Google now lets you upload 50,000 songs to the cloud for free

I think that's it. I bought my nexus phone from the Google play store, so my cc is attached. So, I didn't get asked again when I created my play music account.

PS - four days on, and I'm still uploading!

 

I have not tried this, so i am just guessing. On my android phone, when I install an app from the Google Play store, sometimes a message pops up, that asks me to 'complete my account' by entering cc data. I haven't used my credit card on my phone yet and never entered the data. There was always the option to skip that creditcard step. So maybe you could click on 'skip' or 'later' somewhere on that CC Screen?

 

I tried to help. I don't understand it. I never ever saw any request for a CC#. Why not try contacting Google?

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Well, after running most of the day, it finally made it to the "F"s. However, it is still filling in albums from earlier in the alphabet. And, it is indeed matching soma albums, but i'll keep some of the replacements. I figure another two weeks, and I can start on the Various Artists. Yay. Then I have to fix everything. Double Yay. But, it will be worth it to have my stuff in the cloud. It will do until I can upgrade my own server. And, I still have the originals.

 

No. The RIAA cannot prove where you got your music. So, if you, say, downloaded a CD or vinyl rip from Megaupload, they don't know if you actually downloaded it, or bought the album and made your own rip, especially if you altered the tags. They also can't prove that you didn't already own the record, had someone clean it up for you. Not only that, as long as you aren't letting just everyone download the music, you are OK. It gets even harder for them to prove if they are matching your files.

Besides, Google only allows you to authorize four machines a year, much like what iTunes does.

The ONLY problem I see with this whole thing is that there is no option to globally turn off the matching feature. I look for there to be a free service that will not do any matching.

 

Nope. I never even heard of Google Wallet until your post.

 

In this example, Megaupload would have a record of my IP address, the packets we exchanged, and the time of that exchange, right? So the RIAA can legally compel Megaupload to turn that information over, or outright buy it from them through a third party.

 

For one, the chance of that happening are so low it's not worth worrying about. Besides that, you can use something like Tor to scramble your trail. All they will get is the final transmission from the last node. But, all that is beside the point. If you happen to have a CD you downloaded from a dubious source, and Google matches it, the RIAA cannot prove where you got your original files. So, relax. For all they know, you could have owned the CD, and it got eaten by snakes. your friend could have given it to you on a DVD-R, or something.

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I do notice that when I go to change an album cover, the Google app I have installed, Blur, keeps coming up to ask if I want to safeguard my CC#. Of course, there is no CC# to deal with. I'm starting to wonder what browser Rocclassics and TimS are using. I use Google with as blockers and no-scrip-type software.

 

Edit: iOS interface is pretty good. No ads that I can see.

Just uploaded an Instant Composers Pool CD and it recognized it, I'll leave my computer running and see how it manages the entire 50 disc set.

It's not asking me for a credit card either. But I signed up for Google Wallet many years ago when buying something from a vendor that only accepted that. The card on file expired years ago and it's still allowing to upload to Google Play.

 

Sorry, teacher, the dog ate my CD.

 

The likelihood of something like this happening is next to zero. The RIAA has already done enough damage to their reputation and they know it. They've stopped suing individual downloaders and only go after major uploaders - and even that appears to have dwindled to next to nothing lately.

That said, the ability to do this is also unlikely. Your IP address changes frequently, so it would be the responsibility of your ISP to hand over their IP records, something most of them are very reluctant to do. It will generally require a court order, and the courts have grown weary of doing this for fear of stepping on privacy rights and because IP addresses are iffy things in general. And the RIAA would have to prove that a specific person was actually downloading/distributing their material. In a house with multiple people, it takes quite a lot to do that. And beyond that, most ISPs only retain IP information for a short period of time. I know mine only holds onto IP records for 6 months. It generally takes a lot more now than just an IP match to prosecute someone, and for that reason it rarely goes anywhere.

 

Thanks for the info Grant and tcj. I'm suppose I'm still paranoid that either my ISP or the party from which I theoretically download something will give or sell my information to whomever wants it. Their scare tactics have worked.

 

You're absolutely right, Oldsoul.
I'm sure google didn't invent this service for people like me. But I like to check it out anyway and see if, maybe, it would be possible to.....

 

That's not to say that you should go ahead and willfully engage in copyright infringement. You still risk being that one unlucky individual the RIAA can nail, and wants to make an example of, but, with as many millions of people the world over downloading stuff every second, the odds are miniscule.

Tcj is correct that they mostly go after the ISP. But, most have resisted. In the few cases where the ISP has sent out warnings, they can get into legal trouble retaliating against you by throttling your connection or cutting it off. They don't really want the hassle.

If you have some ill-gotten music, and you are worried about the music-match feature, just don't upload the music.

 

No, they tweak the program for people who don't know what they are doing, and for non-audiophiles who just want their music in the cloud.

I'm seeing so many cases in my uploads where I'll have to make corrections. So far, though, I see no option to delete albums or artists. Oh, maybe I can right click an album, but I see no way to move an album or song, or a way to delete an artist's category. Another annoyance is that they insist on using artwork I replaced. What i'm wondering is why Google wants to force the latest version of an album on us, even if we don't want it.

I suspect the reason mine is taking so ridiculously long is because I have a huge-ass collection, and I have a LOT of music that is not available in their store, and therefore, is not in their database. So, when it tries to match something, it's continually searching and searching, and finally posts it when it either finally, finally finds a match, or gives up and posts my intended mastering.

 

it asked me for a card also to verify location, i just used a "virtual card #" which you can get from citi if you have a citi credit card, probably most other card issuers have them as well. just set the value to $10.00 or something.

 

I have used Subsonic for the past two years but but my Gigapros server is getting close to its 100GB limit. Over the past two months, I have been uploading my music to Dropbox which allows me 1TB of storage for roughly the same price as my current Gigapros plan. I just transfer the albums that I want from Dropbox to the SD card on my Galaxy Core and I'm all set. Why does this sound like an ad all of a sudden?

 

It's coming soon! They announced last month that they're going to allow OneDrive streaming via Xbox Music. I guess we'll see how well it works. I think they are in major need of a redesign for Xbox Music, or at least they need to bring back all of the features Zune had.

 

I would be interested in seeing some peoples' collections.

 

I regularly use Firefox....latest version. I also tried google Chrome just to rule out this being a browser problem. No difference.

 

And as I said in a post from last night, I also setup a new Google login with no credit card number. Same result. At this point I have no clue why it works for some people here and won't work for me. At this point, I have given up trying But I'll continue to monitor this thread in case someone comes up with something.

 

Well, around midnight, I switched the browser to Firefox, and around three this A.M., the uploading took off like crazy! The manager says I now have 16,056 of 31,781 songs left, with 43 that it says couldn't be uploaded. I don't know why, but the files always played fine. Whatever. When it's all finished, i'll go back and investigate.

Now, it's busy filling in all the albums. I figure it will take a couple of days to finish. Then, i'll take a few days to sort out all the mistakes. Then, i'll get started on the soundtracks and the various artists.

I have everything backed up on hard drives, but it will be nice to have it all on an external server. So, if it ever goes away, I still have it all right here.

From what I can tell, it's not matching much stuff. And, for those things it is matching, I can live with most of them, for what it is.

 

To delete an album use the context menu on the album cover (click on the 3 dots top right or right click to get the context menu). You can also change the Genre (the artist's category you refer to?) by selecting 'Edit album info' from the same menu.

Songs are grouped into albums by matching both 'Album artist' and 'Album', and this can be controlled using each song's context menu. To change more than one song at a time hold down the Control key and click on each song you want or hold Shift and click on the first you want and then the last to select a block. A new menu appears at the top of the page to make changes to all songs selected.

To delete all an artist's songs, select the artist and then click 'All my songs' , which is the first option under the 'My Library' header. Use Shift click to select the first and last in the resulting list and then click 'Delete' on the pop up menu.

The album art is irritating, but I don't think it is any indication that a particular mp3 version of a album is being used: as part of a song's meta-data is a web address of an image on Google's servers and is probably the best match they have using the album name /artist. The issue I've had is that although the correct art is shown for an album it hasn't been applied to each song on the album. To fix this I've used the Shift-click method to change each individual song's art rather than through the album menu.

For anyone who knows Python it would be worth having a look at Simon Weber's Unofficial Google Music API (gmusicapi), which provides library management, streaming, song download, Music Manager uploading/scan-and-match and library downloading. I used it to bulk correct the album art issue, mentioned above, and it's also useful for automating the creation of playlists.

 

Yeah, I got that, and it's f*ing tedious! It's the only way to dix double entries, too. I figured out why they use the match system, though. It's to says server space. If they already have something you have in their server, they don't need to actually upload your files. They can just add pointers to theirs. If they have the latest mastering, and they match yours, that's what you will get.

Thanks! That will help when fixing all the album songs it dumps into the various artist folders.

Yup. Had to do that already...

That, I haven't had much of a problem with. When I come accross something that is wrong, I just replace it. What is annoying is that it keeps going back to the art I removed!

I'll check it out if I get a chance.

 

Anyone know if this service is analog?