I was just reading an article on Ars about some guys who run a small soul music label and their opinions on iTunes Match. Besides what’s presented in that article though, it got me thinking.
iTunes Match, for those unaware, is part of Apple’s new iCloud storage system. Essentially, if you own and want to store music you didn’t buy on iTunes, but the iTunes store has copies of that music, then for $25/year you can have Apple provide you with access to 256kbps AAC iTunes Plus copies of that music in your iCloud. That counts even if your originals were 64kbps mono mp3 or something equally unpleasant. Now I come to think of it, couldn’t you just generate files filled with noise with the same length and ID3 tags as a song you want, and have Apple provide you with it? I digress.
Some people are saying that this legitimises piracy. Download a bunch of dodgy songs off some torrent tracker somewhere, shove ‘em into iTunes and say “hey, Apple, here’s my $25, gimme the good stuff”, and they’ll dutifully provide you with full quality, legitimate copies with metadata present and correct. So, for the record companies, the good news is that instead of them getting nothing for your pirated music, they now get a very tiny amount for it. I’m sure it’d add up over x thousands of users, they’ll be happier with that than nothing at all.
Ultimately my point is this: If you had a substantial amount of pirated music, would you pay a one-time fee to legitimise it? Is it a viable option for both users and record companies? Is $25 enough or too much? How many pirates would go for a deal like that? Would it be unfair on those who only pirated 100 songs instead of the guy who’s download near on every song in the world, just because he could? It’s good to know that what you own is legitimate and I’m sure a service like iTunes could provide the quality and the metadata, album art and such that would be expected by seasoned pirates.
Personally? I have no idea if record companies would agree with me, or how it would be doled out between those who are owed the resulting cash pot, but I think it’s a great idea. Sort of like an all you can eat post-paid subscription service, if you like. Instead of paying beforehand to download x tracks per month, you’ve already downloaded x tracks per month and now you can pay up. Sounds fair to me. I’m sure there are issues with that, I’m sure people will suggest it encourages piracy, but piracy already happens, and some money is better than no money.
What do you think? Feel free to drop your tuppence worth in the comments below.
I pay for my music, and still don’t use iTunes, nor would I ever. But that is just me. I just can’t see someone with pirated music having a reason to “legitimize” the use of it though. If they had a conscience they probably wouldn’t have pirated it in the first place.