Manipulators
This post is part praise, part cautionary tale. In short, I was able to get a reasonable response from Apple’s iTunes customer support when some of my iTunes Plus upgrades failed to download properly. However, there is some content that looks like it will not be upgraded–ever?
iTunes, at the beginning, had a controversial form of Digital Rights Management, called FairPlay. Personally, I thought it was one of the least restrictive and better working forms of DRM, but it wasn’t without its problems, and causes people to this day to remain weary of the iTunes store, despite the fact that they have gone DRM free for their music files. This change happened over a year ago, with the wide adoption of their iTunes Plus format–a format I am very happy with. Great quality music files, no DRM tangling up my enjoyment.
I recently combed through my rather extensive music collection, and I kept running into titles that still had DRM on them (AAC Protected, they are called). I emailed a list of most of these, cross-referenced with the order numbers from iTunes. Having to search and match order numbers to tracks is a mind-numbingly painful experience. Especially when the iTunes store tends to have an occasional fit where it bounces you offline, causing you to have to log in again.
The response was mostly helpful in tone: go do all the things the online documentation already told you to do. Otherwise, our servers report that all downloads happened successfully (They didn’t. I know what I’m doing… and why some tracks within an order downloaded and others didn’t is a bit of a mystery.). I replied that I tried all these things, and tacked on a few more orders I was able to look up in the meantime. They reauthorized me for download on most of these tracks. It took a while, but it was worth the hassle.
Now, the tracks that are still not iTunes Plus-ified… what of them? It looks like it’s not happening. From the email (emphasis mine):
I understand you were unable to find the missing upgrades using the directions I provided. I can certainly appreciate your concern and I am delighted to assist you with this today.
I have posted the missing orders to your account. Due to the length of time since these items were ordered, it was necessary to post the full orders back. The reason the items you listed that were not upgraded was because the versions you purchased are no longer available in the store.
Oh… but they are.
Case in point, Tom Waits, Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. Won’t be upgraded. Not sure the exact reason, but I think it’s because it was renamed to the simper (cleaner?) tile, “Orphans.” merely because an album name changed, or perhaps the record label changed hands, or any number of things that are out of my control, but should constitute the ability to download an upgrade to iTunes Plus files. I wanted to play the game, but for now I am stuck with substandard, protected files on a rather extensive investment in music.