Musician James Pinkstone was a new Apple Music user when he realised that 122GB of music was missing from his computer.
According to a long blogpost he published on Wednesday, Apple Music attempted to “match” his music with songs in its online library via a function called “iMatch”. It then, Pinkstone claims, deleted all 122GB of his original files – collected from CDs, bought, and even created himself over a lifetime – from his hard drive.
Luckily, Pinkstone was able to restore his library from a backup, but if what he says is true, it’s outrageous for a number of reasons. Apple Music streams music to users, meaning you need to be connected to Wi-Fi while you’re listening, so it isn’t the same as having an iTunes library of songs you actually own. You can download individual songs from the service to your device, but as Pinkstone writes, “it would take around 30 hours to get my music back” in this way. Your music and playlists also disappear if you stop paying your Apple Music subscription fee.
Meanwhile, iMatch has been notoriously rubbish at matching your files with music library entries, sparking lots of user complaints already. Pinkstone says a Fountains of Wayne song was replaced by a later version, for example, so he would have been unable to get the original song back.
So is it true? It’s not totally clear what happened to Pinkstone’s library, but here’s what we know so far.
Apple has said it doesn’t delete users’ music without their consent
Apple declined to give me a statement, but referred me to the piece “No, Apple Music is not deleting tracks off your hard drive – unless you tell it to” on the site iMore, which is not affiliated with the company but which the spokesperson described as “accurate background”.
Its author, Serenity Caldwell, explains that you have “primary” and “secondary” devices on Apple Music, and that on secondary devices (usually phones or tablets) in particular it’s advisable to delete your physical copies of songs to free up space – after all, you can stream everything via Apple Music anyway or download individual songs if you need them.
However, users should never delete files from their “primary” device (usually your desktop or laptop computer) because they’d lose the master copy of their songs forever.
…But customers might be giving that consent by accident
Jason Snell, a writer, speculated on Twitter that a misleading dialogue box may have caused Pinkstone his problems.
When you delete a song on any device, a dialogue box pops up offering to “delete” the song from “your iCloud Music Library and from your other devices” (emphasis mine). It’s more than possible that users would click this “delete” button rather than the less obvious “remove download” option which removes the song only from that device.
Apple Music’s terms and conditions cover it if it does delete your songs
Pinkstone seems to argue that he did no such thing, however, and it’s possible that there’s a bug as yet undiscovered by Apple which is deleting songs at will.
However, as Pinkstone points out, iTunes terms of use actually do cover it in the event the programme damages your files, or your property in general.
One section reads:
“IN NO CASE SHALL APPLE, ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES, AGENTS, CONTRACTORS, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE APPLE MUSIC SERVICE OR FOR ANY OTHER CLAIM RELATED IN ANY WAY TO YOUR USE OF THE APPLE MUSIC SERVICE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY CONTENT OR APPLE MUSIC PRODUCTS, OR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF THE USE OF ANY CONTENT OR APPLE MUSIC PRODUCTS POSTED, TRANSMITTED, OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE VIA THE APPLE MUSIC SERVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THEIR POSSIBILITY.”
Elsewhere, it defends its right to withdraw access to Apple products at will – including songs and albums you’re under the impression you bought from them outright:
Apple and its principals reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any iTunes Products, content, or other materials comprising a part of the iTunes Service at any time without notice. In no event will Apple be liable for making these changes.
Tl;dr: Until there’s some explanation for Pinkstone’s lost library, it might be a good idea to avoid using the iMatch function, or even Apple Music altogether. It seems very unlikely that the software would be able to delete files without your consent, but given you aren’t covered if they do, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
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