Songs Disappearing from iTunes

I didn't know it was illegal to do that. Why does itunes have the facility to 'import' tracks from CD or other and what about cd's I have bought?

It is illegal to download or rip songs you haven't paid for in accordance with the licensing agreement for that music:

In the December 2005 decision BMG Music et al v. Cecilia Gonzalez, a federal court ruled that the illegal downloading of songs by a consumer constituted copyright infringement and awarded damages against her of $22,500 for downloading 30 songs ($750 penalty per song). The defendant had actually downloaded 1,370 songs and, under federal law (while it is highly unlikely), the damages could have potentially been assessed at over $205 million.

On June 18, 2009, the first illegal music downloading case to go to a jury trial resulted in a verdict requiring a mother of four children to pay $1.92 MILLION for illegally downloading 24 songs from the Kaaza file-sharing web site. This amounts to $80,000 per song, though she could have been hit for $150,000 per song for the over 1,300 songs she allegedly downloaded (over $195 million). Note: For a 2010 update on this story,click here. For a 2013 update on this story, click here.

On July 31, 2009, a federal jury ordered a Boston University graduate student to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing music online. He admitted to downloading hundreds of songs but the suit only specified 30 songs for which he was ordered to pay $22,500 each. He could have been found liable for up to $150,000 per song for a maximum of $4.5 million. For the full story, click here.

Hello Karen, this forum does not allow a discussion of this matter so you'll only hear the one side. You should be able to find the iTunes folder where your music should still be at on your computer. One of the problems in finding the music folder is that your computer may have hidden it by default. Elsewhere in this thread it explains how to enable you to see all the folders on your computer and how to help iTunes find your music again. At the very least you should be able to find the folder and use iTunes to reimport the folder.

karenfromeng wrote:

I didn't know it was illegal to do that. Why does itunes have the facility to 'import' tracks from CD or other and what about cd's I have bought?

Because you have bought them.

Borrowing CDs from friends and listeneing to them is not a problem.

Making a copy of music that you do not own is the problem.

gadlaw6 wrote:

One of the problems in finding the music folder is that your computer may have hidden it by default.

The computer/OS/iTunes does not hide the music folder "by default" or any other way.

Um, many files and folders are hidden by default in Windows 7 and that Windows 8 and are generally made difficult to find. You know, for your protection. But can we agree that the files that your iTunes has and that iTunes has helpfully ripped for you are in a folder in your music folder called iTunes? And sometimes that folder is difficult to find. I do not know about on a Mac. My last Apple computer was a IIGS. But I do have and have built many Windows machines.

gadlaw6 wrote:

Um, many files and folders are hidden by default in Windows 7 and that Windows 8 and are generally made difficult to find

But the user Music folder (and all other user folders) is not hidden nor difficult to find.

But can we agree that the files that your iTunes has and that iTunes has helpfully ripped for you are in a folder in your music folder called iTunes? And sometimes that folder is difficult to find

Yes, it is in that folder.

If you are computer literate enough to post in these forums, it is not "sometimes difficult" to find /Music/iTunes/.

It is in /Music/ (on both Windows and Mac)

I'm guessing certain posts were removed because they advocate or excuse committing a felony.

It's kind of tough to make a living as a songwriter if you sell one CD which is posted on YouTube and everyone in the world then thinks it's OK to make a copy for themselves for free.

kk

But the rule is so vague that if you can't prove that you bought the music even though you may have, they could then sue you. I was shocked at these rulings. NO WHERE does is say montary damages so the numbers look as though they were pulled out of the air. Which still doesn't explain all the missing music people have to deal with. What I am seeing is the record companies can sue if they choose to do so but we can't sue Itunes if our libraries happen to go missing?

The burden of proof is on them to demonstrate that you procured the MP3s illegally.

And you are certainly free to sue Apple if you want to. It appears that so many people have been affected by whatever has caused this that I'm surprised there is not a class action suit already filed.

Chances are your music files are still on your computer...they just don't show up in the Library listing.

SunMoonEarth wrote:

...

If your iTunes library goes missing...

• Restore it from your most recent backup. (You do make regular backups of important data, right?)
• Restore it using iTunes Match (if you ae subscribed).
• iTunes purchases can be redownloaded.

I am also unhappy that music I've downloaded to itunes from cds i've purchased--yes, i still purchase cds, seems to randomly disappear from my itunes library when i choose to play them. i'm very unhappy that i have to search for the cd to redownload them to my itunes library. it seems like it should be a simple thing not to have a music application that eats up music--but apparently itunes isn't able to handle it.

when you see the exclamation point, leave iTunes open, go to search and type in the name, right click play, and watch the song pop up with the deleted ones.... play it again to be sure and trash the exclamation pointed ones, tedious but effective....started doing this two years ago and am doing it again :-(

Nytahan wrote:

when you see the exclamation point, leave iTunes open

double click the song in iTunes to play it. iTunes will ask if you want to locate the song.

Go to /Music/iTUnes/iTunes media. and locate the song in the correct Artists/Albums folder.