The shakedown operation was successful. I can't believe Apple is paying the same rate as they will during the paid period. They'll have multiple times as many customers during the trial period, who have no intention of ever paying for music, and when they use the service, Apple writes checks. Crazy, unless it's a very low rate, and all Apple is doing is making up for the loss of revenue from Spotify or whatever.
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Apple Reverses Course, Will Pay Artists During Apple Music Free Trial
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It doesn't sound like the payments will be the full post trial share which could have been over a billion dollars.
But by offering a compromise they get Taylor Swift advertising their music service and all the adjacent publicity the week before launch.
Will be worth every penny in terms of marketing the service. Could not have worked out better for apple.
On top of that they are showing themselves as the guys who listen to the artists and having swift in particular is even better given her issues with the spot icy ad tier.
But by offering a compromise they get Taylor Swift advertising their music service and all the adjacent publicity the week before launch.
Will be worth every penny in terms of marketing the service. Could not have worked out better for apple.
On top of that they are showing themselves as the guys who listen to the artists and having swift in particular is even better given her issues with the spot icy ad tier.
Would not have garnered them huge media attention and Taylor swift love fest week before launch.
Well to be fair it is likely more than a few million dollars. If they have 50 million trial members which $7.20 a month go to the labels each month you are talking over a billion dollars.
I suspect the trial rate will be less than the normal rate but you are still looking at several hundred million dollars on apple's part.
Eddie Cue and Apple look like real aholes. If you loved artists as you claim, you never would have attempted to screw them over like you did. What a bunch of disingenuous idiots. I'll stick with Spotify now.
Then obviously you can't like Taylor Swift.
Seriously though, I hate when people stereotype music audiences. I really enjoy Yoko Shimomura's work (she was the composer for Kingdom Hearts among others). When I tell people that so many assume I love anime or something. Sadly, I doubt that kind of music will be offered onMusic.
Yoko Shimomura is on the iTunes Store and my understanding is that you can use Apple Music to stream anything that is on there. Might be wrong but I think that's how it works...
Not all music from iTunes will be available on Apple Music. There are currently over 43 million songs on the US iTunes Store but they are only promising that over 30 million songs will be available on Apple Music.
Without a crystal ball, everything in life is a gamble. Nothing to be "dumbfounded" over.
That's why you have a both a strategic plan (don't pay) and a bunch of tactics (pay, if it starts to get ugly) worked out in advance.
They don't.
It IS artists' rights to get royalties. Apple should've done that in the first place. You can't just stream other people's songs without giving anything back to the right owners.
Lack of taste has no age limit.
Music snobbery has no age limit, more likely.
Whatever else, 1989 is a fantastic pop album.
Having said all of this, this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't written that letter publicly. I guarantee it.
It absolutely is. Very catchy tunes.
I don't get why she's hated as much as she is. She's one of the very few that stands up to studios on the regular. She's extremely charitable. One of the few that actually writes songs anymore in the mainstream. She's an actual role model. You don't see her in the tabloids doing drugs and partying all the time. She voiced her concern and in doing that, she likely got some indie artists paid when they otherwise wouldn't.
Good on her.
Not quite.
For my part, I originally argued that it was contradictory for Swift to have previously argued that Spotify was bad because the royalty payments to smaller artists were virtually zero, but to argue here that the Apple Music free trial was bad because smaller artists would feel a significant loss of earnings.
Put simply, if we have established that smaller artists receive virtually nothing from streaming payments, how can it be argued now that they will lose a lot of income?
I absolutely support Swift for speaking out on the subject, I was just never convinced that the effect on smaller artists would be at all significant. Especially when they would be receiving higher payments for all time beyond the trial.
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that a well thought out decision may or may not work out is not the same as gambling.
im dumfounded by the length you go to defend this decision (in reply to my post) that was obvious to everyone would receive a huge amount of backlash. whether they had a backup contingency plan ready is irrelevant. that apple needs backlash to come to the "right" decision shows complacency.
You compare a service that you receive and that you should rightfully pay for with a service that Apple wanted to receive without paying for it?
Everything about this Music launch so far has been tone deaf IMO. Just like the stupid idea to stick a U2 album in everyone's iTunes library. Really makes me wonder if the $3B for Jimmy Iovine and Trent Reznor was worth it.
It's the right thing to do. Sadly, it wasn't done in the first place.
23 pages, and I haven't read every comment, but in my opinion...
1) Apple should not have presumed to give away others' work. Any free trial period should have always been a part of Apple's development/marketing efforts with the new service. (Yes, I know that they were possibly looking at the long-term picture and benefits to the artists.)
2) Apple may not have "backed down" as much as been advised that they would have faced legal challenges otherwise. I'd be pretty certain that Taylor Swift and other artists would have at least made a claim against Apple for intellectual property infringement.
1) Apple should not have presumed to give away others' work. Any free trial period should have always been a part of Apple's development/marketing efforts with the new service. (Yes, I know that they were possibly looking at the long-term picture and benefits to the artists.)
2) Apple may not have "backed down" as much as been advised that they would have faced legal challenges otherwise. I'd be pretty certain that Taylor Swift and other artists would have at least made a claim against Apple for intellectual property infringement.
Oh, you know how it goes.
One person says one thing once, and another person said the opposite later, but because "Apple fanboys" are one single entity, that is all the evidence of double standards and hypocrisy some people need.
Really? All Apple fans?
I'd consider myself an "Apple fan" (to the extent that you can be a "fan" of a for-profit corporation) and have even been accused of being a "fanboy" (or worse). Yet I never said that Apple was right in not compensating artists. So apparently, not all Apple fans made that kind of a statement.
How does Apple look like ******s? Apple isn't making a penny during the free trial period either so it's a loss leader for both of them hoping users enjoy the service and start paying, which means they then BOTH get paid.
It's as simple as this, they created a new streaming service and the potential for both them and the artists to make more money than the day before it existed. They asked artists to come on board and take the risk with them and hopefully make money in the end while providing new avenues for them to interact with their fans etc. Some signed on, other like Taylor did not.
The only thing that happened is that Apple now pays money out of pocket to remove all risk for the artists because Taylor pitched a hissy fit and they decided it was worth the risk to potentially lose money in hopes of people liking the service, and get rid of this PR issue because Taylor and other mellinials have an inflated sense of entitlement that's an epidemic.
It's like if I started a lawn company and asked you to come on board to be a part of it and an incentive for people to start using us every weekend was that our first cut was absolutely free. We are both hoping the they like us and use us, and if they do we both make money! I make a little more because I did the work to start the company, file the LLC, have business cards made and purchased all the equipment.
I just don't get how Apple looks like absolute ******s for creating a new service, giving people free trials and offering that to artists who can try it if they want, or not... Up to them.