The article was about payments during the “free trial” period. The original rumors were that Apple was going to pay nothing for streams during that time - which for obvious reasons didn’t fly with producers.
So Apple is going to pay, out of pocket, for all the music streamed and downloaded during the free trial period to producers. That makes them evil.
I guess I don’t follow the logic.
Ever thought about how the Netflix model works (it’s a bit similar to Apple Music and Amazon Prime video). For a set subscription price per month (or year), consumers stream unlimited movies or music. The “retailer” (i.e. - Apple or Amazon, or Netflix) get a set fee - then pay the producers from that fee a license fee per play/stream. Pandora works this way as well.
I think of how this works in the movie industry - Old-fashioned rental - anywhere from $1-4 per day rental. Netflix - stream (any time you want, unlimited) - you could, theoretically watch dozens of films a week... you pay no more, but Neflix still pays producers a set per-stream fee. They count on the consumers that are not going to stream dozens per week.
Now - lets look at Apple Music - every time a consumer streams a tune during their free trial - Apple collects $0, but will pay a very small fee to that producer/artist. That is every time it is streamed (my understanding - correct me if I’m wrong). After consumers start paying for the service (Apple is obviously banking on lots of them keeping the service past the free period). Now the model comes much closer to Netflix. Every stream produces a payout that comes from the monthly fee. Somebody also has to pay for the storage and massive amount of bandwidth. Somebody is going to be paying for marketing. Somebody is paying employees to not only develop the software and to constantly improve and upgrade it, but to help when things don’t go exactly right. And this is Capitalism, after all - so you must make a profit, otherwise it isn’t worth doing. And with Apple, they know how to turn a profit (though its been a hard lesson in years past).
Might want to check other similar services and see how much they are paying in license/royalty fees... I don’t think you will find Apple is so “out there” ripoff artists.
Yes definitely... You still don't get it.
See, Apple Spotify etc. take an artist's work, provide it to people via a an on demand streaming service, who pay Apple or Spotify for the service then Apple Spotify etc. turn around and pay not even pennies per play to the artist.
Now the service is set up to listen to what you want when you want just like owning a CD or Digital download.
Even Apple fanbois can figure out what that is going to do to CD/Digital Download sales where indies actually now make some good cash. (actually Spotify etc. has already affected sales)
So yeah Apple is screwing indie artists and big artists alike just like Spotify etc.