Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Money artists got from Apple Music before it was launched: 0
Money artists get after 3 months after Apple Music launch: Actual money
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.
 
Money artists got from Apple Music before it was launched: 0
Money artists get after 3 months after Apple Music launch: Actual money

This is a flawed logic. You are assuming that people who will be listening to Apple Music paid nothing to any service prior.

What if a new subscriber stops buying songs on iTunes as a result?

I highly doubt that most new subscribers were not paying a penny in some form prior to Apple Music.
 
I feel so bad for her. Must be rough, she must need to get on gov assistance for those three months till ppl start paying or something lulz...
I feel so bad for you that understanding such a rather short article is too difficult for you. Perhaps Macrumors should be using shorter words like "gov", "ppl" and "lulz" to make it easier for you to understand? I guess pictograms might also help, yes?
 
Can someone explain this maybe. Can't artists just choose to not stream their music on Apple (that is what she's doing anyway right?)

They could just have a collective strike right? Or are the labels signing away their music anyways?

The big labels own the vast majority of the music and Apple has individually negotiated this deal (including the no payment portion for three months) with each big label which is participating (which I believe is going to be all the big labels). So for most content no one is being directly forced (though Apple is a very tough negotiator). In the end, this will probably be a good service for the industry. But for folks living paycheck to paycheck this is going to be a lean summer if Apple pays nothing for its streaming and Spotify, Pandora and others see a dramatic decrease in their customers.
 
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Players gonna play, play, play, play, play.
Apple gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,
Shake it off, shake it off.

Sorry, TayTay - if I can't trial a service for free first, why would I pay for it. You test drove your Lexus for free, with no obligation. Did the sales dude insist you buy before driving it or it would be like stealing from him?
 
And you know torrent is not legal, right?
I know, clearly know. However, not all customers could afford thousands of dollars of content fee. All what I have now would worth maybe a couple of thousand dollars.

Unlike regular customers, Apple is definitely able to afford content fee to artists to gain loyalty. You spend money, and you can get more from this loss.

I am gradually purchasing contents rather than just torrenting them, such as Office 365, and 80 songs purchased from iTunes. This is not an easy thing for do, but not for Apple.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Oblivious.Robot
These artists don't realise that more alternatives of music streaming services and easy access (by giving free taste of streaming service to customers) will help the music industry in longer run by attracting pirates to pay for music in some form!

This thread alone disproves your theory, and this is only two people in a forum. Scale it up to a global level and the message is clear - pirates will always pirate. It's a mindset.

I've a 6+ 128GBs I don't care about apple music or spotify. I just torrent everything.

I also torrent everything. I don't trust streaming services. Therefore Apple may never be able to grab even a cent from my pocket to streaming service, although I will then purchase their products.
 
I can't believe the cry babies these artist have turned into. OMG they work so hard, well so do millions of others who don't own million dollar houses. People can still buy her stupid music while the trial is going on its 3 months get over it. I can't believe how greedy musicians are these days. Look at the price of concert tickets, its ludicrous. I wish she would just take her greed and go away.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jstuts5797 and jjm3
But if people want to keep listening to those albums, add them to playlists etc then they will have to pay monthly eventually, OR buy them in the traditional sense. And they will still be paid via other services like Spotify and rdio.

Money artists got from Apple Music before it was launched: 0
Money artists get after 3 months after Apple Music launch: Actual money
teens these days dont listen to the same thing for more than a month let alone a whole album to begin with

I just wonder if Spotify, Apple, Google.. etc.. Will dump Taylor on streaming music service.

What will happen?

she dropped them not the other way around

I feel so bad for her. Must be rough, she must need to get on gov assistance for those three months till ppl start paying or something lulz...

did you actually read the whole thing??? sure doesnt look like it
 
Last edited:
The question is: how much fraud would it generate if Apple paid out money to artists from people on trial-accounts?
The fraud problem seems to be large enough just with pre-paid cards. I can't imagine what a bunch of penny-pinching crooks and an army of bots and humans from China or Cambodia could do.
E.g. you could create an Indie-Label and produce albums full of non-copyrighted la-la-la music and have hundreds, thousands of fake trial-period signups (and software to play the songs for you or have it play in the background at volume zero on an army of p4wned PCs).
Just because you or I can't make it work doesn't mean that nobody else is going to find a working "business-case"...

If they (APPL) don't have to pay out anything during the trial period, they don't need to look through subscribers (and labels9 to detect a fraud-pattern, either.

Is there a way for Indie-Labels to have their music on this streaming-service without offering it to people who are on a trial-period? That would be the correct thing to, IMO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: InfoTime and kalsta
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Players gonna play, play, play, play, play.
Apple gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,
Shake it off, shake it off.

Sorry, TayTay - if I can't trial a service for free first, why would I pay for it. You test drove your Lexus for free, with no obligation. Did the sales dude insist you buy before driving it or it would be like stealing from him?

Yeah, but did the workers who built the test driven Lexus not get paid? Where they told "This month we are building vehicles to go to dealer rooms where they get test driven. since they don't get sold, we aren't paying you for these cars."
 
Streaming music is slowly killing the music industry with these trial periods and ad-supported "free" streams. I'm glad she decided to speak out in the open about it, now I hope more artists do the same.

Good. I hope it does kill it. Bunch of crybabies. "Oh no, this will cut into my hundreds of millions of dollars I've mad. Wah!"
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jstuts5797 and jjm3
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
Players gonna play, play, play, play, play.
Apple gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,
Shake it off, shake it off.

Sorry, TayTay - if I can't trial a service for free first, why would I pay for it. You test drove your Lexus for free, with no obligation. Did the sales dude insist you buy before driving it or it would be like stealing from him?

Difference - the dealer bought the Lexus from the manufacturer and isn't trying to sell it with a test drive before paying the manufacturer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: aylk
The point that people are missing is that Apple won't make a cent out of the trial period too. It's like a joint effort with the studios to get more people on board and make more money later.

The bigger subscription base will be beneficial to both artists and Apple later on.
 
?..while she is able to take care of herself and her band, crew and management with money from live shows, indie artists do not have the same luxury."

Translation: "I can support my team for 3 months but I would rather have you guys do it"

I really hate how Taylor Swift is using Indie Artists as her excuse to make more money. How exactly does she think lesser known bands and musicians get discovered on a Music DISCOVERY service?!?

If she really wanted to do something to help indie artists then she should use Apple Music for something it is designed to do exactly. Artist curated playlists and artist created messages directly to fans that promote bands that their fans have never heard of. But I guess that's a hard thing to do when the only sound you ever hear is your own voice.

I'm fine with Taylor Swift doing what she feels is necessary to maximize her personal value. But don't act as if you're doing these other artists a favor by "protecting" them from being heard by her fans.
 
Last edited:
And you know torrent is not legal, right?

Excuse me, but there is nothing illegal about the torrent protocol.
What's illegal or not is what you do with it.
http://bfy.tw/RaB
Some artists who are not as wealthy and privileged as Ms. Swift release their music via the Bittorrent protocol.
Blanketly labelling anyone who uses torrent software a criminal demonstrates morbid ignorance.
 
Reading the replies here it's obvious that people still don't see 'music' as a real product. And we can probably add 'movies', 'photographs' and 'written content' to that list.

Sure you can decide you'll offer a service as a 'loss leader' for 3 months. Sure you can decide to offer free trials for a new service you dreamt up. And (in the case of Apple News) you can choose to offer up other people's written articles through a new app you created.

But you simply can't do that by giving away other people's products for free. Or writing them that you're entering into a publishing agreement unless they say otherwise!

That, and the fact that this is the world's richest company we're talking about, all makes it a bit sad. At least Jobs had some idea about karma. Greedy b*****ds.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.