Sing ♫ Sing a Song ♪
I saw a meme this morning that said some version of …. You’ll pay $5 for a cup of coffee but you won’t pay $1 to support the artist behind a song you snatched.
Well, after spending an hour on the phone with Apple this morning, I’ll tell you why ….
First off, its not like you pay a buck and then you get to own the song in any kind of tangible form. Not like it was when you bought a viynl record, or an 8 track tape, or a cassette, or a CD … have I covered the age of media obsolescense yet? Today when you buy a “song” from one of the cloud kings you can only listen to the music with their propriatary back end, or front end, or bend over and let me kick your assets because we are going to make this as difficult as we can. On some monopoly mogals, you’ll need to authorize your computer to play the song … and you won’t be able to listen to the track unless you are on an authorized computer .. did I mention you can only authorize 1-3 computers and you can bet your bottom dogma that if your computer crashes and you buy a new laptop you won’t remember enough information about your cookie saved passwords to ever be able to gain access to your music library again.
I must say, the Apple agents this morning on the phone … for an hour … were kind and I could see their hands were tied with outdated and infective standard operating procedures. My problem was that I couldn’t log in to my iTunes account this morning … seemed simple enough, just ask the computer bots to send another password yes? Well no … because apparently my iTunes account which I created back in the EARLY days of my Academic Computing career, still had my now defunct academic email address. Though it claimed to also be linked to my current CoolKarma domain .. it failed to send me password notices. No problem .. Apple had a second way to get your information … just answer a security question. Okay! I got this, I have a list of my security quesitons and answers on file, besides that .. I KNOW WHO I AM and I can usually get these answers right even without studying for the exam. But … before you can answer your saved security tidbit, the computer bots want you to put in your birth date. Fail. I tried a few times .. but Apple insists I wasn’t born then and it couldn’t verify me enough to ask me my security questions for verification. Catch 22?
Turns out, helpful Apple agent confirms that a recent software update to the system caused about 90% of the people to fail their birth date data. So the problem was on their end. Good to know .. okay then, how can YOU help me get my password back, I can answer my security question for you …. Nope. Can’t do that. Why? Because in order for the agent to reset my password his manual says that I have to pass TWO security questions. But unfortunately their system only asks and maintains a single security question.
The plot thickens! Turns out I have TWO iTunes accounts … unfortunately neither of them has a working password. I asked them what they can do to help me access any of my purchased music that they were holding hostage (okay I didn’t use those exact words and in truth I was close to tears at the frustration and time it was taking to tell me I was shit out of luck). Multiple people got involved, supervisors where consulted .. my credit card informaiton was researched to show that yep indeed I did BUY two songs from The Voice last week (you know, I thought I was doing a GOOD THING to support the artist by buying them a cup of coffee .. oh wait did I mix that metaphore?)
At one point, they realized that because my account was SO OLD (thank you for reminding me) that my original iTunes account had an AIM account name associated with it. The theory was then if I changed my AIM account password, than automagically my iTunes would be released from library limbo. Good plan! I dug up my VERY OLD AIM account (raising my boyfriend’s suspician on why I had an AIM account that he didn’t know about … ) I was delighted that my old AOL account worked and I successfully changed my password to F*&K-U-iT&nes. But despite the promised magic of linked synchronization …. iTunes still wouldn’t let me IN.
The kind agent offered me his direct phone number, in the event I wanted to ever call him back and try again as I was now really was in tears and needed to go rest my dysfuntional body after a very unproductive morning.
For the record … all of the Studio Recordings for The Voice are available for FREE on YOUTUBE. The Voice officially puts them up there.
So now, I ask you … WHY do we pay for a cup of coffee and not our music? Because when we pay for a cup of coffee they actually HAND you a CUP OF COFFEE. They give you the cup and a lid and you can TAKE IT anywhere with you. You don’t have to go to an authorized booth, car or park bench. You can drink your coffee anywhere you want and you can even give your boyfriend a sip of your coffee, if he wasn’t already drinking a Monster, or Mountain Dew or some other artifically sweetened caffeine supplement.
To quote Carol Miller … “I have an announcement to make, after much heart felt deliberation I have decided to add another business to the Miller’s boycot list.” (CBS, The Millers Season 1 Episode 19 )
