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Apple Confirms 71.5% Revenue Sharing for Apple Music, No Royalties During Trial Period

nando87 said:
Spotify has a free service, more subscriptions and much more friends in every platform outside appleland, which is most of the world.
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No spotify isn't a free service if you expect the same features as Apple music (I'm a current premium spotify user), spotify is yet to turn a profit on it subscriptions which are mainly made of freeloaders and cannot continue to operate at a loss just by raising money from its shareholders to survive. Something has to change, either spotify suddenly becomes popular overnight or they will have to find a new pricing point to match their soon to be diminishing market share.

Sure they will cry Wolf and claim the big bad fruit company forced the record companies to ditch the free service agreements, however as a business they cannot continue to provide a free service when they are operating at such losses.
 
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69Mustang said:
This little piece is disturbing. Not because of what it says, but because of what it doesn't say. It reads as if it says at the end of the trial you will be billed automatically regardless. Once you're billed that first time, you can then cancel by turning off auto-renewal. IF that't the case, then it's not a 90 day free trial. It's basically 90 days at $3.33 per month. Apple needs to clarify or I'm not letting my daughter try this. Hopefully someone else can find where Apple explains precisely what this means. As it stands, that little piece of info is too ambiguous for my taste.

Beats is much more clear: https://support.beatsmusic.com/hc/en-us/articles/200459460-Will-I-be-charged-once-my-trial-is-over-
No, you will not be automatically charged for service when your trial is over. Once your 14 Day trial is finished, you will need to sign up for a monthly or yearly plan to continue using Beats Music.


Even Google Play All Access is more clearly defined: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/3122088?hl=en

You won't be billed for trying out the services during your introductory trial period. If you don't cancel your subscription before the end of that trial, you will start to be billed. Once you’ve canceled your one-time free trial, your account will no longer have the option to try a subscription for free

It clearly states you can cancel the trial at any point before it ends and avoid billing. Heck, you can even finagle an additional month out of All Access by cancelling after the first billing:
Once the monthly subscription fee has been charged at the start of a new billing cycle, you have 7 working days (14 days for users in the European Union) from the start of your first paid billing cycle to cancel your subscription for a refund.

When you cancel your subscription, you can continue using your subscription until the end of the billing period during which you cancel. After the end of that billing period, you won't be able to access subscription features or music content. If you don't cancel within the time period eligible for a refund, you won't be refunded for the billing period during which you cancel.

After you've canceled your account, if you subscribe again, your radio stations, playlists and music will be restored.

If anyone finds any info about cancelling the Apple Music trial, I'd really appreciate the info. I want to let my daughter try it out, but if it's going to be an auto-charge regardless of my decision to let her keep it, she can keep riding on my All Access.
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Seems quite straight forward to me, but I'm probably misunderstanding something. As I see it you sign up for the 3 month trial then you don't need to do anything else if you choose to continue after the trial. At the end of three months your iTunes payment method will automatically be charged for the next month of service. At any time during the trial (or later) you can go into your iTunes Account settings and turn off auto-renew, just like you currently can for - for example - magazine subscriptions in Newsstand. If you cancel auto renew before the end of the trial you won't be charged anything at all. As soon as you sign up for the trial the subscription will show in your settings as something like "Apple Music - next payment due 1 November" with an option to turn off auto renew. I've done it in Newsstand and if the first magazine is free it still shows up immediately with an option to auto renew. I wouldn't let it worry you too much.
 
Benjamin Frost said:
... Is it worth Apple's while? As with the Apple Watch, we can assume that, in the absence of hard figures from Tim Cook, it will be a failure.
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We can assume that Apple Watch is a failure because there are no hard figures yet?

Apple Watch doesn't even launch in second wave countries until 26 June.

In the meantime, Apple has said "The response to Apple Watch has surpassed our expectations in every way".

https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/06/04Apple-Watch-Arrives-in-Seven-More-Countries-June-26.html

Not just that - you're also already assuming that Apple Music "will be a failure", because Tim Cook hasn't given any hard figures yet? Before Apple Music has even launched? :rolleyes:
 
69Mustang said:
This little piece is disturbing. Not because of what it says, but because of what it doesn't say. It reads as if it says at the end of the trial you will be billed automatically regardless. Once you're billed that first time, you can then cancel by turning off auto-renewal. IF that't the case, then it's not a 90 day free trial. It's basically 90 days at $3.33 per month. Apple needs to clarify or I'm not letting my daughter try this. Hopefully someone else can find where Apple explains precisely what this means. As it stands, that little piece of info is too ambiguous for my taste.

Beats is much more clear: https://support.beatsmusic.com/hc/en-us/articles/200459460-Will-I-be-charged-once-my-trial-is-over-
No, you will not be automatically charged for service when your trial is over. Once your 14 Day trial is finished, you will need to sign up for a monthly or yearly plan to continue using Beats Music.


Even Google Play All Access is more clearly defined: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/3122088?hl=en

You won't be billed for trying out the services during your introductory trial period. If you don't cancel your subscription before the end of that trial, you will start to be billed. Once you’ve canceled your one-time free trial, your account will no longer have the option to try a subscription for free

It clearly states you can cancel the trial at any point before it ends and avoid billing. Heck, you can even finagle an additional month out of All Access by cancelling after the first billing:
Once the monthly subscription fee has been charged at the start of a new billing cycle, you have 7 working days (14 days for users in the European Union) from the start of your first paid billing cycle to cancel your subscription for a refund.

When you cancel your subscription, you can continue using your subscription until the end of the billing period during which you cancel. After the end of that billing period, you won't be able to access subscription features or music content. If you don't cancel within the time period eligible for a refund, you won't be refunded for the billing period during which you cancel.

After you've canceled your account, if you subscribe again, your radio stations, playlists and music will be restored.

If anyone finds any info about cancelling the Apple Music trial, I'd really appreciate the info. I want to let my daughter try it out, but if it's going to be an auto-charge regardless of my decision to let her keep it, she can keep riding on my All Access.
Click to expand...


Good catch.

I would be surprised if you couldn't cancel as soon as you sign up for the trial, but I agree that it is impossible to say. Sometimes, Apple's relentless desire for minimalism and simplicity undoes it. The more information, the better.

The token FAQs about Apple Music on Apple's website are hopeless. There are so many questions that need to be answered about Apple Music.
 
Michael Scrip said:
Spotify may be the most popular on-demand streaming service... but streaming, itself, is not a very popular way of consuming music. That's what I was saying.

But congrats to Spotify.

And hasn't Spotify been largely unchallenged in this industry? We've had things like Pandora and others... but they are radio services.

It will be interesting to see how another big on-demand streaming service will play out.

Spotify has already convinced 20 million people to pony up $10 a month.

If they can do that... I don't think Apple will have a problem getting doing the same. (not that it's a contest or anything :))



Services typically have an ongoing monthly fee.

You cannot "buy" an iCloud or a Netflix or a cable tv... you can only subscribe to them :D
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We don't know how many of Spotify's subs are student ones at $5 per month. Therefore, the average sub of their 20 million is likely to be more like $7, in my opinion.
 
iConnected said:
We can assume that Apple Watch is a failure because there are no hard figures yet?

Apple Watch doesn't even launch in second wave countries until 26 June.

In the meantime, Apple has said "The response to Apple Watch has surpassed our expectations in every way".

https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/06/04Apple-Watch-Arrives-in-Seven-More-Countries-June-26.html

Not just that - you're also already assuming that Apple Music "will be a failure", because Tim Cook hasn't given any hard figures yet? Before Apple Music has even launched? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


Note the conditional clause and the future tense. :rolleyes:
 
Benjamin Frost said:
We don't know how many of Spotify's subs are student ones at $5 per month. Therefore, the average sub of their 20 million is likely to be more like $7, in my opinion.
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Don't forget a lot of their UK premium subs (like myself and most of my family) are done through Vodafone UK who pay a much smaller amount than the premium cost outright.

I pay £4 a month extra for data and spotify.
 
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GrumpyTrucker said:
Seems quite straight forward to me, but I'm probably misunderstanding something. As I see it you sign up for the 3 month trial then you don't need to do anything else if you choose to continue after the trial. At the end of three months your iTunes payment method will automatically be charged for the next month of service. At any time during the trial (or later) you can go into your iTunes Account settings and turn off auto-renew, just like you currently can for - for example - magazine subscriptions in Newsstand. If you cancel auto renew before the end of the trial you won't be charged anything at all. As soon as you sign up for the trial the subscription will show in your settings as something like "Apple Music - next payment due 1 November" with an option to turn off auto renew. I've done it in Newsstand and if the first magazine is free it still shows up immediately with an option to auto renew. I wouldn't let it worry you too much.
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Seems. That's the key word in your quote. Nowhere in Apple's documentation does it mention (at least no where I've found) anything about cancelling during the trial. It expressly says: At the end of the trial period, the membership will automatically renew and payment method will be charged on a monthly basis until auto-renewal is turned off...

Ultimately, you could be right. In fact, I hope you are. But Apple's documentation doesn't say it. Is it implied? Who knows. The point is it shouldn't be. Beats gave clear and concise info about cancelling the trial; as did Google Play All Access. Apple should do so as well instead of leaving it up to interpretation.
 
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Benjamin Frost said:
Good point. So their average sub could be much lower. No wonder they're losing money.
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Obviously the plan was to dominate an emerging market operating it's free tier as a loss leader to generate premium subs, unfortunately they still haven't turned a profit let alone dominated the market. I wouldn't favor any company operating at a loss competing with Apple (e.g. blackberry).
 
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iChrist said:
Wow, 1% higher payouts. What will you do with all the money?
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Rather than being sarcastic, that guy is a musician and sees the benefit of what streaming can do for him and not just the money. You should respect that. It's really none of your business how much he makes from Apple unless you're a musician dealing with Apple.
 
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It's so funny how some people here pretend to be so concerned about how much Apple is paying the artists they don't even know personally yet these same people refuse to pay for streaming or complain the premium is too high. Even one person here said Apple should pay artist during the free trial period while he's enjoying his music the artist created for free. Oh the entitled people here. :rolleyes:
 
69Mustang said:
Seems. That's the key word in your quote. Nowhere in Apple's documentation does it mention (at least no where I've found) anything about cancelling during the trial. It expressly says: At the end of the trial period, the membership will automatically renew and payment method will be charged on a monthly basis until auto-renewal is turned off...

Ultimately, you could be right. In fact, I hope you are. But Apple's documentation doesn't say it. Is it implied? Who knows. The point is it shouldn't be. Beats gave clear and concise info about cancelling the trial; as did Google Play All Access. Apple should do so as well instead of leaving it up to interpretation.
Click to expand...

I think it will work exactly as I said, purely because that's how all Apple's subscriptions work from Newsstand to iTunes Match. Now, I think it highly probable that Apple - being somewhat blinkered and dare I say arrogant regarding what they think everyone already knows - are just assuming that everyone already knows this so feels no need to explain it in any greater detail. Whether that's right or wrong is irrelevant (to them) it's just "the way it is because that's how we've always done it".

And to be honest, they've done a pee poor job of explaining Apple Music at all really so far, so the fact they haven't clarified the trial period / cancellation issue is hardly surprising.
 
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69Mustang said:
This little piece is disturbing. Not because of what it says, but because of what it doesn't say. It reads as if it says at the end of the trial you will be billed automatically regardless. Once you're billed that first time, you can then cancel by turning off auto-renewal. IF that't the case, then it's not a 90 day free trial. It's basically 90 days at $3.33 per month. Apple needs to clarify or I'm not letting my daughter try this. Hopefully someone else can find where Apple explains precisely what this means. As it stands, that little piece of info is too ambiguous for my taste.

Beats is much more clear: https://support.beatsmusic.com/hc/en-us/articles/200459460-Will-I-be-charged-once-my-trial-is-over-
No, you will not be automatically charged for service when your trial is over. Once your 14 Day trial is finished, you will need to sign up for a monthly or yearly plan to continue using Beats Music.


Even Google Play All Access is more clearly defined: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/3122088?hl=en

You won't be billed for trying out the services during your introductory trial period. If you don't cancel your subscription before the end of that trial, you will start to be billed. Once you’ve canceled your one-time free trial, your account will no longer have the option to try a subscription for free

It clearly states you can cancel the trial at any point before it ends and avoid billing. Heck, you can even finagle an additional month out of All Access by cancelling after the first billing:
Once the monthly subscription fee has been charged at the start of a new billing cycle, you have 7 working days (14 days for users in the European Union) from the start of your first paid billing cycle to cancel your subscription for a refund.

When you cancel your subscription, you can continue using your subscription until the end of the billing period during which you cancel. After the end of that billing period, you won't be able to access subscription features or music content. If you don't cancel within the time period eligible for a refund, you won't be refunded for the billing period during which you cancel.

After you've canceled your account, if you subscribe again, your radio stations, playlists and music will be restored.

If anyone finds any info about cancelling the Apple Music trial, I'd really appreciate the info. I want to let my daughter try it out, but if it's going to be an auto-charge regardless of my decision to let her keep it, she can keep riding on my All Access.
Click to expand...

You never responded to the other debate we were having.

More to this point. My take is that you can cancel your plan during the trial period. In other words, you sign up for the plan on day one, you pay nothing for three months and then start paying. Cancel whenever you want. If you forget to cancel, then you pay. All apple is doing is putting the onus on you. For me it's a trade off. If they don't do this what happens is that at the end of the trial period it stops working until you sign up (a la Beats), which is not a good approach in my view. The Google Play is essentially the same as Apple. The wording seems the same to me, but if you like the Google words better, maybe you can suggest them to Apple.
 
Cuban Missles said:
You never responded to the other debate we were having.

More to this point. My take is that you can cancel your plan during the trial period. In other words, you sign up for the plan on day one, you pay nothing for three months and then start paying. Cancel whenever you want. If you forget to cancel, then you pay. All apple is doing is putting the onus on you. For me it's a trade off. If they don't do this what happens is that at the end of the trial period it stops working until you sign up (a la Beats), which is not a good approach in my view. The Google Play is essentially the same as Apple. The wording seems the same to me, but if you like the Google words better, maybe you can suggest them to Apple.
Click to expand...
I will definitely follow up on that other discussion:)

As for this one, I guess we'll disagree again. Apple's footnote doesn't say anything about cancelling the trial. There are assumptions being made about cancelling the trial but, as of yet, no one has shown anything definitive. Anecdotes about their other services are not facts. As I said to another poster, it could be what Apple means. As consumers should we have to rely on could be? Did you find any info to support your claim about cancelling or is this more of a faith thing?
 
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GrumpyTrucker said:
I think it will work exactly as I said, purely because that's how all Apple's subscriptions work from Newsstand to iTunes Match. Now, I think it highly probable that Apple - being somewhat blinkered and dare I say arrogant regarding what they think everyone already knows - are just assuming that everyone already knows this so feels no need to explain it in any greater detail. Whether that's right or wrong is irrelevant (to them) it's just "the way it is because that's how we've always done it".

And to be honest, they've done a pee poor job of explaining Apple Music at all really so far, so the fact they haven't clarified the trial period / cancellation issue is hardly surprising.
Click to expand...
I think we basically agree that more info is needed. One should be able to know an answer instead of saying I think it means this because of that.
 
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69Mustang said:
I will definitely follow up on that other discussion:)

As for this one, I guess we'll disagree again. Apple's footnote doesn't say anything about cancelling the trial. There are assumptions being made about cancelling the trial but, as of yet, no one has shown anything definitive. Anecdotes about their other services are not facts. As I said to another poster, it could be what Apple means. As consumers should we have to rely on could be? Did you find any info to support your claim about cancelling or is this more of a faith thing?
Click to expand...

Well I am not sure where the anecdotes are, but it seems clear to me that the lense you read this statement through is different from mine. Using my lense it seems very clear and not nebulous in any way. You sign up on day one. that is clear. you will be charged every month until you cancel. that is clear. you get the first three months for free. that is clear. Those are not anecdotes and not my interpretation, but simply what is stated. When I put this all together, the act of cancelling before the end of the free months does not seem like a leap of faith to me, but an obvious conclusion from the three facts stated. However, if you believe that because it is not explicitly state it automatically makes it a leap of faith, then my answer is that I am okay with this leap of faith. I consider it more of a skip across a line drawn on the floor. :D

To be ultra clear it states "until autorenewal is turned off in account settings." Is it possible to turn this off during the free trial? Yes, because you're not blocked from accessing account settings at any time.
 
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It. Hasn't. Launched. Yet.

Calm down - the detailed terms and conditions will be published before anyone commits themselves to anything! :cool:
 
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