Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Apple, Love Taylor

taylorswift.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 534 posts

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#391

Post by kstrauser »

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…

> I'd encourage you to consider the hypothetical I posted in the last thread about Apple Music's 3 month trial.

To make the analogy a little more accurate:

> Tomorrow, Apple announces that it will be introducing an "App Store Subscription." For $9.99/month users will be allowed to use one App Store app at a time. When an app is running, it will present a button allowing a user to purchase that app so that they may use it any time they want, whether or not their phone is connected to the Internet, and concurrently with other apps. During the 3 month free trial, Apple will not pay royalties for streaming apps but will pay normal royalties for any apps purchased.

This would suck for the Omni Groups and Mojangs, but absolutely awesome for tiny shops who currently make almost nothing and would now have much greater exposure. Likewise Taylor Swift doesn't need more exposure to sell her music, but Joe Garage might actually pick up a few listeners and fans. You see this is a money grab. I see this is as a necessary (and label approved!) bootstrapping for long term gain.

And in the mean time, even major artists will continue to get their current revenue stream from radio stations, Spotify, iTMS, etc. unless we really believe that Apple Music is going to gain a 100% market share immediately. Long term, even that would probably be a huge benefit to artists because it's almost certainly a better deal than they're getting from anyone else today.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#392

Post by ForHackernews »

biggy3100 wrote: post #316
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 al…

> on a forum of content creators

I'm not a "content creator", I'm a developer. What I do has a lot more in common with what a plumber or an electrician does than with what Taylor Swift does. My programs are not expressions of my soul, they're well-crafted tools to solve a particular problem that I have either a) been paid to solve, or b) hope to sell to somebody else to solve their problem.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#393

Post by gress »

Shivetya wrote: post #340
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…

I am all in her camp on this one. Most services eat the cost of trial periods in hopes of snaring subscribers and making up the loss. Apple is being dishonest by claiming free trial while passing off the costs to the artists by relying on Apple's name and status so as not to have people question it. In other words, they are spinning the story faster that old 78s

By your logic, Apple should pay for the music and give it away free since they are the ones who will benefit.

But that means that if revenues rise as a result of the new service, Apple should keep all the extra profit rather than sharing it with the artists.

Is that what you really want?

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#394

Post by bphogan »

Mahn wrote: post #306
zwily wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The way things are going, with a couple mobile games doing billions, and hundreds of thousands of others doing next to nothing, non-IAP pay-per-usage in app stores may well come sooner than most people expect.

Before Photoshop went subscription-based, I assumed they would have gone the IAP route. For example, need a blur tool? Add it for 1.99. Or buy the Retouching Pack for $25.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#395

Post by TIM2014 »

Lets pretend for a second that it's not that the artist is NOT getting paid for 3 months, but they (Apple) are delaying their payment for 3 months. The 3 months Free is to entice people into subscribing to Apple Music, and the more people that end up scribing the better.

I think at the end of the day (or end of 3 months) more people will have subscribed to Apple Music then before and the artist will be making more money.

Personally i think the real winners are the record labels who seem to get the lions share of the money.

Also when Goole Music was released it was free for a limited time... did they pay artist/record labels?

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#396

Post by bphogan »

rayiner wrote: post #369
w4 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Isn't this one of the big reasons for the rise of SaaS apps, though? Developers, unlike musicians, have found a way to combat piracy in a way that both consumers seem to prefer (lower upfront costs a…

Do consumers prefer SaaS? The reaction to Windows and Office becoming subscription software seems pretty uniformly negative.

I know lots of people who are happy to pay $49 a month instead of the $2000 that Adobe Master Collection was.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#397

Post by bestnameever »

sanswork wrote: post #20

3 months free to buy market share makes sense but I am amazed to hear that they are doing it by just not paying the content producers during those 3 months. I'd be doing the same thing in her place. Apple has the cash to run a loss leader on this.

I agree and it seems unreasonable of Apple. To me it conveys that they don't value the content musicians bring.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#398

Post by kstrauser »

xasos wrote: post #352
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…

I agree, Apple should front the costs during that 3 month trial period. It's just not fair to not pay artists. The only benefit I see from this is that artists can get exposure they normally wouldn't get, because of the smaller library size.

> Apple should front the costs during that 3 month trial period. It's just not fair to not pay artists.

Why? Apple negotiated that arrangement with those artists' labels, who agreed that this was a fair and equitable situation. You and I might like to think that we would have chosen otherwise, but the people involved in this contract were happy with the outcome.

Remember, Apple didn't unilaterally come up with this. They didn't just open a service and announce that they weren't going to pay anyone.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#399

Post by bestnameever »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #133
japhyr wrote: post #109

I like how she states her position so concisely in the last two lines: We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.

It's the weakest part of her argument though as iPhones have a unit cost whereas digital copies of her music do not. But I think she is very right to refuse to pay for a scheme that is supposed to increase Apple's market share and not hers.

Does the cost matter? Both the iPhone and Music have value regardless of cost.

Does anyone know how other companies like Spotify, Rhapsody, Google play and others treat the trial period?

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#400

Post by 13throwaway »

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…

App economics are much different from music economics.

From what I have observed, most people (the casual listener) will listen to the free streaming services (pandora, apple radio, etc). When people want to listen to a specific song they listen to it on youtube.

Post reply on HN