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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#461

Post by shawn-butler »

“We don’t ask you for free iPhones,” she added. “Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”

Funny, her best line and I would wager she hasn't paid for an iPhone or any consumer electronics (or any branded good for that matter) in years if ever given her family history. I find her use of the royal "we" arrogant.

I really do not understand the issue. What Apple is creating is a unified platform for exposure to music and musicians not just a streaming music service. With Connect artists take their fans into their lifestyle and the creative process to gain traction / engagement.

A "free trial" is exactly the kind of thing that would induce consumers to use it away from the hodgepodge networks out there now, all of which Swift, Inc seems to use exorbitantly to prop up her brand (web, mobile app, fb, twitter, instagram, tumblr, vine, ....) but which is next to impossible for an indie artist to maintain on his/her own.

I can understand why the economic return on her investment in Apple Music may not be in Swift Inc's best interest but not the community she is appointing herself to represent.

Seems like a no-brainer to me and also an opportunity for someone here to create some tools to create and maintain a presence on Connect for artists ready to go with content when it launches.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#462

Post by WalterBright »

Animats wrote: post #459
WalterBright wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, historically, art hasn't paid very well. I suspect the modern artists-get-rich era started with Elvis. That era may be an aberration and be drawing to a close. In my own profession, writing compilers, you simply can't sell them anymore. That hasn't deterred me from continuing to do so, I just adapt and find other ways to make a living from the business.

" I suspect the modern artists-get-rich era started with Elvis." A little further back than that, but not much further. Frank Sinatra, maybe. With radio and recordings, for the first time a musician could get revenue from people far away. "In my own profession, writing compilers, you simply can't sell them anymore." Compilers, operating systems, browsers... Maybe software as an industry only had a limited lifespan. I…

It's the internet that killed paid commodity software. Before the internet, you had to pay someone to burn a CD/floppy and mail it to you, and of course it had to be worth that person's while to do it.

Internet downloading removed all the friction, and prices went to zero.

However, there's still plenty of opportunity doing service, maintenance, custom work, training, etc.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#463

Post by slantyyz »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #437
slantyyz wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absolutely, but that is fixed cost not unit cost. Isn't your unit cost = Cost of Goods Sold / Units Sold? Wouldn't the fixed cost producing the music be amortized (over some arbitrary number of years) into the Cost of Goods Sold to produce an accurate picture of unit cost? > A better analogy to giving away iPhones would be to play a live gig for free. Or how about this analogy: 3 months of free wireless service wit…

Whatever you may call it, I think the distinction between fixed cost and whatever each unit costs you on top of that is very important when we're talking freebies. The correct term is probably marginal cost.

That really depends. If you recover your fixed costs, sure.

What to the top artists represent in terms of percentage of sales? It's probably more than 90 percent of the sales from less than 10% of the artists. For them, your argument is probably true.

I would imagine it takes significantly longer for independent artists, especially niche artists, to recover their fixed costs, especially since music sales are basically a popularity contest.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#464

Post by busterarm »

sgk284 wrote: post #445
buro9 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you happen to be this Summer's big record... in which case your one profitable window for your track will have has just been obliterated.

That assumes every Apple Music user is on their 3 month free trial at the same time. This 3 month trial won't even be a consideration in a year, as the majority of users will be past theirs. In reality, at any given moment a small percentage of users will be in the free trial period (excluding the first 3 months of the service being generally available).

Well, 100% of users will be on a 3 month trial the first year that they use a service, so it doesn't matter when it happens. For any successful service, the number of those users should grow YoY, at least for a while. (We're growing so fast, the number of people listening to your album for free has an exponential growth curve! SEE? WE'RE CRUSHING IT!)

Most artists aren't successful (if even) for more than a few years at best. The lifespan of their albums even less so.

(Some old data: http://frumin.net/ation/2008/05/climb_the_charts_schmimb_the... )

Okay, it might matter when it happens: It might be really catastrophic to release your album right when the service starts (actually it sounds like Ms. Swift is pretty smart now, eh?). Though then you might want to hold off for a whole year entirely. Hold on now, why is Apple dictating the release schedule of my albums? I thought they weren't a record label...

...oh wait.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#465

Post by Cthulhu_ »

busterarm wrote: post #456
w4 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4 albums a year And that would be an incredibly productive artist. Most artists release something like 1 album every 1-2 years, at best.

Maybe in genres of music that you're accustomed to. There are a few where high output is the norm. The output of a lot of producers and (especially) ghost-writers is pretty hard to fathom. I have a great story about Japanese record labels that's pretty long for here though. Many well-known artists have released multiple hit records in the same year before though and many more are releasing their own albums and produc…

Another thing to note is that artists often (can) produce far more music than ends up on their albums; they, or their producers / publishers, realize that not everything they produce is good music. Just like code / software. So while you can produce thousands of lines of code a day if you churn out enough, only ten or so will actually be worth keeping.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#466

Post by Cthulhu_ »

belorn wrote: post #431
byuu wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making any statement on whether it's good or bad, right or wrong, but ... Software developers aren't immune to piracy's effects, either. Whether we like it or not, we're quickly shifting into a world where art is only viable as a labor of love. Everything being digital means copying is free. Scarcity has gone out the window. Now if only our increased productivity and automations led to lesser and lesser worki…

> increasingly difficult to sustain yourself solely as an artist. The number of ways to sustain yourself has significant increased in recent times, and some of those don't even use copyright as a mean for revenue. They are by nature immune to piracy. Taken Patreon and kickstarter. You can not pirate art which has not been created. An artist can decide how much wages they demand rather than find an other job, which in…

> The number of ways to sustain yourself has significant increased in recent times

But so has the offer; anyone with a computer can create and publish music nowadays, which is both good and bad; good for the creative industry, bad for income for said creative industry because only a small percentage will ever see money. Same with the webcomics you noted; all you need is a computer with the worst drawing software to recreate something like XKCD. Everyone can do what they want / enjoy, but only a very, very small percentage of those will be able to sustain themselves off it - especially, or mostly, in the creative industry.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#467

Post by headShrinker »

ddebernardy wrote: post #359
headShrinker wrote: post #337

For anyone suggesting that Taylor is not greedy, most artists don't get the majority of the money from airplay, the record labels do. Apple's move is to cut record labels massive control grip on the market, not to rip off the artist. Taylor Swift is in a very unique positions to have a very lucrative record deal with her label. Most artists don't, that's why you are hearing from her and not others. It was the same si…

Curious to understand... what's the point of getting 1% of any sale of something that wouldn't be there to sell in the first place had you not created it? I find it really hard to believe that labels guarantee you'll get over 100 times the amount of sales that you'd get without them. Do they?

I don't know that I completely understand your question... The point is to create something. Your other question, the label guarantees nothing... Often after recording and publishing the artist is left in debt to the label for all expenses, the label then charges exorbitant rates for studio, legal, duplication, and doesn't pay a dime to the artist till the money is recouped. Often artist who don't sell enough albums are left in debt to the label and then summarily dropped. Most of the time after only one album. Swift is abviously far beyond this status and can command a massive sway when it comes to crafting her new contracts.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#468

Post by busterarm »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #465
busterarm wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in genres of music that you're accustomed to. There are a few where high output is the norm. The output of a lot of producers and (especially) ghost-writers is pretty hard to fathom. I have a great story about Japanese record labels that's pretty long for here though. Many well-known artists have released multiple hit records in the same year before though and many more are releasing their own albums and produc…

Another thing to note is that artists often (can) produce far more music than ends up on their albums; they, or their producers / publishers, realize that not everything they produce is good music. Just like code / software. So while you can produce thousands of lines of code a day if you churn out enough, only ten or so will actually be worth keeping.

Agreed...but I hope my (or anyone's) useful output as a programmer is significantly more than 1%.

I really want to drive home the "you're going to work just as hard, but for less money" argument to get people thinking about it the right way.

It's no different than music piracy, which actually I don't care about, just don't be dishonest about doing it as a business.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#469

Post by sliverstorm »

zwily wrote: post #290
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…

Pay-per-usage of apps (similar to streaming music) might be really interesting. Of course, games already kind of do that via IAP and it absolutely sucks, so who knows.

Pay-per-usage means that apps which are by nature both critical & valuable but also infrequently used, get no money...

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#470

Post by girvo »

mike_hearn wrote: post #373
icebraining wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy was never look at as a real crime. The "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign wouldn't have been launched if piracy was generally equated with a crime in society. To me the end result would be simple: The average user would have to pay more for their content People aren't exactly burning the money they would have otherwise spend on such content; they aren't going to stop paying their rent because they have le…

Of course "not paying for things" is an option. Nobody has a human right to Taylor Swift's music. If you can't buy it then just go listen to the radio, or use Spotify's ad supported service, or do something else. I pay for all the movies I watch via iTunes. I never pirate movies. Most of the music I listen to is internet radio (i.e. it is free but with the artists permission). Some of my friends consider me odd, and…

> use Spotify's ad supported service

I do believe that in Taylor Swift's case, you can't; at least not all of it. She didn't put her latest album on Spotify either. Honestly, I've got little sympathy for her: she's the most famous and successful singer-songwriter in the last decade by far, and these sorts of stunts don't really endear her in my eyes. But she doesn't care, 'cause haters gonna hate hate hate, right?

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