The Japanese singer Namie Amuro is one that country’s most popular artists. From 1995 to 2015 she sold over 30 million records.
In 2018 she announced she was retiring from the music industry. Turns out she really meant it. In 2023 her entire internet presence was deleted: Her website, facebook, fan club, and her entire discography were all gone. You can no longer stream or download her songs.
This is annoying because I had bought a bunch of her songs on iTunes back when that was my main music source, and they are all gone now. Removed from my device, apparently. Even though I had paid for them.
I understand this kind of event is why so many people are returning to buying physical media, so they don’t lose the content they paid for when a performer (label, publisher, etc.) decides to pull it.
I’m not 100% sure this works but when I buy music from iTunes tore, I immediately make an AIFF copy. I think a recall purge from Apple would only take the “purchased” copy, because, how would it know about the newer AIFF copy?
It should be illegal for anyone to remove music from your device that you paid for. I don’t know if it is, but it should be. It’s okay if someone wants to stop selling something, but they shouldn’t be able to take something back once you’ve paid for it.
Yes, I discovered her CDs are still available some places. I probably will go that route. Of course, that’s a lot more expensive than streaming or downloading. But what can you do?
I’d just like to note that right now I could click a button and the entire Namie Amuro discography - all 2.82 Gb of it - would be downloaded to my computer’s hard disk within 55 minutes. I won’t click that button, of course, because that would be very illegal.