Do You Think Apple's New Music Service Three Month Free Trial Hurts Artists?

"Apple will always make sure that artist are paid. #AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period. We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple."

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=30132

How sincere! I love how they just put 'and indie artists' behind Taylor Swift (obviously the only one with power to make them change their policy) to give them the slightest idea that they care. Nothing but a 180 turn turn to save themselves from a Tidal wave of criticism. Not that this is different from other companies although maybe others aren't as pretentious. That said, they did at least change the policy so good on them (you see, their marketing is the best). I probably won't subscribe anyway though, so I'll just back up now :)

  On 6/20/2015 at 3:39 PM, fumi said:

https://youtu.be/9-7uXcvOzms

 

"Jesus, Ghandi, ME!"

I don't care.

Somehow, Autechre and others managed to convince me to buy their records and attend their shows while others continue to cry that their music is not selling well/at all.

I am sick of this part of the music. Everybody can make high quality music for free today without going bankrupt. And the best of the best will get their money no matter what Apple and others do. I would not by anything on iTunes anyway, btw.

  On 6/22/2015 at 1:38 PM, Jev said:

I don't care.

 

Somehow, Autechre and others managed to convince me to buy their records and attend their shows while others continue to cry that their music is not selling well/at all.

 

I am sick of this part of the music. Everybody can make high quality music for free today without going bankrupt. And the best of the best will get their money no matter what Apple and others do. I would not by anything on iTunes anyway, btw.

It took Apple a whopping 17 hours to cave after Swift made her displeasure known.

  On 6/22/2015 at 1:04 PM, Herr Jan said:

"Apple will always make sure that artist are paid. #AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period. We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple."

 

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=30132

 

How sincere! I love how they just put 'and indie artists' behind Taylor Swift (obviously the only one with power to make them change their policy) to give them the slightest idea that they care. Nothing but a 180 turn turn to save themselves from a Tidal wave of criticism. Not that this is different from other companies although maybe others aren't as pretentious. That said, they did at least change the policy so good on them (you see, their marketing is the best). I probably won't subscribe anyway though, so I'll just back up now :)

 

  On 6/20/2015 at 3:39 PM, fumi said:

https://youtu.be/9-7uXcvOzms

 

 

"Jesus, Ghandi, ME!"

Really, only the Taylor Swifts of the world will get anything out of this anyway - since they agreed to pay, but it will not be at the rate after the trial period is over - so at pennies per stream, only the most popular streams will generate any revenue. However, the exposure will hopefully boost sales and expose more people to more music they otherwise may not have got to hear otherwise.

  Quote

 

Less than a day after Taylor Swift called Apple’s decision not to pay musicians any royalties for its three-month free trial period of Apple Music “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company” on Tumblr, the company has changed its position.

 

Apple SVP Eddy Cue announced on Twitter that the company has reversed its decision and will pay artists even during the customers’ free trial period.

 

“Apple will make sure that artists are paid,” Cue tweeted, continuing: “Apple Music will pay artists for streaming even during customers’ free trial period. We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple.”

 

Last week, BuzzFeed reported that Swift had pulled her wildly-popular “1989” album on Apple Music, because of the streaming service’s decision not to pay royalties during its three-month trial period. That followed her decision to remove “1989” from Spotify’s service last year, citing her opinion that the company didn’t give enough money to artists.

 

Swift wrote on Tumblr that her decision not to participate in Apple Music wasn’t just about her — it was about protecting new artists “who will not be paid for its success.”

 

The post decrying Apple’s lack of intial royalties got plenty of attention Sunday and Apple appears to have listened to her criticism.

 

Originally, Apple had planned to pay music owners 71.5% of Apple Music’s subscription revenue after the trial period ended, Re/Code reported. According to Apple exec Robert Kondrk, that was “a few percentage points higher than the industry standard,” to account for the longer trial period.

 

It’s unclear whether that percentage will now decrease because Apple will pay artists throughout the trial period.

Hundreds of indie lables representing tens of thousands of artists have a problem, fuck you deal with it. One grammy winner with huge twitter following removes album from their site, oh yes maam, we hear and respect you maam. gleh.

  On 6/22/2015 at 1:04 PM, Herr Jan said:

How sincere! I love how they just put 'and indie artists' behind Taylor Swift (obviously the only one with power to make them change their policy) to give them the slightest idea that they care.

 

 

 

Taylor Swift's management probably weren't the only big names in sales that contacted them, behind the scene's there probably was a lot of pressure from agents representing everyone worth big numbers.

Wow this turned out to be suspiciously great PR for both Swift and Apple

someone i know who's part of an indie band got this check for the total amount of streams for the last quarter

funny i read that cheque payer as musiclul reports. well funny to me, nwae.

  On 6/22/2015 at 10:08 PM, Nebraska said:

someone i know who's part of an indie band got this check for the total amount of streams for the last quarter

 

Too bad.

EDIT: And funny at the same time.

3 months free will get more paying customers than no months free

neither scenario will affect the piracy of the crap anyway

so, the name of the game is to create the next brand new complaint and hope it gets a million hits somewhere

an insightful piece on the big streaming services, there's a part two that i haven't read yet. the follow up piece. Portishead complaining about getting two and an half grand of 34 million plays.

Artists really should boycott these services, it's not just promotion for your product like radio play (another place that delivers dubious royalty revenues), it's a replacement listening avenue, and cause the user is paying for the service they would then presume to never have to pay for anything in another format. It's training them in the wrong direction.

re: portishead - then why can't he state it clearly how much is he supposed to earn by letting his music stream if getting 2500usd for doing literally nothing is not enough for him, and he even calls it work. just lol. i mean i love portishead's last album but the fucking artists got this really distorted idea that people should pay them for their hobby. it's kinda like forcing people to pay for watching someone's lego creations.

Why would people pay for physical copies of tunes they can stream on Youtube for free (or on Spotify / Music / whatever... for cheap) ? I don't buy the "boosting sales" argument.

eugene, genuine question, do you make music yourself? If so, have you ever tried to make a living out of it? I have, and failed, despite some of the juiciest deals and exposure it was possible to get back then (really). That a mercyless industry, in which the original composer/artist is the last one to get his/her share. And that's, most of the time, a ridiculously low portion of the generated money.

$2500 for 32M plays is simply absurd. No matter if the tune was made in 5 seconds or 5 decades.

no i don't do any music for export.

but why would anyone expect to make a living out of music, i don't get it, do i have to expect people to pay me for watching me ride my bike or watch me solve puzzles or something? i understand that it's legit to ask money for concerts because you're going out of your way to perform for people, but money for your own albums that you did on your own terms? that doesn't make any sense.

Getting nice gigs w/o "proper" releases is (at least, used to be, a few years back) almost impossible.

The thing is, if someone else sells a copy of your music, why would you be the one to get the smallest share of the money it generates?

I can't see what's wrong in trying to live out of your art. If you're good at it, and can pay your bills with it while spending all your time and energy creating, that's great!

I'm convinced that none of WATMM featured artists would have developped/refined such personal styles without all the time, money and confidence (from labels & audience) made possible by being "pro".

the amount that those companies should receive by streaming someone's music compared to that someone is a really boring issue imo, it's just this typical worker-employer relationship and negotiating your wages. i'm more interested in the musicians and their expectations.

there's nothing wrong about receiving money for your music, but expecting it is, imo.

i really don't see how money makes one creative or inspired, they all had personal styles and made good music before they got big (afx's SAWs for example). you kinda got cause and effect wrong here.

It takes times and financial confort to go from SAWs to Windowlicker for exemple. From Clarence Park to Empty the Bones of You. From Feed Me Weird Things to Go Plastic, etc...

to the ears of the many people the earlier albums are much better, in fact it's possible that the majority thinks so.

Maybe, I don't know. If so, it may not be only about the music itself, but also nostalgia, memories etc... tied to records you may have been listenning to for decades...

[Devil's Advocate] I think the elephant in the room for this discussion is that people as a whole don't value music like they used to, and may never return to that mindset. With piracy and free streaming so easy and readily available, why would they pay? The same will happen with tech gadgets and maybe more advanced technology once 3D printing becomes cheaper and easier. This is the way the world is heading. The money is in selling people the means to do these things. Music, art, and other digital media buying will become more and more a niche/boutique market. It already has to a certain extent.

  On 7/19/2015 at 3:23 PM, lin said:

Getting nice gigs w/o "proper" releases is (at least, used to be, a few years back) almost impossible.

 

The thing is, if someone else sells a copy of your music, why would you be the one to get the smallest share of the money it generates?

 

I can't see what's wrong in trying to live out of your art. If you're good at it, and can pay your bills with it while spending all your time and energy creating, that's great!

 

I'm convinced that none of WATMM featured artists would have developped/refined such personal styles without all the time, money and confidence (from labels & audience) made possible by being "pro".

This, this was exactly the point of what i was posting. It seems that in all the opaque diatribes about this we didn't realise that the industry had yet another way to take the artists to the cleaners. It seems pretty clear now that everyone should stay off these streaming sites, self publish and not sign deals with majors or even major minors or you will get royally screwed.

Apparently berklee college of music have released a report on the state of the current industry, here's an article in billboard about it. One of the suggestions which i thought was the best idea for the artists was to put every transaction and listen on the blockchain, so the artist has clear and inscrutable stats revealing who is playing what through which service. The blockchain is a bitcoin innovation and an open and distributed ledger.

eugene doesn't care about the artist because his mindset is representative of the middle man and you must remember that every thief and bully has a justification in their mind for their actions, so to with middle men that have been ripping off content creators for generation upon generation. Thankfully the middle man is a class of people that will go the way of the dodo as the new economy supersedes the old and direct sales of intellectual property becomes the norm. I'm not so cynical that i think in the end that people want to not pay for music, maybe when they are are poor students or children, but by and large adults should be happy to pay for things that they like even if it's digital. Especially music lovers, which is the market most of us would want to be selling into. These are consumers that will pay.

I like the blockchain idea. Good application of the tech.

Best to think of streaming services as the new radio, and sell albums through bandcamp and other means. Distribution is much easier now, so more middlemen can be cut out.

  On 7/19/2015 at 9:04 PM, patternoverlap said:

[Devil's Advocate] I think the elephant in the room for this discussion is that people as a whole don't value music like they used to, and may never return to that mindset. With piracy and free streaming so easy and readily available, why would they pay? The same will happen with tech gadgets and maybe more advanced technology once 3D printing becomes cheaper and easier. This is the way the world is heading. The money is in selling people the means to do these things. Music, art, and other digital media buying will become more and more a niche/boutique market. It already has to a certain extent.

The money is in selling people the devices to do this stuff.

Apple is not interested in streaming - only as a means to shift more iPhones, tablets and watches.