Pop star Taylor Swift dominated the headlines yesterday after publishing an open letter to Apple in which she wrote that it was “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company” to not pay artists during Apple Music’s free trial. By the end of the day, the whole episode had an almost storybook perfect ending with Apple’s Eddy Cue announcing that the company decided it will compensate artists during the free period. Reactions today have been all over the place, but for Apple Music, the upcoming streaming music service, is the Taylor Swift episode a PR nightmare or a publicity dream?
The story with Apple Music’s free trial policy really started last Monday when Apple countered a report claiming it was compensating artists less for streaming music plays than its competitors like Spotify. A leaked document was misunderstood to say Apple was paying out 58% of revenue from its streaming business — well below the industry standard 70% — while Apple said it actually pays 71.5% in the US and an average of 73% around the world.
The major revelation in all of this was that Apple wouldn’t pay anything during Apple Music’s three month free trial. Apple’s 1.5% higher royalty was meant to justify the extended trial period without compensation while competitors offered shorter trials financed by advertising.
Getting the labels to agree to an unpaid three month free trial was said to be a point of contention during negotiations, with Apple using its higher royalty rate as leverage to sign deals. Apple eating the cost for giving away music to millions of users for 90 days is a major change in the overall pitch. I wonder if the Apple Music royalty rate would be different if Apple planned to finance the extended trial all along.
Taylor Swift wasn’t the first artist to publicly criticize Apple Music’s free trial policy.
Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman Anton Newcombe tweeted that “The biggest company on earth wants to use my work to make money for 3 months and pay me nothing” last Wednesday as the artist claimed Apple threatened to remove his music from iTunes if he didn’t agree to the Apple Music terms. Apple promptly denied those claims, of course, but it made no mention of changing its free trial royalty policy.
If Apple was going to give in to artists and reverse its royalty plan, a band called Brian Jonestown Massacre wasn’t going to be the leader of that effort, right?
Fast forward to early Sunday morning around 4 am in California. Taylor Swift publishes her open letter to Apple on Tumblr and tweets the post. In it, she says she’ll be holding her last album ‘1989’ from Apple Music because Apple isn’t paying artists during the trial period. Not too far off from what Newcombe said aside from his muddy claim of an Apple threat, but Swift obviously has much wider name recognition with more followers and an Apple-friendly image.
I missed almost all of the initial response as I was traveling and visiting family during the holiday like a lot of people, but my first thought was that Apple Music had just picked up a ton of free publicity despite it being mostly critical.
[tweet https://twitter.com/cue/status/612824947342229504 align=’center’]
By 11:30 pm Sunday night on the east coast, Apple had decided to change course and announced that it will pay artists for plays during the free trial period. Eddy Cue shared the news on Twitter, framing it as a response to Swift’s letter.
He told the AP in a late Sunday night interview that it was Swift’s letter that prompted the decision.
“When I woke up this morning and I saw Taylor’s note that she had written, it really solidified that we needed to make a change,” said Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue in an interview with The Associated Press.
Cue told Billboard that he personally called Swift during her tour in Europe to share the news after he and Tim Cook made the decision:
Once the decision was made by Cue and Apple CEO Tim Cook, Cue called Swift on the phone from her tour in Amsterdam. “I let her know that we heard her concerns and are making the changes. We have a long relationship with Taylor so I wanted her to hear directly from us.”
Today Taylor Swift’s Twitter timeline is stacked with a handful of retweets directing almost 60 million followers to the fact that Apple listened to artists. Genius.
[tweet https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/612841136311390209 align=’center’]
The response has of course been varied today, with Taylor Swift fans praising her for standing up to Apple and leading the music industry, and Apple fans admiring the company’s flexibility and commitment to artists. The big question now is whether or not ‘1989’ will be available on Apple Music when the subscription music service launches on June 30th.
I’m not 100% convinced that the whole Swift-Apple Music episode was entirely organic: she’s actively between shows in Europe, it’s Father’s Day in the United States, and as Seth questioned, does a move as big as financing the music industry for a quarter of the year first require board approval?
Regardless of how it all played out behind the scenes, Apple was quickly able to respond to a major negative story ahead of Apple Music’s launch — one that started when correcting another false negative claim — and use it to get everyone talking about Apple Music again before it kicks off. I’m calling this one a publicity dream.
When Apple first announced Apple Music at WWDC earlier this month, the initial reaction from the community was largely that the presentation was muddied and confusing: Cook used the coveted “one more thing” to introduce it, the keynote went on for too long, Jimmy Iovine missed the obvious Jobs iPhone introduction joke on stage, and Drake did anything but explain what he was said to be explaining.
Two weeks later, the conversation around Apple Music is still mostly about everything but the actual product, but a whole new set of potential customers are tuned in to the upcoming service — and that there will be a three month free trial in the first place — and that’s very good for Apple and Apple Music.
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I’m just glad they made the change. As a musician, I couldn’t, in good conscience, use or recommend Apple Music knowing they were not paying artists during the free trial period.
Oh give it a rest. Apple HANDS musicians a new revenue stream on a silver platter and instead of thanking them they complain about the trial period. What a joke.
Without musicians Apple wouldn’t have a revenue stream through music so it’s hardly a joke is it? It works both ways – that’s why everyone is up in arms about it! They BOTH NEED EACH OTHER ;)
I agre, I’ve never seen such whining about a promo where someone else made nothing, but they want to get paid… it’s just weird.
Fuck out of here, you’re clearly not a nice person who needs to help musicians out. Until you know how important money is to an up-and-coming artist you’ll just be a bitter Apple sheep. It’s completely unacceptable to give Apple their music for free, unless you want to pay the artists yourself? Idiot.
Handing them? You might trying to come up with a viable competing alternative to Spotify, Tidal, and others?
Go try to make a living by playing music and see how much you make. Just because someone develops the service doesn’t mean people actually make much money from it. the majority of bands/artists that stream don’t actually make much money from it, most don’t even recoup their initial production costs and advertising costs. only the top few actually make any decent money from streaming. Spotify has a chart with how much the average artist/band makes and the majority of them don’t make squat. And Spotify has more subscribers than Apple does.
i agree with you… Apple actually makes most of it’s money through the app store… it also sells a lot of products where music isnt key… in actual fact the ipod keeps doing worse and worse every year…
The music industry suffers greatly through illegal downloads – just like movies… so these are not a main income for apple, just an added bonus…
This service was to help promote the smaller bands and to get music to more people — quite a lot of people wont buy a CD or download until theyve listened, so people go unknown… apple music changes this.
Apple is supporting the industry, and they expected the industry to help support the launch and get Apple music up and running – after all, if it fails, it will mostly affect the music industry — yet even though apple wont take any money for 3 months, and pay the artist a higher percentage, the artists are still crying out because they want this premium promotion with a great new service that will benefit them, BUT get paid…
A lot of artists made free videos, free CDs, sang for peanuts in a pub, or sang on the streets — they still will have money coming in from CDs and downloads (although sales are crap any way) plus they dont have to be on apple music at launch…
Musicians needs people to listen to their music in order to make a living… Apple don’t need music, but it helps… Many musicians were all for this new Apple music – apple wanted to band together and go forth as equals (no one gets paid), to help strengthen the music industry and get people to listen and pay for music rather than downloading illegally — but dumb musicians don’t see the bigger picture…
Get a real job if it’s money youre worried about
Paul Andrew Dixon:
With all respect fella what you on about?
“Musicians needs people to listen to their music in order to make a living… Apple don’t need music, but it helps…”
Apple don’t need musicians when they are selling their iPhones/iMacs/iPods/Apple Watch but odd as it might seem they do need musicians to launch a music service.
Here’s some simpler analogies for you to try and grasp:
Apple may launch a car – it will be useless without gas or electricity.
Apple launched the iPhone – without the services of a phone carrier it is useless.
Apple launched the Macintosh – without electricity it is useless.
Apple launched Apple Pay – without banks/retailers being on board it is useless.
Apple launched Apple TV – without a TV to attach it to it is useless.
Apple launched iTunes – without music labels being on board it is useless.
Apple launched the App Store – without developers it is useless.
Apple launched Apple Music – without artists being on board it is useless.
Please please tell me you understand for Gods sake.
See, what you don’t understand is that it is APPLE trying to get into a market – it is APPLE who rely on those things NOT the other way round.
Electricity and Gas companies will continue without Apple.
Phone carriers will continue without Apple.
Banks/Retailers will continue without Apple.
TV will continue without Apple.
Developers will continue without Apple and funnily enough Musicians will continue without Apple.
Now stop trying to pretend that without Apple the whole world will grind to a halt. it won’t.
So to sum up, the best any of you can retort is “What about the ARTIST man? Try making a living playing music.”
GTFO out of here. This is business for christ’s sake. Grow up. Apple knows what they are doing, and they know an extended free trial is a damn good tactic to lock in a lot more people than they would get without it. In the end, the artists make MORE money because of a smart business move.
I truly, truly wish Apple’s reaction was to cancel the free trial. That would have been the right move. “We heard you artists…there is no more free trial at all. You’ll get paid from day 1, just as we do….Oh and by the way, expect a sizably smaller paycheck from this endeavor now that you have forced us to cancel the single most effective marketing tactic in the history of subscriptions…you morons”
All of you do realize that only a handful of musicians make a profit from record sells or streaming?
18c is still profit ;)
Better not use YouTube or the internet really either. Bye guys, this site doesn’t pay the artists it talks about.
I use the internet/YouTube to listen to things that weren’t normally available or trying to find new artists, and if I like it and can get a decent version, then I buy either a lossless digital download or the physical version.
Apple doesn’t make money during the free trial, why should the artists? If everything works out then both will make money after the trial ends.
Because without the music Apple wouldn’t even be able to launch the service in the first place. Apple Music needs music to be a success. It’s not hard to understand is it.
Apple has two choices the way I see it: don’t offer a free train or pay for it themselves. Besides that you’re getting into the crappy ad-supported model which is horrible.
I call it fair. If they’re not getting any money, then why should I -as a content producer- get any. I regard it as a grace/sampling period. The opposite, me demanding pay when they’re getting nothing, I call it GREED.
They might be using my work to promote their service, but I’m getting promoted as well, don’t forget that. And you just got promoted as greedy, mate.
You’re a fool. Taylor Swift got your more revenue and you don’t want that? Be glad she did what she did.
See, what you don’t understand is that it is APPLE trying to get into a market – it is APPLE who rely on those things NOT the other way round.
Electricity and Gas companies will continue without Apple.
Phone carriers will continue without Apple.
Banks/Retailers will continue without Apple.
TV will continue without Apple.
Developers will continue without Apple and funnily enough Musicians will continue without Apple.
Now stop trying to pretend that without Apple the whole world will grind to a halt. it won’t.
No Taylor on Spotify, listened to something called “Black Metal” instead. Got inspired: http://store.hbnbm.com/products/taylor-swift-black-metal
Between Apple and Taylor Swift, I think this all (since her leaving Spotify) was a plan to generate hype and buzz for Apple Music. I’m almost 100% sure. Incredible how I knew Apple would end up paying the artists during trial, not only paying more than other streaming services. I’m sure her 1989 album will be there at release, this has all been a big plan.
Yeah because Apple being hauled over the coals by the press, commentators and everyone else is real good publicity. I’ll tell you this now – it’s not. Shit sticks. This was a dick move by Apple, it backfired and they had to back track or it would of been even worse.
Incredible the amount of deluded folk trying to spin it as if Apple had it planned all along that they would look bad to the public.
Yeah calling this a planned PR stunt by Apple is quite amusing. The way it’s being spun in the media is Apple was bullied by Taylor Swift. I doubt Apple would plan anything like that.
It was a good and sensible, let alone equitable business and financial move by Apple. It was a dick move by uneducated an fiscally irresponsible artists to try and make Apple look like heels while preparing their gravy train.
I have a young daughter and a young son and I can tell you right now that no Taylor Swift music will ever be purchased in this household.
Bruno – so what you are basically saying is that if one of your young kids in future decides that they like Taylor Swift and purchasing her album would make them very happy, you would refuse point blank and upset your child because that artist COULD of prevented your shares in Apple – a company which cares not one jot about you or your family – from rising a couple of extra cents, which as you confirmed earlier is ultimately your whole issue?
Wow. Don’t expect a Father of The Year Award anytime soon will you.
If either of my kinds like that POS music, then I’ve obviously failed as a parent. No smoking in the house. No Taylor Swift in the house. To be fair, I also restrict other talentless garbage like Kanye.
Well what music do you like? You’ve got me intrigued here.
Bruno, you sound like a really cool dad.
I think Felipe Baez was paid to write this post. It happens all the time. It’s a media conspiracy to attack Taylor Swift so her album sales don’t do as well as Katy Perry’s. Tell us the truth Mr. Baez, Katy Perry is your boss.
How close was I? I thought so.
Almost 100%.
So you’re unsure. Got it.
I think it’s more than fine with most artists, if Apple can reuse the occasion as a PR stunt. Just as long as said artists get their fair due from Apple, a company that’s always been cast as “artist-friendly”. Good move Apple! and a generous one too.
Didn’t Apple say they were already talking to Beggar’s Group about this when they were critical about it? They probably couldn’t risk the backlash 50 million social media fans who are reacting solely on Swift’s side of the story and finalized then announced their plans as quickly as possible to put out the fire.
3 months does seem excessive at first but Apple Music being a default app on 100’s of millions of devices means they are going to need more time for traffic to normalize. With that many captive users and a slightly higher royalty fee large artists like Swift, who are regularly chosen by users to have a station based on their music, stand to gain a ton of money.
Slightly higher? She’ll clean up during the free trial.
I’m glad that Apple is doing this, however, because of this new change, will Apple still pay the 71.5% rate to musicians?
Well what’s 71.5% of $0.00?
From what Eddy Cue said, the answer is “yes”.
Elaborate.
I think she is a hypocrite and should be seen as someone who has too much money for her own good.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3134646/Taylor-Swift-accused-making-photographers-lucrative-rights-images-just-hours-criticised-Apple-not-paying-artists-fairly.html
She’s at least as big a douche bag as that ass-hat Kanye West, the fucktard that interrupted her award some years back.
When all else fails link to Daily Fail
If on June 30th, Apple and Swift announce 1989 is available to stream on Apple Music then I suspect we have been played.
Nope.
Too bad she didn’t demand that Apple replace the headphone jack on the new MacBook with a second USB-C port……
And the keyboard with a real one.
Wow people really think Apple needs to pull a stunt like this to get publicity for Apple Music? No it’s quite clear from Cue’s comments that Apple reversed course because a huge PR nightmare was coming and that’s the last thing Apple needed a week or so before Apple Music launches.
Exactly. Incredible the amount of people trying to spin it as if it is a fantastic marketing ploy by Apple.
Hey Rogifan. It’s me TMRJIJ from MR.
This is the best PR stunt I’ve ever seen! You can’t deny it! How are guys still falling for it?! XD It’s all over Twitter. This is almost like the #BendGate trend. Apple didn’t even start that but it backfired, and they still ended up selling iPhones like hot cakes. This stunt will be talked about throughout the whole 3 month trial.
This was the perfect time as well. Social media doesn’t forget that fast.
If 1989 shows up in Apple Music next week, that would be perfect.
It will show up after 3 month trial is over.
Just because it worked out well for Apple does not mean it was planned. Your Apple love is blinding you guys.
As i have said in other posts…!!!
F&%King hypocrite…! That is all there is too it…! Read this and you will understand, she does exactly the same but FOREVER, and then screams at apple for 3 months of losing money…!!!
https://junction10.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/those-in-glass-houses-shouldnt-throw-stones/
There is no way on earth she can say what she did and carry on with her own retarded and restrictive measure on “other artists work”…!
You’re wasting your time with logic. This was a whine fest from the start, as Apple would have more than fairly compensated artists. If Artists really care at all about compensation then they should take their labels to task. Or beg Apple to start their own publishing arm so that they can get a much bigger cut of that 71.5% cutting out their labels.
She has no choice but to let 1989 be posted to Apple Music next week. Her whole problem with it, was that Apple wasn’t paying the artists. If she goes back on her word now, it will make her look like the biggest phony and bait and switcher on the planet. For some reason, she’s a role model to a lot of teenage girls and such. She cant outright lie and NOT have 1989 on Apple Music.
You’ll find she’s a role model because she writes songs about her insecurities which they can relate to and turns a negative into a positive. I don’t listen to her music, it’s for teens, but I get why she’s so popular with them. And she writes music they can dance too etc. it’s not complex.
Apple has bent on 3 items I can remember: first was the launch extension in iPhone, second was the stock buy back, now this.
Apple should tell both of them to go elsewhere, I don’t like either of them anyway. Pandering to this non-sense is just labels driving the PR machine to get paid…
Remember, most of the money from iTunes goes to labels, not artists.
Artists get a % of that money. The larger it is the more the get. Apple made the right move.
Dream!
This all went down Sunday night in Cupertino so the idea this decision was an Apple response to Swift is fanciful, but the appearance of such is good for Apple. Apple must have more or less made this decision before Taylor Swift’s tweets. As Cue said, her comments “solidified” this decision. The way this went down gave Apple news headlines that the initial Apple Music announcement failed to generate. Swift is now in a position where by if she continues to hold back 1989 she will look greedy.
Okay, that picture is hilarious.
Thank you, several minutes went into it 😅
I would rather buy my music as I want it, when I want. Streaming all those songs every month for 10.00 are u nuts. I’d rather buy a CD and put it in my mac mini, download it and I have it iTunes.
And unlike other streaming services, with Apple that option is (remains) available to you. :)
I think they were dumb artist who didn’t know a good thing when it hit them… we all want to make money, unfortunately they chose an unstable career — why should other people have to pay for them.
Apple doesnt have to have this service that, although will benefit apple, it will greatly benefit the music industry (including the small people)
They didn’t have to sign up from launch, although they would miss out on being part of the publicity when it will have the highest user rate — after the free service ends i think many people will stop using it…
Also, it’s not like they are not getting paid for the music they sell on itunes — although for small artists no-one is really wanting to pay to listen to them, only a few take the risk… so apple music would enable them to be discovered by more people…
Apple is being very kind in paying more, offering this service, supporting the industry, and now actually paying them…
All those who complained were just after free publicity — although it showed their lack of understanding.
Part of me was hoping that Apple would just say “ok, don’t be part of the launch… thank you for support us in creating this new service to help promote you, to earn you more money, to help get you heard by more people… thanks for nothing.”
It looks like she is doing the SAME thing to fotographers that are making pictures during her concerts…
One photographer has send an open letter to Taylor Swift:
http://petapixel.com/2015/06/22/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-against-apple/
A lot of people here seem to be implying that Apple are launching their streaming service to ‘help the music industry’. Not likely folks. No one here seems to have picked up on the fact that Apple are very likely launching this service because they are worried they will be left behind by the likes of Spotify.
If Apple wanted to create a streaming service they could have done so years ago. The technology was already in place. They are only doing it now because download sales have recently been impacted by streaming services. In other words they are doing it for the benefit of Apple, not ‘struggling artists’, not anyone else but Apple.
No surprises there then, that a giant multinational seeks to protect its own interests. Where the company fell down on this occasion was in their blatant abuse of content providers. I’m glad that they have seen sense but as others have intimated, there is more to this story than meets the eye,
My take on this: Cue said that they had already been discussing changing the terms–probably because of all the backlash all week long. I’m guessing that they were planning on introducing the changes this week.
Along comes Swift with her blog post over the weekend–thus pre-empting their own announcement. Now, they have two choices, 1. Wait until the week, and claim that Swift had nothing to do with the changes, that they were going to change the terms anyway, or 2. Pretend that Swift’s plea changed their minds, and now they are going to do it for the little guys, just like Swift asked.
Let me ask you. Which of those two scenarios will work out best from an Apple PR perspective? 1? Naw. That would just cause an even greater backlash. 2? Of course! It’s the only one that allows them to lose face gracefully, plus, it makes the artists look good, and in particular, Swift, who was withholding her latest album.
IMO, this is the only scenario that makes sense, and explains the quick turn-around at the same time. The truth is, no matter how one tries to spin it as a positive for Apple, it is still one, huge, and embarrassing Humble Pie for them. They really did the only graceful thing they could have done. Would Microsoft done this? Any other US firm? Samsung? Google? I don’t think so. This, IMO, is a huge example of Tim Cook’s leadership–one totally free of ego and self-importance. The fact it also can come across as a “face-saving” gesture does not overrule the simple fact that it has been a terrible week for Apple, and what they did, while from a strictly economic perspective, their original terms were actually quite excellent for the creators, there was a huge perception problem that could not be overcome. I wouldn’t be surprised if next time around for negotiations, Apple pulls for lower percentage payouts.
(Personally, I would have been happy with ads during the free trial to pay for the cost of paying out royalties–but only for the three month trial period.)
When Apple is not being paid those three months, asking that you get paid nevertheless is just plain GREED.
The argument that “why should I get nothing while they are promoting their service for free with my work?” does not stand because during those 3 months your work is also getting promoted, it’s getting free airtime. Don’t forget that it costs Apple money to run these servers and push your voice through *their* huge CDN.
And as a DJ (my 2nd job), Ms Swift has just made it to the list of artists that I won’t be playing in my gigs. Plain and simple. This world moves by good-will and generosity, in my opinion.
If that missy is too greedy to lose a penny, she’s not getting any help from me.
Who is this Taylor Swift? Nobody seems to know her in Europe and if you’re not known in Europe, you’re not worth the trouble, right?
They should be forced to publicise exactly what they will pay artists for using their songs during the trial period.