Die Hard Drive

It gives Die Hard a whole new meaning.

Bruce Willis, who played John McClane in the movie franchise, was reportedly thinking about suing Apple over his ability to include his iTunes account in his children’s inheritance. Later it turns out he isn’t. Too bad, they could have made a movie out it, and called it: Die Hard 5: How to you like them Apples? I would have paid to see a climatic fight where McClane beats the stuffing out of Apple CEO Tim Cook.

As easily as McClane could take Cook, I doubt even Mr. Willis would want to take on Apple’s lawyer, which the tech giants has in spades at the moment, thanks to the on going patent war with Samsung and Google. Given the chance, they would slap Mr. McClain silly.

McClane: “What? Do you thinking, I’m stupid?”

Apple Lawyer: “Well, yes, Mr. Cowboy. You signed a legally binding contract called an EULA when you bought the music, that says you are only buying a license for the use of the files. Just contracts are commonly upheld in court.” (Hey, I’m an editor not a screen writer.)

But as much as Apple may be right legally– the company can do diddly over squat when it comes to enforcement.

C’mon. What’s Apple going to do? Go knock on a dead man’s door and demand the music back? Apple can argue that all it wants that it’s only selling a license to use software - with the software in questions being your MP3 files – but at the end of the day, there’s no way to put the Genie back in the bottle.

I check my iTunes account. I estimate that I’ve downloaded roughly 400 songs from iTunes. I’ve placed them, along with all my movies, TV shows, and about 10,000 other music filed ripped from my collection of CDs on two encrypted external drives, which I’ve placed on the collars on two Doberman pinchers. I’ve named one Hans Grubber just for the look of the thing. Apple want them back, they can come get them.

Of course, physically possession of music files isn’t really what Apple is talking about. What they really mean is that, when you die, your account dies with you. It means no more downloading from the iCloud, even if you get a wifi enables coffin. Apple also wont let you transfer the account to relatives - or whoever you want to give your account too.

That’s inconvenient, until you remember that the iCloud isn’t the only cloud storage application available on Apple’s devices. There’s Google Drive as well as Drop Box, both of which on my machine are nearly full. But moving all of your now re- downloadable material to another service is an expensive pain in the rear. From a user perspective, the easiest thing for Apple to do is just allow people to transfer their accounts.

That will never happen for two reasons.

The first is as old as the recording industry, which has made truckloads of money selling us the same music over and over again. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve bought some albums. I know I’ve bought Led Zeppelin IV on vinyl, cassette and CD, and not because I just wanted to update my collection. Vinyl warps, CDs scratches and tapes break, but digital download, well, now that is something you can leave to the kids.

And that just kills sales, which is reason two. Image, generation after generation just handing off their iTunes accounts - with Apple footing the bill for storage - without anyone buying anything new. A perpetual iCloud would put an iNail in the music industry’s iCoffin. The only way to justify offering that service is if people are loading it with expensive media. That wouldn’t be so much a problem for forward thinking music exec if the music today was still booming, but what do you think the resell value of Lady Gaga will be 20 years from now?

So what happens next. Well, nothing. Apple isn’t going to do something stupid which would alienate customers, but they’re not going to offer a cloud-based storage service to dead men, either. Maybe they’ll introduce their own transferable account system – for a hefty price.

Or, they could always go back to the old way of doing things, before the iCloud. Back then, there was a general policy about re-downloading music. I’ll paraphrase.

You: I “accidently” deleted my music. (Translation: I dropped my iPod in the sink and hadn’t bothered to make a backup. )

Apple: Go away.

Which is exactly what a music store would have told you too, before the world went digital. I wonder why we’ve forgotten then. Digital never meant perpetual.