The re-implementation yesterday of a two-year old policy which reduced the number of de-authorisations of devices attached to your Google Play Music account to a mere 4 per year, certainly caused a stir. Understandably, the policy is not at all popular in most users who regularly flash ROMs on their devices on a regular basis. itechtriad did a little digging overnight and discovered the reason behind the change and also what the future will bring.
While unfortunately Google hasn’t released an official statement, the team spoke to Google Play support who had some interesting things to say on why the policy was enacted – basically, it’s the music labels, or Google’s music partners as they called them. According to a Google Play support representative, the new policy is to limit abuse of the service – possibly to stop multiple people from sharing a single account across multiple devices. The rep advised :
We limit the number of times you can swap out new devices at the request of some of our music partners in an effort to limit abuse. We understand this has caused some issues for users who often deauthorize and reauthorize the same device, and we are currently re-implementing the solution in a way that works for our users and music partners.
But, all hope is not lost. Google is apparently working on a fix which they hope will appease Google Play Music users who have been affected by the new policy. The representative went on to say :
I can see how it can be frustrating. Just know that we are working on a fix for it, we just don’t have an estimated time of when that will be implemented.
I know we all just sharpened our pitchforks and lit our torches, but don’t go storming the castle just yet. There is a change to the policy coming. Exactly when the change is coming isn’t known, but it appears the Google mothership is aware of the unrest the change has caused and is looking at it. Hopefully the fix includes something that will make both users and the record labels happy.
What do you suggest would be the best solution which would appease both users and the record labels?
Why not just download the songs from the website? You can do that twice per song using the website, and an unlimited number of times using the desktop application. Then you’ve got the music and no need to worry about authorisations.
Are you sure this will work? I recently got my account suspended after failing to update an expired credit card. When that happens the downloaded music immediately becomes unplayable. I wonder if the same would happen when Google Music detects a device change (eg after installing a new ROM)?
Why would MP3’s become unplayable? How would a music play know that your Google Play credit card had even expired?
It seems that they play fine on other players and devices but Google knows which account they were bought with and, for example, won’t let you upload the song to a different Google Play Music account.
Why not lock it to a mac address….. just like so many types of licenses. If you rom the phone the mac stays the same so that way you can rom a tom tom as much as you please and stay authorised. 4 physical devices a year should really be enough. Mog is poop imo… unmetered meh.. just tick to download when on wifi and listen away.
That idea might work for ordinary users, who only have a fairly fixed, small number of devices.
The idea is utterly useless for device reviewers though.
But why do reviewers nec to use google music on every device. …? It’s not really a hungry app you need to test phones with..
Because reviewers use their review devices as their personal device for a period to get an accurate account of what that phone is like. You’re just saying they should go without music while they are actively reviewing a device…
Well ultimately no other software allow you to keep changing licenses it would defeat the idea of having a license. . What other software allows it? Changing phones as much as you review phones really sounds like more a hassle than is worth. ..
Also you can put music on a SD….. like everyone had been doing for the last ten years lol…
So you think that a device reviewer, who heavily uses Google Play Music via the cloud, should give up on being able to access the music that they have paid for on Google Play Music, whilst they review a device?
And don’t forget, not all devices have microSD support.
In terms of end users. .. how many are consumers vs reviewers? It’s not worthwhile to change the single type of license they have for the 0.000001 of the population that could just as easy have their own personal devices that they could use. They can also use their PC.. I’m just hearing excuses. If you want to listen to Play music it’s very possible.
Glad to know you appreciate what we do Mitchimal. Thanks.
Instead of sulking please look at this rationally. Do you think the whole of googles licensing should revolve around you or multi million consumers that could possibly be giving away free music? I work in the high end residential Audio visual and home automaton industry and I could easily load one account onto a device in every clients home and give music out willy-nilly. Life ain’t free and looking at it at just YOUR angle is naive. I’ll feel sorry for you when you don’t get paid for doing your job. Not being difficult I’m looking at it from both… Read more »
Mitchimal – Suggesting that people who own and use more than one device are ‘Sulking’ is just wrong and quite frankly insulting to me personally. I actually don’t use Google Play Music, or indeed any other music service. Why don’t YOU look at this rationally and beyond YOUR naive view that everyone is out to simply pirate their way out of paying for a service. Many people here, specifically on Ausdroid PAY for Google Play Music, they don’t want to give it away, indeed sharing their account would go a good way to ruining a lot of the service which… Read more »
The sulking comment was on your smart comment not on other users. If I root my device rom it or alter it that’s something I take responsibility for. If an app doesn’t work after that that’s on me. As I did mention in a previous comment that you may or may not have read I talked about how it would be useful to lock it to the serial/mac address or imei of the device so no matter what you do on that device your license is still valid. On having more than 4 devices sure some people do have more… Read more »
Locking a license to a MAC, Serial or IMEI is not going to work, as discussed there are other people out there who use more than four devices per year, not just reviewers. I have read your other comments and found none of your trollish comments to be anything helpful or constructive. There are many cirumstances which you do not take into account and insisting that everyone else should harden up is plainly not working as there are many more people who think this change in policy is to the detriment of the service. Thanks for coming, but no thanks… Read more »
MAC addresses can be faked so Google might not like that approach.
Not easily at all. If you’re that good I don’t think you use google music… this whole thing is for general users even reviewers. Use imei/ serials whatever
Man I really don’t want to have to go back to Spotify. But used tried Rdio for a year Spotify for 6 months, at least I can switch and have a bit of a library waiting for me.
Any reason you switched away from Spotify in the first place? I was actually thinking of starting to subscribe to them later this month.
I’ve decided when my changes run out which will be very soon considering the rom flashes and different devices I have I’m going back to MOG. Unmetered on telstra gives it a big tick imo.
I just left MOG. Their app is just way too far behind… Too clunky. I used to love the free data but realised later that most of my usage often occurred on wifi in my case…I can definitely get by pinning music at home. Love the play app. If I run out of deauth I will just contact google to reset.