6 ms·

Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day. App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of you

Musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and it's fixed the next day. App developers and content producers get emailed 'we are taking more out of your cut' or 'if you don't want us to show ads near your content, reply to this email with "opt out"'

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kincardine 11y ago
It's not that musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and get it fixed the next day, it's that unicorn musicians can - like Taylor Swift.
- josefresco 11y ago
  Apple Gets: Credit for throwing artists a bone. / Extended publicity for their new music service. / Credit for pleasing TS who has a lot of fans who would also be good customers for Apple TS Gets: Publicity / Sales for her new album / Credit for sticking up for artists Seems like a win-win for both parties. I doubt the revenue lost would have been significant. Anyone have numbers?
  - kincardine 11y ago
    Oh, absolutely. This is freebie PR for everyone involved. What I meant to imply is that the PR is only valuable because it is a musician with the brand value (and public presence) of Taylor Swift. And, what I mean by that is that if smaller brand musicians complained (as I think would have been inevitable) nothing would change until a larger brand also complained (which would also have been inevitable).
    - d_theorist 11y ago
      It seems like you're assuming this was reactive? Seems far more likely that this exchange was orchestrated between Apple and TS.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Yup, that's the key. She is literally a rock star. (well, pop/country) App developers don't have a millionth of the star power.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
heydenberk 11y ago
A lot more people love Taylor Swift than love you, me or anyone at Rovio. In terms of PR, it's a straightforward decision.
skwirl 11y ago
App developers are building apps on top of Apple's mobile operating system. They cannot exist without Apple. Apple has nothing to do with the music being created.
terhechte 11y ago
Apple is not currently about to release a new App Store with new rules and has to hope that all the current App Developers will move over. Apple Music will suck if too many big artists refrain from signing up for it, so Apple needs to cater to the Artists. It is the same with Microsoft's App Store, where they literally pay developers money (or used to) so they port their apps over to the store.
gilgoomesh 11y ago
I understand your point but your second line is completely inaccurate (at least, in regards to app developers). Apple have never changed the cut that app developers get nor have they ever shown unsolicited ads near/alongside/with apps.
- stonesam92 11y ago
  The part about increasing the revenue cut is unfounded, but I assume the seconds part of that line is in regard to Apple News[1]. [1] https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/i-do-not-agree-to-your-terms.html https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/i-do-not-agree-to-your-terms....
mcv 11y ago
Are you saying we should have app developers and content producers with a Taylor Swift-like popular status?
- juliangregorian 11y ago
  Are you saying we shouldn't?
  - mcv 11y ago
    Not at all. It's an interesting thought. I doubt it's possible to that extent, though. There certainly are some superstar programmers, but they have nowhere near the reach in mainstream culture as someone like Taylor Swift has.
weland 11y ago
App developers who are as big in application consumption as Taylor Swift is in music would get the same treatment.
- cholantesh 11y ago
  Sadly, I can't think of any developer that ubiquitous other than John Carmack...and he isn't even close to being active in this context.
davideous 11y ago
The big difference is that Apple has a monopoly on distributing iOS apps. In music, Apple has to complete with other music streaming services and other channels, so they have to be competitive to get artists to sign up for Apple Music.
Someone1234 11y ago
Apple has actual competition for music sales (or music streaming). Namely Google Play Music, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon/Prime Music, Xbox Music, and even ye' olde CDs. With apps, because of the ecosystem isolations, Apple has no competition for access to THEIR user base (which is significant). So even if Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc have their own apps stores of significant size, they aren't competing for Apple's users and thus cannot offer better terms than Apple.
- kincardine 11y ago
  Not to mention, they're also much more heavily involved in the actual content creation for applications (Xcode, Swift/Objective-C, OS X, etc).
exelius 11y ago
I'm guessing Apple just ran the math and decided "A $300 billion company should not damage its brand in a PR fight with a pop singer over a rounding error." Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Apple gets to look like the good guy, the difference is immaterial to most artists, and Taylor Swift gets to feel important. What upsets me about the whole thing is that Taylor Swift is absolutely not representative of most musicians. Unlike most young artists, she actually owns the recording rights to her albums. Typically you have to complete a 3-album deal where the studio owns the recording rights before you can negotiate terms (and even then only if you're a major musician by that point); but when your father buys a studio and signs you to a deal you get to keep your recording rights. Taylor Swift's situation is much more representative of an owner of a recording company than an artist. While she's worried about points on the distribution deal, most artists feel that they'll never make any real money off the albums as long as the studios own the rights and just want you to hear their music and start to engage with them in other ways (social media, live shows, YouTube, etc) that they CAN monetize. By paying artists so little for their recordings for so long, recording companies have caused artists to place very little value on the recordings themselves and look to monetize their careers in other ways.
- Alupis 11y ago
  > Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Probably true, however remember Swift recently had the bout with Spotify, leading to the Spotify CEO revealing she was pulling in nearly $6 million a year from them.
  - rst 11y ago
    FWIW, those figures are in dispute. Swift and her management publicly stated that she was getting a lot less from Spotify -- IIRC, under $1 million. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-taylor-swift-earned-from-spotify-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-taylor-swift-earned-...
    - Alupis 11y ago
wmeredith 11y ago
There aren't any app developers with the popular support/cult of personality that Taylor Swift has. Tons of artists had come out against this already. Shit got real when she published that letter.
brentm 11y ago
It's not quite the same as Apple deciding that all apps in the app store, regardless of what you'd like to sell them for, are free during a 3 month introductory period.
tptacek 11y ago
Don't app developers get a much bigger cut of revenues than musicians do? That being the case, I don't understand your comment.
- Bud 11y ago
  I'm not sure of all the details, but the standard cut on the App Store is 70/30 and has been for years. So 70% to the developer. The cut on Apple Music for musicians is reportedly going to be 71.5% of streaming revenue. Pretty similar.
Tloewald 11y ago
As we all know, musicians are wealthy fatcats and developers are poor starving artists. When has Apple contacted developers to increase the size of its cut? Amazon claims to match Apple's 70% but in fact charges book authors for download size and halves your 30% for books over $10 (which is ridiculous given expensive books should have higher margins). When has Google informed you that you can opt out of having ads shown next to your content in search results?
notNow 11y ago
Well there's a pecking order within musicians. Taylor Swift apparently is not treated like any other artist (America's sweetheart) out there and she must be appeased, and handled with extreme care and affection, and all her requests granted. So, your analogy or comparison here unfortunately doesn't hold water.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

kincardine 11y ago

It's not that musicians can complain when they want a bigger cut and get it fixed the next day, it's that unicorn musicians can - like Taylor Swift.

josefresco 11y ago
Apple Gets: Credit for throwing artists a bone. / Extended publicity for their new music service. / Credit for pleasing TS who has a lot of fans who would also be good customers for Apple TS Gets: Publicity / Sales for her new album / Credit for sticking up for artists Seems like a win-win for both parties. I doubt the revenue lost would have been significant. Anyone have numbers?
- kincardine 11y ago
  Oh, absolutely. This is freebie PR for everyone involved. What I meant to imply is that the PR is only valuable because it is a musician with the brand value (and public presence) of Taylor Swift. And, what I mean by that is that if smaller brand musicians complained (as I think would have been inevitable) nothing would change until a larger brand also complained (which would also have been inevitable).
  - d_theorist 11y ago
    It seems like you're assuming this was reactive? Seems far more likely that this exchange was orchestrated between Apple and TS.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Yup, that's the key. She is literally a rock star. (well, pop/country) App developers don't have a millionth of the star power.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

heydenberk 11y ago

A lot more people love Taylor Swift than love you, me or anyone at Rovio. In terms of PR, it's a straightforward decision.

skwirl 11y ago

App developers are building apps on top of Apple's mobile operating system. They cannot exist without Apple. Apple has nothing to do with the music being created.

terhechte 11y ago

Apple is not currently about to release a new App Store with new rules and has to hope that all the current App Developers will move over. Apple Music will suck if too many big artists refrain from signing up for it, so Apple needs to cater to the Artists. It is the same with Microsoft's App Store, where they literally pay developers money (or used to) so they port their apps over to the store.

gilgoomesh 11y ago

I understand your point but your second line is completely inaccurate (at least, in regards to app developers). Apple have never changed the cut that app developers get nor have they ever shown unsolicited ads near/alongside/with apps.

stonesam92 11y ago
The part about increasing the revenue cut is unfounded, but I assume the seconds part of that line is in regard to Apple News[1]. [1] https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/i-do-not-agree-to-your-terms.html https://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/i-do-not-agree-to-your-terms....

mcv 11y ago

Are you saying we should have app developers and content producers with a Taylor Swift-like popular status?

juliangregorian 11y ago
Are you saying we shouldn't?
- mcv 11y ago
  Not at all. It's an interesting thought. I doubt it's possible to that extent, though. There certainly are some superstar programmers, but they have nowhere near the reach in mainstream culture as someone like Taylor Swift has.

weland 11y ago

App developers who are as big in application consumption as Taylor Swift is in music would get the same treatment.

cholantesh 11y ago
Sadly, I can't think of any developer that ubiquitous other than John Carmack...and he isn't even close to being active in this context.

davideous 11y ago

The big difference is that Apple has a monopoly on distributing iOS apps. In music, Apple has to complete with other music streaming services and other channels, so they have to be competitive to get artists to sign up for Apple Music.

Someone1234 11y ago

Apple has actual competition for music sales (or music streaming). Namely Google Play Music, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon/Prime Music, Xbox Music, and even ye' olde CDs. With apps, because of the ecosystem isolations, Apple has no competition for access to THEIR user base (which is significant). So even if Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc have their own apps stores of significant size, they aren't competing for Apple's users and thus cannot offer better terms than Apple.

kincardine 11y ago
Not to mention, they're also much more heavily involved in the actual content creation for applications (Xcode, Swift/Objective-C, OS X, etc).

exelius 11y ago

I'm guessing Apple just ran the math and decided "A $300 billion company should not damage its brand in a PR fight with a pop singer over a rounding error." Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Apple gets to look like the good guy, the difference is immaterial to most artists, and Taylor Swift gets to feel important. What upsets me about the whole thing is that Taylor Swift is absolutely not representative of most musicians. Unlike most young artists, she actually owns the recording rights to her albums. Typically you have to complete a 3-album deal where the studio owns the recording rights before you can negotiate terms (and even then only if you're a major musician by that point); but when your father buys a studio and signs you to a deal you get to keep your recording rights. Taylor Swift's situation is much more representative of an owner of a recording company than an artist. While she's worried about points on the distribution deal, most artists feel that they'll never make any real money off the albums as long as the studios own the rights and just want you to hear their music and start to engage with them in other ways (social media, live shows, YouTube, etc) that they CAN monetize. By paying artists so little for their recordings for so long, recording companies have caused artists to place very little value on the recordings themselves and look to monetize their careers in other ways.

Alupis 11y ago
> Seriously, the amount of money we're talking here is probably less than $10 million a year. Probably true, however remember Swift recently had the bout with Spotify, leading to the Spotify CEO revealing she was pulling in nearly $6 million a year from them.
- rst 11y ago
  FWIW, those figures are in dispute. Swift and her management publicly stated that she was getting a lot less from Spotify -- IIRC, under $1 million. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-taylor-swift-earned-from-spotify-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-taylor-swift-earned-...
  - Alupis 11y ago

wmeredith 11y ago

There aren't any app developers with the popular support/cult of personality that Taylor Swift has. Tons of artists had come out against this already. Shit got real when she published that letter.

brentm 11y ago

It's not quite the same as Apple deciding that all apps in the app store, regardless of what you'd like to sell them for, are free during a 3 month introductory period.

tptacek 11y ago

Don't app developers get a much bigger cut of revenues than musicians do? That being the case, I don't understand your comment.

Bud 11y ago
I'm not sure of all the details, but the standard cut on the App Store is 70/30 and has been for years. So 70% to the developer. The cut on Apple Music for musicians is reportedly going to be 71.5% of streaming revenue. Pretty similar.

Tloewald 11y ago

As we all know, musicians are wealthy fatcats and developers are poor starving artists. When has Apple contacted developers to increase the size of its cut? Amazon claims to match Apple's 70% but in fact charges book authors for download size and halves your 30% for books over $10 (which is ridiculous given expensive books should have higher margins). When has Google informed you that you can opt out of having ads shown next to your content in search results?

notNow 11y ago

Well there's a pecking order within musicians. Taylor Swift apparently is not treated like any other artist (America's sweetheart) out there and she must be appeased, and handled with extreme care and affection, and all her requests granted. So, your analogy or comparison here unfortunately doesn't hold water.