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To Apple, Love Taylor
241–250 of 534 posts
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#242In 215 comments no one that I could find has mentioned that, while well-intentioned, this post comes off as somewhat disingenuous because Apple does not deal directly with the artists. The entire (pretty well-written) thing doesn't mention _at all_ that the majority of musicians do not deal directly with distributors. Think about it: how are Apple/Google/Spotify/Amazon going to deal directly with 10 million individua…
Exactly. And my question is forget the digital part of it. How did this work in the days of records and CDs when promotional copies were given away? Sure most went to radio stations for airplay, but others were given away. Did the artist get any money for those copies or was that part of the record companies' marketing budget?
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#243Earlier 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 can almost certainly borrow against their foreign holdings.
No, they'd become liable. If it was that easy to avoid paying taxes on repatriated earnings it wold simply stop being a problem.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
They gove away their OS and a ton of solid near business class apps in some cases. They do this to get people to buy hardware. She said she supports herself on tours, five more music away, you should get more people at her tours. Same for the new band, you don't get discovered on the radio, 5K and they will play your song, it's that easy. Never works. Play shows for 5 - 10 years, you may make it, or be coached and mo…
Can I use their OS or apps on anything I don't buy from them first? Apple doesn't "give away" anything for free.
Sure, go to eBay or Craigslist and buy a used Mac. Then go to apple.com and download their latest OS for free. Can't do that with a PC/Windows.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#245Couple of thoughts here:
1) If you're an indie artist and you can afford to opt-out of Apple Music on principle, then clearly you can afford to opt-in for the three free months. Either way you're not making money from Apple Music. If you opt-in, you make more money in the long-term. If you opt-out, you continue to earn from your current streaming and downloads.
2) If you think that Apple Music will be so earth-shatteringly successful from day one that it will destroy your business -- then your business model is razor thin and completely unsustainable.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#246Apple needs to loosen their purse strings and give back a little. I can't believe I'm standing up for the music industry, but Apple wouldn't be half the company they are today without music.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#247As others point out, it doesn't make much sense for Apple to attempt this (not paying content producers during a 3-month trial) for the sake of money alone - they have the cash (even if subject to high taxes) to pay for a loss leader like this.
If that's not the primary motivation, I can think of two alternatives:
1. Apple lacks confidence in rolling this out - they don't even know if they'd make back their money using a loss leader of this magnitude. They don't feel that the service alone has any meaningful advantage over the competition, so they feel a need to compensate with an extraordinarily long trial period, and they're willing to abuse some of their market power to strong-arm content producers into (hopefully) covering the bill. As a tiny part of their overall business strategy, they are unwilling to make any large bets on it, regardless of their ability to cover a loss.
- or -
2. (probably more likely) Apple is so myopically over-confident that they believe this service will disrupt the music industry in the same way the App Store changed software distribution. They honestly feel that they are creating a new market here, not trying to steal market share from other streaming services. Consequently, they don't feel a need to justify covering any expense to content producers because in Apple's mind, content producers will give anything for the privilege of existing on Apple's revolutionary new service. This would represent a new opportunity for revenue above and beyond what the music industry has already come to expect.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#248Earlier 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.
Sales taxes are deductible in the US, sort of. You can deduct either state and local sales taxes or state and local income taxes. No idea what the rationale for that is, but if you live in a State with no or very low income tax and deduct your sales taxes, it's kind of like you're not getting taxed twice.
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Sales-Tax-Deduction-Calculato...
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#249This 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.
Suppose Apple were to instead finance their free trial by reducing the royalties they pay artists. Would this be morally reprehensible, since it would result in the "little people" losing as much revenue as they would have under the existing scheme? I don't see how it is immoral for a company to reduce the total amount that it pays to artists. Prices are set by negotiation/the market. I think people feel undue sympathy towards musicians because they are cool and beautiful people, and so people don't want the market to apply to them.
Re: To Apple, Love Taylor
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
"it would need to pay taxes on the cash it is holding outside the US" Oh, the horror.
They would not - paying their artists is a deductible business expense.
I believe what the grandparent meant is that bringing the money in to the US will require taxing it.