Google Launching Music Service Without Labels 406
fysdt writes "Google Inc is set to launch an online music locker service to allow users to store and access their songs wherever they are, similar to one launched by Amazon.com Inc in March. And like the Amazon Cloud Drive player, Google music service is being introduced on Tuesday without any prior licensing deals with major music labels, following months of fruitless negotiations."
Can't wait to see the backlash.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is a "music label"? (Score:2)
Sorry but I have never heard of these "music labels", what are they? Does that have anything to do with the ID3 in the mp3? If so ID3 data indeed does have to be better coordinated, too many mp3's are mislabeled with completely wrong ID3 data. Multible song and lyrics versions and lyrics .lrc syncrhonization is just a complete mess because there is no proper ID3 data standards, especially when it come to multiple versions of the same song by the same artist. Perhaps by putting it all in a cloud and comp
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Re:Can't wait to see the backlash.... (Score:5, Insightful)
ever see a tv commercial for a dvd movie:
"own it on dvd today!"
their own words. in plain english.
(I rest my case)
Re:Can't wait to see the backlash.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"own it on dvd today!"
Technically, what you "own" in that description is the physical media.
So you're saying that "it" is the DVD. Fair enough. So you "own [the DVD] on dvd"?
No, it's perfectly obvious that the "it" in that advertising campaign refers to the information content, not the physical media it's stored on. That may not be what they mean, or even legally correct, but it is what they say.
Anyway, who cares about owning a (non-recordable) DVD, apart from the included content? Would you pay $20 for a DVD without knowing what information it contained (if any)? It only makes sense for the subject of the advertisement to be the content, not the media.
Lawsuit in 321... (Score:2)
Re:Lawsuit in 321... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're overestimating the music industry; while I'm sure that no one wants a long, drawn out lawsuit, Google sees about twice as much revenue than the entire recording industry*. (Plus, they've got a business model that doesn't revolve around suing their users.) I'm not sure that the RIAA's lawyers would be too eager to sue Google; it's easy to arm-twist a $2000 settlement out of a college kid, and if one or two of them do end up going to court, the RIAA can certainly outlast any private individual. However, suing someone bigger than you, who has an experienced in-house legal team, is a whole different ballgame.
* Gotta back up my claims. For the sake of this argument, "the record industry" doesn't contain indie labels; they are too fragmented to coordinate their power. That leaves us with:
Sony Music Entertainment [wikipedia.org]: $1.33 billion
Universal Music Group [wikipedia.org]: $6.14 billion
Warner Music Group [wikipedia.org]: $3.49 billion
EMI [wikipedia.org]: $1.65 billion
versus
Google [wikipedia.org]: $29.32 billion
(all values USD, anual revenue, as listed on Wikipedia)
Re:Lawsuit in 321... (Score:5, Insightful)
Marvelous. Buying the law.
The future of music, with music labels crushed and Google dictating how musicians are paid, is bright.
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Re:Lawsuit in 321... (Score:4, Insightful)
As opposed to the present, with the public being crushed and the labels dictating how musicians are paid?
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In Soviet Russia, the joke gives YOU up.
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Marvelous. Buying the law.
The future of music, with music labels crushed and Google dictating how musicians are paid, is bright.
I'd rather Google decide how musicians are paid than have labels dictate that they aren't.
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I'm repeated surprised by how I'll say something like "Google will control X!" and people do not immediately disagree, saying "Google won't control X!"
No, they immediately accept my frame and then actively defend the idea of a multi-billion dollar advertising company controlling content, and how this is the the right and true and good outcome, and how we'll all be so much happier when the company that records our searches and history, maps our location and snoops our wifi makes it impossible for anybody to
Re:Lawsuit in 321... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Google dictating how musicians are paid
Welcome to the world 99% of the other wage-slaves have to deal with. Do you think WE get to tell our bosses how/when we wish to be paid? Of course not. The corporation dictates how laborers get paid, and there's no reason to think Musicians, Actors, Authors, etc should be any different. I figure in the future they'll all be paid by the Hour, rather than per sale.
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"Marvelous. Buying the law.
The future of music, with music labels crushed and Google dictating how musicians are paid, is bright."
I really don't understand how you got from Point a to point b?
How will this crush the music labels? Or even effect them at all?
I buy my music from Amazons MP3 store or I buy a CD. So the label and artist are paid. I rip my CDs and put them on my phone and my ipod touch now. Which is all fine since I have paid for the music. Now I can copy them to Google so I do not have worry abo
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Re:wants a long, drawn out lawsuit (Score:2)
Ooh! I do! I want to see Google vs the **AA and affiliates! Nice and drawn out!
Then we can make a movie about it! It will be free with signup to Gmail!
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If Google was stealing from you, would you not enlist the forces of the government in getting your property back?
And if you were a big company used to suing children for the content of their college funds, but saw a giant pot of money trundling along the horizon doing exactly the same thing those children were doing, could you avoid drooling?
If Google is doing anything infringing, the RIAA will peel them like a baggie of crystal meth, and the sound they make on the way to the courthouse will set off car al
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You do realize that all of those companies are owned by much larger parent companies don't you?
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Yes, they make less money, but they have a lot more money to throw at lawyers and lobbyists than Google does. The record groups also have been in business with doing DRM for over a century.
They've been doing Digital Rights Management for over a century? Was there really that much music on punched cards? (ignoring paper tape fed pianos)
They've had very little Analog Rights Management in the past - I've made copies of records and over-the-air broadcasts in the past. And I never got sued for making a mix tape for a friend. The earliest DRM that I've been exposed to was the SCMS copy protection on DAT drives which came out sometime in the late 80's, early 90's.
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It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. You're right, of course, about the recording industry being willing to throw a higher percentage of their revenue towards lawsuits than Google; however, I don't think Google's going to just back down on this one. They are heavily invested in seeing "the cloud" take off, and a music locker is an important first step towards not only the technical aspect of this, but also the more-difficult behavior-shifting aspect of it. Google wants to kill your PC, replace it
Personal host cloud host (Score:2)
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Can other people see my music?
Then how will the RIAA know what I have there, what is the basis for the subpoena?
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Only people with something to hide would hide something.
Hey this Koan thing is fun...
Re:Personal host cloud host (Score:4, Interesting)
Can other people see my music?
Then how will the RIAA know what I have there, what is the basis for the subpoena?
Also, how will the RIAA know when you obtained the pirated music? The statute of limitations clock in many cases is pinned to the last infringing act - so not only would they have to prove you had the files and obtained the music files through copyright infringement, they would have to prove that they were still inside the statute of limitations (three years for civil suits, five for criminal), which means proving you downloaded the music or shared it with someone else during a specific period of time.
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The statute of limitations clock in many cases is pinned to the last infringing act - so not only would they have to prove you had the files and obtained the music files through copyright infringement, they would have to prove that they were still inside the statute of limitations (three years for civil suits, five for criminal), which means proving you downloaded the music or shared it with someone else during a specific period of time.
You clearly made a copy when you put it on this new Google Service so that would be the most recent infringement date. Not only did you make a copy, you clearly distributed it (albeit to yourself).
--
JimFive
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Re:lace up your boots and hold on tight, slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
From trustworthy to antitrust-worthy (Score:2)
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Than again, I'll laugh for several minutes when Google shows them how to actually protect on-line content.
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Thats honestly the society you want to live in?
No, but it's the society I do live in.
Captain McCallister sez (Score:2)
yar, there be drama afoot
They don't need labels... (Score:2, Funny)
...If Google becomes the label. If Google can do what MySpace succeeded at, which is become the home for small artists, Google may be onto something. They can go a step further and become the label, offering video and audio hosting, a store and perhaps even CD printing through suppliers. Bands would upload to Google rather than MySpace or with an independent label. It would be a natural extension to the service provider portfolio, Picassa, Docs, Voice, Apps etc.
If not, expect a legal creampie with only the
Legal creampie (Score:4, Funny)
Apologies for this expression I just Googled it and regret my wording.
Just meant to imply it would be a massive orgy of corporate interests and expensive litigation.
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Apologies for this expression I just Googled it and regret my wording.
Just meant to imply it would be a massive orgy of corporate interests and expensive litigation.
Dude, I just GIS'd 'massive orgy' to clarify your implication in the argument above. It was no improvement over 'creampie'.
I look forward to your 'Rusty Venture' metaphor.
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Well that's okay, just so long as you don't Google "google" -- you'll crash the whole internet.
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Given that this is largely uncharted legal territory, I'd say that Barely Legal Creampie is a more accurate term. And surely such a term will result in less titillating search results!
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I don't get the creme pie joke...?
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It sounded like Google was able to secure licensing deals from several labels, they specifically called out independent labels as being easy to work with, but it sounds like Sony and Universal refused to come to terms.
Clearly, this is not the music service Google wanted to offer. And Google director of content partnerships Zahavah Levine -- who led the company's negotiations with the major labels -- made it clear who she feels is to blame.
"We've been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results," she told Billboard the night before the announcement was made. "[But] a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms."
Sources tell Billboard that Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group proved the bottlenecks in this case. Google wanted to offer a scan-and-match style locker service -- where instead of uploading different copies of the same track to store in a locker for each users, the service would scan users' libraries and match the songs they own to a centralized server, paying rightsholders for each stream. Without the rights to do so, the message from Google is clear -- either get on board or we'll move on without you.
"A large segment of the music industry worked cooperatively and was extremely helpful sorting out the issues of online licensing," she said, giving particular credit to the independent label and publishing communities.
But the same article also explicitly says they're launching without any licensing deals at all. It looks like Sony and Universal torpedoed the boat for everyone.
Requires Flash (Score:3, Interesting)
From the system requirements [google.com] : "The latest version of Adobe Flash Player must be installed and enabled in your browser (Flash is included with Google Chrome)."
So it's going to be a non-starter for a lot of devices including of course iOS devices but a lot of others too. So right of the bat they go out of their way to alienate literally millions of potential users. Not a good way to dive into a market that has a lot of big players going into it including Amazon and potentially Apple who are rumored, as they always are, to be working on something similar.
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I wouldn't be too alarmed. I'm sure an iOS App will be forthcoming to replace any lost Flash functionality. If not they risk losing the entire block of iOS users when Apple releases its own cloud service.
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... unless Apple decides not to approve the app.
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Yes, but for now the only way to access the service is to have a supported Android device or a Flash-enabled device. It's odd that a web company like Google would deliberately limit its service like that when using pure HTML5 technologies would have provided a much larger potential audience, including mobile devices for which there might not be any apps developed. Amazon's Cloud Player [pcworld.com] for example does work on iOS devices and that's their largest competitor for now.
Vorbis or AAC? (Score:2)
It's odd that a web company like Google would deliberately limit its service like that when using pure HTML5 technologies would have provided a much larger potential audience
HTML5 relies on the codecs present in the end user's web browser. Browsers included with an operating system support only patented MPEG codecs; other browsers support only Free codecs. Do you expect Google to transcode all uploads between Vorbis and AAC?
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Considering that one can make an app in flash and use AIR to deliver apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry, I'm sure it's only a matter of days until such apps will pop up in the app stores.
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So it's going to be a non-starter for a lot of devices including of course iOS devices but a lot of others too.
It's a non-starter anyway. When you put your phone into your pocket, is the browser going to stay open and keep playing the music?
They'll just make an iOS app, not a BFD.
Free storage! (Score:2)
Patiently awaiting a clever hack that will allow storing any data there instead of just music. :)
Documents in MP3 wrapper? 50Gb free storage anywhere? Sweet
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Google already offers storage at 20GB for $5/yr; 80GB for $20.
Is it really worth the trouble?
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I'd be surprised if it actually stores the file you upload to it. Or if you even upload it (I haven't RTFA). Otherwise they would have so much data to store and duplicate files for the same song. I suppose Google can afford it.
I would design it so that it merely identifies the song (locally or remotely) and then adds a standard version of that song to your account. No need to store anything. Everyone uses the same file on the Google server. That's probably how Spotify works when you add your MP3s.
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But then how would they be able to serve me the songs I've manipulated aurally but not identificationally?
They'd have to hash the recorded content of every upload to create a proper database without duplicates. I bet that's easy on the server.
Re:Free storage! (Score:4, Funny)
Google has a ticket open.
This can only mean one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has been negotiating with the music publishers and the negotiations were described as "fruitless." This can only mean that the music industry wanted payment for every time a user plays music that he already paid for and Google didn't want to allow it.
So, in the end, we will see this service become popular and the industry will challenge this in court initially seeking injunctive relief and eventually "performance royalties" among other damages.
I, of course, anxiously await the legal tangle. Google is a hero for many here on Slashdot for various reasons. I still see them as a marketing company with their own angle and interests at heart, but I do appreciate the fact they are willing to fight for their cause rather than simply roll over and pay people just to stay out of court.
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Liability Tranfered with EULA (Score:3)
If you look at the Amazon EULA it squarely transfers the liability to the customer. One would assume Google would do the same thing. The customer attests they have the legal right to store and stream the music in "teh Cloud".
Steam or BNet 2.0 (Score:2)
Basically will you create something new and dangerous to the old publishers that will corner the ma
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Funny)
Difference between iTunes and (Score:2)
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
If DJs use poor-quality encodes of tracks in your world, I don't want to live there.
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I think the music on youtube and other video sites sounds just fine. Not CD quality, but better than the FM Radio I typically listen to.
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes, because attaching yourself to the money train like some cambrian leech is the mark of genius.
I'd rather actually achieve something meaningful with my life. I never said Microsoft was unprofitable, just that it's products and achievements are lackluster and uninspiring. Brilliant people (usually) want to do brilliant, visionary, and new things. That hasn't been happening at Microsoft in...well, ever really. There's a few projects you could argue aimed for that, but I can't think of any that achieved
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If every big player launches its own service, Apple's victory is assured through market fragmentation.
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There was one, unified alternative to Apple - The PC. It wasn't 7 different companies all trying to convince users that they are the best, and that the user should take massive pains to migrate from iTunes.
That's another key difference. 90%+ of potential customers today are already using iTunes, so Amazon/Google/etc. has to convince people to leave all the music that they may have purchased in a protected format behind, and start over with them.
I don't see it.
iTunes Plus (Score:2)
Amazon/Google/etc. has to convince people to leave all the music that they may have purchased in a protected format
Whether that's an easy sell or hard sell depends on how many people used iTunes Store for the first time after the first quarter of 2009, when Apple introduced DRM-free "iTunes Plus" music downloads.
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That's another key difference. 90%+ of potential customers today are already using iTunes, so Amazon/Google/etc. has to convince people to leave all the music that they may have purchased in a protected format behind, and start over with them.
Are you sure about that 90% figure? I know lots of people that don't use iTunes.
I for one would love to have an online music service that lets me upload my (large) existing collection of CD's (preferably with a "virtual" upload so I don't have to actually transfer the same bits to google that they already have), *and* that lets me play it through a Roku type appliance (Google TV?) through my TV sound system, as well as my Android phone. Ideally, I'll also have access to my music through my 3G (LTE?) enabled
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
>>>remember when they had a 90+% hold on the PC market? ...Amiga, Commodore and IBM and the rest fractured the market.
There was never a time when Apple held that high share. The #1 selling computer of the late 1970s was the Tandy-Randy Shack 80 (TRS-80). In 1982 Atari 400/800 briefly held the crown. From 1983-86 the Commodore 64 dominated the market. And then finally the IBM PC/clones (1987 to present).
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I think he's talking about profit.
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It's rumored Apple bought the "iCloud" [appleinsider.com] domain name to do this sort of thing. We'll have to wait and see though, Apple traditionally sucks at doing web based stuff.
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Interesting)
Where's MP3.com right now? They tried this 10 years ago [wikipedia.org], and got shot down in court. What's different now?
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's MP3.com right now? They tried this 10 years ago [wikipedia.org], and got shot down in court. What's different now?
I think the difference is that Google has unlimited money for legal defense.
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
There isn't any useful president from the mp3.com case because a "music locker" requires that people rip & upload the songs themselves, meaning it'll go into a long legal fight, and google has far more money than the labels.
In fact, if any label gets too uppity, google can simply buy them outright or coerce their owners. Warner Music's entire market cap is only $1.22B, meaning google could easily just buy them outright and terminate the upper management, legal team, etc. All the others are small subsidiaries inside much large companies that might see little benefit in tangling with Google.
I doubt EMI's owner Citigroup would tangle with Google, even though their market cap is 129B. Any bank likes keeping rich people happy. If they did, I'm sure google could launch a hedge fund to poach Citigroup's best quantitative analysis, then let the rest of the financial industry eat them alive. Sony and Vivendi (UMG) have market caps of 29B and 23B, respectively. I'd imagine their less vulnerable to talent poaching than Citigroup too, but you might still threaten some executive and board member positions by working through their larger stock holders.
A cheaper solution might just be threatening to provide lawyers for all the little people they've extorted money from by threatening to sue, a few $40k per year ambulance chasers could drag any label through thousands of expensive lawsuits for years.
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We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States.
Looks like I'll have to continue relying on The Pirate Bay for my music.
Actually, I'm kidding. Everything on my computer is legal, from the OS (Kubuntu) to every last file. Abstinence has been working fine for me.
Re:Licensing (Score:4, Informative)
Presumably they have a legal opinion that they don't need a license to do this. In the US, fair use says you can copy your owned music to other media. That's not true in all countries.
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Actually, there's an existing legal opinion that they can't do this.
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Probably because they've only looked deeply into US copyright law and precedents, despite the US' best efforts there's not one world law. Europe for example is still two dozen sets of laws, despite the EU constitution and common EU directives. It's a huge market to launch in, this isn't like Spotify starting in Scandinavia. If this is a hit it'll quickly be worldwide I think.
Re:Licensing (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, if by "worldwide" you mean UK, France, Germany, Austrialia, Germany.
Google is a US company that offers all of their services in the US and only search, maps, and mail outside the US. They do offer some extra services to other countries, especially UK, but they don't really care about the rest of the world.
It's a shame, but that's how it works for us non-Americans. Especially people from the third world like myself. I'm tired of getting snail-mail spam from google, for $50 worth of Adsense, and not be able to get, say, Google Voice. Or Local (even though google really wants my location in my android phone). Or any other service really.
Sure, they claim there are licensing issues, local laws, etc. That's all bullshit. It's simple: they're US based, and the US market is so big there is no need to expand to the rest of the world.
I don't expect to see this service enabled for any country south of the equator, except Australia.
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they don't really care about the rest of the world.
Since you have access to search, you can find their SEC filings: Half of their revenue is from outside the USA.
The rest of the world is where the real competitors and the real growth opportunities are. Google can't grow much in search/ads (i.e. make more money) in the USA, because they already have most of the market that would use them. In Russia, there is lots of money to be made by out-competing Yandex. Yahoo Japan has plenty of market-share, and Google is not stupid enough to not improve search to t
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Blah, blah, I'm still waiting for other services. Like Voice, for starters.
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Because cloud computing is the future!!!! Buy into their marketing and buzzwords or be left behind!
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I already copied my favorite tunes to my Android phone and, since I carry it with me everywhere, I already have convenient access to my music wherever I am -- even if I don't have a 3G signal. Why would I want to move those files from my SD card to the cloud? So I can experience the frustration that goes with not getting a 3G signal at my work nor at my home? F that.
You're walking quickly along the city street. A bus veers off and runs over you, causing serious injury and turning your phone into a bunch of dust. You are transferred to the local ER and saved (at no small expense, this is the US) by the dedicated hospital staff. You are upstairs on the ward with a morphine drip in your arm, dazed and confused. You look around for your trusty phone. It's gone. You wonder what to do - the only other source of distraction is your 88 year old demented roommate who has
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A lot of people will really appreciate this service. I'm one. As a DJ I have a lot of backups of important music files and hard drives, records etc etc. Now I
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I take it you don't have a very extensive music collection, if it will all fit on one single phone.
How many CDs? (Score:2)
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Maybe it's just not for you. Maybe it's for somebody like me who has multiple computers and would like a centralized repository for the music so I'm not trying to sync across all three machines.
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man, sucks to be you
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Sadly not fully sensible: when viewing only a single comment, any click on a comment opens up the previously collapsed parent, and this goes on until all comments are expanded. Incredibly annoying...
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+1
I'm not sure what interaction benefit the 'click to open parent' gives. If you click a link on an already visible post, it may or may not follow the link. Or it might do some silly un-collapsing thing.
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It's not may or may not, it's definitely 'not follow link'. If I want to see the parent, I'll click on the header, thank you very much.
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triple annoying when said behavior ALSO SCROLLS YOU TO THE TOP OF THE FUCKING THREAD and applies to clicks INSIDE A FUCKING EDIT BOX in which you're' composing a reply, causing it to scroll about a light-year below the bottom of the screen with every click
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I cannot use my mouse in the text boxes, when I click it takes me to the top of the page.
I cannot see the moderation on comments until at least plus 4. So -1 thru 3 says nothing beside the comment unless its been modded up and then down.
It takes about a week and a half to preview the comments. (Quad core, 8 gb ram, and 12mbps down on the net verified in multiple ways. I have also tried many different browsers and other computers, oses, and internet connections... Its not my end)
The QOTD at the bottom of
Damned if you do... (Score:2)
I wonder if the same "logic" will apply to the app stores. Up until now every time an Android story comes up someone posts about how "it's the apps stupid" and goes on about how iOS is the best because it has the most apps. Well Android passed iOS in the num