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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#231

Post by ixtli »

rsync wrote: post #126
nrp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Per the RIAA, the entire recorded music industry in the US recorded under $7 Billion in revenue in 2014." Amazing. We think of the RIAA, or "big music" as some kind of juggernaut force in society and politics - especially Internet politics. But their entire industry top line is smaller than what fedex makes in a month .[1] [1] http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/fdx/revenue-eps

Sadly that's still more than enough money to bully individuals :(

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#233

Post by issa »

Alphasite_ wrote: post #176
issa wrote: post #142

This is very black and white. This is a great "business" move for apple, but morally reprehensible. This is a big business asking the "little people" to work for free. Completely unfair.

There is a counterpoint to this whole thing, apple doesn't have a free tier, which is to the artists benefit.

It doesn't matter. Think about this for any other profession. This is the big business version of the craigslist ad asking a graphic designer to work for free "for the exposure".

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#234

Post by nona »

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #177
hobs wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, why dont the poor and downtrodden just pay their lobbyists to change the law of the land... what? The corporations have the money and the drive to get the laws changed, who else does?

I was hoping someone would start a popular kickstarter style site for this. It seems pretty simple to me. If you want your laws changed, pool your money and go lobby the gov't just like every other corporation.

Yeah! None of this one-man-one-vote crap, back to some good old fashioned plutocracy. After all if the top 10-20% own 90% of the wealth, it's only right and proper that they also own an equivalent share of the political power. ;-)

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#235

Post by rtpg »

nugget wrote: post #166
issa wrote: post #142

This is very black and white. This is a great "business" move for apple, but morally reprehensible. This is a big business asking the "little people" to work for free. Completely unfair.

At the same time artists (especially indies) have a significant interest in Apple succeeding. If Spotify dominates the market to the exclusion of all others, they will have no pressure to keep artist revenue share competitive. Best case for artists is a multitude of streaming services all competing for the most appealing inventory.

There is the third option that rarely gets discussed. No subscription service succeeding in dominating the market entirely.

Alternatively, a two-track system, where subscription services are consistently behind on popular hits, and artists hit record services first.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#236

Post by imteamcoltra »

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…

It's hard because music you can actually track how many people are listening to what songs and how much of the song they listen to and compensate accordingly.

If they were able to track how often a person used an app then I don't think that would be too bad except for extremely niche apps which are usually enterprise already. I would take a smaller payment if I got paid $0.01 for three minutes my app was open on a phone, rather than charging $0.99 (or even $2.99)... It depends on the app though

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#237

Post by msh »

themartorana wrote: post #136
outericky wrote: post #130

Out of curiosity, and on a similar note, is Spotify not paying artists during their "3 months for $0.99 promotional period"? I guess that would explain why her 1989 album isn't there either... At least she's consistent. I'd lean on the side of Apple eating the cost during the period, not the artists.

With the market cap and war chest they have, it's incredibly disappointing that Apple expects artists to bear the brunt of Apple's business decision. For every Taylor Swift there are thousands of artists just scraping by (and thousands more hoping to reach "just scraping by.") I lose a decent amount of respect for Apple with this call. (And Taylor Swift is hardly the first artist to express disappointment and/or outr…

Do you think the labels don't have a war chest? Most of the big artists are not independents but part of a mega corp label.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#238

Post by cwyers »

w4 wrote: post #212
shimfish wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

Google also knows full well that they don't own their platform the way Apple does - developers would just sell directly and have users sideload, or move to Amazon's app store.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#239

Post by evunveot »

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #177
hobs wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, why dont the poor and downtrodden just pay their lobbyists to change the law of the land... what? The corporations have the money and the drive to get the laws changed, who else does?

I was hoping someone would start a popular kickstarter style site for this. It seems pretty simple to me. If you want your laws changed, pool your money and go lobby the gov't just like every other corporation.

That exists: Mayday PAC. Lawrence Lessig organized it last year. They raised $11 million and tried to influence some key Congressional races, but it didn't really work. Now they're trying some different things:

https://medium.com/@lessig/we-tried-we-learned-we-re-trying-...

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#240

Post by ryandrake »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #200
jannotti wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it could be either way, but many object to the fact that it is both. In other words, corporate tax is seen as double taxation, since the earnings (after taxes) are then passed on to shareholders, who pay tax on it again. I could see a coherent tax code that taxes corporations, but not individuals, or one that taxed individuals, but not corporations (Of course with either of these there would no doubt be all s…

By the double tax hypothesis, how come then I have to pay sales tax on things I buy using money I earned from income that's already been taxed.

It's only considered "double taxation" when the tax hits wealthy people[1]

1: http://assets.amuniversal.com/921b06d016420130ff2c001dd8b71c...

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