Apple Courting Music Artists for Streaming Service Exclusives

One of the easiest ways to get a lot of people interested in your upcoming music streaming service is to court all the popular music artists and sign exclusive deals with them. Of course, that also has the opposite effect of hacking off all the diehard fans who don't want to switch from one service to another just to listen to their favorite songs.

Nevertheless, new reports indicate that Apple is trying to get a number of singers and music groups on board with its to-be-launched music streaming service. And it doesn't just want their songs and albums on its service; it wants exclusive access in the form of limited streaming rights.

If the move sounds familiar, that's kind of the premise behind the recently announced Tidal streaming service. Tidal, which recently launched with the support of musical artists like Madonna, Daft Punk, and Jay Z (who owns it), asks fans to pony up a not-so-insignificant sum of $20 monthly to access lossless streaming music (or just $10 monthly for standard quality tracks). And, of course, it's the only service where one can gain access to exclusive streaming tracks from various artists—at least, until those tracks make it over to good ol' free YouTube.

While it sounds like a great deal from the Tidal end, it's not always the best move for fans of said artists. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, some Rihanna fans are already pretty peeved that the singer's new music video for her "American Oxygen" single is a Tidal exclusive. The same kind of backlash will undoubtedly follow other musical artists when they offer Tidal exclusives.

As for Apple, it's rumored that the company has approached artists like Florence and the Machine and Taylor Swift—the latter could be a fairly big coup for Apple, given her following and/or general outspokenness on the state of the music streaming at the moment.

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It remains to be seen just how Apple might split up the streaming fees it plans to charge for the service, currently rumored to be $10/monthly for individual streamers and $15/monthly for a family plan. Though, rumors that Apple might not offer any kind of ad-supported free streaming could sweeten the deal a little bit for artists adverse to the concept.