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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

#131

Post by Joky »

FireBeyond wrote: post #129
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.

It looks to me like this reasoning is laughable. It looks like the same reasoning as when the major are counting every single pirated song as a "missing sale". Like if it would have translated in a sale otherwise...

The three months free period is intended to make the amount of paid customer bigger after the three months, so you have to account for that (and you don't). I don't know what is the predicted impact of the three months on the subscription numbers, but let's imagine you would have a two times faster market penetration. After a year you would have 3 months free and then 9 months with double amount royalties, compared to 12 months single royalties.

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

#132

Post by Joky »

mfoy_ wrote: post #67
zxcvcxz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what reason would there be for any of those top artists to be there? That's why they should do it. To get rid of the facade that this is about helping smaller artists and show people what artists really care about art and which ones care about money. I'm personally offended by Swifts letter. I don't think she really cares about smaller artists, she was just using them to manipulate Apple. We all know that Taylor wil…

So what? It's not about subsidizing smaller artists; it's about not forcing artists to unilaterally eat Apple Music's loss-leading costs.

It's a narrow view: it's about the major label making maths and thinking that it was in their benefit to get as many paying users as possible on the service as quickly as possible, and three months free is a great way to do it.

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

#133

Post by juliangregorian »

mcv wrote: post #41
SchizoDuckie wrote: post #12

Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day. App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of your cut' or 'if you don't want us to show ads near your content, reply to this email with "opt out"'

Are you saying we should have app developers and content producers with a Taylor Swift-like popular status?

Are you saying we shouldn't?

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

#134

Post by 001sky »

exelius wrote: post #101
001sky wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Typically you have to complete a 3-album deal where the studio owns the recording rights" Taylor swift has made tons of product and has rights apparently because she does more work on her music than most artists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift#2004.E2.80.9308:_...

She didn't make any of these decisions on her own as a 14 year old. She had two parents with a lot of business savvy and the money to bankroll her career. That gives you the ability to push back against the record company. Ordinarily, if you say "no" to a record company's demands, they drop you and your career is over. Taylor just went out and bought a recording company after RCA wouldn't give her the creative contro…

This is not really on point tho is it? TS has put out way more than a standard recording contract. So she'd be like a first round draft pick who is now a free agent with a couple of super bowl mvp's. Its not like anbody cares that peyton and eli manning had their famous dad as there high school coach during contract negotiations. On the merits, she gets alot of credits because she writes alot of her material as well. You can compare somebody like whitney houston (pop star) or even norah jones (jazz) who got their entire career or major break on other people's songs. That givers her dual/multi royalty streams right off the bat and more leverage practically speaking because the label is doing less work production etc (all this well beyong capital $$ loans and stuff).

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

#135

Post by rst »

Alupis wrote: post #105
rst wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, those figures are in dispute. Swift and her management publicly stated that she was getting a lot less from Spotify -- IIRC, under $1 million. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-taylor-swift-earned-...

If I recall, her dispute was in dispute by Spotify CEO. He asserted her final cut was probably what she was stating, but Spotify's checks to her label were in original $6 million range payouts, and that she should take the issue up with her management if they are taking that much out of her cut.

There's more than one artist on her label (which, by he way, is not owned by her or her family, though they do have a minority stake).

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

#136

Post by LnxPrgr3 »

mfoy_ wrote: post #84
goatforce5 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I pay a photographer to take those pictures for me. She isn't paying them. This is for press photographers who want to go to her concert and take pictures of her performing.

I won't pretend to understand the exact business model, but it sounds like this is an entirely different can of worms. Unless there is a lot more clarification, I don't see why this is an issue, though. The few people I know who have photographed a concert in some professional capacity have done so for someone else on a paid contract. Usually the performer or the venue... it's kind of like a wedding photographer in t…

I'd be surprised—I'm pretty sure the photographer does own the rights to photos they took, unless he/she explicitly signs them away, so there's nothing to fuss about.

That said, I'd expect to be thrown out more often than not if I started showing up to random weddings as an uninvited photographer. No one has to let me take pictures in their private space, but they might do so with terms attached.

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

#137

Post by Alupis »

rst wrote: post #135
Alupis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall, her dispute was in dispute by Spotify CEO. He asserted her final cut was probably what she was stating, but Spotify's checks to her label were in original $6 million range payouts, and that she should take the issue up with her management if they are taking that much out of her cut.

There's more than one artist on her label (which, by he way, is not owned by her or her family, though they do have a minority stake).

That would be irrelevant for her payouts as an artist. Spotify states that Taylor Swift, the artist (not the label), was pulling down $6 million a year from them alone. Swift stated she was only receiving around $1 million, to which the Spotify CEO referred her to speak with her management because they were clearly taking a massive/majority cut out of her payout.

She's very young, and probably didn't pay much attention to her contracts and such. Even still, 80% is a lot for a label to consume in "management" fees.

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

#138

Post by eco »

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.

I'm reminded of the huge success Coke experienced after reintroducing Coca Cola Classic after the disastrous new Coke. When questioned about the whole thing Coke's president Donald Keough said, "Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake. Some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing. The truth is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart."

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

#139

Post by mightykan »

JohnGB wrote: post #66

Am I then only one that noticed that they didn't say they would be paying the same during the free trial as after the free trial. They could be paying a flat $0.01 fee to each artist regardless of plays, and everything Apple has said would still apply. I want to know "how much" they will be paying.

"It can’t be at the same rate that Apple is paying them after free users become subscribers, since Apple is paying out a percentage of revenue once subscribers start paying. Instead, he says, Apple will pay rights holders on a per-stream basis, the amount of which he won’t disclose.” [1]

[1]: http://recode.net/2015/06/21/apple-says-it-will-pay-taylor-s...

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

#140

Post by exelius »

001sky wrote: post #134
exelius wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She didn't make any of these decisions on her own as a 14 year old. She had two parents with a lot of business savvy and the money to bankroll her career. That gives you the ability to push back against the record company. Ordinarily, if you say "no" to a record company's demands, they drop you and your career is over. Taylor just went out and bought a recording company after RCA wouldn't give her the creative contro…

This is not really on point tho is it? TS has put out way more than a standard recording contract. So she'd be like a first round draft pick who is now a free agent with a couple of super bowl mvp's. Its not like anbody cares that peyton and eli manning had their famous dad as there high school coach during contract negotiations. On the merits, she gets alot of credits because she writes alot of her material as well.…

Right, and the fact that she had the leverage to be able to do that in the first place makes her unlike the vast majority of artists on these services. So for her to play the "I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for all the undiscovered artists" card is a bit disingenuous. That's not how the industry works for the majority of artists -- their payouts from Spotify/Apple Music/etc. are so low they aren't focused on that as a revenue stream.

The only artists who really care about these streaming payments are already at the top of the food chain -- the vast majority of artists are just looking to get discovered. One could argue that the presence of big artists on these streaming services makes the platforms more valuable for artists at the bottom by drawing more users to them, but it definitely has created a situation where top artists' albums have value as a product themselves, while albums of lesser-known bands are essentially given away for free to try to build an audience.

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