The fear of subscribing after Namie Amuro’s songs disappeared, and one day I suddenly couldn’t access the data: J-CAST News[Show full text]

Songs by Namie Amuro (46), who retired in 2018, will no longer be available on subscription services by November 16, 2023. As of the 17th, songs are still unavailable on Apple Music and Spotify, with the exception of collaboration songs with other singers.

Nowadays, subscription services often emphasize the advantage of paying a fixed fee no matter how much you use a variety of content such as songs, books, and videos. On the other hand, there is always the disadvantage that it can be canceled without notice.

Data will be deleted if you cancel

The suspension of Amuro’s music was due to the distribution service’s own circumstances, and as a user, there is nothing we can do about it.

On the other hand, content may become unavailable due to user actions. When canceling a subscription contract, the user overlooks the provision that “the content will no longer be available,” and is surprised when the subscription period expires. In this case, the seller continues to distribute the content, and only users whose contracts have been terminated will be unable to access the content.

For example, on LINE MUSIC, the precautions for canceling your membership clearly state that “Your profile information and downloaded music data will be deleted,” and “Deleted data cannot be restored.”

If you purchase it as a “thing” like a CD, unless the item itself is damaged, the song will not “disappear” from your possession, regardless of the circumstances of the parties involved. Although it cannot be directly compared to a subscription service, I find it incomprehensible that the content that I paid for and downloaded will be lost after the contract ends.

IT journalist Toshiyuki Inoue points out that content becomes unavailable due to user cancellation.

“If you say, “That’s a subscription,” that’s all you need, but it’s true that you paid the fee every month, even if it was only during the contract period.Despite that, even the data for the content you were using became unavailable. To be honest, I can’t accept it. Legally speaking, it may not be a problem if it becomes unusable, but I think the balance is not good.”

I think it would be good to see some improvements that would benefit users in the future.

(Tomonaga Sakashita, J-CAST News Biz Editorial Department)