7 ms·

this was a BRILLIANT pr orchestration. blogs, articles, etc all over the globe were written about apple music, for free. would have been far more expensive to

this was a BRILLIANT pr orchestration. blogs, articles, etc all over the globe were written about apple music, for free. would have been far more expensive to buy all that airtime than this little scandal. so taylor swift gets more publicity, apple music is now an established brand name, everyone and their dog knows about their pricing model - holy shit. hats off to the apple team, playing the outrage-piano like no other.

doppp 11y ago
This. It's highly unlikely that some SVP would respond so swiftly (no pun intended) to a pop star.
- kincardine 11y ago
  I think it's more unlikely that a change in business model would happen so quickly. Given public presence and the way they are steering Apple Music, the personal response - regardless of planning - is less surprising.
  - crusso 11y ago
    I would give the edge to this being a PR ploy, but then again, I'm sure that Apple had different financial models on the table when they were building this product. They might have been going with the "shared risk" model of free up front play, but bigger payouts to the artists on the subscriptions - but still had their "Apple takes the risk" on the front end, then payouts are smaller on the back end. Then when artists grumbled about the shared risk model, they kicked in with the alternative model.
  - jusben1369 11y ago
    I think both of you might be over-estimating what's required to say "Ok actually we're going to meter free trials too just like paid accounts and pay out royalties equally irrespective of account type" Technology wouldn't be difficult and cash isn't an issue.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Eddie Cue is the public point person at Apple for Apple Music; he's the person most likely to respond to a concern about the service.
  - doppp 11y ago
    I know.
- _nedR 11y ago
  I am pretty sure that the SVP was on a conference call with a dozen Record company SVPs, one of whom said "You wanna go nuclear on this! There you go, We sent a tweet through Taylor's account" edit : typos
- smackfu 11y ago
  That pop star has 59.3M Twitter followers.
smackfu 11y ago
If it was a PR move, why would they capitulate so fast, and on a Sunday? The story is basically done now, a week before the service launches. I mean, it's not even a trending story on Facebook or Twitter on Monday morning!
- d_theorist 11y ago
  Actually it is trending on Twitter. Don't know about FB.
zyb09 11y ago
Those sneaky bastards, no way I believe this whole thing wasn't prearranged with Taylor Swift. Apple has been subject to public outcries over their greedy business models lots of times, but never did they give in so soon and easily. Either T.Swift is some kind of head honcho of the music industry, and Apple genuinely has to respect her statement, or this whole thing was prearranged for PR.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  I think you're severely underestimating Taylor Swift's clout in the music industry. She's the biggest artist since Katy Perry, and Katy Perry was the biggest artist since Michael Jackson.
  - jobu 11y ago
    The pendulum swings pretty fast these days, but yeah, she's probably the single most influential person in popular culture right now. (I'm not even a fan of her music, but I heard about her blog post from my kids before I saw it on HN.) It also helps that she wrote a pretty compelling argument that Apple's free trial shouldn't come at the expense of artists.
- legacy2013 11y ago
  Taylor Swift is by far the most influential person in the music industry right now. Ignoring her when trying to launch a new music service in this competitive market would have disastrous results, even for Apple
mhomde 11y ago
Which one do you think is more likely: a) "Oh gosh, apparently having the artists/labels taking the monetary risk for us for trying to acquire a strategic stranglehold on the music industry was bad, we should do the right thing!" b) "Argh! the backlash is bigger than we anticipated and Taylor Swift is causing too much negative PR. Quickly, change our minds before our service and future music profits are doomed. We'll make it back some other way somewhere down the line" Doing the right thing because you have to is better than not doing it I guess, but I tend to measure a company on whether they'd try the same thing again if they could get away with it... and Apple definitively would.
- d_theorist 11y ago
  I think you've missed the point a bit. The third (pretty likely) scenario that you don't mention is that they planned the whole exchange.
  - snowwrestler 11y ago
    Planned is probably too strong a word, but I think it's likely that Apple anticipated that there might be pushback on the trial period, so they ready to make a quick change. Remember when the iPhone debuted at $600 and no subsidy? People said it would never sell at that price. But of course a few did, and then Apple quickly cut the price to $400. Eventually it became $200+subsidy, just like any other smartphone. Apple seems to start out with their preferred offer and see if it works. If not, they go to the next fallback position. That happens so quickly that it seems clear that they must anticipate it somewhat.
    - cracell 11y ago
      The scenario you give with the iPhone may have been planned marketing as well. It's not that hard to conclude that a $600 dollar cell phone would not sell very well when the iPhone debuted. But releasing it at that price made it "exclusive", creating a lot of consumer desire for the device, then they dropped the price to where people could afford it. So they cashed in on that seed they planted and received a lot of additional news coverage from the price drop. Apple has teams of people working through this stuff. So while you may be right that it was just a prepared backup plan, it also could've been the plan to begin with.
dghughes 11y ago
And 60 million 14 year-old girls "swifties" commenting on each one and blasting anyone who dares say anything remotely bad about Taylor Swift. If they knew of HN it would be a flame war (to used a 90s reference) in here.
GBond 11y ago
One can speculate the whole thing was planned.
notNow 11y ago
Brilliant indeed albeit with one caveat, this news story gonna die off in matter of 72 hrs top unless Apple or one of its stooges pours more gas to the fire to sustain the action and publicity.
legohead 11y ago
I didn't know Apple needed PR.. I do know that Apple is greedy, however. And there's nothing to say Apple wont change its terms later on.
KeytarHero 11y ago
I doubt it. Planning to piss off the musicians you depend on and then backtrack is a risky move; it has the potential to erode public trust somewhat.
JonFish85 11y ago
While I don't know how orchestrated this might have been, it's interesting that Apple seemed to cave to Taylor Swift's letter immediately, whereas Spotify basically told her that she's welcome back whenever she changes her mind. Apple had to know that Taylor Swift would be pretty on top of this, since she had already made her feelings known about the lack of compensation for streaming music (when she pulled her songs from Spotify).
- dhagz 11y ago
  Well it works out for Apple, they now look like the company that will fight to keep one of the most popular artists on their platform, and in turn work to make the best deal possible for independent musicians. Never mind if they actually care, it's all about appearances.
jusben1369 11y ago
The only brilliance in the PR here is the speed with which Apple moved to avoid looking like the richest company in the world screwing over struggling artists globally. Never going to win that one. I suspect Taylor had back channelled her displeasure and only went public when Apple took too long/didn't agree. So they had time to crunch the numbers and think it through and moved quickly once it hit the public arena.
- _nedR 11y ago
  What is sad here, is that in this case the "struggling artist" is Taylor Swift (more likely the record company she is associated with), and that was probably the only reason why Apple actually bothered to do anything about it. Based on Apple's treatment of developers I can imagine how Indie artist's concerns fare in Apple's consideration. Here is an article about this same issue which was raised by an indie artist a couple of days ago (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/19/apple-not-coercing-indie-artists-apple-music/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/19/apple-not-coercing-indie...) But yes that is part of the brilliance of Apple PR.
  - delecti 11y ago
    Part of the point of her letter was that she wasn't a struggling artist, but instead was putting her foot down in the name of the actual struggling artists who couldn't afford to stand up to a giant like Apple. I suspect you haven't read Taylor Swift's letter, and I suggest you do. It's fairly short.
    - _nedR 11y ago
      Oh, In that case, its that PR stunt thing :) Ok. I have read the letter. But my original point still stands. The only reason Apple bothered to do anything was because Taylor Swift said it. To come to your point. I don't completely buy the whole "Think about the indie artists!" angle either. She herself says that pretty much everyone she spoke to in the industry (she used the word "social circle") was displeased with Apple's system. I am pretty sure there is self-interest involved. I am also positive her record label is happy with the new arrangement as well.
insertion 11y ago
I find it highly unlikely this was a coordinated PR stunt. If revealed, this would damage the reputation of both parties, particularly Taylor. On a risk-adjusted basis, it’s not worth it for such established players to do this sort of thing. There’s also the secondary issue of how Apple would initially raise this topic. What are the chances she would have wanted to play along? Maybe she has a close friend at Apple who’d feel safe suggesting this, but it seems unlikely. It’s very hard to exactly predict how stories will develop. What if lots of other artists came out and publicly supported Taylor’s stance? Then, even if Taylor agreed to Apple’s next deal, the other artists might not. In which case, Apple finds itself in a pickle and nobody would be suggesting that this was coordinated – even if it was.
guelo 11y ago
No has even heard of Google's streaming music service. Their marketing team is completely outclassed.
- caffeinewriter 11y ago
  Interestingly enough, in my experience with Google Music, they've outclassed almost every other service I've used in both user experience, and technical innovation. (Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, Pandora, and I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two) However, that's just my opinion and personal experience. Plus, this little debacle will definitely give me pause should I ever consider Apple Music when switching music services in the future.

doppp 11y ago

This. It's highly unlikely that some SVP would respond so swiftly (no pun intended) to a pop star.

kincardine 11y ago
I think it's more unlikely that a change in business model would happen so quickly. Given public presence and the way they are steering Apple Music, the personal response - regardless of planning - is less surprising.
- crusso 11y ago
  I would give the edge to this being a PR ploy, but then again, I'm sure that Apple had different financial models on the table when they were building this product. They might have been going with the "shared risk" model of free up front play, but bigger payouts to the artists on the subscriptions - but still had their "Apple takes the risk" on the front end, then payouts are smaller on the back end. Then when artists grumbled about the shared risk model, they kicked in with the alternative model.
- jusben1369 11y ago
  I think both of you might be over-estimating what's required to say "Ok actually we're going to meter free trials too just like paid accounts and pay out royalties equally irrespective of account type" Technology wouldn't be difficult and cash isn't an issue.
tptacek 11y ago
Eddie Cue is the public point person at Apple for Apple Music; he's the person most likely to respond to a concern about the service.
- doppp 11y ago
  I know.
_nedR 11y ago
I am pretty sure that the SVP was on a conference call with a dozen Record company SVPs, one of whom said "You wanna go nuclear on this! There you go, We sent a tweet through Taylor's account" edit : typos
smackfu 11y ago
That pop star has 59.3M Twitter followers.

smackfu 11y ago

If it was a PR move, why would they capitulate so fast, and on a Sunday? The story is basically done now, a week before the service launches. I mean, it's not even a trending story on Facebook or Twitter on Monday morning!

d_theorist 11y ago
Actually it is trending on Twitter. Don't know about FB.

zyb09 11y ago

Those sneaky bastards, no way I believe this whole thing wasn't prearranged with Taylor Swift. Apple has been subject to public outcries over their greedy business models lots of times, but never did they give in so soon and easily. Either T.Swift is some kind of head honcho of the music industry, and Apple genuinely has to respect her statement, or this whole thing was prearranged for PR.

vinceguidry 11y ago
I think you're severely underestimating Taylor Swift's clout in the music industry. She's the biggest artist since Katy Perry, and Katy Perry was the biggest artist since Michael Jackson.
- jobu 11y ago
  The pendulum swings pretty fast these days, but yeah, she's probably the single most influential person in popular culture right now. (I'm not even a fan of her music, but I heard about her blog post from my kids before I saw it on HN.) It also helps that she wrote a pretty compelling argument that Apple's free trial shouldn't come at the expense of artists.
legacy2013 11y ago
Taylor Swift is by far the most influential person in the music industry right now. Ignoring her when trying to launch a new music service in this competitive market would have disastrous results, even for Apple

mhomde 11y ago

Which one do you think is more likely: a) "Oh gosh, apparently having the artists/labels taking the monetary risk for us for trying to acquire a strategic stranglehold on the music industry was bad, we should do the right thing!" b) "Argh! the backlash is bigger than we anticipated and Taylor Swift is causing too much negative PR. Quickly, change our minds before our service and future music profits are doomed. We'll make it back some other way somewhere down the line" Doing the right thing because you have to is better than not doing it I guess, but I tend to measure a company on whether they'd try the same thing again if they could get away with it... and Apple definitively would.

d_theorist 11y ago
I think you've missed the point a bit. The third (pretty likely) scenario that you don't mention is that they planned the whole exchange.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  Planned is probably too strong a word, but I think it's likely that Apple anticipated that there might be pushback on the trial period, so they ready to make a quick change. Remember when the iPhone debuted at $600 and no subsidy? People said it would never sell at that price. But of course a few did, and then Apple quickly cut the price to $400. Eventually it became $200+subsidy, just like any other smartphone. Apple seems to start out with their preferred offer and see if it works. If not, they go to the next fallback position. That happens so quickly that it seems clear that they must anticipate it somewhat.
  - cracell 11y ago
    The scenario you give with the iPhone may have been planned marketing as well. It's not that hard to conclude that a $600 dollar cell phone would not sell very well when the iPhone debuted. But releasing it at that price made it "exclusive", creating a lot of consumer desire for the device, then they dropped the price to where people could afford it. So they cashed in on that seed they planted and received a lot of additional news coverage from the price drop. Apple has teams of people working through this stuff. So while you may be right that it was just a prepared backup plan, it also could've been the plan to begin with.

dghughes 11y ago

And 60 million 14 year-old girls "swifties" commenting on each one and blasting anyone who dares say anything remotely bad about Taylor Swift. If they knew of HN it would be a flame war (to used a 90s reference) in here.

GBond 11y ago

One can speculate the whole thing was planned.

notNow 11y ago

Brilliant indeed albeit with one caveat, this news story gonna die off in matter of 72 hrs top unless Apple or one of its stooges pours more gas to the fire to sustain the action and publicity.

legohead 11y ago

I didn't know Apple needed PR.. I do know that Apple is greedy, however. And there's nothing to say Apple wont change its terms later on.

KeytarHero 11y ago

I doubt it. Planning to piss off the musicians you depend on and then backtrack is a risky move; it has the potential to erode public trust somewhat.

JonFish85 11y ago

While I don't know how orchestrated this might have been, it's interesting that Apple seemed to cave to Taylor Swift's letter immediately, whereas Spotify basically told her that she's welcome back whenever she changes her mind. Apple had to know that Taylor Swift would be pretty on top of this, since she had already made her feelings known about the lack of compensation for streaming music (when she pulled her songs from Spotify).

dhagz 11y ago
Well it works out for Apple, they now look like the company that will fight to keep one of the most popular artists on their platform, and in turn work to make the best deal possible for independent musicians. Never mind if they actually care, it's all about appearances.

jusben1369 11y ago

The only brilliance in the PR here is the speed with which Apple moved to avoid looking like the richest company in the world screwing over struggling artists globally. Never going to win that one. I suspect Taylor had back channelled her displeasure and only went public when Apple took too long/didn't agree. So they had time to crunch the numbers and think it through and moved quickly once it hit the public arena.

_nedR 11y ago
What is sad here, is that in this case the "struggling artist" is Taylor Swift (more likely the record company she is associated with), and that was probably the only reason why Apple actually bothered to do anything about it. Based on Apple's treatment of developers I can imagine how Indie artist's concerns fare in Apple's consideration. Here is an article about this same issue which was raised by an indie artist a couple of days ago (http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/19/apple-not-coercing-indie-artists-apple-music/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/19/apple-not-coercing-indie...) But yes that is part of the brilliance of Apple PR.
- delecti 11y ago
  Part of the point of her letter was that she wasn't a struggling artist, but instead was putting her foot down in the name of the actual struggling artists who couldn't afford to stand up to a giant like Apple. I suspect you haven't read Taylor Swift's letter, and I suggest you do. It's fairly short.
  - _nedR 11y ago
    Oh, In that case, its that PR stunt thing :) Ok. I have read the letter. But my original point still stands. The only reason Apple bothered to do anything was because Taylor Swift said it. To come to your point. I don't completely buy the whole "Think about the indie artists!" angle either. She herself says that pretty much everyone she spoke to in the industry (she used the word "social circle") was displeased with Apple's system. I am pretty sure there is self-interest involved. I am also positive her record label is happy with the new arrangement as well.

insertion 11y ago

I find it highly unlikely this was a coordinated PR stunt. If revealed, this would damage the reputation of both parties, particularly Taylor. On a risk-adjusted basis, it’s not worth it for such established players to do this sort of thing. There’s also the secondary issue of how Apple would initially raise this topic. What are the chances she would have wanted to play along? Maybe she has a close friend at Apple who’d feel safe suggesting this, but it seems unlikely. It’s very hard to exactly predict how stories will develop. What if lots of other artists came out and publicly supported Taylor’s stance? Then, even if Taylor agreed to Apple’s next deal, the other artists might not. In which case, Apple finds itself in a pickle and nobody would be suggesting that this was coordinated – even if it was.

guelo 11y ago

No has even heard of Google's streaming music service. Their marketing team is completely outclassed.

caffeinewriter 11y ago
Interestingly enough, in my experience with Google Music, they've outclassed almost every other service I've used in both user experience, and technical innovation. (Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, Pandora, and I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two) However, that's just my opinion and personal experience. Plus, this little debacle will definitely give me pause should I ever consider Apple Music when switching music services in the future.