 40, nobody wants to hear it, and no one wants to think about it.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the public demonstrates an insatiable demand for Milf porn and new Iron Maiden albums.
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh just stop already (Score:5, Funny)
It depends - is it the sound of Beiber choking to death on a ham sandwich? (RIP Mama Cass [wikipedia.org], yes, I know the ham sandwich is an urban legend, but the media never let the facts get in the way of a good story :-)
If Mama Cass has just split that sandwich with Karen Carpenter, they both could be alive today.
Re: (Score:2)
It depends - is it the sound of Beiber choking to death on a ham sandwich? (RIP Mama Cass [wikipedia.org], yes, I know the ham sandwich is an urban legend, but the media never let the facts get in the way of a good story :-)
If Mama Cass has just split that sandwich with Karen Carpenter, they both could be alive today.
Good heavens, I knew that Keanu was sad, [knowyourmeme.com] but I didn't realize that the sandwich incident was a suicide attempt.
Parents curse: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a reflection of the aging Apple demogra (Score:5, Insightful)
c. U2 is a "dad band", in that it really only appeals to people who are in the 40+ age bracket. This also happens to be what iDevices are increasingly seen as "dad-tech", something your dad tells you is the "best choice for everything" which you know is obviously wrong but fuck it, you'll take the free phone anyway since he's paying for it.
As one of those folks in the 40+ age bracket...
1) Back when us old farts were teenagers, U2 was considered somewhat revolutionary (and in a way they were). The music itself? Compared to the mass of dreck we had thrust upon our ears via radio in the 1980s? It wasn't half bad, but there was better out there (you just had to really go look for the good shit, in an age where the HTTP protocol didn't exist and the Internet was unknown to 99.99999% of the planet. This meant buying a shitload of blank cassettes, a wide circle of friends, and having a boom box with cassette-to-cassette recording capability.)
2) I once felt the same way towards my old man's 60's/70's Psychedelic/ProgRock collection (played on reel-to-reel no less!) that you feel towards a 1980's has-been band. However, my ears, like the rest of me, grew up - I inherited his collection, and after a cursory listen-through, am ripping the hell out of some of those reels to the audio-in on my home desktop machine (Thank Heavens for Audacity on Linux...) Good news, though! Old stuff, new stuff, in-between stuff... it doesn't matter to me any more; I find good stuff in every era, to the point where I have 78 RPM 'vinyl' with stuff I've ripped to FLAC. Mind you, I'm typing this as some rather kickass German industrial rock [wikipedia.org] is pumping into my headset. Before that, The Temptations' Power was playing. Jazz musicians call it the act of having 'Big Ears', where you find and love good music from practically every genre. Someday, you'll get that too.
3) One fine day, *your* kids will point at your current favorite tech and laugh their asses off, as surely as I once laughed my ass off at inheriting my parents' old Amstrad 2286 (complete with maths co-processor!) and its dot-matrix printer... in 1997. Deny it all you want, I don't mind... I know different. ;)
Re:This is a reflection of the aging Apple demogra (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people when they're young are rather tribal about their musical tastes as they see it as significantly defining them, no only as who they are but as who they're not.
However once we grow up and become full rounded adults then music simply becomes another form of media entertainment and we no longer limit ourselves to metal/rap/r&b/whatever but listen to anything we like.
And thats a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
sure, if you consider this side of fucking starving "a great body". Personally, I'd refer her to a clinic for eating disorders and start dripfeeding her on hamburgers. If you can see your own RIBCAGE you're fucking UNDERWEIGHT.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
you'd split her in half, you fool. I refer to hold something I can *see*.
Re: (Score:2)
*prefer. I think the battery in my keyboard's going...
Re: (Score:3)
When? All I remember was a standard pro 'authorities need to do something' line. Never once 'authorities have too much power'.
They always sucked.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple or U2? {rimshot}
Try the veal, folks, I'll be here all week!
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand why people are mystified that this upset so many people. Playlists and music collections are personal, and so it's an intrusion to have someone else come in and unilaterally modify them. They should have asked permission.
It has nothing to do with the specific music involved, although U2's comments about this did make me dislike U2 as a business entity.
Re: (Score:2)
I usually compare my computer desktop to my physical desktop.
In this instance, I think it's quite close to compare my smartphone to my pocket.
Sure, if I was walking along and someone handed me a free album, I'd take it. I'd probably put it in my pocket if there was room. But I would also reserve the right to say "No thanks".
What Apple/U2 did is tantamount to chasing you down the street trying to shove their product into your pocket. Sorry, you have no right to do that and it's damn rude, free or not.
Peop
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Really a free album from a band that everyone has heard of and has had decades of hits?
Ah yes. The appeal to popularity.
How dare you.
To people who listen to music, it's like pushing Justin Bieber to my device. They're just as relevant, and for the same reasons.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahh the cool kids speaks.
Delete it and go your merry way.
BTW popular == relevant. Does not mean great but it does mean that it is relevant to a large number of people.
I am not sure that Justin Beber is popular to as large of a segment that buys IOS devices as U2 but if so then yes the majority of people would be happy with it.
In other words... You don't like it then delete it.