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

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

#121

Post by caffeinewriter »

guelo wrote: post #114
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…

No has even heard of Google's streaming music service. Their marketing team is completely outclassed.

Interestingly enough, in my experience with Google Music, they've outclassed almost every other service I've used in both user experience, and technical innovation. (Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, Pandora, and I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two) However, that's just my opinion and personal experience. Plus, this little debacle will definitely give me pause should I ever consider Apple Music when switching music services in the future.

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

#122

Post by d_theorist »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #116
mhomde wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems highly unlikely, I have a hard time seeing this reflecting well upon Apple, more likely it will leave a sour taste in many people's mouth. It's not like Apple desperately needs the PR and why risk bad one?

I am not sure how either of you are defining highly likely or unlikely. Have you been in the shoes of the people making the decisions? Have you considered the varying inputs that define the statistical likelihood of the result? I recommend checking out http://rationality.org/workshops/ and perhaps reading http://www.yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

It's true. I shouldn't have used that word.

Perhaps what I should say is that orchestration seems like a plausible scenario to me. It seems to fit the facts and the outcome benefits both parties.

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

#123

Post by takeda »

bhouston wrote: post #98
d_theorist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've missed the point a bit. The third (pretty likely) scenario that you don't mention is that they planned the whole exchange.

I doubt they tried to plan the whole thing, too much negativity risk involved.

And Swift just happen to complain and withdraw her songs from Spotify, the main company Apple Music is competing against.

Regarding negativity risk. What risk? If you assume they planned this all along then how possibly this could be negative. The only risk they had if they would end up ignoring her.

This was a great PR stunt to make Apple look much better than a competitor and I'm afraid Swift was nothing more than a puppet there.

Do you really think that recording companies would allow Apple to just stream their music without any contracts in place? Or not including something so important as a part of it?

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

#124

Post by kelukelugames »

slackstation wrote: post #112

Has anyone actually read Taylor Swift's post? She praises Apple and basically says that this one small area, isn't great. This isn't exactly a total take-down and I wouldn't be surprised if this was orchestrated. Even if it isn't. It's the kind of deep PR/Advertising that you rarely get the chance to pay for, let alone afford. And the cost of almost negligible in comparison. Even then, they have a "special" rate duri…

Praising someone greatly and then making one tiny suggestion is a standard method to give criticism. It is also most effective in being taken seriously.

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

#125

Post by _nedR »

delecti wrote: post #119
_nedR wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is sad here, is that in this case the "struggling artist" is Taylor Swift (more likely the record company she is associated with), and that was probably the only reason why Apple actually bothered to do anything about it. Based on Apple's treatment of developers I can imagine how Indie artist's concerns fare in Apple's consideration. Here is an article about this same issue which was raised by an indie artist a…

Part of the point of her letter was that she wasn't a struggling artist, but instead was putting her foot down in the name of the actual struggling artists who couldn't afford to stand up to a giant like Apple. I suspect you haven't read Taylor Swift's letter, and I suggest you do. It's fairly short.

Oh, In that case, its that PR stunt thing :)

Ok. I have read the letter. But my original point still stands. The only reason Apple bothered to do anything was because Taylor Swift said it.

To come to your point. I don't completely buy the whole "Think about the indie artists!" angle either. She herself says that pretty much everyone she spoke to in the industry (she used the word "social circle") was displeased with Apple's system. I am pretty sure there is self-interest involved. I am also positive her record label is happy with the new arrangement as well.

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

#126

Post by seasoup »

Is Apple's royalty structure set up so that if I pay $10/month and I listen to just Justin Bieber, then Justin Bieber gets the royalties from that $10, or is my 1,000 Justin Bieber plays added onto the plays of everyone else and royalties averaged out evenly? If it's the latter, this change doesn't impact Apple economically, it just adjusts the payouts percentages.

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

#127

Post by snowwrestler »

d_theorist wrote: post #88
mhomde wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one do you think is more likely: a) "Oh gosh, apparently having the artists/labels taking the monetary risk for us for trying to acquire a strategic stranglehold on the music industry was bad, we should do the right thing!" b) "Argh! the backlash is bigger than we anticipated and Taylor Swift is causing too much negative PR. Quickly, change our minds before our service and future music profits are doomed. We'll…

I think you've missed the point a bit. The third (pretty likely) scenario that you don't mention is that they planned the whole exchange.

Planned is probably too strong a word, but I think it's likely that Apple anticipated that there might be pushback on the trial period, so they ready to make a quick change.

Remember when the iPhone debuted at $600 and no subsidy? People said it would never sell at that price. But of course a few did, and then Apple quickly cut the price to $400. Eventually it became $200+subsidy, just like any other smartphone.

Apple seems to start out with their preferred offer and see if it works. If not, they go to the next fallback position. That happens so quickly that it seems clear that they must anticipate it somewhat.

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

#128

Post by dghughes »

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…

And 60 million 14 year-old girls "swifties" commenting on each one and blasting anyone who dares say anything remotely bad about Taylor Swift.

If they knew of HN it would be a flame war (to used a 90s reference) in here.

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

#129

Post by FireBeyond »

oddevan wrote: post #5

I totally get the major labels making the 1.5% increase/3-month trial concession; but after nearly every independent artist I pay attention to basically said they couldn't/wouldn't make the same concession, I'm glad Apple relented. I want one of these services to at least act like they appreciate the value of music. Myself, I've never made enough off that one rap CD to recoup the cost of sending it to CD Baby, so I'v…

Eh, 1.5% extra for a 3 month trial with no royalties was utterly contemptual and only appealing to those who couldn't do math: 100/1.5 = 66.67 x 3 months = 200 months to recoup the lost royalties.

For a music streaming service, looking to recoup your lost royalties after almost 17 YEARS (and only getting 1.5% extra at that) is laughable.

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

#130

Post by cracell »

snowwrestler wrote: post #127
d_theorist wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've missed the point a bit. The third (pretty likely) scenario that you don't mention is that they planned the whole exchange.

Planned is probably too strong a word, but I think it's likely that Apple anticipated that there might be pushback on the trial period, so they ready to make a quick change. Remember when the iPhone debuted at $600 and no subsidy? People said it would never sell at that price. But of course a few did, and then Apple quickly cut the price to $400. Eventually it became $200+subsidy, just like any other smartphone. Appl…

The scenario you give with the iPhone may have been planned marketing as well. It's not that hard to conclude that a $600 dollar cell phone would not sell very well when the iPhone debuted. But releasing it at that price made it "exclusive", creating a lot of consumer desire for the device, then they dropped the price to where people could afford it. So they cashed in on that seed they planted and received a lot of additional news coverage from the price drop.

Apple has teams of people working through this stuff. So while you may be right that it was just a prepared backup plan, it also could've been the plan to begin with.

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