Apple Sends Press 'Decade of iTunes' Anniversary Keepsake with 100 Free Songs

and then someone makes a Spotify playlist of those 100 songs and shares it.

I don't understand the hatred in here. It's a promotional item. Do you know how much promotional stuff gets passed around, especially to the press? A LOT. A majority of record labels throw albums to these people all the time, there's probably multiple copies of albums/singles just floating around in someone's drawers too.

Please don't say that Apple isn't good to us. Like I said, they give us free singles every week. They also had the free song of the day in 2004 when the new version of iTunes launched. They partner with so many magazines and companies to give out free playlists and songs too. And the best thing about it is that it isn't even some horrible indie stuff like most places give out. They're actually from pretty mainstream acts.

The whole point of giving these away to the press was to promote the success of digital music and iTunes. Sure, it was a pretty expensive freebie that was probably worth $200 a piece, but again, if you have been a iTunes user for as long as its existed, you've probably bought most of what was included. Heck, some of the stuff was given out for free in that 2004 promotion too.

Really only press get this, they should give everyone a (or ten) free song to celebrate this event.

I use iTunes to browse only, then use TPB to obtain - works well for me.

Some of us own all these songs anyway... But wow, what a freebie!

EDIT: We always get cool singles of the weeks freebies. You guys should really check them out, they've been going on for YEARS. The current one by Frank Turner is his latest single, so I was really pleased to get that one completely free as it was on my to buy list. All his albums are great.

Did someone say boycott iTunes?

Fine, but only because Spotify is better anyways.

(Don't forget to keep buying apps and supporting your local indies, guys!)

If you're telling people to support indies, shouldn't you be telling people to buy from iTunes instead of boycotting them? After all, Spotify pay out almost nothing to indie artists.

I use iTunes to browse only, then use TPB to obtain - works well for me.

That's tragic.

Huh?

"...a list of the top-selling songs for each decade."

Shouldn't it ready "...a list of the top-selling songs for each year of the last decade."?

Did someone say boycott iTunes?

Fine, but only because Spotify is better anyways.

(Don't forget to keep buying apps and supporting your local indies, guys!)

If you're telling people to support indies, shouldn't you be telling people to buy from iTunes instead of boycotting them? After all, Spotify pay out almost nothing to indie artists.

Absolutely. Plus needing a connection to play your music sucks.

I don't understand the hatred in here. It's a promotional item. Do you know how much promotional stuff gets passed around, especially to the press? A LOT. A majority of record labels throw albums to these people all the time, there's probably multiple copies of albums/singles just floating around in someone's drawers too.

Jessica, it isn't "hatred" but instead a little thing you might bump into one day, quite by accident I'm sure, called critical thinking.

Have you never wondered how the illusion of good press for a product is maintained, ie, bought and sold?

Go look up "payola" in Wikipedia. A mind is a terrible thing to waste on corporate propaganda!