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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#311

Post by michaelt »

simonh wrote: post #256
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…

> By trying to weasel out of paying any US taxes, they can't spend their own money. It's not about avoiding paying any US taxes, it's about avoiding paying US taxes on earnings abroad. This is why so many Americans living abroad are giving up their US citizenship. I'm a Brit living in London and I know several American born friends that have become British citizens to avoid paying both UK and US taxes on their earnin…

  The US Government's attitude to earnings abroad
  is IMHO utterly reprehensible.
I'm also a Brit and I disagree - at least in the case of multinational companies like Apple. If you have a lower tax rate for profits from abroad, the American operation can "license intellectual property" from shell companies in tax havens, then the American operation makes no profits (and hence pays no tax) while the tax haven shell company makes big profits (but pays no tax).

America has a system of foreign tax credits - so if the American tax rate is 35% and the company was taxed 20% in the country where they made the profits, when they repatriate the money to America they only have to pay 15%.

This is much fairer than the British approach to tax-dodging which appears to be "ignore it and maybe the crooks will donate to our political party".

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#312

Post by naveenspark »

Taylor Swift is signed to Big Machine Records (BMLG). Big Machine Records is distributed by Universal Music Group (UMG). I am sure BMLG/UMG received a sizable advance from Apple in exchange for streaming rights for their master recordings. UMG probably negotiated an even higher advance in exchange for permission to launch the 3 month free campaign. UMG / BMLG should be sharing this advance payment with their artists. Taylor knows this so a good question to ask is: What % of the advance is Taylor receiving? The answer is probably none because most artists receive nothing from these advance payments. Even the hugely successful ones. So why is Taylor writing this letter? She is extremely smart and has a brilliant team of advisors around her so she knows about the advance that Apple already paid UMG. While posting this letter fits into the general discourse regarding underpayments to artists from streaming services, behind the scenes she is likely negotiating her own, separate, significant advance from Apple. I would do the same if I were her.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#313

Post by nmrm2 »

clord wrote: post #292
pmorici wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an amazing offer. who wouldn't want to trade a one time free or 99 cent payment for recurring revenue.

It might help prevent crap-tastic apps on the store because it changes the incentive structure. If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app, the incentive on developers would be to maximize engagement time, which might be a good thing for users. For paid apps such a scheme would be a problem since it would likely reduce income, but as a way to get money to fund free apps, not a bad idea actual…

> If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app

Then what stops shady slot game app developer from keeping his app running in the background 24/7 and trashing the commons (or private garden, I guess)? Technical solutions can probably go a decent amount of the way, but there will always be a work-around...

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#314

Post by synaesthesisx »

JoeAnzalone wrote: post #199
hahainternet wrote: post #5

Both sides of this disagreement are hilariously petty. Both desperate to hold on to every last penny they can get hold of. The music industry has been dying for a while but this really is a fantastic example of it. Everyone who thought Apple cared about artists now has to come up with a new rationalisation.

Did you not read the whole post or do you just not believe her? > This is not about me. Thankfully I am on my fifth album and can support myself, my band, crew, and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the ro…

Considering she's 25 and her net worth is north of $300mil...I don't think the money is relevant to her

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#315

Post by adventured »

fordh wrote: post #61
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 was curious and looked up this claim. Turns out PolitiFact looked into it: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/09/... The conclusion: Bolling said the United States has "the highest corporate tax rate in the free world." He was referring to the statutory rate, meaning the rate before deductions. On that score, he’s right: The United States does have the highest statutory rate among developed co…

The US effective corporate tax rate tends to be 25% to 27% in normal times, which is still one of the highest effective tax rates in the world. The median S&P 500 effective tax rate is 30%, also one of the highest rates in the world.

You often see 12% or 13% bandied about as the effective rate, but that's intentional intellectual fraud: they refer to 2010 numbers, when the US was coming out of the great recession and corporations had lost a ton of money.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#316

Post by biggy3100 »

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…

Culture has shifted and now piracy is not looked at as a real crime, but a passage of rite. These streaming services came around as an alternative to piracy and not paying anything for content anywhere.

We're witness the bankrupting of artists over time. And it amazes me that on a forum of content creators, you can see the self-interested individuals rationalizing it as fair. We can argue about the business models all day long, but it should be in tandem with the fact that life isn't fair, and what's happening to these artists isn't fair. The way people are talking about it, it doesn't really come off that way.

Sometimes I wonder if SOPA would have gone through and achieved the purposes it was set out to do - yes, let's be ideological for a moment and talk about the purpose vs the potential abuse. A lot of websites that harbor piracy are no now no longer available, and it's way more difficult to pirate your favorite music. What would that world be like, for consumers and artists?

Maybe more artists would pull their music from the streaming services, which were formed to fight piracy. Now all of a sudden that 9.95 per month you pay for music isn't so great, because not everyone is on there. The streaming services were built as an alternative to a crime - piracy.

To me the end result would be simple: The average user would have to pay more for their content, and that money would flow more into artists pockets, and those who work in artistic industries, which would reinforce more and better artistic creation.

I am probably one of the few: I pay for all of my content, and not on streaming services. I don't buy singles, I buy the whole album. When a friend opens a business, I don't immediately ask for a deal. I go in, and pay full price, and try to support that friend as best as I can. I may be old school - I pay for things, I am happy to pay for things. I want to financially support people who create things, because I want more people to have a means to be able to go out, create, and be rewarded for their work.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#317

Post by nmrm2 »

blankenship wrote: post #295
mikehearn wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of economic differences between music and apps (e.g. price range, labels negotiate on behalf of artists, music has dozens of outlets versus 2-3 for apps, etc), but my hope is you would still analyze the economics before ditching. If you ultimately would stand to make more money through subscriptions in the long term, despite losing three months of revenue, then it would make sense to stay, right?

There are a lot of economic differences between music and apps Are there? (At least for independent musicians?) From my experience, it seems like a decent comparison—you can make an app or album for $2000 or $200k.

It seems like the more difficult barrier to this model is the technical difference between music and apps. In order for a piece of music to play in the background 24/7, the user has to pretty much explicitly allow it. In order for an app to do the same thing, the user just has to grant it enough permissions.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#318

Post by dperfect »

IBM wrote: post #293
dperfect wrote: post #247

As 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 usi…

The case for the latter is extremely strong despite how you've framed it. Apple Music will overnight be on an install base of 700-800 million iOS devices plus Macs (and available on Android and on iTunes on Windows). That combined with the fact that Apple's customers have regularly shown they are willing to pay for apps/services/media makes it extremely likely that this service is going to rapidly expand the market f…

Good points. Still though, I'm not sure install base alone will expand the overall market significantly, at least not quickly. Everyone I know with those devices already spends money on music in some form (subscription-based or digital downloads), or simply wouldn't pay for music at any price (they will milk the trial periods though). I anticipate many will switch to Apple Music, but that will be a switch, not a new form of spending.

Also keep in mind that parents may be willing to spend $.99 here and there for their kids' apps (which adds up fast, but not in a way that feels obvious), whereas few will be happy to sign up for a recurring subscription without at least weighing it against the well-known competition.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#320

Post by StringyBob »

nmrm2 wrote: post #313
clord wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help prevent crap-tastic apps on the store because it changes the incentive structure. If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app, the incentive on developers would be to maximize engagement time, which might be a good thing for users. For paid apps such a scheme would be a problem since it would likely reduce income, but as a way to get money to fund free apps, not a bad idea actual…

> If the subscription is doled out in proportion to time spent in-app Then what stops shady slot game app developer from keeping his app running in the background 24/7 and trashing the commons (or private garden, I guess)? Technical solutions can probably go a decent amount of the way, but there will always be a work-around...

Time spent in an app is certainly not the best measure of value. Ideally, a user could be given some flexibility to 'upvote' subscription payment allocation to apps that have the most value to them.
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