Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Reverses Course, Will Pay Artists During Apple Music Free Trial
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Apple should have done this from the beginning. But yet some how they get brownie points from some for doing what they should have done in the first place after being shamed?
Makes. No. Sense.
Makes. No. Sense.
Last edited:
B.S.
Apple is creating a brand new service that didn't exist before. No artist would've been harmed by streaming their music for three months without compensation, because there would be compensation... after three months. No artist would be put out of business because of Apple Music, because it's not going to cost the artists anything. They are not working for Apple Music, giving their time and resources. They already did that by creating the music. Did you forget all of the other costs Apple is footing to get the service up and running? Software engineers, product managers, marketing, infrastructure, bandwidth. Let's not forget how Apple's bigger goal is to transform the industry once again. The world is a better place because of this service, but the short-sighted artists look at three measly months as a big deal? That's what is pathetic about their complaints.
That's recording contracts for you - they are notorious for being grossly in the label's favour rather than the artist's.
Remember Prince taking his stand because Warner Bros owned the rights to his music?
Their is no sense in the Apple fan world, none. That's why people claim it has the same traits as a cult. That's even evident in the comments on this forum.
You are not entitled to things you can't afford.
Thanks. Well as long as I can get stuff downloaded for offline use while I'm in the subway, I will be happy. The Music App has been broken for me for a while so I struggle to consistently get my own purchase music onto my iPhone. And since I've got a 64gb version, I have tons of space to carry songs on it. I need to check and see if the latest updates fixed my issue with integration with iTunes. I haven't checked in a while.
@JonyIveParody: Steve Jobs would never have paid artists during the three month trial period of AppleMusic.
Cue the hate replies
Cue the hate replies
Yup... no small unknown artist will benefit much from this. The big mutimillion ones: they'll benefit from this. It's just a riich brat getting what she wants as usual.
Makes Perfect sense if you accept this was a PR stunt planned by Swift's management and Apple from the very beginning.
Look at the facts
1. This 'situation' allows Taylor Swift to come out as supporting streaming services as the 'savior' of small artists, without looking hypocritical for reversing her decision and views on Spotify.
2. Apple gain a huge amount of positive PR by creating a massive trending discussion and global news story featuring two extremely powerful brands (Swift and Apple), just before the launch of their new service.
3. Apply have spent months if not years working the financials of the streaming deals - but suddenly overnight they re-work all the numbers to make it work in favor of the artists? No chance, this was planned for a long time.
Excellent decision. Apple have more than enough money to cover the costs of the free trial period. Artists should be paid.
This should have been Apple's decision from day 0.
This should have been Apple's decision from day 0.
Really? You don't think people or corporations should be credited for changing their minds when they are in the wrong? What incentive would there be to do so then?
This touches on an interesting aspect of the whole streaming model which I had wondered about.
If the royalties are paid out on a fixed, per stream basis, how does that equate back to the monthly subscription cost?
Is it, as you suggest there, that Apple / Spotify just pocket the difference if the total number of streams is less than the revenue generated from subscriptions?
Without defending anyone, but just looking at the numbers, it just seems like an incredibly difficult thing to actually get viable figures for. Because the number of streams could vary wildly, and could for bigger artists be huge numbers, then even very small variations in the per stream pay out could make a huge difference in the revenue retained by Apple or Spotify.
I guess what everyone would like to see is streaming really take off to the point where the numbers start to become more favourable for even smaller artists, simply through sheer volume of paying subscribers.
You are missing the point. The artists would certainly take a loss (even though they aren't paying for anything associated with Apple Music). Imagine millions of people signing up for the free trial of Apple Music next week. Then also imagine a new artist releasing an album about the same time. If these millions of people decide to only listen to the new album on Apple Music during the trial period (since it is free to the user), then the artist gets nothing. Then those users, after listening to the album frequently for three months, stop listening as the trial comes to an end, the artist essentially gave the album away for free.
So what should the artist do? Defer the release of their album until the trial period is over? Sure, but that is still three months with no income from the album they spent so much time and money creating.
Its definitely good that they have relented, but to be fair, you wouldn't be paid $0 for thousands of hours work. You just wouldn't receive any royalties from that one service for three months, but would have received slightly higher royalties for all time after the trial.
And if you receive virtually nothing from streaming services anyway (which is a whole different argument), its difficult to be convinced that your loss of revenue from this trial would be much more than a few dollars, to that.
But if you are an artist out there on streaming services and iTunes and release CDs, then based on your past income, would you really have lost a significant proportion of your total revenue as a result of this trial?
Yep, and that will hopefully happen over time. Right now the number of people actively streaming music is just a fraction of the number of people that used to buy music back in the day. So any direct comparisons of income from the CD-age (before pirating) with income from Apple Music or Spotify right now is of course far far off.
Really? After the three months, they would get paid retroactively for the three month trial period? No? Well then your statement is nonsense.
If currently an artist is getting paid through Spotify and then listeners switch to another service where the artists don't get paid, then the artists will make less money. As simple as that. So yes, artists would have been harmed by this. They would have earned less money. Basic math skills help a lot in a discussion like this.
So the software engineers, product managers, marketing, infrastructur providers, etc. - they are all allowed to ask for money for their services, but the musicians are the only ones who should agree not to get paid for three months? Yes, musicians have already created the music, but here's some interesting piece of information: When you write a song, you don't get a lump sum one-time payment that will cover all your future expenses. You depend on continuous royalty payments. Apple Music would have eliminated a certain part of these royalty payments for many musicians.
Well, perhaps not everyone is so unbelievably utterly hyped by a service that basically already exists in rather similar fashion that they believe that the industry is being "transformed" in some way here and that they should just not get paid for three months. "Hey, Apple is doing something great, but I won't make rent for three months. Ah, well, so I guess I will work at McD's for three months so that Apple can (perhaps) transform the industry."
I believe this is not true. Taylor Swift if famous for retaining rights to her music that other artists don't/can't retain.
I don't know if this has been noticed, but Eddy Cue said (if this was quoted correctly) that Apple will pay the artists, not that Apple will pay the record companies. This might mean that Apple will ask the record companies what percentage of the money they receive will go to the artists, and that Apple will pay that percentage and expect it to be distributed to the artists.
Nonsense. Nothing says more about strength than the strength to let yourself be convinced and change your mind.
Any evidence for that?
Nonsense. Nothing says more about strength than the strength to let yourself be convinced and change your mind.
Any evidence for that?
Last edited:
That is an interesting scenario, but doesn't that essentially happen now anyway? Just substitute 'Apple Music' with 'Spotify's free tier'. OK, they might get something, but that something will be a tiny amount.
If an artist is prominent enough to get millions of streams, they will almost certainly sell lots of copies of the album as well.
And given that the revenue from streaming is a tiny fraction of the revenue from actual sales, then in that scenario they might lose the streaming revenue, but that would likely be a very small proportion of their total revenue.
Which again, isn't to say that it isn't great that they'll get that revenue, just lets not make out its more significant than it really is.
Why does it seem like everyone is turning a blind eye to the labels that signed these deals on behalf of the artists?
I still don't understand why everyone is ******** on Apple, when there were two sides to the agreement. It wasn't spun out of midair by Apple directly connected to the artists with a "sucks to suck". Someone who stood for the rights of the artists OKed it and helped shape it.
We know how labels constrict artists in return for their services, this being one of them. Apple does not have the weight in music it once had and while obviously able to drive a hard bargain, no one was forcing these agreements. If they were so bad, how did they get signed and why? If they were so impactful, why were artists not in stance before it? Because they didn't know, because of the label that signed the agreement without their knowledge or consideration.
Apple will never win in some people's eyes, and I don't say any of this to circumvent their part in this less than spectacular deal (though, assuming things go well, they will be the largest payout after the trial ends and even through if they don't renegotiating those numbers), but how can people seriously not see a larger issue with what happened here?
I still don't understand why everyone is ******** on Apple, when there were two sides to the agreement. It wasn't spun out of midair by Apple directly connected to the artists with a "sucks to suck". Someone who stood for the rights of the artists OKed it and helped shape it.
We know how labels constrict artists in return for their services, this being one of them. Apple does not have the weight in music it once had and while obviously able to drive a hard bargain, no one was forcing these agreements. If they were so bad, how did they get signed and why? If they were so impactful, why were artists not in stance before it? Because they didn't know, because of the label that signed the agreement without their knowledge or consideration.
Apple will never win in some people's eyes, and I don't say any of this to circumvent their part in this less than spectacular deal (though, assuming things go well, they will be the largest payout after the trial ends and even through if they don't renegotiating those numbers), but how can people seriously not see a larger issue with what happened here?