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Apple Not Coercing Indie Artists Into Apple Music Deals With iTunes Removal Threats
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That's assuming nobody uses Spotify for 3 months just because Apple's service is free, which is highly unlikely. I actually don't know anyone who pays for Spotify. Seems like the free version is good enough anyway. They already bleed the iTunes Store dry.
Not really, because most of the paying customers will probably continue doing so while they give Apple Music a free three months spin to see if it's worth switching to. And the free people? They'll likely do the same.
The only way Apple will be able to convince these people to jump ship isn't by dangling three months worth of carrots in their face. It'll be by proving they have the better service.
Without taking any side, it means, Apple wants to use and distribute someone's content for free for certain period of time? Isn't that considered illegal elsewhere?
I mean, go try using some unlicensed music even in your non-commercial YouTube video and you're going to face a legal claim in no time, or your video gets banned "because of using copyrighted material"...
So why doesn't Apple want to pay copyright owners for three whole months?
Well, because they wont get paid by customers for the same period of time. But this is called a commercial risk, which only Apple has to bear and nobody else.
But maybe Apple will send those "ungrateful hipsters" another U2 album, at least. Because that's punk and because Apple has already paid Bono for it.
It's perfectly legal for Apple to _want_ to use and distribute someone's content. It is also perfectly legal for Apple to do it with permission of the copyright holder. Actually doing without permission is illegal.
We have no idea what contracts are actually in place. Back in the day when the iTunes Store was opened, Apple signed an identical contract with the major record companies, and offered that identical contract to all the independent record companies, explicitely saying that they wouldn't do any negotiations with any indie companies. Which to me made sense, because (a) negotiating a different contract would be time consuming, costly, and would cause trouble with any company getting less good conditions than another one, and (b) the indies would use the legal expertise and the negotiators of the big companies for free. I would assume that we have a similar situation today.
If there is a contract where the big record companies agreed that Apple can stream for three months without charging customers (which is good for the artists because their music is heard) and without paying the record companies or artists (which is bad for the artists because they get no money), then indies will not get a different contract. That's obvious. What isn't obvious and what we don't know is what happens if an indie doesn't like the contract. Whether theire iTunes record sale contract stays unchanged or not. Obviously if they don't accept the contract, they will not be part of the streaming.
It's legal if the copyright holder agrees to it. Since they're bound by Apple's terms if they want to sell their music on iTunes, Apple could "force" (well, they could also quit iTunes) them to do it.
This is actually a very good point - even though we are talking about streaming here, the way that albums are traditionally received by the record buying public is probably comparable. And that means that the number of sales/streams the first couple of weeks for most releases are the highest they will *ever* get.
If I was an artist I would not release anything in the time frame when Apple pushes out free 3 month trials for the first time - at least not on Apple Music.
This can actually have the funny effect that there will be quite a few new releases available on competing services like Spotify that are not available on Apple Music at the same time, giving people a negative impression of the music selection there.
Apple (or any company) should take the hit if they want to run limited promotions to promote their own business models, not the artist.
Actually that's not true. It will help Apple soften their terms and get the general public to voice their displeasure with Apple's policy. It may also get the governments involved.
That is correct. The number of streams and sales are typically higher in the first few weeks of release barring some sort of performance. As others have stated artists will still release on Spotify and other services while Apple Music won't get any new music and then it will provide negative press that Apple Music doesn't have everything and Spotify does feeding the impression that Apple Music is a failed effort and then even people who like Apple Music will move over to Spotify simply because of the critical mass factor.
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Pretty sure Apple is gonna make all artists give up 3 months royalties regardless of when they sign up for Apple Music. Otherwise, every artist would just wait out the initial 3 months.
WTF does that have to do with right and wrong? Your driver analogy makes no sense because you aren't selling anything. If this guy or anyone else gets played then he should get paid. If he sells an album, he should get paid. If he can't sell any albums then he won't get paid. It's that simple. But Apple volunteering his music to be played but not paid should not be their decision.
You seem more like something else to me.
Aloe Blacc was referring to Pandora which everyone knows pays the lowest rate per stream (.001). If Blacc were to have 168M streams on Spotify, his royalty would have been between $1.08M and $1.41M (spotify pays between .006 and .0084 per stream).
The difference is that you can opt out of Spotify. Unlike iTunes, Spotify is streaming ONLY. What this guy is saying is that he's on iTunes for record SALES not record STREAMING and Apple is telling him either get on board with streaming (including free trials where the artist doesn't get paid but Apple gets the publicity) or they can remove him from iTunes period (there go any potential album and song sales where the real money is). For instance, I wanted to be on iTunes to sell music. I couldn't make any real money on Spotify even if I had tens of thousands of plays per day, but 10,000 track purchases at $1 each where I get at least 70 cents adds up fast ($7k). Yeah, you don't get repeat plays (unless they stream also for convenience), but it's not hard to figure out an artists would prefer track sales over streaming and album sales over track sales in most cases.
If you was iTunes? So if you were a computer store, you'd remove asterisks, eh?
Personally, I spent over $10k on instruments and recording equipment for my "home studio" (if you can call a Macbook Pro with a PreSonus, microphone, piano/synth and two guitars a "studio". I spent decades learning to play music as a hobby. I spent four years writing and recording an album. How does that make me undeserving scum? Most musicians aren't making Britney/Puffy/50Cent types of money or got their singing job because they're sexy looking. Most artists would just like to make a living doing what they love instead of being a waitress or burger flopper the rest of their lives. I don't see how that makes them scum and find your attitude reprehensible. My real field is electronic engineering and that's what pays the bills. Music is just a hobby for me. That doesn't mean I think Apple should be able to do whatever they want to artists or label them all scum because I think they should get a "real" job or whatever reasoning you have behind those comments.
I don't know what kind of analogy it would take. I simply assume you don't comprehend what the music industry does in general to its artists (i.e. they do the work and the record company gets most of the money).
That's not how the music industry or Apple works. They get a percentage, not a flat rate.
As for the 93%, have you ever seen what the average record contract at typical labels pay the artists per ALBUM sale? It's typically 3 to 9 cents on the dollar, if that. Take out Apple's cut and at best, they're getting 5-8%. Indie artists would get considerably more (I get like 72 cents on the dollar off iTune SALES) but most indie artists don't have high sales volumes and have to front their own costs for equipment, recording gear or time, etc.)
Not surprising, given the huge supply of "independent" music that people aren't willing to pay much for. I have nothing against music artists, but you should realize that what they produce usually doesn't have a high market value by itself. The record and distribution companies provide the artists with a way to possibly get somewhere. All you could really complain about is that there aren't very many big record companies, so it's kind of an oligopoly that can get away with (IDK if that's true, but you could make the argument). But I doubt they're bringing in much money from "indie" music anyway, given that most people stream it for free, and there is extremely fierce competition between Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, etc. (and let's not forget The Pirate Bay) for distribution.
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This is absolutely crazy!
The three months free is nothing compared to the amount of revenue you could potentially earn!!!
Wake up artist, you think retail is any different? Look at Amazon - they want you to send items to Amazon so they can stock it and sell it and not pay you any monies until they determine if your item is worth it or not. Then they put strict terms (deadlines, sufficient packaging, etc) when you continue to send in orders.
Consider the 3 months royalty you lost a marketing expense to get you exposure you a$$hat. I hate clowns.
The three months free is nothing compared to the amount of revenue you could potentially earn!!!
Wake up artist, you think retail is any different? Look at Amazon - they want you to send items to Amazon so they can stock it and sell it and not pay you any monies until they determine if your item is worth it or not. Then they put strict terms (deadlines, sufficient packaging, etc) when you continue to send in orders.
Consider the 3 months royalty you lost a marketing expense to get you exposure you a$$hat. I hate clowns.
Thanks - you can stop patronising me now.
So is this about the Apple Music free trial, or is it about how much of a cut record labels take before their artists?
It's something if you making music is your living. Apple is using software engineers to devalue the work of others even when it's not called for. People will still throw their money at Apple free trial or not.
The OP was never updated w/it being independently verified or debunked (just that the artist said one thing and Apple said another). If it came up in another post in the thread (which I haven't been able to read all of) then I missed it. If you reread my posts you'll see I never said I believed the accusation just that the accusation was made (and sounded like an un-Apple thing to do).
I feel like we probably agree more than we disagree but discussions can easily get clouded and derailed on line. For example, there are some posters (not saying you are one of them) that seem to think that Apple Music is going to be the greatest thing to happen to music ever and I disagree with that so I might come off more negative than I intend to. I agree that Apple Music is going to have a lot of reach and I also agree that the hard part (cultivating a following and earning enough to make a living) falls on the artists which is why I said I wasn't enamored by Apple Music. It's the latest in a long line of 'maybes' that you hustle at and hope you can turn it into a 'something'. Not optimistic about it, not pessimistic about it, just realistic about it.
If I was a musician I'd most likely agree to be on Apple Music but, why the hell would I just give up three months of revenue w/o putting up a fight? Sure, there's probably a 0.0001% chance that my putting up a fight would actually get Apple to change its mind but I'm at least going to give it a shot. Multiple labels have spoken out against it too and if enough of them stick together then maybe (most likely not, but maybe) Apple will change it's mind. What's to lose? If Apple holds its ground you just sign the deal as is. If Apple gives in then you get three months of revenue you wouldn't have otherwise gotten.
The only thing I can think they could be arguing is some people might use this free service (new revenue stream) for 3 months instead of purchasing the artist's music (existing revenue stream). Thus, there is a way they could be "losing" revenue. Basically I agree with you though, overall it's likely a big benefit that would far outweigh a small amount of potential lost revenue.
That dude is just looking for quick money, it is funny that if you search in you tube you can listen every single album of that band, uploaded by other people not part of the band or organization and watched and listened by thousands of people and that dude is not ranting at youtube.
You can even listen 5 hours of albums from them...
80 songs!! It has only been watched more than 98,000 times since 2013 so who cares!!!
You can even listen 5 hours of albums from them...
You mean the Spotify who pays artists less for college plans, who pay artists less on ad supported plans and even pay artists less for the full subscription service?