I am reading this correctly?
Yea, even in this case Apple Music collects far fewer data than any other streaming services as techlore points out.
Privacy policy is a legal document not an “advertising” document.
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I am reading this correctly?
I hope so, theres not much room for misunderstandings, I think.
Yea, even in this case Apple Music collects far fewer data than any other streaming services as techlore points out
That’s a way better argument for using it.
Unfortunally Apple Music comes with a very insidious practice, because it deletes your original local song files and replaces them with DRM’d versions, so imho not recommendable for the average person.
I dont know if its possible to use multiple Apple IDs with one device, but if not I would see there an issue, because the collected data of Apple Music can be linked with other data from your ID, oc only for the case you use it on an Apple device.
With spotify or deezer you can just use any burner email adress and pay with gift cards.
Of course thats not an issue if you can just use an alt account for Apple Music and maybe use a 3d party app so it doesnt replace your local files.but thats a really treacherous practice anyway.
Thus being said I actually struggle to find lesser know artists on any of the aforementioned streaming services, some of them also get removed for no recognizable reason.
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FAAMG never sells your data. They don’t need to “sell” your data in order to share it across their various products. Instead, via their dominant position, they sell access to you (ads). Does this make their products better than rival products that don’t have such nice sounding privacy policies? I’m not so sure.
As a matter of fact, you might exercise better control over your data from a company that sells your data, because my understanding is citizens of California can request* that companies they patronize not sell their data. Meanwhile, big companies that do not sell your data, such as FAAMG, can’t have any restrictions imposed on their (internal) data transmission by the customer.
*the company has to comply
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There’s a good variety of options surveyed in that video. Personally I think Newpipe is the best option. Actually, even better would be using Invidious, that way you’re never even connecting to Google servers. I’m surprised Techlore didn’t include it.
You don’t have to go so low tech. As long as you’re okay with not directly DJ’ing, listening to free “radio” streams (behind a VPN) is a very privacy friendly option. Pretty much all large terrestrial radio stations have online streams available. I don’t know the privacy implications of listening via the Javascript player most terrestrial and internet radio stations feature on their websites, but using your own (privacy-friendly) media player provides no identifying information (other than public-facing IP address and listen times).
I buy music I like in high resolution from HDTracks or on vinyl/CD, and play it locally or compress and stream it to my devices using the Nextcloud Music app. Nuclear JS (desktop) and ViMusic (android) let you listen to YouTube music for free.
I buy music from bandcamp (belongs to Epic since a while unfortunally) and manage and play it with AIMP (not FOSS) on desktop and on my phone with VLC. For streaming I use Individous and Newpipe.
This is not from a valid source and nothing to do with privacy aspect of the service.
and according to HN
The reddit thread title is misleading.
Apple didn’t “replace” the OPs files, the OP downloaded their music library to a new device, using Apple Music’s sync feature.
This can be easily disabled by turning off “sync”.
According to mozzilla,
On the privacy front, yes, Apple is generally better than other Big Tech companies (cough, Meta, cough cough, Amazon, cough Samsung), when it comes to privacy. They aren’t perfect, of course, but they do seem to do a better job at collecting less data because they aren’t trying to sell as many ads as Google and Facebook (yet, at least).
Apple says they can collect things like name, email address, age, location, device information, contact information, and more. The good news is, Apple says they treat all this information as personal information. So, things like device ID and the like are treated as securely as your name and age. That’s good. And Apple says they don’t share or sell your data, which is also good. They do say they can share your data with some third parties such as business partners, service providers, and others as you give your permission.
So, Apple is known for having a pretty strong security and privacy track record, at least compared to many of the other Big Tech companies.
It doesn’t offer the ux of a music player or the benefits of a streaming based solution.
So, you could buy your media physically, rip it and set up a Jellybin server for it.
Music CDs are actually really cheap today on eBay and so are movie/show if you don’t mind waiting for things to not be that new.
I think you could pay with gift/prepaid cards and use PO Box to hide your address id within US.
Your Jellybin server can be any computer you have around, the only difficult part to set up of all this on a technical level, could be streaming away from home. But you could get away with just saving what you watch offline on your mobile device.
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This is not from a valid source and nothing to do with privacy aspect of the service.
and according to HN
There are multiple sources saying that, I also read numerous complaints on reddit about that issue. Please provide a source which proves that this is not true.
It’s a general insidious practice which make that service not recommandable at all so it definitely belongs here.
Just because it isn’t directly privacy related it doesn’t mean it’s not significantly impactful on the general usage for the average user.
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This is not related to Apple Music (service). Apple Music (service) is a subscription based music streaming service. Playing local music is part of Apple Music (app). You can get local music from various sources to your music library at Apple Music (app) (including Apple Music (service)).
i.e
source: https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/music/mus0f01bdce4/mac
(hope this make sense. In this topic we are focusing on Apple Music (service))
Reddit contains anecdotal evidence and accuracy of this information is questionable.
According to top comment
it seems it download a version with DRM if you set it to download in Lossless format, but my songs weren’t originally lossless, and if I set it to download the AAC version the file is DRM free
and
The reddit thread title is misleading.
Apple didn’t “replace” the OPs files, the OP downloaded their music library to a new device, using Apple Music’s sync feature.
(I can’t link to HN comments)
So Apple Music (app) might not have this issue. I can’t verify this as I don’t have any local music.
You can always use a difference music client like cider if Apple Music (app) is not suitable or use a different application to handle local music.
This is not related to Apple Music (service).
Its definitely related because the issue is caused by Apple’s official client.
So Apple Music (app) might not have this issue. I can’t verify this as I don’t have any local music.
Not really since there are numerous complaints about that issue where people also specifically mentioned that they synced their music files with their local ones and they got replaced.
You can always use a difference music client like cider if Apple Music (app) is not suitable or use a different application to handle local music.
Yeah sure, but you can’t simply recommend such a service without explicitely highlighting this issue and also due to this practice that service isn’t trustworthy at all. The average guy won’t look after alternative clients and when then it might be to late.
As I stated before, It got a very easy fix, and it doesn’t “replace” local files.
If you turn off Sync Library in the Apple Music settings then plug into iTunes and sync there again then all that data will come back.
Sync library is basically asking them to do exactly what you described so it is more available across all devices without having to use iTunes
If you end your subscription then it does delete that data that was being streamed like created playlists which is main complaint of missing music
They don’t revoke your rights to those songs or make you buy them again. You just need to sync it to iTunes again. Everyone gets confused on that process
Source: used to work for Apple Support
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/zl8ko3/comment/j05ojxr/
When you look at the alternative, Apple Music (service) is a much for private option.
Spotify clearly sells your data to third party (such as Facebook, Google). Other services doesn’t have a strong Privacy Policy either. Also, Deezer had data breach recently.
doubt average guy even have local music. So it won’t matter.
Also, this is a recommendation for OP, not average guy.
As pointed out by techlore Apple Music is the only privacy-friendly subscription based music streaming service.
They don’t revoke your rights to those songs or make you buy them again. You just need to sync it to iTunes again. Everyone gets confused on that process
That is not what was critizised and complained about. The issue is that Apple Music replaces the local files with its own DRM versions. Often these versions where different and worse than the original files. Your source doesn’t adress the real problem.
When you look at the alternative
Whataboutism. Ive never said other streaming services are better, thats why I advocated for staying away from streaming in general.
Ive also said that using any of these streaming services (including Apple Music) anonymously with gift cards so you dont expose any personal information is probably the second best option
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I’m not sure future discussion on this issue would be beneficial. I’m not planning on changing what I use to listen to music right now, so this is more of a hypothetical.
With that being said, if I were to, I’d probably switch to Apple Music, as it seems to be the most private option available.
If for some reason a native client were a requirement however, I would probably switch to Spotify and use it with Spot, on my Linux devices.
Thank you to everyone who has commented for your input!
Please move further debates or discussions elsewhere, if possible.
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One more thing…
This research by nonprofit organisation Common Sense Media also have a section on subscription-based media streaming service. This includes some things to lookout for in each streaming service.
tldr
Bandcamp has an ongoing event the first Friday of each month where 100% of the sale money goes to the musical artist, so I highly recommend that as a great means to support your favorite musicians.
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Bandcamp is great, it has all the lesser know artists you wont find on the big streaming services. Unfortunally it got sold to Epic recently.
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I would have been ok with this but Tencent has significant shareholder interest in Epic. You all complain about privacy in the US but elsewhere could be so much worse
Well the point is you can download the song and play it offline with no DRM, no matter who owns the company.
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