Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine Meeting with Musicians Over Exclusive Beyonce-Like Album Releases

[mozumder]

Personally I do not like iTunes exclusives as long as Apple continues to offer music in a lossy format. When Apple start offering Apple Lossless tracks then I will be happy to buy more music from them.

Or you could just get over it?

It's not like you can tell the difference between lossy and lossless formats.

----------

Lack of high quality audio, DRM restrictions, etc.... not everyone is Apple sheep

That's the consumer's problem, not Apple's or the artists.

iTunes exclusives are good for artists and Apple's.

If consumers don't want to pay for music, well, that's too bad for them. They can go listen to something else.

----------

Strange *story* to post on here. I would guess that most of the macrumors audience couldn't give a damn about Beyoncé or these *exclusive* acts.

What about the up and coming, struggling musicians Apple?

Sickening..

If they had any talent or marketability, they would end up getting the recognition they deserve.

Very few indie bands actually are worth anything. It's better that they struggle. Life shouldn't be easy.

 

[BigHonkingDeal]

The word that comes to mind is.... PING

 

[Frankied22]

Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine Meeting with Musicians Over Exclusive Beyonce-Like Alb...

There's no such thing as "exclusives" in music anymore. I'll just turn on my VPN, go to kickass.to, and torrent it for free. Then I'll put it in iTunes Match or Google music and have it on all my devices.

 

[Rogifan]

On John Gruber's latest podcast he said he's heard that the Beats deal was 100% Eddy Cue. He was the one inside Apple pushing for this deal. If this is why then he has way more power than he should have inside Apple. People hate exclusives. There's a lot Apple needs to do to improve iTunes. Offering exclusives from artists who are best buds with Iovine and Dre isn't it. It will be a turnoff more than anything else.

 

[odditie]

I really think the solution to the whole purchase vs. stream is a model similar to what you see with movies.

An older catalog is available for either free or very cheap (maybe part of iTunes match?) with new music being able to be purchased. The key is having a service that can integrate your purchased and streaming music together to build your library and playlists.

This isn't the perfect solution for the consumer, but gives the artists the up front sales they need and the consumer the ability to have a reasonable sized library available to them.

 

[kemal]

I avoid the two minutes hate by not using iTunes.

 

[2457282]

it seems to meet that if Beyonce did and exclusive and that worked to drive up sales, then other artist would be interested in doing the same. Obviously not all artist have the pull of Beyonce so how effective exclusive deals will be will likely depend on the artist appeal.

Whether the exclusive is iTunes, Beats, Spotify, Pandora, whatever is less material. Apple thinks it found a winning formula and will try to exploit it -- this is called business. Stop with all the hating, as this is what each of the other services will look at and decide if they can do the same. I could even see Amazon trying to get into this somehow.

 

[Glideslope]

Rihanna and Adele will probably release their new albums like this.

I'll agree with Rihanna. Not sure with Adele.

 

[CEmajr]

Most people who were going to steal the music were going to steal it anyway. Apple making it exclusive temporarily to iTunes isn't going to have an effect either way. Being iTunes exclusive doesn't justify pirating music as a workaround, it just makes those who do it feel better about themselves.

Apparently Beyonce got paid pretty well for her album being iTunes exclusive and many other artists are interested in something similar. I have no problem with the artists wanting to get more money out of their sales. So for the artists who can successfully pull it off, it's good for them and it's good for Apple from a business perspective.

No point in complaining about lossy vs. lossless formats. Most consumers don't care about lossless or even have the output devices to tell the difference so Apple couldn't be bothered to care either.

 

[bbeagle]

There's no such thing as "exclusives" in music anymore. I'll just turn on my VPN, go to kickass.to, and torrent it for free. Then I'll put it in iTunes Match or Google music and have it on all my devices.

Your have to thank all the people who buy music for how you get it. If the vast majority of people torrented music, artists would stop producing music, as it would become unprofitable.

You're like a parasite on an elephant. You can keep feeding, but don't get too many other parasites involved, or you'll kill the elephant.

 

[tech3475]

I just hope something I like doesn't end up exclusive, partially because I prefer CD (my stereo doesn't like CD-Rs) and partially because it will be lossy (I also like to edit the odd song and I don't like the idea of paying for an inferior version).

Only reason I buy lossy is because i have some free credit on Amazon.

 

[Zimmy68]

Yep, sign up and you can be "Artist of the Year" even though no one has heard your album.

 

[satchmo]

I wonder if Iovine is taking "Doctor" Dre with him to threaten to beat people if they don't comply. Although I wonder if the good doctor enjoys beating only black women and no one else.

I was wondering what Dre's role was.

But seriously, what is his role?

 

[Rafagon]

Well, at least they found something for him to do...

 

[roadbloc]

On John Gruber's latest podcast he said he's heard that the Beats deal was 100% Eddy Cue. He was the one inside Apple pushing for this deal. If this is why then he has way more power than he should have inside Apple. People hate exclusives. There's a lot Apple needs to do to improve iTunes. Offering exclusives from artists who are best buds with Iovine and Dre isn't it. It will be a turnoff more than anything else.

For once I actually agree with you.

 

[Illbay]

"Recording Artists" ≠ "Musicians"

----------

I was wondering what Dre's role was.

But seriously, what is his role?

"Branding."

 

[Patriot24]

Personally I do not like iTunes exclusives as long as Apple continues to offer music in a lossy format. When Apple start offering Apple Lossless tracks then I will be happy to buy more music from them.

Question: are you willing to pay more for lossless or do you believe it is a standard that should be offered to all at current rates?

Ever since Neil Young introduced his Pono player and started advocating for lossless there have been rumors that Apple may do the same. I can envision a world in which they do offer it, but as somewhat of a premium offering.

 

[wiredup72]

Until albums are released with a losless codec, ALAC or FLAC, I don't care. Fin.

 

[GLS]

I wonder if Iovine is taking "Doctor" Dre with him to threaten to beat people if they don't comply. Although I wonder if the good doctor enjoys beating only black women and no one else.

Classy post.

 

[wiredup72]

Question: are you willing to pay more for lossless or do you believe it is a standard that should be offered to all at current rates?
[/URL].

Are you joking asking such an inane question? A CD is losless. Does iTunes cost less than a CD? No. Not at my local independent music shop. So, He!! no should losless cost more than their standard bs releases.

 

[GuitarDTO]

Exclusives will bring additional attention to big name artists, and it will bring new subscribers to Beats Music (which I'm assuming will contain these exclusives as well as iTunes). I think this will be a win win for the artists and Apple. It will annoy folks who don't use Beats Music, but at some point Beats will be incorporated as part of iTunes and the built in Music app of the iPhone....and likely will include a price drop as well. The necessary agreements are probably what is slowing this down.

I personally quite like Beats Music so far and don't mind paying $9.99 per month for it. I've downloaded and listened to so much more music with it than I ever did before having a subscription.

 

[buzzardo]

Probably be disco remixes or cover tracks.

 

[Patriot24]

Are you joking asking such an inane question? A CD is losless. Does iTunes cost less than a CD? No. Not at my local independent music shop. So, He!! no should losless cost more than their standard bs releases.

All of the major players charge more money to rent or purchase HD movies over their standard definition counterparts. There is no reason to think that the same will not be true of audio as we head further into the digital future.

The question is still relevant - will people pay slightly more for higher quality audio as they do with HD movies?

 

[afallnstar]

I wonder if Iovine is taking "Doctor" Dre with him to threaten to beat people if they don't comply. Although I wonder if the good doctor enjoys beating only black women and no one else.

You're embarassing yourself.

 

[ttss6]

It's almost 2015 and I still prefer buying CDs that I actually own and can give someone if I don't like a particular one anymore