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

maflynn said:
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.
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Indies and those in need should most certainly be compensated. A little less concerned for those with net worths of $200M like Taylor. Let’s not forget Apple are offering a higher percentage than the industry standard, which in the long–term is more beneficial to artists.

Worthwhile watching: Anthony Fantano discussing the value of music.
 
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gnipgnop said:
Huh? It doesn't need to be exclusive in order to be a selling point for someone perusing Apple's digital or brick and mortar stores. Apple is promoting the service big-time right now, which would be entirely pointless if they didn't think it was a selling point for their own products.
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You are completely missing the point. Apple is promoting it because they stand to profit from every paying subscriber - they'll make ~ $3 per month from every individual subscriber (regardless of platform). Apple doesn't need a music app to sell the iPhone. Plenty of iPhone users (myself included) are happy spotify subscribers.
 
I think Apple sees it as an "opportunity cost" (look up for the definition if you're not sure what I mean).

What I mean is : A lot of people who don't pay their music today, may try the free trial because it's free, like it, and say "F*$K it, it's just $9.99 per month, not even the price of an album, I'm in!" (or whatever the price is). And then artists will get money from new people that didn't pay before.
 
Macronym said:
With billions in the bank why not pay Apple for providing the infrastructure, software development and their own clientele?
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Because Apple doesn't make it's money from those things. They make their money by selling hardware. Everything else is in support of that goal. Software development, server farms, App Store, Apple Music, etc. etc.
 
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maflynn said:
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.
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Artist can choose whether or not to participate. Apple is not giving away anything without the content owner's permission.

Apple Music is not going to contribute anything to Apple's bottom line. I'd be surprised if it even breaks even this year considering the royalty rates that they've agreed to pay.

There's no way Apple's going to foot the bill for royalty rates for millions of customers for three trial months on a service that they won't be collecting revenue on. They're already footing the data, support and marketing costs.
 
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triggercut said:
The thing is, the 3 month free trial isn't in the least bit outrageous to anyone with even an elementary level of business acumen. Why do you think have the majors have all agreed to this and aren't complaining in the media? You think they're in the business of wanting to lose money?
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You forget an important aspect, the impression the public gets about Apple's behavior and attitude especially when their favorite artists say it is crap. It might make business sense but it gives strong negative PR as well.
 
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definitive said:
It's a clever tactic, but the artists end up losing out on a good amount of money. Apple should have at least offered a smaller cut of the overall pay to compensate for this.
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Are you aware that the artist get a higher percentage after the three months than they would if they got paid from day one? I know people fear Algebra, but the math isn't that hard to see: As long as retention rates are high enough, everyone makes more money. If the rates aren't high enough, the system fails and both Apple and artists lose.
 
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Small White Car said:
People who don't want to pay for music have plenty of ways to get it.

If Apple can convert some percentage of those people into payers isn't that a good thing?

And you're going to b**** that it takes 3 months instead of happening instantly?

Give me a break. I guess you'd prefer they just remain pirates forever? How is THAT better?
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Never ceases to amaze me how you'll defend every awful thing Apple does.
 
As someone who has worked on a couple sides off the music industry I think people really have short term memories. Labels had a budget per artist. Often times promotional material was GIVEN to retailers for them to play in store and for retail staff to take home. This material came in the form of shirts/doodads/keychains and last but not least cd's/records/tapes. This was at the direct expense of the artist as per the contract. So every unit GIVEN away was charged directly to the band at full cost or according to the agreement between artist and label. With no real promotional budgets these days or willingness to be forced blindly into an unrecoverable debt, the indie artist should look at this as what it is. Free promotion (provided they get played). While I like to be paid for my music but have pretty much been penniless in my endeavours I still plod away doing what I enjoy supporting my love for learning and creating music productions with a full time minimum wage retail job. I am however not in debt to anyone. Taylor swift who was groomed from her teen year as a commercial music factory has no idea where revenue loss really lies.
 
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SuperNova2150 said:
These comments are absolutely sickening! Apple has $200 BILLION. Apple can afford to pay the nickle and dimes during the trial. Greedy bastards.

STOP DEFENDING THE WORLD'S RICHEST COMPANY!
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Clueless wonder.
What's wrong with paying a higher rate? Three months is a short time when you consider that the future payments will continue for years on the same music with nothing else needed from the artist. The choice is: pay 70% from month one on, or pay 71.5% from month four on. Seems like option two is better if you're the one getting paid!
 
Its no surprise though....

Apple has "free trials" for allot of things.. its only natural to not think ahead when it comes to this ..

A little thought goes a long way :apple:
 
Martinez74 said:
You are making a moral argument not a business one. Why stop at the 3 month free trial? Sure, Apple could afford to offer free music to everyone in perpetuity, but should they?
Tim cooks is running a for-profit business not a charity.
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No I'm making a business argument... using simple business math. Any other company PAYS for content created by others and then can price it up or down (to as little as free). Many do that very thing. Apple is flexing it's market-dominating muscles here to pass the bill to someone else. Who? The artists & labels are taking the bulk of the hit here for Apple to make this a success. Why? Because Apple is basically the 64,000 LB gorilla in this.

Even an artist as accomplished as Swift- love her or hate her- is treading pretty lightly with this message, and still, we are spinning her as the villain here. If you read the whole message literally, you should be able to see that she's not really making a case for herself but for the starving artists far from sharing her own situation. A day or two ago another music-creating artist seemingly at the other end of the success spectrum was also trying to bring attention to this, and they too were the greedy, naive, stupid, attention-seeking villain:https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ic-deals-with-itunes-removal-threats.1893578/ (nearly 400 posts, most leaning strongly one way).

No surprise at either around here where Apple is always right (for most of us), but still, I suggest we go back to the first post, substitute Apple with Samsung, Google or Microsoft (as if it was Indy artist pay vs. those corporations) and see if the general sentiment of this thread would be the same. Conceptually, we should feel exactly the same per the greedy, attention-seeking, "buy later they'll make money", etc arguments being slung around in this thread. However, I feel certain that our view of this very same thing would be different if anyone but Apple was the referenced company.
 
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While I don't personally care for her music, I appreciate her message. Small/indie artists do not have a level playing field with large corporations.

All these comments about her having enough millions are annoying. She clearly states that she doesn't need to paid, but small artists depend on it.
 
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jaw04005 said:
Artist can choose whether or not to participate. Apple is not giving away anything without the content owner's permission..
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You're correct and its wrong for people to criticize those artist who choose not to participate. Btw, apple certainly could have contributed to paying the royalties. They have more money in the bank then many nations. Taylor Swift has a point and she's voting with her content. Apple is giving away its service yet it expects others to give away their content to benefit Apple?
 
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cwt1nospam said:
Clueless wonder.
What's wrong with paying a higher rate? Three months is a short time when you consider that the future payments will continue for years on the same music with nothing else needed from the artist. The choice is: pay 70% from month one on, or pay 71.5% from month four on. Seems like option two is better if you're the one getting paid!
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So you wouldn't mind working for free for three months?

Oh, and FYI: She's trying to defend indies.
 
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TallManNY said:
Yep that $2.2 billion is the very high end of what Apple could pay. I think also that Apple could have capped payments to the big labels and just paid out to the Indies. $100 million distributed amongst the indies over three months would have basically made this issue go away. The big labels would have had to agree to that, but I think this could have been negotiated.
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Apple has not entered negotiations with any of the independent labels. They have worked out the details with the major labels and just sent the independents a contract for Apple Music at very short notice, expecting them to sign up on their terms without asking any questions. They have also bypassed the trade associations that represent the independent labels and are only dealing direct with each label, which is diluting their collective strength even though combined their output makes up over 30% of all music sales.

It's no surprise they are upset at the way Apple has gone about this.
 
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When are her 15 minutes up? Her music isn't good enough to be able to throw that much weight around. The next teenie bopper will roll around and she'll end up a 'what ever happened to...' story in a few years.
 
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