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Apple Music Lands Over 20,000 Indie Labels as Beggars Group and Merlin Sign Deal
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-Tin Foil Hat = 0n- This could be one of the most outstanding marketing ploys anyone has ever pulled off.
How is this for a hypothetical internal marketing discussion:
"Let's decide not to pay artists for those three months. Worst case we get away with it, save some money, and maybe upset a few JV players. BEST case, it gets called out by artists, we get national news coverage almost 24/7 of our upcoming service and FREE 3 months of trial, one of the world's most recognized artists gets involved for even more coverage. We then 'cave in' (air quotes to the room), get even more GOOD press for doing the 'right thing', and then all those hold outs praise us even more and sign on! It will be our marketing master piece!"
-Tin foil hat = OFF-
It's a stretch, but boy if it wasn't planned, Apple has a knack for falling into good outcomes.
This really is the greatest thing to come out of this. Taylor Swift is the new Steve Jobs.
No. Because I am reading The Taming of the Shrew, and I would never ever ever let her keep her last name.
The only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about. Doubly so when trying to gain traction on a new revenue stream that you are rolling out.
Win win either way, wouldn't you say? Not knowing anything, I'd say some marketing folks have earned their bonus checks this year.
Ping was a half-ass attempt at social media through music. Apple Music is "One More Thing" big. Although people aren't ecstatic for Apple Music yet, it's going to be popular through the roof. When Apple has focus, they have a pretty successful track record at creating successful productss
WHAT??? Excuse me??? Uh the 3 month trial was for the consumer's benefit. Are you not considered a consumer of anything, Apple or not? This "Let's all pull together and go against Apple" attitude is getting quite sickening here.
Of course the actual artists still get nothing -with the agents and agent's agents and agents and lawyers and lawyer's agents and agent's lawyers getting almost all the money.
Haven't read - may have missed but is Apple still going to pay the small % extra that they were going to in order to "make up" for the 3 months they weren't going to pay?
Haven't read - may have missed but is Apple still going to pay the small % extra that they were going to in order to "make up" for the 3 months they weren't going to pay?
Just next to nothing which is why Taylor removed her catalog.
Yeah they were never going to launch w 50% of spotify's music catalog.
Do people still not get Spotify pays all artists significantly less than apple when you factor in the payout per average stream? There is a huge disparity and this was even the case if artists did not get paid for streams during the free trial.
Please, let's take the hindsight bias from the professionals in this echo chamber.
In reality, this has worked out better for artists than any deal the larger labels (who are supposed to care for their talents) could or even would care to work towards.
In reality, this has worked out better for artists than any deal the larger labels (who are supposed to care for their talents) could or even would care to work towards.
Yeah some people don't understand how the music business works. The top 50 artists will bring in more revenue/subscribers than the bottom 5,000 indie artist. It's how people consume music.
Google the company that appropriates other people IP until they complain? This is the same company that thought they should be able to scan books and display them on their site for free, while they generate ad income, and was surprised the authors and publishers where upset. and Google only announced their free tier this week.
Sounds like a problem with your specific system. No problems here.
Spotify splits ad revenue on their ad tier, which equates to minuscule payouts to artists.
At no point in any of this have I seen confirmation that other services pay artists during the more traditional thirty day trial.
All I know is most Spotify users are ad supported so the artists are getting very tiny royalties, a portion of their paid subscribers are student accounts which pay artists a reduced royalty and even full fledged subscribers earn artists less money than Apple subscribers.
In total Spotify is essentially screwing artists out of lots of money compared to apple. Why don't people demand Spotify pay artists full royalties for their ad supported tier instead of sharing the relatively small amount of revenue? The only reason Spotify has an ad tier is to try and get people to subscribe to the full service. So by the same pressure applied to apple, why does Spotify get to run their marketing program on the back of the artists. Even worse any one consumer can only get 90 days on apple while they can stay on Spotify ad tier screwing artists forever.
I still don't think they should have. In any partnership one partner doesn't pay the other, the bite the bullet together and then share the rewards. If the music is compelling enough to make them stay and keep listening, the artist will get a share of the profits. If they don't the stay no share, but if they liked the Artist they will buy it to keep. Itunes is savy enough to remind them to get a copy if they cancel the service. I wouldn't be surprised if the are not offered to do just that when canceling.
I know 'cause you're the go to guy ... if it works for you ... then it's everyone else's problem ... must be good to be you.
Yeah all these artist rights advocates really need to focus on abolishing Spotify's ad tier and student rate. These programs are really screwing artists.
Or do all these artist advocates only care when it involves apple, who already was going to end up paying artists more than Spotify regardless of the trial.
Let's see these music artist crusaders step up and do the right thing and protest Spotify who has been screwing artists for years. 60 million of spotify's 75 million users are on the ad tier which pay the artists almost nothing.
So come on crusaders. Don't make us think your fight for artist rights was just a blind attack on apple. Carry it through to the biggest streaming payout violators out there, Spotify.
It probably won't matter when all artists get much bigger checks from apple and they eventually demand Spotify pay them equitably. But why wait? Why not carry this momentum forward and continue to get the artists what they deserve and stop spotify's gratitious violation of artist rights.
I think this has been a huge discussion point between Apple and the major labels over the last months, which ultimately could have endangered Apple Music altogether. So I would be surprised if they had been doing this just "to see if it works".
I wouldn't call it a knack. They decided basically at the last possible moment to do what is perceived as the "right thing". Had they waited any longer, it might have turned into a major publicity disaster, and I think they felt that the train was slowly leaving the station.
Apple has fallen into bad outcomes quite a few times as well - for example with "You're holding it wrong!" They have only been lucky that it has not affected their bottom line in a major way.
So is Google paying apple level royalties in their ad supported songza service or will they be screwing the artists like Spotify does.
Ping happened under Steve Jobs, so people refuse to believe that it ever existed (and failed).
If Apple Music fails, then those people will say "Well, it's all because of Tim Cook."