Tag: Apple

DMN Says It’s Unlikely Spotify Pays More to Rights Holders Than Apple Does

In the dust up surrounding the Apple Music Launch and the leaked agreement that lead to speculation that Apple was paying indies less than the often heard 70% to rights holders an interesting thing happened.

Industry executives and commenters at Digital Music News reported that Spotify was also paying indies less than 70% and closer to the 58%, or less than Apple.

Update to June 15th, and Apple is not only stating that they are paying 70%, but a more aggressive 71.5% to 73% of revenues depending on territory.

But what makes this that much more interesting is that Spotify has now been outed as NOT paying the commonly accepted 70% of revenues and also has NOT responded to the claims being made at Digital Music News…

So how much is Spotify actually paying? So much for openness and transparency…

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by Trichordist Editor

Apple Announces Itunes One Dollar Albums and Ten Cent Song Downloads | Sillycon Daily News

Satire – but not by much.

Apple Computer announced today that for it’s Itunes Music Store to remain competitive in the digital distribution marketplace for music they would be changing their retail pricing of album downloads to one dollar and song downloads to 10 cents each. The pricing change will be effective on black Friday for this holiday season. “Since we purchased Beats music and are competing directly with Spotify we recognized the need for more competitive pricing structures based on what consumers may be willing to pay”, an Apple spokesman said. He continued, “Spotify has proven that as long as we’re paying 70% of gross, the retail pricing is irrelevant, irrelevant! We are even contemplating 10 cent albums and one cent songs to further achieve parity with music streaming services!”

Record label executives rejoiced in the move as one source exclaimed,” I don’t know why we didn’t think of reducing the retail price of downloads by 90% years ago. It’s still money, right? It’s so simple that this is really the only way to grow the business to $100b annually while competing with piracy.”

 

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by trichordist

Beggars said to have contributed more in UK Taxes than Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon combined. | Telegraph UK

The Government has been “seduced” by technology companies such as Google, and is “cosying up” to them, even though they keep their tax contributions to a minimum, leading music executive Martin Mills has warned.

Mr Mills, who founded Adele’s record label, Beggars Group, claimed his company pays more tax in Britain than Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon. But he said creative businesses like his receive less support from the Government.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE TELEGRAPH UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/9844225/Government-seduced-by-tech-firms-like-Google.html

by trichordist

Digital albums overtake CDs in the US, but iTunes music revenues down | Music Ally

We’re more interested in its estimates for the revenue growth in 2013 of the various content categories in iTunes: apps up 105%, video up 19%, but music downloads down 14% of the year.

Streaming music’s impact isn’t a surprise, but it’s good to have more data to quantify what’s happening – albeit without the corresponding global increase in revenues from streaming services.

READ THE FULL STORY AT MUSIC ALLY:
http://musically.com/2014/02/12/digital-albums-overtake-cds-in-the-us-but-itunes-music-revenues-down/

by trichordist

Aiding and Infringing : iPad Music Apps – A New Low

Advertisers need to capture the mobile market. The problem is the functionality of the some of the most frequented websites by the coveted youth demographic is disabled on iDevices (the inability to download content to the idevice). In other words, there is no draw to pirate websites (and to the advertising they serve) if the infringing music is no longer accessible. Worry no more, there’s an APP for that… note the top grossing and most popular music apps for the ipad…

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And uhm… let’s not worry that ads for Adult Services are being targeted to minors…

by Trichordist Editor

Two Simple Facts about Technology and Piracy : iTunes Vs. YouTube

Fact number one.

Unlike Google’s YouTube, Apple’s Itunes Store does not have a piracy problem, nor does it have an unmanageable issue with DMCA notices. This is often explained that this is because Apple does not allow user generated content from just anyone, therefore there is a barrier to entry that prevents such issues. But this is simply just not true, anyone can upload an album of music to Itunes using any one of the third party aggregation services such as Tunecore or CDbaby. And yet, there are not (as far as we know) hundreds or thousands of DMCA notices and content take downs on Itunes per day, as there are on YouTube. So why is this? In a word, intent.

If Apple, Spotify, Amazon and virtually every other legal and licensed distributor of digital music can put into place, the checks and balances that are capable of managing these rights effectively why is it so hard for Google to do the same YouTube? Think about it.

Fact number two.

YouTube can effectively filter content if it wants to. Since day one, we have never, ever seen any live porn on YouTube. Not a single live link to porn, ever. In debates in various online forums we have often proposed the challenge to anyone to present an active live link to full fledged porn on YouTube. It has NEVER happened. No one has EVER been able to present a live link to an active porn video on YouTube in the six plus years we and our friends have presented the challenge. Talk about a crowd sourcing FAIL.

What these two facts reveal is that rights management online, the protection of copyrights and the enforcement of Intellectual Property require nothing more than the intent and will to do so. But don’t take our word for it, listen to Google’s own Chief Economist Hal A Varian from his book “Information Rules” where he describes “Bitlegging.”

“Bitlegging” can’t be ignored: there’s no doubt that it can be a significant drag on profits.

Bitleggers have the same problem that any other sellers of contraband material have: they have to pet potential customers know how to find them. But if they advertise their location to potential customers, they also advertise their location to law enforcement authorities. In the contraband business it pays to advertise… but not too much.

This puts a natural limit on the size of for-profit illegal activities: the bigger they get, the more likely they are to get caught. Digital piracy can’t be eliminated, any more than any other kind of illegal activity, but it can be kept under control. All that is required is the political will to enforce intellectual property rights.

So Apple, Amazon, Spotify (and hundreds of others) can effectively manage digital distribution without triggering millions of DMCA notices. YouTube can effectively filter porn, and yet the internet is not broken as best as we can tell.

Maybe, just maybe this isn’t so complicated after all. That is unless one has a specific intent and motive from which they perhaps profit from the mass scale aiding of commercial level infringement.

by Trichordist Editor