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Apple Reverses Course, Will Pay Artists During Apple Music Free Trial

HenryDJP said:
I think the only one is blind is you if you think Taylor Swift was the only one behind this.
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When did I say that ? I said reacting is a better way instead of accepting blindly a multi-billion dollar company's acts.
Even now that Apple takes back their policy, there are people still defending it. How's that for blindness ?
 
dumastudetto said:
I don't think it was a pre-planned PR stunt. There had been a lot of discussion about the issues involved between high profile Apple writers yesterday. Gruber published some blog entries about it, Rene Richie did the same on iMore. There were several heated threads on Twitter on Sunday. Taylor Swift nodded in agreement with some of these posts to further highlight the dissenting opinions.

Cue and some other execs probably saw all this snowballing, did some napkin calculations on what they were saving by zero rating royalty payments to artists, and quickly determined this was not worth taking the pain over. Tim Cook agreed (after having the numbers further scrutinised) and green lighted Cue putting out the message tonite - we are paying artists.

Right now they are probably cursing missing this detail on royalties during trial when putting together the deals. But it's not surprising the bulk of the attention was on subscriptions, foregoing revenue for 90 days. Because that's were the bulk of the money is earned and paid out.
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So what exactly is Jimmy Iovine good for then? This should never have snowballed to where Apple he to cave in the first place. It's like the U2 album giveaway. Was there no one at Apple that thought perhaps not everyone would want a U2 album shoved in their iTunes library as though they purchased it? Apple has had a year to get their ducks in a row for this streaming service yet it seems like they're fumbling their way through it. Embarrassing to watch.
 
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HenryDJP said:
Unfortunately nothing changes for the consumer. We still have to pay and pay the same price. I'm certainly not doing a $10 per month subscription so the artists are not getting anything for me anyway.
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What do you mean they're not getting anything from you? Do you buy any music from anywhere? Do you actually listen to music?... o_o

Sure, the $10/month doesn't change for consumers. Except... that's nothing to complain about. That's honestly a real steal. So much value in that kind of access to the iTunes library. Consumers, including yourself, get to try it for three months for free, and the artists get paid.

That's captivating. I can't wait to try it out myself.
 
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Dennison said:
You know what's the definition of pathetic? Not paying for what you listen to.

Get out. You don't belong in this discussion about making sure artists and content creators get paid for their work.

Thank you Taylor and Apple. Today is a huge day and changes everything for the future of music.
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I am really quite amazed by all the comments, as if it's a bad thing that artists are getting paid during the trial. Most of it seems out of blind allegiance to Apple, and unwarranted hate for Taylor Swift.

It'd be one thing if half the people commenting were CEO/execs from multi-billion dollar companies, or made a platinum album.
 
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thekeyring said:
Apple does the right thing and people still post sarky comments here....
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No, and Not Quite. They set out to screw artists because they believed they could. They still screw developers because we had to agree to the five copies policy with family sharing, or we were forced to leave the app store (by not being able to submit new apps or updates). Musicians can leave the iTunes store and distribute their music by alternate means. There is no way to distribute iOS applications other than Apple's app store. Apple is not doing the right thing generally.
 
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antonis said:
When did I say that ? I said reacting is a better way instead of accepting blindly a multi-billion dollar company's acts.
Even now that Apple takes back their policy, there are people still defending it. How's that for blindness ?
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Okay then tell me who or what you were referring to that Apple was reacting to?
 
The Doctor11 said:
Nope. She had 10 workdays before this weekend to publish that post on tumbler.
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You don't think Apple's senior management regularly works on weekends? It's not like K-12 where Saturday and Sunday is your "off period."

College and later, any time is free game for work.
 
developer13245 said:
No, and Not Quite. They set out to screw artists because they believed they could. They still screw developers because we had to agree to the five copies policy with family sharing, or we were forced to leave the app store (by not being able to submit new apps or updates). Musicians can leave the iTunes store and distribute their music by alternate means. There is no way to distribute iOS applications other than Apple's app store. Apple is not doing the right thing.
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Yep, damned if they do damned if they don't. Good ole MR. Nothing changes here. Something positive finally happens and we still have to say bad things about Apple. Can't even have a positive discussion after hearing some good news.
 
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beafer said:
Bitch move Apple, bitch move.

Since the artists don't want to invest with Apple as well, I hope Apple changes the contract to a lower percentage point.
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In the Re/code article linked above, it says that Apple won't be paying the same rate during the free trial that they pay when the user is a subscriber. It's safe to say it will be substantially lower.
 
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Traverse said:
You don't think Apple's senior management regularly works on weekends? It's not like K-12 where Saturday and Sunday is your "off period."

College and later, any time is free game for work.
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Exactly, so why force them to work weekends? They have enough **** to deal with deal with.
 
Apple really should have had this policy to begin with.

Even though Taylor says it's about the indie artists, if it was just the indie artists screaming about this Apple would just ignore them.
 
I'm glad they changed course. Frankly, as much as I like the idea of three free months I think it's overkill anyway. If the selection and/or interface is better than Spotify, I'll switch. Otherwise, I won't. I think my favorite aspect is the family pricing.

I think, from a PR standpoint, addressing the indie artists would have been better. Waiting for the proverbial 800lbs gorilla to make a stink about it wasn't so hot.
 
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