Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Cupertino originally felt that it didn't need to pay artist royalties during free trial.
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Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
I'm repeatedly stunned at how greedy apple has got since Steve died. Apple used to be a great company, but now their mindless attempts to stockpile all the money in the world and make everything stupidly thin is just disgusting.
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
Torashin
I'm repeatedly stunned at how greedy apple has got since Steve died. Apple used to be a great company, but now their mindless attempts to stockpile all the money in the world and make everything stupidly thin is just disgusting.
since Steve died... think you'll find it started long before that, their markups have always been considerably higher than most other companies, not to mention companies paying to make items for their products.
Besides this isn't about money grabbing, this is about keeping artists on their streaming service, plenty of artists were against the 'free period' due to them not getting any royalties etc. Likely they also want people like the beatles and taylor swift on theirs over spotify etc... neither of which would make me want to join apples streaming service.
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
I don't really care for Taylor Swift's music, but I do like how she uses her platform to point out and fight against some of the crap the modern industry pulls. Good on her for that. That said, it's not all the fault of the industry. People just seem far less welling to pay for music these days. I guess they have to try out different stragies. However, holding back royalties from artists is not on. They pay such a pittance for that as it is...
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
I was once told (perhaps incorrectly) that an (average) artist or bands income is made of roughly the following breakdown:
10% CD sales and streaming income (the income derived from CD sales and streaming subs is eaten up by the companies themselves.)
20% Merchandise
70% Live gigs and festivals.
And as such, I justify my spending on artists that way. I would rather borrow a CD from a friend and try it or discover someone on youtube/spotify and not give them a penny through CD sales, then, if I appreciate the music enough to listen to it a couple times I'll probably go see them live. If I really like it, I'll buy some merch and make a point of seeing them live as often as possible.
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
LSG501
since Steve died... think you'll find it started long before that, their markups have always been considerably higher than most other companies, not to mention companies paying to make items for their products.
Apple products come with unrivaled customer care, excellent support and an unbeatable warranty, all of that comes at a cost, it's a part, maybe even a big part of the actual ticket price when you buy an Apple product.
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Originally Posted by
ZaO
I don't really care for Taylor Swift's music, but I do like how she uses her platform to point out and fight against some of the crap the modern industry pulls. Good on her for that. That said, it's not all the fault of the industry. People just seem far less welling to pay for music these days. I guess they have to try out different stragies. However, holding back royalties from artists is not on. They pay such a pittance for that as it is...
I don't like paying for music so I tend to listen to music on the radio where the artists still get paid royalties for my listening pleasure. Unfortunately I don't then have the option to listen to what I want when I want and I have to put up with repetitive adverts and sometimes annoying DJs, but that's a trade off I'm willing to make. I have a small collection of CDs and once had a good many GBs of downloaded music, but made a conscious decision to delete any illegal content and either start a legal collection or simply get by with the radio.
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
KeyboardDemon
Apple products come with unrivaled customer care, excellent support and an unbeatable warranty, all of that comes at a cost, it's a part, maybe even a big part of the actual ticket price when you buy an Apple product.
I'd argue the mark up is considerably higher than needed for that too, if anything Apple likely have clauses in their contract with their manufacturers that if it's faulty they need to 'pay for it'.
The amount of profit they make each year from sales is considerably higher than many other larger companies too (note I'm not against profit) even if you consider this aspect.
Also you just need to look at the bill of materials on items (likely less than websites actually report) and see how much markup on each product there is.
In the case of iPad/iPhone it's three maybe four times the cost of components. And yes I know all about research and development etc (I work in that field of design) costs and I assure it does not cost that much.
As A side note I wouldn't actually rate apples warranty as any better than anyone elses in terms of what it actually supports, you may get a 'quicker' outcome in some cases but in some cases you have to take legal action to get things resolved (remember the 2011 macbook pro graphics card failures for example)
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
KeyboardDemon
Apple products come with unrivaled customer care, excellent support and an unbeatable warranty, all of that comes at a cost, it's a part, maybe even a big part of the actual ticket price when you buy an Apple product.
Please don't take it personally when I call you out on all of that. Good (in the main) customer care yes, support is okay, warranty is no better than others. But they've been pretty honest that your buying into the Apple "experience" and that comes with a cost. Personally, I'm impressed with their phone/email support but the face-to-face was amateurish to the point of making me wish I'd bought from PC World (yes, THAT bad), but ymmv.
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Originally Posted by
KeyboardDemon
I have a small collection of CDs and once had a good many GBs of downloaded music, but made a conscious decision to delete any illegal content and either start a legal collection or simply get by with the radio.
:thumbsup: good for you, just wish others were so honest. Personally I don't get all this streaming nonsense (it's an age thing, my kids love it) I much prefer to buy a CD and "own" the tracks. Actually, it was a bit of an eye-opener how much good music is available on Kickstarter, and especially, Indiegogo. Then again - to my wife's continual annoyance - I have the CD cupboard. Along with boxes of records and tapes stashed around the place.
Still think it's a bit rich of Apple to basically say to the record companies "here we want to push our latest new invention, so you'll be happy to lose money on it". The correct thing to do would have been for Apple to have absorbed the costs, (which they've now promised), after all it's not as if they're short of a few bucks?
(And I'm still grumpy that the Crue/Cooper farewell UK tour turned out to be an England-only one)
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
LSG501
I'd argue the mark up is considerably higher than needed for that too, if anything Apple likely have clauses in their contract with their manufacturers that if it's faulty they need to 'pay for it'.
And I'd agree and also think the markup is too high, however there are a lot people that buy Apple products that think that they are getting value for money, and will be getting excellent customer service as a result of having bought an Apple product.
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Originally Posted by
LSG501
As A side note I wouldn't actually rate apples warranty as any better than anyone elses in terms of what it actually supports, you may get a 'quicker' outcome in some cases but in some cases you have to take legal action to get things resolved (remember the 2011 macbook pro graphics card failures for example)
My experience of non-Apple Warranty issues is that you usually have to contact the manufacturer who will agree to accept an RMA following an exploratory diagnostics conversation and then they will either send you some packaging to return your item or will email you a returns label for you to use when RMA'ing your item.
My brother and nephew both have had Mac Books, and when my brother had an issue he called the local Apple store in the morning, they arranged for him to go and see them that afternoon, when he left the store he was able to leave there with a brand new Mac Book and all of his data migrated to the new computer. I can't remember what the issue was, I think it was screen related, I do remember that his exact model was no longer available and that he ended up with an upgraded model.
How likely is it that a person with an HP laptop would be able to get the same level of service? How much time do you think it would take for that HP to be returned, a day, a week, a month or longer?
Is the premium that Apple ask for this service worth it? Well only if you are one of those people that need to claim on your warranty.
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Originally Posted by
crossy
Please don't take it personally when I call you out on all of that. Good (in the main) customer care yes, support is okay, warranty is no better than others. But they've been pretty honest that your buying into the Apple "experience" and that comes with a cost. Personally, I'm impressed with their phone/email support but the face-to-face was amateurish to the point of making me wish I'd bought from PC World (yes, THAT bad), but ymmv.
It's OK, I don't take it personally, but I'll stand my ground based on the experience noted above, and I do agree that buying Apple is all about buying the Apple 'experience' and it's hard to measure the value of that, but to those people buying into the experience, it's an experience they are happy to pay the price for, if they weren't they wouldn't buy it. Also people buy from their hearts not their heads and I don't have the love for Apple to make me want to be part of their experience but understand why others do. But this is all drifting off topic and I think we ought to bring it back to the main theme (is there a pun there!).
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Originally Posted by
crossy
Still think it's a bit rich of Apple to basically say to the record companies "here we want to push our latest new invention, so you'll be happy to lose money on it". The correct thing to do would have been for Apple to have absorbed the costs, (which they've now promised), after all it's not as if they're short of a few bucks?
It was, I think Apple have got so used to getting their own way that they decided to make this offer of a free three month trial and then expected the musicians to foot the bill for it, I think Taylor Swift's letter was an excellent step and Apple's U-turn in response shows that Apple can listen. I also think that Apple had no choice but to listen, can you imagine how much it would hurt Apple if other high profile musicians were to take the same stance and maybe even pull away from the Apple store completely?
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
KeyboardDemon
My brother and nephew both have had Mac Books, and when my brother had an issue he called the local Apple store in the morning, they arranged for him to go and see them that afternoon, when he left the store he was able to leave there with a brand new Mac Book and all of his data migrated to the new computer. I can't remember what the issue was, I think it was screen related, I do remember that his exact model was no longer available and that he ended up with an upgraded model.
which is fine if you have a local store, my local apple store is over an hour away, you could also argue that this is more down to the 'brick and mortar' store than anything else, very few tech hardware companies have this aspect of their business these days.
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, I think Taylor Swift's letter was an excellent step and Apple's U-turn in response shows that Apple can listen. I also think that Apple had no choice but to listen, can you imagine how much it would hurt Apple if other high profile musicians were to take the same stance and maybe even pull away from the Apple store completely?
Turns out that Taylor Swifts letter was a bit hypocritical as well as raising awareness of 'artists plight'. She's actually received an open letter about the practices employed at her concerts regarding ownership of photos taken there by professionals etc.
linky In essence the contracts only allows a photo to be sold once, and then she/management get all ownership/copyright etc... that's actually worse than the 3 months for free and then future payments from streaming that Apple was offering in my view as a designer.
Now how much of that contract is management and how much is taylor swift is debatable (as is the actual original letter to apple) because we all know the only real people to get major profit from music is the record company but the principle is the same. Oh and I feel artists should actually get a higher rate from streaming/downloads as there is no need for physical media etc anymore so record labels have less outgoing costs to recoup.
Re: Apple U-turns on musicians' pay in wake of Taylor Swift open letter
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Originally Posted by
KeyboardDemon
How likely is it that a person with an HP laptop would be able to get the same level of service? How much time do you think it would take for that HP to be returned, a day, a week, a month or longer?Is the premium that Apple ask for this service worth it? Well only if you are one of those people that need to claim on your warranty.
Sorry, going to disagree with you there. Eldest kid has an Envy dv7 laptop with warranty pack. If that goes wrong, then HP will send a courier to the house pick up the old one and drop off a replacement the next day. Sure they don't do the data transfer, but do point you at some methods to lift 'n' shift which I guess is all that can reasonably be done given that - as LSG501 points out - because HP don't have "Genius Bars" (and if they did then the freaking things would be in Mumbai). :(
As you say, a good CS experience is worth it's proverbial weight, and I've nothing but praise for the Irish lass who dealt with my RoyalMail-lost iPod return with such professionalism and courtesy. On the other hand the staff in the Glasgow "Genius Bar" (a misnomer if I saw one) should crawl back to serving burgers based on my (thankfully brief) encounter with their "service" when I had two iPod Touch's go into boot loops when connected to Windows7 boxes.
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Originally Posted by
KeyboardDemon
I also think that Apple had no choice but to listen, can you imagine how much it would hurt Apple if other high profile musicians were to take the same stance and maybe even pull away from the Apple store completely?
Yes, I saw an "interesting" comment that Apple management decided (rightly) that they needed to move quickly to stave off a landslide of bad (social media) press. For a fashion-lead company like Apple, being thought as "uncool", or worse, "evil large company" a la Amazon, Starbucks, etc would be quite damaging.
