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Apple To Pay Musicians For Free Streams, After All

vivaoporto writes: As reported on Re/code, Apple media boss Eddy Cue appears to have capitulated and Apple Music will be paying music owners for streaming even during customers's free trial period. He says Taylor Swift's letter, coupled with complaints from indie labels and artists, did indeed prompt the change.

Cue says Apple will pay rights holders for the entire three months of the trial period. He explains that it can't be at the same rate that Apple is paying them after free users become subscribers, since Apple is paying out a percentage of revenues once subscribers start paying. Instead, he says, Apple will pay rights holders on a per-stream basis.

No word from Swift or her camp about whether Apple's move is enough to get her to put "1989," her newest album, on Apple Music. On Twitter, she says, "I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us."

2 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Swift Army: an important demographic for Ap by jabuzz · · Score: 4, Informative

    More likely USA based Apple lawyers finally got around too consulting with their European counterparts and discovered that what the opting in without written confirmation that they where proposing to do was flat out illegal over here.

  2. Re:The Swift Army: an important demographic for Ap by radarskiy · · Score: 2, Informative

    "And speaking of debt... last I checked, Greece isn't in the US..."

    The debt issue in Greece is the public (government) debt, not private (personal) debt. Also, public debt per capita is about 1/3 more for the US as compared to Greece.