There were grumbles last month when the Irish rock band's new album "Song of Innocence" was automatically downloaded onto Apple's more than half-billion iTunes accounts around the world.
Among other things, some iTunes users griped that the record took up valuable iPhone storage space.
In a video interview hosted on Facebook Tuesday, Bono appeared with the other members of the band to take written questions from fans. One of them said, please, no more automatic freebies on iTunes.
"It's really rude," that person, identified as Harriet Madeline Jobson, wrote.
"Oops," said a contrite-looking Bono, in trademark dark glasses.
"I'm sorry about that," Bono said.
"I had this beautiful idea. Might have gotten carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that thing. A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard," he added.
"There's a lot of noise out there. I guess, we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it."