iTunes Match
iTunes Match is immediately over-subscribed
November 14, 2011: 1:16 PM ETApple advises would-be users to come back in an hour
Source: Apple Inc.
Apple's (AAPL) iTunes Match service, which missed its October deadline, went live Monday morning and promptly became over-subscribed. Visitors were advised to come back in an hour. I'd give it a day or two.
The $24.99 per year service scans the music in your iTunes library and matches it to the music available on the iTunes store. Songs that don't match are automatically uploaded.
The idea is to let you play all of your music on any of your iOS devices. It has the added value of replacing low-quality songs ripped from a CD, borrowed from a friend or just ripped off from the Internet with pristine, unprotected (i.e. DRM-free) copies from Apple's servers.
As we noted when Steve Jobs unveiled the service last June, we can see the value for a one-year subscription, but it's not clear why the vast majority of users would ever want to re-up. See Apple offers pirates permanent amnesty for $24.99.
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Apple offers music pirates permanent amnesty for $24.99
Steve Jobs' master plan to draw a generation raised on stolen music into the iTunes store
Of the 5,364 items in my iTunes music library, 143 are songs I purchased on Apple's (AAPL) iTunes store. The vast majority were ripped from my old CD collection. A few were obtained by other means.
My children have even larger digital music collections that they store on iTunes and play on their Apple devices. I MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 7, 2011 7:16 AM ETPosted in: Digital Rights Management, iCloud, iTunes, iTunes in the Cloud, iTunes Match, iTunes Store, Microsoft, Music, Music library, Steve Jobs, Windows 7, WWDC
