Thoughts on Apple Music

Well I’ve been thinking a bit about Apple Music – Apple’s new streaming service and the way it initially proposed handling artist royalities. Apple does have a solid track record of executing things in a good and innovative way. That’s why I do find it interesting, that a giant like that can actually decide to not pay any royalities during an initial trial period. To me, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Having a trial period is a decision on their end – not paying anything for the songs that people stream during this time kind of feels off to me.

Pro-Artist vs paying royalities

In the meantime, Taylor Swift wrote an open letter to Apple. As a result of that, it seems that the decision has been turned around. Apple Exec Eddy Cue revised the initial idea and now it seems like royalities will be paid after all. I give major props to Taylor for writing that letter etc, but the thing that really bothers me is what Apple tried to do there. They do kind of come out of that whole thing as the company that is pro-artist, the company that does listen to us bunch. If they really where pro-artist to begin with, would they not have just paid royalities in the first place?

Winning either way

To me it seems they tried something interesting, something which would have left them coming out as winners either way. If no one would have spoken up, they would have saved royalities – which revenue-wise surely would have been a good thing. Now that people stood up, they will be paying up (like they should have done in the first place), but come out of the whole thing as the good guys, the guys that understand the artists.

All I can say is: well played Apple – but was this really necessary?

But regardless of all of that: I’m looking forward to Apple Music and the new possibilities! Let’s see how this will influence and/or change iTunes as well!