Comments on: Google Music Only Allows You to Deauthorize Four Devices Per Year (Updated)

By: migamix

migamix — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:41:00 +0000

yay for cloud services with useless restrictions… nice while it lasted.. but back to my router’s built in ftp and 2Tb storage…

By: ERIFNOMI

ERIFNOMI — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Normally, yes. But in some instances, a company will just buy a block of addresses and each phone randomly picks one within that range. It shouldn’t do it every reboot, but I know that was an issue with some Galaxy Nexii.

Point is, MAC addresses are not entirely unique. They can be reissued and the chances of you having two devices with the same MAC are very slim. If they want unique IDs (which you’d think they would for this case) they should go with IMEI (GSM) and MEID (CDMA). That would cover phones, anyway.

By: SecurityNick

SecurityNick — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:59:00 +0000

Correct. MACs are hard coded by the manufacturer, might as well be a serial #, in fact lots of manufacturers use the MAC as the serial #. It actually would be the most logical thing to use in this case.

By: Matt Gondek

Matt Gondek — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I noticed that whenever I restored my backup new music would never sync to my GNex, so I’d end up re-installing and maybe that’s where I got screwed. Thanks for the dirty flash tip though, silly devs and their ass covering haha

By: will bartlett

will bartlett — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:44:00 +0000

i was just able to delete a device after getting the message earlier today that i couldn’t delete anymore.

By: Jared Kotoff

Jared Kotoff — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:41:00 +0000

Click though the link DL posted. They state ”
We may record device identifiers including your computer’s MAC address or device identifiers such as IMEI or MEID for mobile devices in order to…”

By: Brain4Prez

Brain4Prez — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:37:00 +0000

I don’t believe that is true. Are you confusing this with an IP address? You can change a MAC address, but in actually you’d have to spoof that address.

By: Miguel Angel Portela

Miguel Angel Portela — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:01:00 +0000

In the end I just decided to download everything I had back to my desktop and place it all on a 32gb micro. What’s the use of streaming anyway? It just seems like a step backward, really.

By: Ted Pavlic

Ted Pavlic — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Seems like ROM developers should be able to get around this. I can imagine a keyfile that ROM’s can save to and load on boot that make each ROM look the same. In fact, that might make it even easier to share your Google login — just trade this file around.

I think this move will have unintended consequences that may end up making the problem worse for Google.

By: PC_Tool

PC_Tool — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:28:00 +0000

Heh..

I’m probably one of the few people who would *love* to see the Zune software for Android. Loved the software for that…

By: Cuda

Cuda — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:25:00 +0000

I called Google support, and they said they are working on a fix for users such as myself.

By: Jimneezy

Jimneezy — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:22:00 +0000

Lets just hope now Amazon doesnt follow the same path

By: Justin True Anderson

Justin True Anderson — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:18:00 +0000

Again, we really need a family library concept. Books, music, movies. One household, several users.

By: Valdeck

Valdeck — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:17:00 +0000

I have to admit while I can see some legal issues with letting people mix and match multiple google music accounts their current set up is not going to work long term.

One issues is if they want to sell unlocked carrier free phones they will have many people who want to flash roms and tinker and will hit that limit quick. If they would track by say IMEI number that would help alleviate some issues here.

Another issue is defective or returned products. If you have a phone or tablet that you buy and return or that is defective and you used up your 4 then you can not remove them from your list and you do not even own that product anymore.

Lastly there is several people who are reporting that when they wipe their device it adds another device in the list (though not for everyone it seems) and while PC’s are not supposed to count several people have shown 5 or 6 entries of the same PC that have clogged up their list.

I do not know how they can fix this but either the reporting system needs a new method of tracking or maybe letting us have unlimited device deauthorizes but only letting us have one registered and working google music account and then letting us change that account 4 times a year?

By: TheCraiggers

TheCraiggers — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:16:00 +0000

Why so surprised? If it had to be implemented some time, why not last night?