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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#21

Post by Coding_Cat »

sarreph wrote: post #3

> These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. I am starting to doubt that Taylor Swift really is as 'representative' as she wishes to portray, and not simply greedy, considering the extent to which she avoids non-profit-maximising revenue streams (e.g. Spotify).

Well, the same argument of "This is a terrible thing for up-an-coming (or niche) artists" could be made against Spotify's business model.

And slightly off-topic, I fail to see how anyone could call any of this the complaints of a spoiled child even if she would flat out say "fuck you, pay me". Are you not allowed to ask for your dues if you're rich already?

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#22

Post by Dylan16807 »

1stop wrote: post #8

So Apple run a loss-leader... where they don't incur the loss, and just get the lead. Scum.

Any definition of loss that says Apple suffers none would also say that the artists suffer none.

Likewise, any lead Apple gets here is shared with the artists.

This is rude to force on artists without asking, but only because they're not asking. It's not scummy.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#23

Post by logicallee »

1stop wrote: post #8

So Apple run a loss-leader... where they don't incur the loss, and just get the lead. Scum.

That analogy would apply if the loss got people in the door, but they bought SOMETHING ELSE that ensured profits. For example, in this case if free music got them onto Apple's platform (loss) where they then bought a bunch of apps (unrelated to music and the source of profit).

For anyone who doesn't know, a loss leader is something advertised like bread for 50 cents or something, where the store loses money on each and every sale. It's a customer acquisition cost, and the goal of this is to "lead" with the loss, get people in the store, and there they will buy not only bread but anything else they need at the time, at normal market prices. Normal market prices give enough profit to offset the loss taken on the "lead." This works because people don't just go to a store and buy the one marked-down item and nothing else. (Or more specifically the extra profit for people who buy other things after only coming in due to the loss leader, covers the loss on them, and on everyone who only gets the loss leader.)

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#25

Post by x5n1 »

b1zguy wrote: post #12

I must say, Swift is a pretty good writer; yet this perception is warped by my surprise to be honest. I guess I'll go looking out for more of her written works when I next have a free moment to make a better judgement.

Taylor did not write that... at least I don't think that she did.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#26

Post by kbrwn »

Can anyone at Apple (or perhaps formally at Apple) explain why this is the case? It seems like a raw deal that no sane musician would ever agree to. Imagine if when the first iPhone came out AT&T told Apple they were giving every customer a free trial with the device for 3 months before they pay for it Apple would have laughed and chose another carrier for its exclusive deal. I don't agree with the model of payment that musicians currently expect (imagine if developers recieved payment everytime a user used and app!) but if that was the norm I don't think many would just agree to put their app on the appstore for 3 months without payment.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#27

Post by unfamiliar »

I agree with everything she said... but she didn't answer the question she posed at the start: why is she withholding 1989, (and not any of her other albums), and what does that have to do with the 3 month trial? If she disagrees with the free trial don't put any of your music up for that time span.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#28

Post by Dylan16807 »

hahainternet wrote: post #19
Dylan16807 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand I could argue that making apple pay leads to fewer/smaller free trials which leads to less money for the artists. Making Apple's revenue be directly tied to artist revenue makes a lot of sense.

> On the other hand I could argue that making apple pay leads to fewer/smaller free trials which leads to less money for the artists. How? The trials would still be free. Nothing would change for the consumer, therefore you couldn't argue that.

Let's have a hypothetical scenario with simplified numbers. The trial distributes $20M in music and leads to $10M more in customers after a year. Half the revenue goes to Apple, half to the artists.

If Apple doesn't pay the artists for the trial, then they run the trial and get $5M extra profit. The artists get $5M extra profit. The audience gets more music. Everyone wins.

If Apple pays the artists for the trial, they see that it will cost them $10M licensing to get back a mere $5M. They don't run the trial. Nobody wins.

Edit: fixed the numbers

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#29

Post by yincrash »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #22
1stop wrote: post #8

So Apple run a loss-leader... where they don't incur the loss, and just get the lead. Scum.

Any definition of loss that says Apple suffers none would also say that the artists suffer none. Likewise, any lead Apple gets here is shared with the artists. This is rude to force on artists without asking, but only because they're not asking. It's not scummy.

Except the loss-leader is being used to steal users from other streaming radio services that _are_ currently paying labels & artists. So any users that switches from Spotify to Apple for example is a user that was paying artists but is now not for 3 months.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#30

Post by nemik »

sanswork wrote: post #20

3 months free to buy market share makes sense but I am amazed to hear that they are doing it by just not paying the content producers during those 3 months. I'd be doing the same thing in her place. Apple has the cash to run a loss leader on this.

From http://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2015/6/13/apples-cash-dilem... it seems like Apple may not actually have the cash to do this, not in the USA at least and it would need to pay taxes on the cash it is holding outside the US to pay the majority US labels/producers/artists.

Not that this excuses what they're trying to pull here or anything. By trying to weasel out of paying any US taxes, they can't spend their own money. So in this case they really might be too poor to make this deal work otherwise.

Good for Taylor Swift to stand up to this kind of crap.

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