U2 frontman Bono has said sorry after their latest album was automatically added to the libraries of all iTunes users around the world.
In response to a questioner who told him it was “rude” to impose their music upon everyone, Bono said: “Oops, I’m sorry about that.”
Apple later released a one-click tool enabling iTunes customers to remove it.
Some users complained that the 11-track “Songs of Innocence” had been added to their music library without permission and that it was not clear how to delete it.
The questioner on the Facebook session said: “Can you please never release an album on iTunes that automatically downloads to peoples playlists ever again? It’s really rude.”
Bono replied: “I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing.
“Drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn’t be heard.
“There’s a lot of noise out there. I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it,” he said.
The music was made available for free to more than 500 million iTunes customers in 119 countries last month. It has been reported that around 5 percent of those have downloaded U2’s latest piece of music.
At the time, Bono acknowledged that not everyone would appreciate the move.
