Slashdot Mirror
Taylor Swift: Apple's Disdain For Royalties Is 'Shocking, Disappointing'
Mark Wilson writes to note that Apple Music, yet unlaunched, already faces resistance on several fronts. From the BetaNews article:
It's not just smaller, independent labels that are complaining about Apple's refusal to pay artists any royalties during the initial three month free trial period. Taylor Swift has added her voice to the growing number of complainants, writing an open letter to Apple in which she says she will withhold her new album "1989" from the service. In the letter, entitled "To Apple, Love Taylor," the singer says that the company's decision not to make royalty payments is "shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company." Swift is an artist who could afford to shoulder the cost of three months of not being paid by Apple, but she has chosen to make a stand and stick up for those who are less fortunate.
It all comes down to money. Apple wants more money and thinks that they can get away with not paying the singers. The singers want to make more money and think that Apple should charge its customers on their behalf.
Bottom line - Apple is within its rights to ask singers to give away their music for Apple's benefit, and the singers are within their rights to decline that offer. There is nothing shocking going on here - its just business as usual (with everyone trying to make more money from someone else).
I've been an Apple user for 30+ years, have done work for them, know people within the company, etc. "Generous" is not a word associated with Apple in my experience....
" Swift is an artist who could afford to shoulder the cost of three months of not being paid by Apple, but she has chosen to make a stand and stick up for those who are less fortunate."
As always when people tell us, it's not about the money, it's about the principle, it's about the money.
I don't know about her music, but as of now, I say, horray for Taylor Swift.
Apple's business plan is "to get customers for OUR new business, we will give away YOUR music for free!"
Yeah. So, basically, Apple is saying that they, the world's most profitable company, require individual artists to DONATE THEIR WORK FOR FREE... to get Apple's business started.
And they're calculating that individual artists don't have any leverage, there's nothing they can do about it.
So, it's nice to see a singer whose work is selling millions of copies per month standing up to them.
Horray for her.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
She is a pop-country singer that comes up on a regular basis with catchy tunes with clean lyrics, and she did not build a career on dressing like a prostitute or releasing sex tapes. Already that makes her quite unique in that industry.
Not everyone likes pop music of course, but in that genre she is definitely top shelf, and her fight against bad music streaming deals is in line with pretty much everything she does. This is not U2 phony or Metallica greedy, this is someone using leveraging her position to help fellow musicians.
lucm, indeed.
Ah, the classic blunder of confusing physical goods with intellectual property.
You can wave a magic wand to get a house cleaned. Someone is running a service where a significant portion of users sign up to pay you some change for each cleaning after a 3 month free trial. Is it really a bad deal, even if it did take you a lot of time to make your magic wand?
Lady Gaga music is better. At least I remember her songs.
Swift has a hell of a PR team. She is in the news practically every other day for something. This is not done out of goodwill, this is a business decision.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I bet. Apple has more to loose than to gain, so I predict Apple management will come back with some gesture toward paying artists for the trial period. That's the smart thing to do anyway.
Also, good for her to take this role.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
So if Apple offered a 1 year free trial, at no cost to them since they aren't paying royalties...what's stopping them from a 2 year trial? I guess the labels wouldn't have signed on for that. 3 months isn't much, but still not fair to musicians who aren't getting paid.
We all know how Apple likes getting paid.
The argument isn't about being paid or not but rather, how much. Apple isn't refusing to pay at all. But simply treating royalty as "if we get money, you get money". I see nothing wrong with this model.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard -- that's what is wrong with this model. If you don't understand why letting large corporations gamble other peoples money/property where only the corporation keeps any gains, then you must have been born after 2008.
If Apple is going to invest in developing is new service, then 100% of the investment cost needs to come from Apple.
Wrong. Gaga's songs are quite forgettable; it's her outfits that stick in one's memory. Kinda like the way seeing one's grandparents having sex sticks in your memory.
She is a pop-country singer that comes up on a regular basis with catchy tunes with clean lyrics, and she did not build a career on dressing like a prostitute or releasing sex tapes. Already that makes her quite unique in that industry.
Who dresses like a prostitute or releases a sex-tape in the pop-country industry? Clean cut, pretty people with pleasant but not amazing voices are pretty much the cookie cutter pattern for country artists. They're all like that, especially the women. The men have a little more leeway to be less clean cut and pretty, but they usually start out that way.
Searching finds Mindy McCready, but her sex tape came out when her career was dying if not dead. Well past where Swift is now.
her fight against bad music streaming deals is in line with pretty much everything she does. This is not U2 phony or Metallica greedy, this is someone using leveraging her position to help fellow musicians.
If she wants to protect the little people in the music industry, she should offer to allow Apple to use her music royalty-free for six months if they pay new artists during the three month free period. Or just devote the royalties from her albums to promoting new artists. Keeping her album out while allowing the three month test to move forward makes the project less likely to be successful and more likely for new and upcoming artists to lose their investment from allowing their works to be included.
But because it is in fact about her, she won't do that. She'll just send out lying press releases.
Just watch. After the three month period is over, she'll let her album go into the project and start getting paid. Without sharing the risk of the free trial.
No you do not have a "right to be paid for your work."
If you are running a company and you need something I made as part of your business model you are damn well paying me for my work. Why should you get it for free? I don't care if in three months you are going to start paying me if your business is profitable, you built your business using my work, you are going to be paying me from the beginning.
Taylor Swift has every right to demand to be paid for her work. Every artist has every right to demand to be paid for their work. You didn't create it. Apple didn't create it. So who the fuck are you (and Apple) to decide they shouldn't get paid?
>She is a pop-country singer that comes up on a regular basis with catchy tunes with clean lyrics
Max Martin wrote most of 1989. He is a 43-year old Swede. The music today is all manufactured and tuned, like a McDonald's hamburger for your ears.
Martin has written many albums for pop singers, and is responsible for a good many of the songs you might think that others wrote.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/sound-sweden
If you're acquiring their or anyone else's music without paying for it, you're not a fan - you're a freeloading, (and to turn the tables right back around on you, greedy) leech.
You mean like before the members of Metallica "made it", and used to dub tapes instead of paying for them? Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Since the property of being memorable or forgettable is very subjective, I don't see how anyone can be wrong about it.
You mean like how it's the artists' call about when or whether they should be compensated for the provision of their goods and services?
The members of Metallica didn't respect this alleged right when they were young, why should anyone else?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're so missing the point. There are *ALREADY* about seventeen billion ways those artists can get their free, no-royalties-paid exposure to the public; Spotify's free tier, Youtube, various other Internet streaming/radio sites, etc. Apple is trying to muscle its way into the internet streaming music business and build credibility for its brand. They are trying to get their marketing budget for free by riding the artists. It is APPLE that is trying to break into a new market, not the artists - it is Apple that should pay the royalties for those trial periods.
If she wants to protect the little people in the music industry, she should offer to allow Apple to use her music royalty-free for six months if they pay new artists during the three month free period.
This. Exactly this.
What you describe is basically Taylor Swift (estimated net worth: 200 millions) bankrolling Apple (estimated net worth: 700 billions) because unlike them she cares about poor musicians.
lucm, indeed.
I own a store. If I want to make a promotional campaign or whatever, it goes out of MY POCKET. You know what will happen if I tell my suppliers "I gave this away because it was a promo, so I won't pay you for it?"
This is an Apple marketing tactic and Apple is passing the cost on to tbe artist. If Apple wants a zero pay scheme they should consider the cost of paying the artists intheir marketing budget.
If a retail store decided to give away Apple products for 3 months and pass the cost along to Apple do you think Apple would cooperate?
Well you sure got proven wrong pretty damn quickly.
Apple wanted to give away someone else's product for 3 months in order to drive demand for its own product. It really doesn't take a genius to work out why the people Apple was trying to exploit didn't like the idea; to Apple's credit they caught on and changed policy pretty damn quickly.