Independent bodies WIN and Merlin give licensing deals their backing, while Happy star Pharrell Williams gives streaming service his new Freedom single.
Two independent label bodies have given Apple’s new music streaming service their backing, after the company abandoned its plans not to pay royalties during its three-month free trial.
Meanwhile, Pharrell Williams has been confirmed as the first exclusive for Apple Music, which launches on 30 June, with his new single set to debut the same day on the service.
The backing from trade body Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) and licensing agency Merlin is significant for Apple, as the company was strongly criticised by independent labels in the week before its u-turn on royalties.
I am pleased to say that Apple has made a decision to pay for all usage of Apple Music under the free trials on a per-play basis, as well as to modify a number of other terms that members had been communicating directly with Apple about, said WIN chief executive Alison Wenham in a statement.
With these changes, we are happy to support and endorse the deal… We think Apple Music provides artists with a business model that’s good for the long-term and we look forward to its launch.
Alongside its statement, WIN put out quotes from indie labels Secretly Group, Tommy Boy, Finetunes and Beggars Group. The latter’s boss, Martin Mills, confirmed that his company is also happy to endorse the deal with Apple Music as it now stands.
Beggars had led the indie revolt against Apple Music, publishing a blog post criticising its previous plans on the grounds that we struggle to see why rights owners and artists should bear this aspect of Apple’s customer acquisition costs.
Merlin, which strikes licensing deals on behalf of indie labels with other streaming services – but not Apple Music – also endorsed the new contract in an email sent to its members with identical wording to Wenham’s statement.
Independent labels will now make their own decisions about whether to sign up for Apple Music. While streaming payments are one area for debate, another is the service’s Connect feature, through which artists can upload their own demos, remixes, lyrics and other content.
We have reservations about both commercial and practical aspects of the Artist Connect area. It is a mistake to treat these rights as royalty free, especially in the light of recent licenses with services like Soundcloud, wrote Beggars Group in its original blog post. Artists are free not to use Connect if they prefer not to.
The Pharrell Williams exclusive is not a surprising development: he was in the audience for the Apple Music unveiling earlier in June, while a promotional video for Apple’s new Beats 1 radio station published on 8 June included a clip of DJ Zane Lowe mentioning brand new Pharrell.
A promotional image circulating for Williams’ Freedom single includes the slogan Only on Apple Music (with the ‘Apple’ replaced by the company’s logo), but further details of the exclusive have not been announced.
Possibilities range from a radio premiere on Beats 1 with the single swiftly making its way onto Apple Music and rival streaming services like Spotify, through to a full exclusive that is not available elsewhere – more unlikely, although it would certainly give an ironic slant to the title.
With Apple having settled its differences with Taylor Swift, her back catalogue is expected to be available on Apple Music, like other streaming services that do not have free, on-demand tiers – Spotify being the most prominent exception.
With her current album 1989 not available on any streaming service, it remains to be seen whether Apple can persuade swift to change that policy.
While Apple announced that it would be paying rightsholders for every stream of their music during its free trial – like its rivals, the company pays labels and publishers, not artists directly – it has not said how much it will be paying.
That has sparked speculation within the music industry, with trade site Digital Music News claiming Apple will pay $0.002 per stream during the trial, with the Wall Street Journal confirming that rates will rise once the trial ends.
While Apple’s trial rate is much lower than Spotify’s claimed average of $0.0072 per stream, the latter service is also thought to lower its per-stream payouts during its own marketing campaigns, such as free trials of its premium subscription service, and its current three-months-for-$1 offer in the US.