Opinion Split on Apple & U2’s Download Drama

Drama hit the iTunes world last week when music fans discovered a download of U2’s new album in their libraries. As one of the world’s most famous bands, the Irish rockers probably thought their fans would be over the moon to receive their songs for free…but that wasn’t the case.

The album, titled Songs of Innocence, was automatically downloaded into the music libraries of all iTunes Store users – that’s around 500 million listeners. While a fair few of those millions were U2 fans, there was also a big proportion that were more partial to classical or dubstep rather than rock.

Some listeners were angry that their device’s memory space had been cluttered up with something they’d never asked for. There were also many users who simply felt their privacy had been invaded and their freedom of choice had been taken away. 

Thousands took to social media to air their frustrations at both U2 and Apple, and among their comments were: “Just woken up to find U2 downstairs watching TV and eating my biscuits. Will their presumptions that I want them in my life ever end?”, “I don’t even have enough storage on my phone to take a pic so what makes Apple think I want the U2 album automatically downloaded in my music?” and “Apple owes me a new iPhone, because I had to purify this one with fire after finding a U2 album on it.”

After hearing the controversy that this stunt had caused, the shots team couldn’t help but wonder: how far is too far when it comes to promoting a product? We decided to reach out to some of our music and advertising industry contacts to get their views on the idea, and were surprised to receive a rather mixed bag of comments. 

The first person to offer up his thoughts was Paul Reynolds, managing director of MassiveMusic London. Reynolds told us that the idea could certainly be seen as invasive, but it wasn’t the first time a band had interacted with consumers in this way.

He added: "Apple was obviously the one to gain by having U2 give away the album at the same time as the product release. This isn't an entirely new idea (Prince and McFly had free album release deals and in 2009 indie act Mongrel launched their act and gave away debut album Better than Heavy in The Independent). If the idea for U2, like these artists, was to build a greater following and engagement with their fans then they seem to have hit a bit of a hiccup.

“By forcing a product on someone it’s human nature to refuse first. You ask yourself: ‘What's the catch?' If it were available to download at your own freewill then that's great, and good on Bono and co for making their work available for zero pounds and no pence. However, making you download and have the files on your computer feels like a bit of an invasion and is producing a negative response in online communities.

“Music is such a personal thing and to have your ears quite heavily forced towards something removes some of the magic. The moment of discovery is lost and a personal connection is much harder to create. Having said that, I'm sure U2 fans are going to be quite happy about the album turning up on their hard drive for nothing.

“Given the coming changes in the law regarding lawfully downloading music for free, I hope Apple doesn’t force us to download all their new albums or I'm going to need a much bigger hard drive.  Anyway, who downloads now? Isn't that such a 00s thing to do?”

However, Abi Leland, managing director of Leland Music, had a very different opinion on the free download. She told shots that she feels it’s a positive thing that the music industry is looking at fresh ways of reaching listeners.

Leland said: "So far from the comments I’ve seen, the backlash has been fairly personal and about the music taste of the consumer rather than about the concept of being automatically delivered an album for free. I think it’s positive the music industry is looking at new ways of reaching the consumer and working financially and creatively with brands and other creative industries that are able to be a part of it. In terms of the issue of the album being ‘forced’ onto the consumer, yes it’s questionable, but in my opinion there are more extreme invasions of privacy to be concerned about, essentially if you don’t like it then don’t listen to it."

It was particularly interesting to speak to Eclectic Sounds, as the company’s two co-founders each had different views on the concept. Colin Smith shared a rather humorous story about his daughter’s thoughts on the download, while Simon Elms told us he thought U2 deserved a pat on the back for finding a way to make a ton of money in an industry where artists no longer make much from selling their records. 

Smith said: "I spoke to my daughter this morning who asked me, ‘Have you seen that U2 have uploaded their new album to everyone's iTunes accounts, including my phone? It’s disgusting; I don't want it with my music!’ Coming from someone from the generation that seem to want most music for free, I found it quite funny that, as soon as something free is forced upon them, they are up in arms.

“For U2, the amount of people they may alienate from this interesting experiment with Apple could be substantial but I'm sure they'll actually gain more new fans who haven't heard much of their music and who may go out and buy other albums from their extensive back catalogue. We have been asked to make our music available for free download to be part of a client’s campaign quite a few times recently and we know giving music away to get it out to a bigger audience isn't a new thing, but automatically uploading it to someone's personal space…I'm not so sure.”

Elms added: "Well done them. I think a lot of other bands would have done it for a fiver and a pint of lager. They were paid over $100 million dollars to do the album plus an undisclosed figure (millions again) to both the band and Universal for some sort of blanket royalty agreement. This amount of cash in an era when supposedly, musicians don't make money from selling records seems brilliant and sends out the message that music does have some value.” 

So, the verdict? It’s difficult to say whether Apple and U2 have behaved ‘rightly’ or ‘wrongly’ here. We at shots agree that it’s hard to blame U2 for taking an opportunity to reach out to people all over the world (especially if the claims they made millions of dollars from the deal are true) but it also doesn’t seem fair for people to have something ‘forced’ on them and one can’t help but ask the question: “If Apple can hack into my music, what else can they see on my phone?” The music industry jury is clearly well and truly split on this one.