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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.
Apple really needs to write off the cost as part of their marketing plan. This three months free is their advertising cost and should not be shouldered by the performers.
A hundred posts and not a single post yet pointing out that Apple's deal with the labels, while paying nothing for the trial period, pays MORE than the anyone else in the industry (spotify, pandora, etc.) after that point. There's a reason the labels agreed to the deal; it's not like they're stupid or weak, after all.
The music business model has been predatory against artists since the player piano roll.
Correction: The music business model has been predatory against performers since the player piano roll.
The music business has been predatory against COMPOSERS (also "artists," i'd think) since Petrucci first popularized music printing around the year 1500. You can read about the details here for example, but early music publishers and patrons generally took advantage of composers -- preferring to publish collections of "greatest hits" and getting copyright protection granting exclusive privileges to PUBLISHERS, not the artists who actually created the music. On the few occasions where composers were granted privileges in the 1500s, publishers frequently ignored them and published whatever they wanted anyway, without necessarily giving any money to composers whatsoever.
You have to wait about 75-80 years after music printing first became popular before any composer was really granted a sort of international copyright privilege for his own works that seemed to "stick" (which was granted by the French king and the Holy Roman Emperor to Orlande de Lassus). Composers before that who tried to print their own works were sometimes sued or fined for illegal "printing without a license." (You think I'm joking... I'm not. And you think publishing cartels trying to control artists is new? It's not -- there's a VERY long tradition.)
Anyhow, the point is that any new technology will always try to exploit artists during the period of transition. Moving music around on the internet in electronic form is barely 20 years old. It could be years or even decades before all of the "dust settles" and artists finally establish secure rights in this new medium... if ever.
From an NPR interview with Ms Swift:
Interviewer: Like I said, I am the mother of a 12-year-old girl, and she loves your music. Her friends love your music. You have a huge platform among a very vulnerable, impressionable set of the population. And I wonder if you think about turning your lens outward, turning it away from the diary page, and sending a broader message to girls who would be really receptive to hearing about big ideas and the big world that's outside.
Swift: Like what kind of messages?
Interviewer: Well, other characters. I don't mean to minimize the effect of a love song or a pop song. But do you ever think about writing about other experiences, things that might turn girls away from themselves in a different way?
Swift: There's nothing that's gonna turn girls away from themselves at age 12...I think the best thing I can do for them is continue to write songs that do make them think about themselves and analyze how they feel about something and then simplify how they feel. Because, at that age — really at any age, but mostly that age — what can be so overwhelming is that you're feeling so many things at the same time that it's hard to actually understand what those emotions are, so it can turn to anxiety very quickly.
I'm not a fan of Ms Swift's music (I'm not a 12-year-old girl) but I do have a healthy amount of respect for the way she conducts herself in public.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein