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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#211

Post by specialist »

RexRollman wrote: post #111
briandear wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending apple for not paying artists, but I will defend their 'weaseling' out of US taxes. U.S. Corporate taxes are among the highest in the world and until Washington starts lowering their confiscatory tax rates, I would encourage all businesses to avoid repatriating earnings. A 10% tax rate is high enough.

I agree with corporations who attempt to legally pay as little taxes as possible. That's what I do. If someone doesn't like it, then get the laws changed.

Do you play board games?

Any rule set can be gamed / broken.

To keep the game going, sometimes players just need to do the right thing, thereby honoring other player's investment in the game.

And law is so much more complicated than a board game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_incompleteness_theor...

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#212

Post by w4 »

shimfish wrote: post #204
w4 wrote: post #186

For everyone suggesting that artists are simply being greedy or unreasonable in expecting Apple to pay them during the trial period, I'd encourage you to consider the hypothetical I posted in the last thread about Apple Music's 3 month trial. It might help contextualize the artists' and labels' complaints: > Tomorrow, Apple announces that it will be introducing an "App Store Subscription." For $9.99/month users will…

Except how long do you think it would take Google to move to app subscriptions if that happened?

I'm not so sure. I think it'd largely have to do with developers' and consumers' reactions. If Android was suddenly ground zero for innovative, high quality apps, due to Apple alienating developers, I don't think Google would choose the same model.

Indeed, you can see Google attempting to attract developers to its ecosystem and away from Apple's in some of their recent developer policy changes (no app review times, etc).

But now we're getting way off topic. :)

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#213

Post by nemik »

spinchange wrote: post #147
nemik wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They "only" have about 22 BILLION in American cash! They can raise capital in the bond market in perpetuity secured against all their global cash. There's demand for debt like Apple's. SO, they absolutely, unequivocally, unquestionably can pay the artists. This is a business decision based on greed - just like leading a wage suppression cartel. They are not too poor!

Hmmm I was under the impression that cash was part of their operating expenses. They have retail stores, their campus, most of their employees and all their most expensive employees are all in the US too. But you're right, it's probably still enough to eat 3 months worth of royalty payments.

Also likely, this isn't going to be the only or last fuck-you Apple is going to be giving artists or content producers. The ones who agree to be screwed for the 3-month opening trial will be push-overs who can be leaned on again when the time comes.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#214

Post by themartorana »

Fargren wrote: post #195
tehwalrus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about free access to a set of highly engineered content, which is not just a back catalogue you are trying to milk but your current latest creation. We do not think that software engineers should be prohibited from charging for copies of their software: neither do we think that musicians should be prohibited for getting paid for their music. Yes, people will continue to make art for free, because they love do…

Most software engineers (employees) are paid for crafting their software, not for having crafted in the past. That's exactly what I advocate for. We absolutely should pay people for working! I'm saying that those who distribute should be compensated for the distribution, and those who craft should be compensated for the crafting. And everyone should be free to do either, to the best of their abilities.

This is not true at all.

Many consultants may in fact be paid once. But most developers work at companies for a salary. That salary is paid for by charging for software over and over. Without being able to charge multiple times for the same piece of software, there would be no Microsoft, IBM, or Oracle, no SaaS, and no App Store, just to name a few, and none of the jobs that come along.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#215

Post by malisper »

Why is everyone complaining about the deal? Did Apple force all of the artists into it or did the record companies? Either way, the problem doesn't come from the terms of the deal, it comes from why the deal was made.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#217

Post by fauigerzigerk »

coldtea wrote: post #207
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the weakest part of her argument though as iPhones have a unit cost whereas digital copies of her music do not. But I think she is very right to refuse to pay for a scheme that is supposed to increase Apple's market share and not hers.

> It's the weakest part of her argument though as iPhones have a unit cost whereas digital copies of her music do not. The most basic cost you have to recoup is that of making the song (studio, musicians, production, what you charge for your voice etc). This remains real money, even if you can make a digital copy of a song for free. Besides this is based on a "physical product" model of economics and tries to apply i…

>The most basic cost you have to recoup is that of making the song (studio, musicians, production, what you charge for your voice etc). This remains real money, even if you can make a digital copy of a song for free.

Absolutely, but that is fixed cost not unit cost. Not recouping fixed costs is bad. But losing money on top of that for every unit you give away is even worse.

The distinction matters just as much as in the past because our economies have not just become more digital, they are also more service oriented than before, and services often do have unit costs. A better analogy to giving away iPhones would be to play a live gig for free.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#218

Post by petrbela »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #197
threeseed wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Music does offer a number of features over Spotify: a) Siri. With the existing Music app I can tell Siri to play a particular artist or playlist. I would expect far deeper integration. b) Watch. The Music app is native, has a glance. c) Desktop. Spotify client on the desktop is slow and clunky. iTunes on the Mac is anything but.

It's been years since I used iTunes on Windows but at the time incredibly slow and clunky to the point of incompetence would have summed up my views on it. I wonder how it compares now to Spotify there. On another note, Apple have a pretty good story with Airplay - does Spotify on iOS support that fully? On Android they don't support Chromecast and I've always thought that was an advantage of Play Music over Spotify…

Spotify app itself doesn't support AirPlay/Chromecast but some 3rd party apps allow you to stream Spotify to them.

On the other hand, Spotify has its own streaming protocol which is supported by a few player/speaker brands (e.g. Gramofon).

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#219

Post by odiroot »

threeseed wrote: post #158
kristianc wrote: post #94

Apple Music's big problem is that the service itself offers nothing new - most of the people that are going to paid for paid music will use Spotify already, and getting them to switch will be hard. I suspect that Apple knows that the take up for the three month free trial will be huge, but that conversion to paid will be a much harder row to hoe. This is all about Apple not wanting to foot the bill if and when people…

Apple Music does offer a number of features over Spotify: a) Siri. With the existing Music app I can tell Siri to play a particular artist or playlist. I would expect far deeper integration. b) Watch. The Music app is native, has a glance. c) Desktop. Spotify client on the desktop is slow and clunky. iTunes on the Mac is anything but.

Really, these are the only reasons? Then it's even worse than I thought.

a) and c) are only relevant to Apple users. Spotify pretty much runs everywhere.

b) Watch for many is just a gimmick. This is really weak.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#220

Post by zacwest »

toddmorey wrote: post #178

Apps that are "beta", "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected Interesting that free trials periods are entirely unavailable to developers in the app store but mandatory for musicians.

Apple disallows apps whose only purpose is one of beta, demo, trial or test. You are more than allowed to set up a trial period then charge an in-app purchase/subscription to continue using the service.
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