Apple Says “We Hear You Taylor Swift”, Will Pay Musicians During Free Trial

Post by d_theorist » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

kincardine wrote: post #49

josefresco wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Gets: Credit for throwing artists a bone. / Extended publicity for their new music service. / Credit for pleasing TS who has a lot of fans who would also be good customers for Apple TS Gets: Publicity / Sales for her new album / Credit for sticking up for artists Seems like a win-win for both parties. I doubt the revenue lost would have been significant. Anyone have numbers?

Oh, absolutely. This is freebie PR for everyone involved. What I meant to imply is that the PR is only valuable because it is a musician with the brand value (and public presence) of Taylor Swift. And, what I mean by that is that if smaller brand musicians complained (as I think would have been inevitable) nothing would change until a larger brand also complained (which would also have been inevitable).

Post by d_theorist » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #70

pinaceae wrote: post #42

this was a BRILLIANT pr orchestration. blogs, articles, etc all over the globe were written about apple music, for free. would have been far more expensive to buy all that airtime than this little scandal. so taylor swift gets more publicity, apple music is now an established brand name, everyone and their dog knows about their pricing model - holy shit. hats off to the apple team, playing the outrage-piano like no o…

If it was a PR move, why would they capitulate so fast, and on a Sunday? The story is basically done now, a week before the service launches. I mean, it's not even a trending story on Facebook or Twitter on Monday morning!

Post by rst » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #69

exelius wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing Apple just ran the math and decided "A $300 billion company should not damage its brand in a PR fight with a pop singer over a rounding error." Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Apple gets to look like the good guy, the difference is immaterial to most artists, and Taylor Swift gets to feel important. What upsets me about the whole thing is that T…

> Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Probably true, however remember Swift recently had the bout with Spotify, leading to the Spotify CEO revealing she was pulling in nearly $6 million a year from them.

Post by legohead » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 3:25 PM UTC

pinaceae wrote: post #42

this was a BRILLIANT pr orchestration. blogs, articles, etc all over the globe were written about apple music, for free. would have been far more expensive to buy all that airtime than this little scandal. so taylor swift gets more publicity, apple music is now an established brand name, everyone and their dog knows about their pricing model - holy shit. hats off to the apple team, playing the outrage-piano like no o…

Post by k-mcgrady » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

smackfu wrote: post #72

kincardine wrote: post #10

So, without making a judgement call on this actual decision. It amazes me that no one saw this type of reaction from artists (and the generally pro-artist consumer base) coming when the overall business plan was created. And that the concession was made so quickly...

Apple got the labels to agree to the deal already, why would they care about the artists?