does Taylor Swift herself have full autonomy over determining how/when her music can be played?
To Apple, Love Taylor
51–60 of 534 posts
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#52Taylor can easily get on radio playlists. Unknown artists cannot. They CAN get on Apple music, spotify, etc. There's no way to get known beyond local clubs without the free exposure.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#53Given the volume cap of Apple and the formulas they can pop out stating "after three months of free use, x users will convert into paying users resulting in y revenu and z profit for you" to record labels, all it boils down is record labels willing to believe Apple their predictions and whether they are happy with that y in return of 3 months of upfront payment.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#54Can 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 t…
> Can anyone at Apple (or perhaps formally at Apple) explain why this is the case? Apple is a super secret walled garden, full of itself. From my experience with people that work there, I doubt any of them would even know why (let alone come out here to explain).
Could you explain the downvotes? I'm new to HN and would like to learn.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#553 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…
Per the RIAA, the entire recorded music industry in the US recorded under $7 Billion in revenue in 2014. Apple has north of $20 Billion in cash in the US. There are likely many reasons for Apple to make the move they did, but it is unlikely cash on hand was one of them.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#56Can 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 t…
Well, you can buy apps - which also applies to albums/music.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#57Can 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 t…
I imagine Apple's argument is:
(1) They bring an enormous number of new subscribers and that this 3 month trial maximizes revenue for everyone including the artist.
(2) they pay a slightly higher royaly share than spotify in part because of this longer trial.
(3) Apple shares revenue with the artist in the same 70/30 split we see elsewhere and the 30% is the finders fee they get for delivering many of their x hundred million users to the service. Since there's no revenue in the first 3 months, 70% of $0 is $0. Apple eats the bandwidth/server costs of the service in this time with no revenue coming in.
(4) Spotify paid users are fairly happy with that service and won't all switch to Apple Music overnight and the same with people who buy music and radio so it's not like all the money these artist's see turns off for 3 months. The free trial effect will be heavily staggered as a steady stream of users signs up over years.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#58And they say Apple cares about artists and content creators...
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#59It seems really weird to me that apple would get away with paying nothing for the 3 months. Especially since it's not like they are anything but yet another competitor in an already crowded space.
This whole "pay nothing" idea is strange to see on HN. Apple developed the software, is footing the server, power, bandwidth, and ops bills for three months all for free. The labels are chipping in their content for three months. Sounds like everyone is bringing something to the table. Apple is incurring real costs. The labels, not so much. Three kinds of customers will try the service: People who buy their music: th…
The labels and artists have already incurred the costs to produce the content, their costs do exist.
Apple built a service that wouldn't exist without the content. The content would still exist on other services without Apple though.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#60The Apple Music free trial thing is shitty but Taylor seems quite out of touch with the shape of the industry here. Taylor Swift can withhold her music from streaming services because she's a PHENOMENON who can still shift albums via iTunes (and even physically) because people want her music. Artists starting out don't have that luxury and, increasingly, their music won't get the listens if it's not on streaming serv…
> [Steam] a platform that is in many ways quite anti-creator
Without wanting triggering an argument here...would you mind giving me a 3 sentence summary of what aspect of it is anti-creator?