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Apple Still Working to Finalize Streaming Music Deals Ahead of Rumored WWDC Launch

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Just weeks ahead of the rumored debut of its newly revamped streaming music service, Apple is still working to get key deals completed. According to a new report from Billboard that cites music industry sources, Apple does not yet have the necessary licensing agreements that it needs to launch the service, leading to disagreements over whether it will be ready to go in June.
A June launch is still attainable. One source notes Apple has been able to quickly secure licensing deals in the past. "If any company can pull it off, they can," the source tells Billboard, adding that "labels are more likely to play ball with them" because of Apple's track record of generating revenue for rights holders.

Another major label source believes the Beats Music re-launch isn't coming soon. "June won't be the release date. The deals aren't done."
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Rumors about several licensing issues have arisen over the past several months as Apple has worked to ink deals with record labels. Originally, Apple was said to be seeking an agreement that would let it offer its new music service for $7.99 per month, but it was forced to back down on that price point after record companies resisted going below $9.99.

beats-music-app-ios.jpeg

More recently, rumors have suggested Apple is pressuring music labels to cease offering licenses for the freemium tiers that Spotify and other services offer, as Apple does not plan to offer a freemium tier for its rebranded music service. These efforts have earned Apple government scrutiny, as the European Commission is now poking into Apple's agreements with music companies. U.S. Department of Justice officials are also said to be looking into Apple's music negotiations.

Apple is known for asking for highly favorable deals from media companies due to its influence and the sheer number of potential customers it commands, and it is unsurprising that the company has yet to finalize deals given some of the rumors about its demands. If deals are not completed in time, it's possible Apple will unveil the music service at its Worldwide Developers Conference, but release it at a later date.

Apple's upcoming music service is said to be positioned as a rebranding of its existing Beats Music service. To draw in customers and set its music service apart from the competition, Apple is aiming to offer a range of exclusive content. There are also plans to integrate the new music service deeply into iTunes, and it's likely it will be built into the newly revamped Music app introduced with iOS 8.4.

Article Link: Apple Still Working to Finalize Streaming Music Deals Ahead of Rumored WWDC Launch
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/05/apple-still-finalizing-streaming-music-deals/
I wonder if there will be an additional fee on top of iTunes Match for this or not.
 
Got spotify premium for 5$/month.
Like it better than iTunes match even tho i don't 'own' the music.
Might be willing to pay more for better service than iTunes match.
 
Just GTFO Apple. Admit buying Beats was a $3 billion blunder, and move on. You're just wasting money trying to force yourself into this market.
 
What will this do to iTunes Radio? Is this going to be a replacement?
 
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I don't even understand why Apple even bothered to buy the stupid Beats Music. Without Apple, Beats Music was going to be the next Tidal.

The smart thing to do would've been to buy Spotify, the king of all streamers.
 
I totally don't get the Apple hate on this.

Spotify has a horrible businessmodel that strangles artists. Do you know how many people should listen to your song just to live from it as an artist?
I'm not a fan of that what's-her-name-again that pulled her songs from Spotify but I surely understand her point of view

I love Soundcloud as an 'artist discovery' platform and buy the albums on iTunes or a real album if I really love them :)
 
This is one area where Apple can't seem to reinvent to the point where people are willing to switch. Services in general seem to be Apple's black box.
 
HurtinMinorKey said:
Just GTFO Apple. Admit buying Beats was a $3 billion blunder, and move on. You're just wasting money trying to force yourself into this market.
Click to expand...

While I'm neither supporting or condemning the Beats acquisition - streaming music services are the future of the music industry. Apple would be stupid to move on after investing well over 3 billion in this venture.
 
I'm ready for a single service, single music application that covers my needs as well as the several I use today. I hope they can get this out there sooner than later so we can start working through the bugs.
 
PBF said:
I don't even understand why Apple even bothered to buy the stupid Beats Music. Without Apple, Beats Music was going to be the next Tidal.

The smart thing to do would've been to buy Spotify, the king of all streamers.
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Because company with history of explosive growth is expected to continue explosive growth. This can only be sustained by going into new markets.

That being said, it appears buying Beats was one of the silliest mistakes Apple has made in recent years.
 
Work as hard as you want. I'll never buy a subscription service that is tied to one company's hardware.

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mr.bee said:
I totally don't get the Apple hate on this.

Spotify has a horrible businessmodel that strangles artists. Do you know how many people should listen to your song just to live from it as an artist?
I'm not a fan of that what's-her-name-again that pulled her songs from Spotify but I surely understand her point of view

I love Soundcloud as an 'artist discovery' platform and buy the albums on iTunes or a real album if I really love them :)
Click to expand...

Yeah and Apple are known for being pro-anyone-else-but-themselves.
 
lowercaseperson said:
While I'm neither supporting or condemning the Beats acquisition - streaming music services are the future of the music industry. Apple would be stupid to move on after investing well over 3 billion in this venture.
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I'd file this under "cutting their losses." Having already wasted good money is not a good reason to keep wasting even more.

The hill is too steep to climb, unless they can find a way to innovate in a way that changes the steaming game. But their back-alley attempts to try and get their competition restrained makes me think they are aware they don't have much in terms of innovation to offer.
 
Apple did well with iTune store. It cornered the market and when someone wants to buy a song this is the place to go. But there was always the group of people that did not want to buy and stole the music through torent or other way. It seems that the way to make money is going back to either the old radio model of playing the songs for free but sticking in commercials. The second model is a subscription service to get rid of the commercials. Spotify and Pandora have been the leaders in these two models. I use iTunes radio but it does not seem to have much traction in general. As people are buying less and moving to one of these other models, it makes sense for Apple to re-think their strategy.

But, I hope they come up with a game changer like they did with iTunes. Repeating current solutions does not make them attractive compared to Spotify.
 
mr.bee said:
I totally don't get the Apple hate on this.

Spotify has a horrible businessmodel that strangles artists. Do you know how many people should listen to your song just to live from it as an artist?
I'm not a fan of that what's-her-name-again that pulled her songs from Spotify but I surely understand her point of view

I love Soundcloud as an 'artist discovery' platform and buy the albums on iTunes or a real album if I really love them :)
Click to expand...

You can still subscribe to spotify and buy artists albums - so what's your point?
It's pretty clear that artists don't get rich from streaming, but as you said it's a promotion platform for concerts, albums etc.

So you think Apple is out to rescue artists? If you think that you're delusional.

The first reason why the music industry accepted streaming services is to fight pirating - now that it appears to work they want to drive users back to pirating? These people never learn...
 
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Apple is going to have to beat my two-person Rdio family subscription price: $14.99/mo. The only thing I really miss vs. an Apple solution is Siri integration.
 
PBF said:
I don't even understand why Apple even bothered to buy the stupid Beats Music. Without Apple, Beats Music was going to be the next Tidal.

The smart thing to do would've been to buy Spotify, the king of all streamers.
Click to expand...

Buy then for what? 50B, for that kind of money Apple could just buy the artists and produce all the music in house...

Spotify is crap for artists, Youtube too. Only mega stars can live off it.

I always find it funny how many people are for Spotify.

If you want to be a all is free kind of person, don't give money to streaming services that crap on the artist's head and say that hey, its all publicity for their concert or sales... publicity for what? Playing 300 gigs a year and selling 1000 tunes to be able to eat and buy new equipment?

That's how it is for 99.9% of artists these days. Eventually, they'll wake up and actually value their own stuff and stop groveling. Because if they don't value it; the buyers won't...

Streaming services are so bad that you might as well steel the artists work outright for the good they're getting from it.

There are "places" where you can download the 300K songs you'd need to cover just about every significant artist in any genre there is of the last 20 years (could be done in about 3 months with my connection). If I want pre-1990 catalog, another 200K should suffice (2 months more) to have a pretty decent amount of songs (sic). Then, you wouldn't need a streaming service ever. Just keep up the date the new arrivals every week; you can automate that... (I'm not doing that... But it is very doable).

Yes... I don't do that. I actually still buy songs or shudder entire albums. Man, I must be that old.
 
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There's no rush. Apple should not waste a lot of time battling this. If Spotify can offer a free version of it's service, and a great paid version, why even bother. It's not broken, Spotify is as good as it gets. So now Apple wants Spotify to HAVE to charge so they lose their advantage? Apple wanted to be able to offer a service at the undercut price of 7.99 because of their scale? Because they want to be the Walmart with the sheer scale to crush their competition? Is that innovation or slimy?
 
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