Taylor Swift Criticizes Apple Music's Free Trial in Open Letter

[dusk007]

Music hosting does not cost as much as you might think.
Video hosting is tons more expensive and you can fully finance it via ads. The whole infrastructure physical part of the occasion costs actually very very little per song.
The point it the free trial is a way for Apple to lure people to their service. It is their promotion for their service, so they should pay for their own promotion.

 

[petsounds]

That's the deal they cut. If they don't like it they should have signed with someone who would stick up for them. If they're independent, well they don't have to load their music to Apple's servers. It's the price of doing business. Again if they were actually selling music they would have no problem with this deal.

Artists that aren't mega-stars are afraid to opt-out of the deal for fear of retribution by Apple. Apple is the Goliath and they can use their status to muscle small artists into line. Whether they would actually do this is another matter, but that fear is definitely percolating in the music community.

 

[H2SO4]

I have to agree with her, those folks work hard at their craft, why give away their stuff for 3 months without payment.

With billions in the bank why not pay the artists what they're due during the free trial period.

One thing I‘ve learned about rich people is that somehow they can get away with spending no money at all or getting what they want cheap where we normally have to pay the going rate.

 

[smorrissey]

Because Spotify also does not pay artists during the subscriber's free trial. If Apple were to pay during the free trial to gain access to Swift (and others), then Spotify would have to as well.

Nahh there's a thing called Spotify FREE, i want to see Apple matching that...

I would love to see her saying goodbye to Apple....and other artists following her....lol

 

[richman555]

Pretty valid point. I was under the assumption Apple was just eating up the costs for 3 months. We'll see if this picks up more traction and changes anything.

This makes sense, however this assumes everyone will always be signing up at the same time for their first 3 months. This really is only an issue at the initial launch of the service. When new hit songs come about, how many people will only be in their first 3 months phase?

 

[Quu]

The truth is that their music is already free. This is a means to actually promote the payment for music streaming services. Example, I download the occasional song. However, if someone provides me with a better solution, then I'll sign up.

Also, what's the difference between this and SiriusXm? Most cars have a free trial period. Nothing different with this.

All those other services actually pay artists. See when you listen to songs on SiriusXm the song owners get a royalty payment. Same thing happens when you listen on Youtube for free or Spotify for free.

I don't have any problem with Apple offering a free trial period to their users. I don't. And neither does Taylor.

What the problem is, Apple isn't paying the song owners. Imagine a movie theatre that just opened and all across the world in their 10,000 cinemas they offer free viewings of all movies for 90 days.

That would ruin absolutely ruin movies. Especially new releases where the bulk of sales happen in those first months.

Now imagine you're a new artist, you just released an album, it's 1 month in to this trial period, so people can still listen to your entire album for free on Apple Music for 2 entire months. Even if it gets listened to 10 Million times you make $0. And due to Apple Music being completely free and alacarte with its huge 100 Million+ user base (Everyone with a Computer, iPhone or Android device) will be using it during that three month trial.

So again it's not that Apple has made a free trial, it's that they expect artists to forgo payment during that three months period too which is completely unreasonable.

 

[flat five]

The solution to this problem is for Apple to pay royalties for free trials just for the first three months that Apple Music is active, June 30th-Sept 30th. It's during those months that zero revenue will be coming in because everyone will be on a trial period and there won't yet be any paid subscribers.

is that true? i'm a beats subscriber so you're saying when apple music launches, i'll get three free months? do you have a source for this?

also, i seriously doubt 3month trial means june30-sept30.. more likely it's 3months from the time an individual signs up for the service.

 

[johngordon]

So apple is basically giving away someone else's work and you're saying that its ok for the folks not get paid. If they'll reap millions then they can add their work after the free trial

Free trials usually work by having the author give away the product for a period of time, not some third party unwilling to pay the actual content creators.

Not quite.

Someone asked what the artists get out of it, and I said what I believed artists got out of it.

I didn't say one way or the other whether it was OK.

Whilst they certainly could have paid the artists, as the trial is not generating any revenue, I don't see why they should be obligated to pay the artists anything.

As I said in my other post - when she talked about Spotify, Swift made the perfectly valid point that artists make very little from streaming, and unknown artists make virtually nothing from it.

Now the argument is that this trial will cost artists, even unknown smaller artists, dearly, with a significant loss of earnings.

We could argue the toss all day about the principle of whether or not Apple should pay royalties during the trial, but either way the above two stances contradict one another.

If unknown smaller artists make virtually nothing from streaming services, then they cannot also be losing significant income as a result of this trial.

 

[lazard]

Because Sportify also does not pay artists during the subscriber's free trial. If Apple were to pay during the free trial to eager access to Swift (and others), then Spotify would have to as well.

A Spotify spokesperson, Jonathan Prince, told Re/code that Spotify pays record labels for every stream on its platform, even if it’s streamed during a free trial or on Spotify’s ad-supported free tier. That may not be the case on songs that are streamed on Apple Music’s free radio stations

 

[TechZeke]

Well maybe YOU haven't been reading because it's been stated nowhere that Apple is paying the artists during the 3 month trial.

I think you misread my post.

 

[ftaok]

Also. To all the folks that th

wrong

hmm. Interesting. I thought I had read that Spotify didnt pay during the free trial. I stand corrected.

 

[walkie]

I agree with Tailor Swift, Apple could afford the free 3 months and not give away someone else's work, besides that Apple should offer at least a CD quality streaming option and not only compressed lossy songs if they want to compete with similar streaming services such as Spotify, because now we all can get FLAC files from the torrents with the highest quality, this quality is not even available buying an album from the iTunes Store.

 

[dthmtlgod]

I must live under a rock, I never heard of this girl or her music. Horns up!!!

 

[AdonisSMU]

Eddy Cue needs to go. He's accomplished nothing: Siri still sucks, constant outages to Apple network services and no innovation in his department. He likes to brag about owning a Ferrari and on stage he comes off as a complete tool compared to the other, pretty down-to-earth Apple executives.

He thought buying Beats and Jimmy Iovine is going to be some magical thing that saves his ass. I can't believe Cook fell for his BS. Cut the losses, integrate the headphone business and let Cue go along with Jimmy and Dre.

I am inclined to agree with you but I don't know what Dre did wrong. You think he should be fired because he's black and successful at the time? It's not obvious to me what Jimmy did wrong other than not prepare properly for the launch of Apple Music. It was his first time in such a setting so his nerves may have gotten to him. Cue on the other hand may be another story.... Clearly Apple was having trouble negotiating with music companies on their own.

I do know that Apple's terms are not acceptable and their terms for Apple Music has gotten nothing but negative press.

 

[smorrissey]

I agree with Tailor Swift, Apple could afford the free 3 months and not give away someone else's work, besides that Apple should offer at least a CD quality streaming option and not only compressed lossy songs if they want to compete with similar streaming services such as Spotify, because now we all can get FLAC files from the torrents with the highest quality, this quality is not even available buying an album from the iTunes Store.

I agree with you problem is most of the people don't care about lossy quality...they just want the music for free.

 

[Lolito]

I think Taylor swift doesnt do even half a step if she is not told do do it. The people who manage her movements, told her this was a great oportunity to put her on focus, on a big focus, for free. It is great for her, although pathetic too, but 99% of people won't notice.

Same as Apple trying to show a green image, when they are number ones on planned obsolescence.

 

[smorrissey]

I think Taylor swift doesnt do even half a step if she is not told do do it. The people who manage her movements, told her this was a great oportunity to put her on focus, on a big focus, for free. It is great for her, although pathetic too, but 99% of people won't notice.

Same as Apple trying to show a green image, when they are number ones on planned obsolescence.

Nahh man, the girl is pretty smart but yeah maybe you are right i guess she has a manager too. I don't know her personally that's for sure.

 

[Che Castro]

Apple should leak her iCloud nudes , that will shut her up

 

[wxman2003]

The music died the day Taylor Swift was considered an artist.

 

[Rafagon]

Is there a way to sort the comments by most Likes AND be allowed to Like them while they're displayed in that sort order?

 

[darkknight14]

I wonder what Tim Cook will think about this?

Bet he wished he didn't pay U2 for their album last year..

 

[McCool71]

Artists that aren't mega-stars are afraid to opt-out of the deal for fear of retribution by Apple. Apple is the Goliath and they can use their status to muscle small artists into line. Whether they would actually do this is another matter, but that fear is definitely percolating in the music community.

This is very true. Artist with modest success or brand new artists will never dare to loudly say the things Taylor Swift has said because they fear that the will be stamped as 'difficult'. Just look at how Anton Newcombe from Brian Jonestown Massacre was ridiculed and called a a bitter has-been a couple of days ago when he voiced something similar.

 

[johngordon]

That is simply not true. They get paid now via services like Spotify. When people switch to Apple Music during the free trial period, then these payments will go away. So it is not going from "nothing to something" but from "something to less and back to something". Some artists can't afford that "less" period.

Amazing how few people understand that here. The math is so unbelievably basic.

Yes - but Swift told us already that artists get virtually nothing from Spotify, which is a disgrace, and for that reason pulled her music from the service.

This article puts an average figure of just $0.001128 to an artist per stream out of what Spotify pay the label. So that would equate to nearly 90,000 streams to earn just $100.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-make-spotify-itunes-youtube

So while I agree with the principle that artists may lose something, I am struggling to accept that it will be anything remotely significant.

 

[2IS]

It's called a loss leader... Don't worry you'll be back to pulling in 100's of millions after this terrible trial period.. I hope you can make it until then.

Looks like your Apple fanboyism blinded you to the part where she acknowledged it wouldn't affect her like it would indie artists who aren't nearly as fortunate. It would be wise re-read articles in the future to ensure you understand them before replying.

Apple is losing touch with their base. Everything from the early reports of them choosing to sell a useless watch at high end boutique stores instead of their own Apple stores. The childish decision against Monster Cable, transferring the burden of this "loss leader" to the artists. Oh and lets not forget their incredibly generous gesture to furnish a baseball team with 7+ figure contracts with free Apple devices...

 

[HenryDJP]

I would actually have some respect for Ms. Taylor Swift had she said this in her letter; "Apple, I don't care about my financial needs and I'm not looking to seek any amount of payment, but at least pay the Indie Artists since they are not as fortunate as me or I will pull my music from Music.

Funny how it wasn't put that way. She's just using the Indie Artists as leverage. I'll bet she doesn't give a rat's behind about Indie artists trying to build themselves up. If she did she would've remained true to her own original style of music (Country) rather than selling out and going where the real money is, that pop crap. She gives the word "ARTIST" a whole new meaning. For her it means to sellout and go for the gold.