iTunes 7 ate all my purchased music. Awesome.

iTunes 7 is out, and it looks great. It also shared two facts with me that I could have lived without knowing: Nelly Furtado is apparently a promiscuous girl, and not only was sexy missing, but it's been left to Justin Timberlake to bring it back. Great.

Also, the new features in iTunes 7 are really cool . . . if only they fucking worked. I connected my iPod to my laptop just now (with manual management turned on, so it doesn't automatically change my settings or music), and suddenly all of my iTunes Music Store purchases vanished. I can't even synch it to the machine I used to buy those songs, because it's in for service. It also tells me, when I try to authorize the damn machine, that I've authorized five of five machines, even though I deauthoried my old laptops when they were sent back for upgrades. Of course, I don't have access to those machines any longer, so I can't confirm that the deauthorization actually happened, or try to deauthorize them again. So. Totally. Awesome. GregN pointed me to this Apple Help document that shows how to deauthorize all your computers with one click presumably for instances exactly like this one. Thanks, GregN! So. Totally. Awesome!

I love my iPod, and I love all of my Macs, but I've grown to absolutely detest Apple's DRM, and I don't think I'll buy songs from the iTMS in the future, because even though I've given them a dump truck of money in the last year or so, I currently have nothing to show for it except frustration and several empty playlists. E-mails to Apple's iTunes Music Store customer support have never been answered in the past (they still owe me a song from an album I bought last year that didn't download,) so I currently have little recourse or opportunity to get my problems addressed. Great job, Apple! You're taking fantastic care of your customers.

Speaking of music, everyone in the world knows Soft Cell's Tainted Love and Sex Dwarf, but how come we never hear Mug's Game anymore? That's the first Soft Cell song I heard, and remains my all-time favorite.

Oh! Bonus! iTunes is trying to work its way back into my good graces and just decided to play Love Will Tear Us Apart, which brings up another point I've been meaning to make: Interpol and She Wants Revenge should just embrace it, and do some Joy Division covers. We all know what's going on anyway, guys, and it would rule. I'll buy one of your CDs when you do it, but not from the bullshit iTunes Music Store, that's for sure.

Update: Yes, I should backup all of my music, and I have (except for recent purchases) and it's entirely my fault for not making some directory-wide backup. That doesn't make the annoyance of not having access to music I paid for less annoying, because if this is a bug, it's a pretty big one that certainly should have been caught before iTunes 7 was made available to download.

Though the company was unresponsive last time I contacted them about an iTunes Music Store purchase issue, I've sent e-mail to support on this issue, too. However, I'd like to point out that I'm mostly venting here about an instance where DRM created a problem for me, and don't expect Apple to treat me any differently than they'd treat any other customer. It also looks like this made the front page at Digg. Hi Digg. I'm a Digger, too. Welcome. This is, uh, a little more attention than I wanted.

Oh, and for anyone who was wondering, I tried to reverse the polarity on my iPod, as well as modify the navigational deflector on my Powerbook, without any success. I can't find the isolinear optical chips, so I haven't been able to mess with them, yet.

Update Update: I identified this as a DRM issue because the only files that disappeared were ones that had DRM on them. After a day's worth of reflection, however, it's more accurate to identify it as a backup issue -- which has sort of been addressed by the backup your whole library feature in the new version of iTunes. I'm still not crazy about DRM, and I don't like anything that restricts what I can do with what I purchase, but that's an argument that's been run into the ground forever, so on that subject, I'll just say "Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others!"

Comments

[Radiofreewill]

At least it recognizes your iPod; I had to go back to 6.0.5 just to be able to synch.

[TwinFeats]

I agree - DRM is just not a good idea, if for no other reason that it is too easy to circumvent. My kids and I purchase songs from iTunes store as well as audio books from Audible.com. The first thing I always do is fire up Audio Hijack and make them regular MP3 files (let's not get into a holy war over the quality of re-encoding already encoded files, they sound just fine to me, thanks). I don't do this in order to give them away, I do it for MY convenience. Wake up retailers, DRM is a waste of time, effort, and money.

[KeithD]

I stil prefer to buy the CDs. Yeah, they're more expensive, but when my Mac up and dies, I still have my discs. And I love the packaging. Very anti-environmental, I know.

[ttrentham]

That sucks.

I've had a couple of posts on this over the last few years. I still can't get with buying music online, especially not from iTunes. I've only done it once or twice.

I went and picked up the new Mars Volta yesterday and I bought the CD from Best Buy, not iTunes for reasons such as this. At least if I rip it myself, I have two copies, the CD and the mp3s, three when my PC gets backed up.

[adi]

I had to re-authorize my computer by clicking Store > Authorize Computer.

Sounds retarded to have to do, but it worked for me.

[Joe]

iTunes is like a strip club minus the strippers. Sure, you can have a song for a buck, but you can't ever touch anything. Once you leave the club, you leave the song behind.

[posiegirl]

I think it's pretty ridiculous that iTunes can save the amount of $$ you have left from a gift card in your account, but can't save the music you've purchased in there too -- it would be great for cases like this, where you've changed computers and perhaps lost some mp3s.

[BadBlood]

Wil,

Check out:

http://hymn-project.org/

Removes Apple's DRM from your iTunes purchases.

[Clay]

At least the upgrade WORKED on the Mac. Which it did on my Mac. But on my PC, I can't even get it to load anymore. It quits with an unexpected error and no further information.

I live close enough to drive to Cupertino and punch Steve Jobs in the head if you'd like.

Clay

[valerie]

a Mug's Game! I haven't thought about that song in years. I missed it and didn't even know it.

[CarolP]

I always wondered what would happen if I downloaded stuff from iTunes and then my computer crashed and the files were damaged or disappeared. Could I get them back? Now that I know, I'm glad I never went this route. Sorry, Wil. That sucks.

[Adam875]

The easiest way around the DRM (and to take the music when you "leave the club") is to burn an audio CD and re-rip it in a format your non-iPod player understands (MP3 or what have you). You've also got a backup then.

Does anyone else just find iTunes 7 plain ugly? And slow? I feel like I'm supposed to go buy an Intel Mac now just to catch up. I love Apple in generally, and I understand the music business' perceived need for DRM, but why would they take away the ability to view my whole library at once? Why is it baby blue? Why is there no choice?

[CarolP]

sooooooooooo rigged!

[GregN]

Yeah - if you connect your iPod to a Mac other than the one you originally used to load your music with, you are asked if you want to Erase and Sync, Transfer Purchases, or Cancel. It sounds like you did the first one, and lost any music that wasn't on your laptop. At least iTunes 7 lets you transfer purchased music to another computer if you've authorized that computer, which wasn't an option with prior versions of iTunes.
When you get your other machine back (assuming the hard drive hasn't been erased), you should be able to plug your iPod in and choose "Erase and Sync" and get all your music back, including your purchased tracks.
This is all because the record labels didn't want people to load up their iPods, connect them to their friends' computers, and copy all the songs to their friends computers.
DRM is a pain, but Apple's was among the least restrictive when it was introduced. Not sure if other DRM schemes have loosened up to be more like Apple's or not.
I think the DRM issues are what will impede the new Movie store part of the iTunes Store. It's one thing to have to deal with DRM issues on something that you buy for 99 cents and can burn to CD; it's another thing to spend $15 on a movie and deal with the even more restrictive DRM. I'm not too keen on spending almost as much as a DVD for sub DVD quality, and far more restrictive playback terms than a DVD.

[LucyJane]

I've found iTunes will clear out your purchased music folder whenever you reinstall , but the files themselves will still be on the computer; but I haven't tried version 7 yet. I'm almost afraid to now.

[GregN]

One more thing - you can deauthorize all your computers at one fell swoop, then reauthorize each computer you actually have/use. See here for details:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93014

[todd]

wil - if you haven't gotten this fixed email me, I'll hook you up with a real person at Apple that should be able to help you.

[Mr. Wright]

Gotta be honest...I haven't bought a single song from iTunes Music Store since I found www.allofmp3.com...it's amazing.
Prior to finding AllofMP3 I purchased $500 worth of songs from iTunes in less than 6 months...but you can't beat the prices that legal loopholes bring.

[Mike Cohen]

I found out about that the hard way when I had to have the motherboard replaced in my old PowerBook G4. When I sold it and bought my MacBook Pro I made sure I deauthorized it first. You can only use 'deauthorize all' once a year, so choose wisely.

Have you tried 'check for purchases' in the store menu? It should re-download any purchased songs that are missing.

I've started buying my music from eMusic since they don't use any DRM. Unfortunately their selection is pretty limited.

[Shadowtwin]

Such problems are the reason that I still buy an actual cd and rip the things myself. I have lost entire libraries to pc (not mac) crashes and was never able to get the music back without purchasing it again. Until there is a reliable way to get back the music that you purchased legitimately, the illegitimate servers will continue to thrive.

[DJ-Panic]

dude, that sucks. I installed iTunes 7 as soon as I got home last night, and it worked flawlessly. Seems a little better performing to me, and the new gapless playback totally rocks. Hope you can get the issues straightend out man.

[K2]

Hmm.... Im hearing lots of stuff about 7... none of it good.

I've never had the problems being described, but I admit, I immediately rip to mp3 whenever I purchase music from ITMS.

[da5id]

This post has been entered on digg.

http://www.bendshire.com/index.php

Digg it to the front page.

[da5id]

Oops! Wrong link. My bad.

http://digg.com/software/Wil_Wheaton_Itunes_7_ate_my_purchased_music

[Jessika]

Someone above mentioned the Hymn project. On this page of the QTFairUse6 thread, there is a link to the latest update. You can remove the DRM from all your iTunes music. I've used this in the previous version of iTunes, and it works like a charm.