3 ms·

Why would they buy the service just to kill it off for at least four months? Copyright is probably not that big of a deal, given that it's classical music, and

Why would they buy the service just to kill it off for at least four months? Copyright is probably not that big of a deal, given that it's classical music, and the userbase will probably dissolve in these months. So why spend the money?

Apocryphon 5y ago
Gotta have that incredible journey.
onelovetwo 5y ago
> exclusive audio content
qzw 5y ago
Likely just an acquihire. I love classical music and never heard of Primephonic, so the user base was probably not that significant, at least by Apple standards.
- sonthonax 5y ago
  Would an acquihire make sense though? Apple already has expertise streaming music. It’d be quite expensive simply growing the Music team by buying a profitable company.
- shatnersbassoon 5y ago
  I was working in that space two years ago, and we estimated from triangulation of sources that they had around 10K paying users.
floatingatoll 5y ago
To purchase all of the licensing deals?
drewda 5y ago
FWIW, copyright applies to recordings of classical music just as much as to recordings of contemporary music.
traceroute66 5y ago
> Copyright is probably not that big of a deal, given that it's classical music Ahem, cough, you've just made the understatement of the century there ! The legal situation regarding music goes waaaayyyyy beyond basic copyright. It highly specialist field there are lawyers who do nothing but music rights all day, every day. Google is your friend, but as a very basic outline, you have to consider: - The use of the recorded music (and hence the rights of the record companies and the performers) - The use of the composition and lyrics - Distribution permissions And, of course if you are not the end-user but the operator of a streaming service then this will likely add not remove complexity. Whole big books have been written on the subject (e.g. Kohn on Music Licensing at a mere 1636 pages). I'm not even going to begin to try to summarise it - especially as IANAL anyway !

Apocryphon 5y ago

Gotta have that incredible journey.

onelovetwo 5y ago

> exclusive audio content

qzw 5y ago

Likely just an acquihire. I love classical music and never heard of Primephonic, so the user base was probably not that significant, at least by Apple standards.

sonthonax 5y ago
Would an acquihire make sense though? Apple already has expertise streaming music. It’d be quite expensive simply growing the Music team by buying a profitable company.
shatnersbassoon 5y ago
I was working in that space two years ago, and we estimated from triangulation of sources that they had around 10K paying users.

floatingatoll 5y ago

To purchase all of the licensing deals?

drewda 5y ago

FWIW, copyright applies to recordings of classical music just as much as to recordings of contemporary music.

traceroute66 5y ago

> Copyright is probably not that big of a deal, given that it's classical music Ahem, cough, you've just made the understatement of the century there ! The legal situation regarding music goes waaaayyyyy beyond basic copyright. It highly specialist field there are lawyers who do nothing but music rights all day, every day. Google is your friend, but as a very basic outline, you have to consider: - The use of the recorded music (and hence the rights of the record companies and the performers) - The use of the composition and lyrics - Distribution permissions And, of course if you are not the end-user but the operator of a streaming service then this will likely add not remove complexity. Whole big books have been written on the subject (e.g. Kohn on Music Licensing at a mere 1636 pages). I'm not even going to begin to try to summarise it - especially as IANAL anyway !