this was a BRILLIANT pr orchestration.<p>blogs, articles, etc all over the globe were written about apple music, for free. would have been far more expensive to buy all that airtime than this little scandal.<p>so taylor swift gets more publicity, apple music is now an established brand name, everyone and their dog knows about their pricing model - holy shit. hats off to the apple team, playing the outrage-piano like no other.
Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day.<p>App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of your cut' or 'if you don't want us to show ads near your content, reply to this email with "opt out"'
So, without making a judgement call on this actual decision.<p>It amazes me that no one saw this type of reaction from artists (and the generally pro-artist consumer base) coming when the overall business plan was created. And that the concession was made so quickly...
Has anyone actually read Taylor Swift's post? She praises Apple and basically says that this one small area, isn't great.<p>This isn't exactly a total take-down and I wouldn't be surprised if this was orchestrated. Even if it isn't. It's the kind of deep PR/Advertising that you rarely get the chance to pay for, let alone afford. And the cost of almost negligible in comparison. Even then, they have a "special" rate during those first three months.<p>Apple is a beast at making money.
Am I then only one that noticed that they didn't say they would be paying the same during the free trial as after the free trial. They could be paying a flat $0.01 fee to each artist regardless of plays, and everything Apple has said would still apply.<p>I want to know "how much" they will be paying.
I totally get the major labels making the 1.5% increase/3-month trial concession; but after nearly every independent artist I pay attention to basically said they couldn't/wouldn't make the same concession, I'm glad Apple relented. I want one of these services to at least act like they appreciate the value of music.<p>Myself, I've never made enough off that one rap CD to recoup the cost of sending it to CD Baby, so I've got NO skin in this fight. :)
Some professional photographer is calling Taylor Swift out on her hypocrisy.<p><a href="http://nextshark.com/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-against-apple/" rel="nofollow">http://nextshark.com/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-...</a>
Is Apple's royalty structure set up so that if I pay $10/month and I listen to just Justin Bieber, then Justin Bieber gets the royalties from that $10, or is my 1,000 Justin Bieber plays added onto the plays of everyone else and royalties averaged out evenly? If it's the latter, this change doesn't impact Apple economically, it just adjusts the payouts percentages.
Well, even given the variety of opinions in the discussion yesterday, I think most people will be happy here. Apple did the right thing, at the very least, for good PR purposes.
Although this is rumored, it seems highly plausible:<p>Had the contracts they signed with the labels included paying royalties, they would be giving away a product far below cost for 3 months. Spotify and friends could file a complaint that this is anti-competitive behavior. It could be argued that Apple used its financial power to lose money for three months to thwart real competition in the market.<p>Amazon was accused of doing this will digital books by selling them all below cost, although ironically Apple was the one that got in trouble.<p>What happens now is unclear. Can Apple argue they didn’t intend to be anti-competitive from the beginning or will people go after them anyways. I suspect the latter is guaranteed.
Yesterday, I made the comment that there has to be a negative value of this PR and the infrastructure to combat it. IF the value to just capitulating and paying these artists earns them more goodwill, more artists, and in turn more subscribers/profit it is an easy trade. I am sure some actuary /ies must have run the numbers and figured this out.
Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in this. The music industry has long been using bullying to get what they want, and this is no exception to that rule.<p>The sooner every traditional media company goes out of business, the better the situation will be for everyone -- listeners and artists.
Huh, well how about that. In my last comments on the subject I postulated that Apple could easily afford the money to pay artists/labels during that period. Apparently they could not afford to not pay, image wise.<p>Not sure if it sounds more cynical or stereotypical on my part, but I'd guess that there's a lot of overlap between Taylor Swift fans and Apple's target market. Good move in the long run for Apple, and in the short term they get to play it off like collaboration. I don't see it as anything but a disagreement between two juggernauts, The Taylor Swift Corporate Entertainment Empire Wordwide (TM) and Apple's Jimmy Iovene Music Experience (TM), but I'll take my pennies and keep on truckin'.
Related discussion at <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9756009" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9756009</a>.
It's obvious that it was planned from the beginning. It's not possible to do such decisions "on the fly" for Apple monster. There are billions of dollars involved in such a decision. Well played, Apple, I must admit.<p>What I wonder is how do they prevent me from regging new account every 3 monthes? Why would I pay them a single cent if I can spend few minutes once a 3 months and listen to their library for free?
Only few things prevent greedy companies from pushing further and further. Bad PR is one of them. I don't care about Tayler Swift, but I think the behaviour of the big players are extremly questionable.
What Apple should do is pay only the bottom 90% of artists and when someone downloads free music from one of the top grossing 10% of artists, the would-be revenue should be re-distributed to the bottom 90% during the users free trial.<p>Taylor said herself that it wasn't about her, but about small artists trying to break through. I'd like to see her put her money where her mouth is, but hey, if it's all about money that's okay too, but she should own up to it instead of pretending like shes looking out for smaller artists.
I don't understand why everybody is reporting this as "Taylor Swift". Shouldn't it be "Taylor Swift's Management" or "Taylor Swift's Lawyers". She obviously didn't plan this.