You don't have to be a Taylor Swift fan to applaud her open letter to Apple on Tumblr today. Swift first took a stand against Spotify on paltry streaming revenues for artists and now it's Apple Music's turn. In keeping with her image and fan base, her tone is that of a high-minded teenager appealing to the high school principal:
I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.
The principal is, of course, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Swift goes out of her way to be respectful, like the class president who does not want to undermine her chance to be valedictorian. She uses the word "respect" four times in the short post. But, as a songwriter, she turns the meaning from I respect you, and we (artists) respect Apple to "We simply do not respect this particular call." Cook gets better treatment than Swift's old boyfriends!
Apple has not commented on Swift's post, but this would be an easy win for Tim Cook. Apple has almost $200 billion in cash. Surely it can afford to spot the musicians for those three months. There is a bigger principle at play too. In gambling, the house always wins. In tech, this translates to the network always winning. Apple can win in music even if its new service loses money because its real business is a hardware-as-a-service subscription model. But Apple's customers expect it to be a magnanimous winner.
Contrast this decision to shortchange artists with Cook's user-centric stand on data privacy. No doubt he is personally passionate about the issue, but it also embodies what Apple's customers want to believe about the company. Swift is using the same righteous indignation to address Apple as Cook has used against advertising-based rivals Google and Facebook.
Apple can use the curation focus of its new service to distinguish itself from Spotify on the artist's behalf. After the network itself, the biggest winners are the network's biggest nodes. Spotify amplifies artists that are already popular and its "suggestions" on its free plan sound a lot like paid placements. What do you expect from a free service? In contrast, Apple could use curation to surface quality music to those who will appreciate it.
I could be wrong, but I expect to see a rapprochement between Apple and Swift. As Swift writes:
it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.
Tim Cook can play this with the same conviction as he has addressed user privacy. The common denominator is how Apple's customers feel about Apple. Keeping that positive is worth orders of magnitude more than three months of streaming payments.
UPDATE: Last night Apple's Eddy Cue relented on Twitter. Win-win!
