Buying out my music library

So here’s the idea:

I did that! Here’s how it’s going.

Firstly, I discovered that I actually own more music than I thought I did.

I’ve bought 71 things on iTunes, according to another smart playlist I created called “Bought” (you can guess what the rules were for that one). In the 16 years I’ve had this iTunes account, that’s less than I expected, but there’s a reason:

I’ll admit, I created that one just for the blog screenshot. But it was interesting — there are 946 songs on that one. I didn’t expect to have bought so much stuff elsewhere. I think this stems from when iTunes purchases used to have DRM on them — I seem to recall buying music on other non-DRM-having websites and then importing them into iTunes around the time that a lot of these tracks entered my library. So clearly I’ve always hated DRM, ever since I lost a copy of Perfect by Fairground Attraction¹ off a Nokia feature phone because of it being in a proprietary DRM-ed format.

But now iTunes — which I believe is what it’s still called when you buy music — doesn’t have DRM, so the floodgates are open.

I was a little more conservative with my rules than Sindarina above, and limited my “to buy” list to anything that had over 15 plays. Still, there was more in there than I expected — 135 songs that I don’t own, but have played enough times that they’re in my “Heavy Rotation” (as I believe the music nerds call it).

So, based on this information, I’ve decided to start making my way through this list — buying a handful of songs a month until I own everything and this playlist is empty. I’ll keep the streaming service for now, so that I can discover and stream new stuff easily (and because I quite like having Apple Music Radio on in the house), but once I’ve listened to it a few times I’ll spend the money to make it my own. I’ll probably also adjust down the rules on this playlist so that it gives me every song I’ve played more than ten times, and then five, and then I may well get rid of that rule entirely — every song I’ve listened to in full can be added to the library, unless I really hated it.

Is this the right thing to do?

I don’t think it’s a secret how little artists make from streaming music. Whilst Apple Music pays the second highest amount to artists per stream,² it’s a teeny tiny amount of money, and certainly a very very small fraction of the amount I give to Apple every month for the privilege of being able to demand any music I want. Do artists earn more if I buy the music rather than stream it? Well, maybe.

Artists also earn very little from iTunes purchases, and I have almost certainly streamed my absolute favourite songs enough times that it all balances out eventually. Ultimately, the record labels are making a lot of money out of the whole situation, and the real way to support artists is to go see them live and buy merch and stuff. But in my view, doing this is a good idea for another reason — at some point, Apple Music might cease to exist, or I might stop paying for it.

I am not under the delusion that I will be able to keep my CDs/vinyls/MP3s/casettes³ around forever, but buying my music (even as digital files) makes it more likely that I’ll be able to extricate it from the Apple platform if they ever go evil or shut the service down.⁴ I’m also a big proponent of downloading all of one’s music onto one’s phone, but that’s mostly because I regularly use the London Underground. Buying all of one’s music is one easy way to achieve that.⁵

Look, it’s just part of my never-ending crusade against streaming. Unless you own your content, They™ can take it away from you whenever they want. Whilst I don’t think Apple are likely to do that any time soon, I feel a little bit comforted by the idea that my entire music library will be really mine once I’ve finished doing this. Files on my computer. Stuff I can transfer between machines and platforms and services as I see fit.

Ultimately, I think it’s a good idea to tend your own little digital garden, instead of trusting companies to do it for you. (Relatedly, I’m probably deleting my Twitter account soon.)