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To Apple, Love Taylor

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Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#401

Post by kstrauser »

sdenton4 wrote: post #353
edanm wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure there is - live shows.

Yeah, but touring has a crazy pile of expenses associated, in addition to all the unfortunateness of being on the road for as long as you want to make money at it. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/11/25/band-ju...

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the artists, but I think that it's unrealistic that they'd expect otherwise.

A career in tech has a crazy pile of expenses associated (Stanford isn't giving away comp sci degrees; continuing education unless you want to end up a one-trick pony), in additional to all the unfortunateness of having to live in a hyper-expensive tech hub for as long as you want to make money at it.

Yeah, you can much cheaper degree (I did) and live in a cheaper region (I had), but that almost guarantees hitting a lower career ceiling than if you have a Berkeley diploma and live in San Jose.

Almost all careers involve tradeoffs. If you want to rise to the limits of your abilities you're going to have to make some hard decisions. Otherwise you'll be competing with the other workers who are happy to get paid less for easier work. In tech, this means a mid-range job in a small market. For musicians, this means playing gigs in Des Moines instead of clubs in LA. Them's the breaks.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#402

Post by sehugg »

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…

I don't think you can pin it all on piracy; it's just the usual race-to-the-bottom. The App Store has had a constant (low) piracy rate ever since the first jailbreak, and nevertheless free-to-play revenue is 80% and increasing.

Music is always competing with its back catalog, and old music weathers the years a lot better than old video games.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#404

Post by buro9 »

kstrauser wrote: post #391
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 us…

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.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#405

Post by w4 »

[deleted] wrote: post #403

[deleted]

> don't forget that in apple music people only can listen for the sone they liked once and can not select a song they want to play, thus forcing them to purchase if they really like the song

What? This isn't in the least bit accurate for Apple Music. That was the deal with Apple Radio, not the new service being discussed here.

EDIT: I guess he deleted his comment once he realized his mistake.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#406

Post by slantyyz »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #217
coldtea wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the weakest part of her argument though as iPhones have a unit cost whereas digital copies of her music do not. The most basic cost you have to recoup is that of making the song (studio, musicians, production, what you charge for your voice etc). This remains real money, even if you can make a digital copy of a song for free. Besides this is based on a "physical product" model of economics and tries to apply i…

>The most basic cost you have to recoup is that of making the song (studio, musicians, production, what you charge for your voice etc). This remains real money, even if you can make a digital copy of a song for free. Absolutely, but that is fixed cost not unit cost. Not recouping fixed costs is bad. But losing money on top of that for every unit you give away is even worse. The distinction matters just as much as in…

> 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 with every iPhone?

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#408

Post by logicallee »

1stop wrote: post #135
logicallee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy would apply if the loss got people in the door, but they bought SOMETHING ELSE that ensured profits. For example, in this case if free music got them onto Apple's platform (loss) where they then bought a bunch of apps (unrelated to music and the source of profit). For anyone who doesn't know, a loss leader is something advertised like bread for 50 cents or something, where the store loses money on each a…

That's a specific (but common) use of the loss-leader strategy, but not the definition. The strategy itself is to sell something at a loss, to get a lead/marketshare/conversion.

well, if you type "loss leader" into Google an infobox pops up that says "A loss leader (also leader) is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services" which it got from Wikipedia, whose article doesn't mention what you call the strategy.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#409

Post by ptomato »

Executor wrote: post #341
biggy3100 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here is a better model of paying artists: - If artist sells music on a DRM-free downloading service like bandcamp.com, support them - Otherwise let them starve

Which artist doesn't sell music DRM-free? iTunes is 100% DRM-free. Ditto Amazon, Google Play, &c. CDs are also DRM-free.

Re: To Apple, Love Taylor

#410

Post by paulkon »

naveenspark wrote: post #312

Taylor Swift is signed to Big Machine Records (BMLG). Big Machine Records is distributed by Universal Music Group (UMG). I am sure BMLG/UMG received a sizable advance from Apple in exchange for streaming rights for their master recordings. UMG probably negotiated an even higher advance in exchange for permission to launch the 3 month free campaign. UMG / BMLG should be sharing this advance payment with their artists.…

Yep, that's what it looks like.
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