iTunes bug when buying tracks from different versions of the same album

Have you ever bought singles from an album and then decided to buy the album outright, only for iTunes to not give you access to all the tunes that you paid for because you already own a different version of some of the tracks? That's what has happened here...



What a pain in the backside this is.

Ministry of Sound sues Spotify over user-curated playlists

Source: Atatiwa, CC

If you have an interest in the music industry and its business models in the networked era, there's a couple of articles worth reading over at theguardian.com today that concern music streaming service Spotify. Spotify has been on the receiving end of negative criticism in recent months for the amount of money that artists receive from their labels for playback, as well as flak regarding the longterm viability and profitability of music streaming services. Some of the criticism may be fair but there are a few voices who think Spotify might actually be beneficial to the industry. Nevertheless, let's take a look at the Ministry of Sound case.

The first of which is by Stuart Dredge who reports that the some time night club and record label, Ministry of Sound, is seeking damages against Spotify for allowing its users to create their own playlists which ape the ordering of tracks that appear on their releases, and which may also include the name 'Ministry of Sound' in the title. This last point is significant as Spotify users can now search the service for such a term and easily locate these user-compiled playlists. The label's argument appears to be that these playlists are an infringement on their intellectual property.

It's worth noting that Ministry of Sound does not licence its releases to Spotify as the streaming service's business model seeks to remunerate the copyright owners of musical recordings, whereas compilations compiled and curated by Ministry of Sound would not benefit the label in question as many of the featured tracks are owned by other labels (which Ministry of Sound has had to pay a sum in order to licence for their

Ministry of Sound launched proceedings in the UK High Court on Monday, and is seeking an injunction requiring Spotify to remove these playlists and to permanently block other playlists that copy its compilations. The company is also seeking damages and costs.

Chief executive Lohan Presencer claims that his company has been asking Spotify to remove the playlists – some of which include "Ministry of Sound" in their titles – since 2012

So let's be clear here: 

1. Spotify has agreements in place with the relevant owners of tracks that have also been used by the Ministry of Sound in a series of compilation albums. 
2. Ministry of Sound and Spotify have no licensing agreements
3. Users of Spotify have sourced licensed tracks and complied them in playlists using 'Ministry of Sound' as an identifiable search term
4. These user playlists may feature tracks in the same order as the Ministry of Sound releases
5. There's no guarantee that the tracks in these playlists are the exact same tracks (ie same track length, same remix, etc) that feature on the compilations.

The second article worth looking at is a blog post written by Lohan Presencer, written to accompany the announcement to sue Spotify. The article itself is riddled with errors or disingenuous claims:

iTunes is now the largest music retailer in the world with 575 million customers and annual sales of $23bn. It is the main source of income for every record company on earth. Not only that, Apple built its hardware business on an iTunes foundation – iPods, iPads, iPhones. Not a penny of the sales of which were shared with record companies. 

Forgive me for being pedantic here but this claim needs qualifying. Apple did not build its hardware business on an iTunes foundation - at least not exclusively. iTunes did precede the iPod by about 8 months (released in the US in 2001), however in its original inception it was a tool for moving files from one device to another. The iTunes Store was not created for some time after that, coming to the US in April 2003 and to the UK in June 2004. Granted, sales in the iPod began to grow rapidly after 2004 with the 4th generation of devices capable of storing up to 40GB of music - enough to carry most people's music collections. 

It was hardware iteration that was key to the success here. It seems bizarre that Presencer should claim otherwise whilst also going on to note that this hardware success was not shared with record companies. Should Denon or Technics share their hardware revenue with record companies because they facilitate the consumer in being able to play their CDs or vinyls? Similarly, the success of the iPhone and the iPad have very little to do with music and more to do with devices' multiple functionality (internet access, telecoms, applications, photography, etc).

Presencer goes on to critique Spotify for failing to make a profit despite being heralded as the 'ultimate counter attack to piracy'. Perhaps the company can be forgiven for struggling to make a profit 5 years after launch given the costs of launching a new business in 24 countries, with all the various regional licencing and legal costs associated with such a venture. Spotify claims to pay out 70% of all its revenue to rights holders. Given how notoriously difficult it has been for newcomers to enter the hermeneutically sealed world of the music industry, it's no surprise that profitability is an issue. Only time will tell as to whether or not the 24 million active customers can be converted to paying customers.

Presencer then goes on to critique Spotify for its PR strategy:

Spotify is addicted to PR, its oxygen of growth. Favourable comparisons to Apple and positive reports of industry data showing exponential growth of streaming revenue are its lifeline. Yet what the believers fail to tell you is that published streaming figures include advertising revenue from YouTube, the great hidden free music streaming service.

What is the purpose of this comparison to YouTube? Are they also to be criticised for under paying artists for streams? There's very little stopping users of YouTube from creating Ministry of Sound playlists on YouTube and inserting the brand 'Minsitry of Sound' into the title, for example:

Perhaps Presencer is unaware that this can and does already happen? I'm sure he can't be that naive. The difference with the YouTube model here is that many of the songs that appear in these playlists are ripped from radio shows or uploaded via users rather than having been officially licensed (as Spotify does). Is YouTube the enemy of piracy here?

The final point worth examining relates to how much Spotify contributes to the musical economy of the UK:

According to BPI annual figures, UK record company revenues in 2011 were £795m. Total paying UK Spotify customers at that point could be reasonably estimated to be no more than 250,000. At £10 a month that's total net income of £25m. About 55% of this is paid through to record companies, £13.75m - less than 2% of total industry income

Ignoring the envelope math here (is it 55% or 70% paid to labels) and the outdated figures (Spotify had only been in the UK for 2 years at this point so was a niche player), Presencer seems to have an issue with a young company generating 2% of the total UK music industry's revenue! This beggars belief. Would he be happier if this was revenue lost to piracy? Given that attitude and behaviour change tends to develop quite slowly, Spotify and services like it should be held in slightly higher regard for their attempts to provide a better (for the industry if not the artists) alternative to piracy against a background wherein it is very easy to access music without paying for it.

A solution?

Presencer's gripe seems to be more to do with the fact that compilation curators like Ministry of Sound do not benefit from streaming services because they don't fit the business model that seeks to reward the owners of the music. The simple solution is sue and hope for success so that a service like user generated playlists in Spotify has to removed, thus making the product inferior. Or at least, nuke the ability to search for use playlists. If this does happen, then it might damage the usefulness of Spotify and subsequently, its ability to generate revenue for an ailing industry. I hope this doesn't happen as creating and sharing playlists is part of what makes Spotify a service I'm willing to pay for.

A more complex solution would be to ensure that the Ministry of Sound has to be remunerated and they could do this by ensuring that their compilations featuring tracks that they own the rights to thus making it impossible for Spotify playlists to ever be exactly like the official release (not that this is guaranteed anyway - see #5 above). Ministry of Sound used to produce tracks - I know because I bought them in the 1990s when the brand was building on its 'super club' status. It's often said of the tech industry that companies become more conservative as they age, become less willing to take risks and are more likely to sue than to innovate. Companies in this industry need to be agile and innovative if they want to stay ahead. Maybe Ministry of Sound can go back to innovating.

Panographs of the Media Centre

I've been playing around with a cheap little photography app for the iPhone 4 called 'You Gotta See This' (yes, a truly awful name) by Boinx Software that allows you to make quick and easy panographs.  A panograph is a collage of still images that, when taken as a whole, create a larger image. I took the pictures below this morning outside the David Puttnam Media Centre:



The app only works on the iPhone 4 (not the 3G or 3GS) due to the utilisation of the inbuilt gyroscope feature.  It's an affordable toy at $1.99 (iTunes link) or £1.19 (iTunes link) but the images do appear a little compressed in my example.  As you can see in the slides above there are a number of default themes bundled in the app which you can't turn off which is a shame.  It would be great if you could access a large image without having the borders that appear on each of the themed templates.

The app isn't perfect but it does enable anyone to create their own unique panographs easily.  Here's a quick tutorial video explaining how the application works:



I'm sure this is one the first of many apps that will take advantage of the new hardware improvements in the iPhone 4.

Make your own iPhone ringtones for free using iTunes

It's Christmas so here's a little gift for you. This is a step-by-step tutorial showing you how to make your own iPhone ringtones for free, meaning you don;t have to pay over the odds prices for expensive ringtone in the iTunes store. All you need is iTunes and your music library.

The tutorial was written on a Mac and the screengrabs refer to a machine running OS 10.6.2 but it's a very similar process for Windows users. You can view the images over on Flickr here. You should also be able to see full size images there if you need them. I start with the presumption tht most people will have their music library setup as .MP3 files. If your music library is mainly .AAC files then this tutorial is not for you. The same method can be employed but there is an extra level of complexity involved which involves converting files to any other format

And so, on we go...

Step 1

Open iTunes


Step 2

First thing we need to do is setup iTunes. Go to Preferences. On Windows, select Edit. On Mac select iTunes or hold "cmd+,"


Step 3

A pop-up should have opened on the "General" tab. Navigate down to the "import Settings"


Step 4

We need to make sure that files will be imported and encoded as .AAC files (Apple's preferred format for the iTunes store). Make sure the "Import Using" field reads "AAC Encoder" - the "Setting" field can be a number of different settings but the "iTunes Plus" setting is a decent enough quality setting for a ringtone. Select OK and go back to iTunes main dashboard


Step 5

Find a song in your library that you want to turn into a ringtone. Right click the track and select "Get Info" (Mac keyboard shortcut: "cmd+I")


Step 6

A popup should open


Step 7

Select the "Options" tab and pay attention to the "Start Time" and "Stop Time" fields


Step 8

Ringtones can be up to 30 seconds in length. In the "Start Time" and "Stop Time" fields enter the time frame from your song of choice and ensure the boxes to the left are ticked. I've just selected the first 30 seconds of your chosen song but you can pick the middle or the end - whatever you like. Select "OK"


Step 9

Back at the main iTunes interface, right-click on your track and select "Create AAC Version". iTunes will now create a 30 second (or whatever time frame you selected) version of the track in the .AAC file format


Step 10

After a few seconds you should see two versions of your track in the iTunes library - one for each file format. The new file will be smaller in file size and shorter in length

Step 11

Right-click on the new .AAC file and select "Show in Finder". There should be a similar command in the menu for Windows machines.


Step 12

There should new be two copies of the file on your machine, with the one you want being highlighted. They should be distinguishable by their file extension. We are looking for the .m4a file


Step 13

Select the file name as we are going to edit the extension. Mac users can just press "Enter"


Step 14

Change the .m4a file type to .m4r


Step 15

You may get a popup at this point, asking if you want to change the file type - which you do!


Step 16

Now, import the new file into iTunes by either dragging or double clicking. The file should now appear and the file kind will read as "Ringtone". Drag the file onto you iPhone or select it as a file to be synched when your iPhone is connected


Step 17

That should be it! You might want to do a little bit of house-keeping by going back to the original .MP3 and going into it's "Options" tab and deselect the "Start Time" and "Stop Time". If you donlt do this, you iTunes libraary will only ever play the selected file as an abridged version!


Hope that was easy to follow. Go and have fun

Merry Christmas!

What Spotify could do with...

I am of the humble opinion that Spotify is a great service. Decent quality streamable music on demand with adequate range of artists to please most people. An extra 43,000 tracks were added this week). It has a very simple service with clean and easy controls that ape the ubiquitous iTunes interface making it an attractive piece of software for newcomers. It's also got a range of price points from free to £9.99 per month to have the ad-free service.

However, it is far from perfect and needs to do more in order to convince this user that it can justify the premium price. One of the things that Spotify does very well is its playlist sharing feature. You can do in Spotify what users of iTunes have been doing for years - creating the perfect mix of tunes for a given mood or situation - but it improves on the Apple service in that it lets you take that playlist and share it with friends. Now you can legally share tunes with your friends online in such a way that alleviates any guilt associated with piracy.

Creating the perfect playlist can be a time consuming experience: finding the right compositional balance of tunes, sequencing the music appropriately, working with self-imposed 'rules'*, etc. It is very easy to get sidetracked whilst you plough through your music catalogue.

Using iTunes to create playlists is pretty hassle free. Using Spotify to create playlists is also hassle free. I've made iTunes playlists for several years now and have a quite a few that I'd like to share but that isn't really practical with iTunes. Sure, you can create an iMix but that involves your friends having to buy tunes to hear your creation. Plus, if Apple doesn't have all the artists in their store then your playlist can be decimated. Along comes Spotify to fix this problem. Except it doesn't.

If you want to share that playlist that you've created in iTunes, you have to manually search, find, drag and drop all the tunes you want in Spotify. As we've already established, this can be time-consuming, and not something you want to repeat after having already done that same process in another peice of software. One thing Spotify could do to improve the overall experience would be to add an import playlist feature. iTunes does enable you to export your playlist to a text file. If only Spotify could import that file and save you the hassle of having to do it manually.

I'm not sure that this one minor improvement would convince me to pay for the premium Spotify service but it would certainly help eat into my iTunes loyalty. The video below shows you how to create and share a playlist with your friends. If you haven't already done this then give it a go. It's free and easy. It just might not be fast.

How to create and share playlists from Spotify on Vimeo.

* I have an irrational tendency to enforce a strict 'one track per artist only' rule. This causes me many problems - all of my own making.

iTunes: The song could not be played because the original file could not be found

This morning I awoke to an iTunes nightmare, one which has happened to me a few times before and one that has caused me to lose whole days trying to fix in the past. The problem goes like this:

• Boot up iTunes
• Select some tunes to play only to see an exclamation mark beside the track name
• A dialogue box appears telling me that the song could not be played because the original file could not be found. I've added a screen shot below (click through for full screen):

I scanned through the rest of my library and little exclamation marks popped up everywhere.

Now I have a library of over 25,000 tracks the vast majority of which were missing. If you only have a few tracks missing then, okay, you can merely locate each individual track by double clickiing it and locating the file in Explorer/Finder which shouldn't take you too long. However, 25,000+ tracks is a serious time suck.

I will detail an easy solution to this problem in a moment, but before I do that I will detail exactly what happened.

It seems like iTunes had took it upon itself to create a subfolder within my user designated music folder and was only looking in there for my music, hence it couldn't see the larger library - see the image below:

iTunes had created a new directory at D:\My iTunes\iTunes Music when it should have been D:\My iTunes\ as it had been 24 hours prior. You can find where iTunes stores your music by hitting [ctrl+,] on a PC or [⌘+,] on a Mac. Alternatively click Edit - Preferences - Advanced - General.

I have only recently just reinstalled XP on my office desktop, cleaned up all my files and created multiple partitions - one for system files and programmes, one for data, and one specifically for music in the event that if something went wrong on one, the others would be fine.

Solution

My solution to this nightmare was rather straightforward. I've learned from previous mistakes you see. In the past I had been told in the Apple forums (by some noob!) to select all my files in iTunes and hit delete, then reimport them again (be selecting File - Add Folder to Library). Be warned, this is a laborious process which takes an age and also erases all your ratings, playlists, and sometimes even your ID tags. Not ideal. Apple have a related article on their support site which advises similar, but is more a touch more cautious and involves the import command.

Other solutions I have seen involve hunting down your iTunes Library.itl file and rebooting iTunes by clicking on its icon (either in XP's Quicklaunch Toolbar or from OSX's Dock) whilst holding down the Shift key. You can then point iTunes to the library file. This solution only works if that file is intact and not corrupted in any way. It is a good idea to make regular backups of your important files - I have a folder set up in which I keep a weekly backup of the iTunes Library.itl file in the directory above my iTunes folder (see below):

This has saved my music collection a few times and I can't recommend it enough! It's well worth backing this file up to an external source somewhere too, in case you have a total hard drive failure.

Anyway, like I said, my solution to restoring my iTunes collection was pretty straightforward. I selected Preferences - Advanced - General, changed the location of my iTunes Music Folder back to where it should have been (D:\My iTunes in this specific instance) and iTunes automatically did the rest. I had to do a quick scan through the library to see if there were any outstanding exclamation marks or duplicate files, which took a few minutes.

There were between 10-15 tracks which did just seem to have vanished from my hard drive, for which I have no explanation. As I said above, it is good practice to regularly backup files - I use the free version of SyncBackSE from 2BrightSparks to schedule a regular backup of my music to an external drive. It's easy to use and a godsend. It was a simple matter of dragging files from my external to the correct location on my internal with iTunes open - they played straight away.

I did notice some other strange behaviour within iTunes' preferences. I always have iTunes make a copy of the music it imports into my music folder but this option had been disabled - see below:

I have no idea how or why all this happened but I'm glad I spotted it as files recently imported from utorrent had stayed on my E: drive which I usually erase very frequently. I did recently uninstall Adobe CS3 using a WinCS3Clean Script before reinstalling. I have had a few system problems since then, notabley utorrent reporting its inability to downloadsome files (error: requested operation cannot be performed on file with user-mapped section open).

Problems like this are few and far between but they do happen (too often!) and it makes me wonder why I persist with iTunes. However, being a PC and Mac owning household, the benefit of seamless file sharing from the PC into Front Row is just too good to give up on. I love being able to port my music around the house via the Macbook, connecting it up to any of the amps in the different rooms without having to clutter my smaller hard drive.

System: XP Pro SP3
Software: iTunes 7.7.1.11

If you've had similar nightmares, or if this advice has been of some help, be sure to let me know in the comments section.