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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

#81

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"'

Don't app developers get a much bigger cut of revenues than musicians do? That being the case, I don't understand your comment.

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

#82
post #77
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It's highly unlikely that some SVP would respond so swiftly (no pun intended) to a pop star.

Eddie Cue is the public point person at Apple for Apple Music; he's the person most likely to respond to a concern about the service.

I know.

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

#83
post #62

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"'

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…

"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:_...

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

#84
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that apples to oranges? I would think it goes like this: I want to have pictures taken of me during a performance. But I cannot take pictures of myself while performing. So I pay a photographer to take those pictures for me. They are my pictures. I don't care that you took them, I don't care WHO took them. They are mine because I paid you to take them for me. Just like when an app developer makes an app on thei…

> 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 that sense (in my mind, at least) and I'd be appalled if a wedding photographer started making a fuss because he doesn't own the rights to the pictures.

Of course, if Swift (or the venue) is not paying the photographers (and she isn't), then clearly there must be some financial motivation for them to go do this anyways, at which point you gotta weigh the pros and cons of taking pictures you won't own the rights to...

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

#85
post #75

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…

Those sneaky bastards, no way I believe this whole thing wasn't prearranged with Taylor Swift. Apple has been subject to public outcries over their greedy business models lots of times, but never did they give in so soon and easily. Either T.Swift is some kind of head honcho of the music industry, and Apple genuinely has to respect her statement, or this whole thing was prearranged for PR.

I think you're severely underestimating Taylor Swift's clout in the music industry. She's the biggest artist since Katy Perry, and Katy Perry was the biggest artist since Michael Jackson.

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

#86

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"'

As we all know, musicians are wealthy fatcats and developers are poor starving artists.

When has Apple contacted developers to increase the size of its cut? Amazon claims to match Apple's 70% but in fact charges book authors for download size and halves your 30% for books over $10 (which is ridiculous given expensive books should have higher margins).

When has Google informed you that you can opt out of having ads shown next to your content in search results?

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

#87

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…

One can speculate the whole thing was planned.

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

#88
post #78

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…

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.

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

#89
post #29

Is Apple paying the artists, or the record labels? And if the latter, how much money would actually end up in the artists pockets?

Presumably it's paying the rights-holders, whoever they happen to be (i.e. usually labels). How would you expect it to work?

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

#90
post #75

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…

Those sneaky bastards, no way I believe this whole thing wasn't prearranged with Taylor Swift. Apple has been subject to public outcries over their greedy business models lots of times, but never did they give in so soon and easily. Either T.Swift is some kind of head honcho of the music industry, and Apple genuinely has to respect her statement, or this whole thing was prearranged for PR.

Taylor Swift is by far the most influential person in the music industry right now. Ignoring her when trying to launch a new music service in this competitive market would have disastrous results, even for Apple
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