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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Free iTunes U2 album now up to 'record-breaking' 33 million in 'sales'

Free iTunes U2 album now up to 'record-breaking' 33 million in 'sales'
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Sep 16, 2014, 01:49 AM
 
Less than a week after Apple added U2's new album Songs of Innocence to iTunes' users libraries as a free gift, Apple has revealed that the album has been downloaded, streamed or played in its entirety more than 33 million times, an average "sales" figure of 5.1 million copies per day. Apple did also provide a tool for users who didn't want the gift to remove it completely if they desired.



The album was downloaded two million times in the first three days of its availability, but Apple had not previously disclosed streaming statistics. Though some users objected to the album being automatically added to their "purchases," prompting Apple to make available a permanent removal tool, the record is on track to be certified as the fastest-selling album of all time by a very wide margin.

The previous record for fastest-selling album in the US since Soundscan started keeping records in 1991 was the 2000 album by boy band N'Sync, with the record No Strings Attached, which sold 2.1 million units in its first week. Wikipedia notes that a memorial album for assassinated US President John F. Kennedy, recorded on the day of his death, sold four million copies at 99 cents apiece within its first week of release, but is considered a novelty item rather than a musical album by an artist.

Apple's Senior Vice President of Software and Services Eddy Cue called the figure "record-breaking," which appears to be accurate even for digital releases, and said that the 33 million figure included users who listened to the album streamed on iTunes Radio, streamed it on their mobile devices, or downloaded the album. Partial listens, such as to one song, do not appear to have been counted.

Apple paid the band an unspecified amount as a blanket royalty for the album, and also agreed to use it in a $100 million ad campaign. Years ago, the company offered similar promotions for software, adding programs for free to users' iDisk accounts as a gift, paying the developers a negotiated blanket amount. The enormous success of the album will likely have record companies re-thinking promotional plans for new releases, as free "streaming" releases on iTunes Radio have also been seen to result in above-average album sales.

The U2 album is streaming on iTunes Radio, and will be free to download for iTunes customers through October 13.
     
Juha The Finn
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Sep 16, 2014, 03:07 AM
 
Thanks, but no thanks. I didn't download the album, instead I just removed it from my iTunes account.
     
Jeronimo2000
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Sep 16, 2014, 05:23 AM
 
Don't compare this to actual "sales". This whole f*cked-up PR stunt is terrible enough without that kind of hyperbole.
     
daqman
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Sep 16, 2014, 07:51 AM
 
I wonder how they count the downloads? If they are counting all the folks who had "automatically download new purchases" on and had multiple devices that's really a meaningless number.

I, my wife and two sons all automatically "downloaded" it on an iPhone, iPad and MacBook each, that's twelve downloads right there, and none of us wanted the album or listened to it. (Except my wife who wondered how crap it was and listened to a couple of tracks).
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Jeronimo2000
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Sep 16, 2014, 07:58 AM
 
I'm baffled by the arrogance of everybode who's behind this idea. "What could possibly go wrong? After all, we're giving away the greatest gift of all!" - not so much. See: current backlash. Also see: suddenly realising the need to put up a special support page with a prominent URL (itunes.com/soi-remove) to help people get rid of the album.
     
Charles Martin
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Sep 16, 2014, 08:49 AM
 
Jeronimo: it's not a question of whether you or I count it as sales -- its whether the industry does. If Apple paid for it, then it should count as sales.

As for the "backlash," it seems to me like a vocal minority (particularly given the figures released by Apple). Yes, some people are annoyed, and some may even have been mildly inconvenienced -- but we've seen nothing approaching 33 million complaints ... I think some of the haters have been convinced by their own echo chamber a bit ...
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Jeronimo2000
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Sep 16, 2014, 09:45 AM
 
@chas_m: you don't set up a support page with its own prominent custom URL for a "minority". If it was just a few people who complained, it would be a Knowledgebase article buried somewhere on support.apple.com, if anything at all.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 16, 2014, 09:48 AM
 
The epitome of First World Problems.

"Boo, I don't like this free album I've been given!"
     
Jeronimo2000
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Sep 16, 2014, 09:53 AM
 
By the way: nobody would have had any reason to complain if Apple had just made that album free to download on the iTunes Store. A nice banner, a little "Download now for free" button, everybody would be happy. Not even the U2 haters wouldn't have had a problem with that (side note: I actually like U2).

Had it been strictly opt-in, everything would have been a-ok. The reason some people, including me, are upset, is that Apple is abusing the control they have over peoples' devices for a gimmicky tech demo. "Hey look what we can do, we pushed an album to your device!".

Sure, we all knew (or at least had the suspicion) that Apple can do whatever they want with our iPhones etc., even erase it remotely if they so please. But it's unwise, from a PR point of view, to hit people in the face with that fact.

I'm happy Apple wants to give stuff away. That's great. But this is not a matter of "looking a gift-horse in the mouth" - that's a terrible comparison. This is more like: the guy I bought my house from took his extra key that I always suspected he had, got into my home, stuffed a horse in my closet (which is crammed enough as it is), and then made me look online to find out how to get rid of that horse. He didn't bother asking whether or not I like horses.
     
Jeronimo2000
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Sep 16, 2014, 09:55 AM
 
It's not about the album, Spheric. It could have been an app, a movie, whatever. See above.

The fact that they chose an album of a pretty polarizing band is just icing on the cake.
     
daqman
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Sep 16, 2014, 10:01 AM
 
@Spheric Harlot: Maybe a first world problem but symptomatic of the human condition. People don't like other people "messing with their stuff". This is particularly true of something like music which is very personal. The music that people buy is often very indicative of their personality. If Apple had simply made the purchase of the album free so that people could choose to add it to their library or not this fuss would not have happened. The issue is that not only was personal choice taken out of the equation so that you had the U2 album whether you wanted it or not but the option to remove it wasn't initially there.

I've been searching for an analogy, the best I can come up with is someone entering your house and hanging a picture on the wall. It's a free gift, it may be something you hate and hits a nerve every time you look at it and the advice given is "well don't look at it then".
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andi*pandi
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Sep 16, 2014, 10:24 AM
 
doesn't seem that hard to trash it if you don't like it.
     
pairof9s
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Sep 16, 2014, 10:29 AM
 
Like I responded on a similar article about this matter:

To think that someone would go to the effort of switching on the automatic download option for iTunes and then seem to be completely lost or inconvenienced on having to delete this particular album, seems disingenuous. Surely if you're savvy enough to appreciate the convenience of the option, then you're savvy enough to kindly decline the offer of free music from Apple.
( Last edited by pairof9s; Sep 16, 2014 at 10:40 AM. )
     
Mr. Strat
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Sep 16, 2014, 10:35 AM
 
The last thing I want to see is a picture of the ever-pretentious Boner with his trendy glasses - and I don't want to hear the Edge's over-processed guitar - I don't want to hear or see these over-hyped on any device I own.
     
Jeronimo2000
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Sep 16, 2014, 10:50 AM
 
@andi*pandi & pairof9s: if that was the case, Apple wouldn't have needed itunes.com/soi-remove to tell people how to do it.
     
pairof9s
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Sep 16, 2014, 12:43 PM
 
@Jeronimo2000:
I'd argue that was in spite of what we stated...the squeaky wheel analogy. Some people wish to make a major issue out of something that is not that hard to remedy or ignore.

At the end of the day, what percentage of people do you think will use this link versus removing the album by themselves, not to mention those who will end up keeping it?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 16, 2014, 02:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by Jeronimo2000 View Post
Had it been strictly opt-in, everything would have been a-ok. The reason some people, including me, are upset, is that Apple is abusing the control they have over peoples' devices for a gimmicky tech demo. "Hey look what we can do, we pushed an album to your device!".
Nothing was pushed to ANY of my devices. What am I doing wrong?

I actually had to go search it out on the iTunes Store and actively download it before it showed up anywhere.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 16, 2014, 02:47 PM
 
Originally Posted by Mr. Strat View Post
The last thing I want to see is a picture of the ever-pretentious Boner with his trendy glasses - and I don't want to hear the Edge's over-processed guitar - I don't want to hear or see these over-hyped on any device I own.
That's so gay.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 16, 2014, 02:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by daqman View Post
@Spheric Harlot: Maybe a first world problem but symptomatic of the human condition. People don't like other people "messing with their stuff". This is particularly true of something like music which is very personal. The music that people buy is often very indicative of their personality. If Apple had simply made the purchase of the album free so that people could choose to add it to their library or not this fuss would not have happened. The issue is that not only was personal choice taken out of the equation so that you had the U2 album whether you wanted it or not but the option to remove it wasn't initially there.

I've been searching for an analogy, the best I can come up with is someone entering your house and hanging a picture on the wall. It's a free gift, it may be something you hate and hits a nerve every time you look at it and the advice given is "well don't look at it then".
More like adding an extra channel to your cable TV. It may be annoying to occasionally stumble across it, but holy hell, you might have *important* stuff to deal with, no?
     
Charles Martin
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Sep 16, 2014, 03:19 PM
 
I acknowledge that some people are legitimately annoyed to find the album auto-downloaded. I think Apple has learned a lesson there, though as the article points out -- they used to do this all the time with software back in the iDisk days.

That said, this IS a lot like new Apple TV channels just "appearing." Maybe some people aren't used to that, but the amount of "outrage" about what is, at best, a very minor foul-up by an entity trying to give you a gift, is way overreaction. People really need to focus more of their "outrage" on things that matter, and this ain't one of em.
Charles Martin
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unicast reversepath
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Sep 16, 2014, 07:17 PM
 
I like the album, and appreciate the gesture from Apple: a win-win for me.

I am also not one to go out of my way to find something objectionable, over-inflate
the actual wrongness of it, and complain ad-nauseum in an over the top "hey look at me"
manner about it - that would be disingenuous and possibly even ignorant.

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Grendelmon
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Sep 22, 2014, 09:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Nothing was pushed to ANY of my devices. What am I doing wrong?

I actually had to go search it out on the iTunes Store and actively download it before it showed up anywhere.
Did you have Automatic Downloads enabled for Music?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Sep 23, 2014, 01:12 AM
 
On the Mac, yes.
     
   
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