Apple Denies It Bullied Musicians for Apple Music Deals

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Earlier this week Anton Newcombe, frontman of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, unleashed his fury on Twitter against Apple and its decision not to pay royalties to musicians during the initial three-month trial period of the soon-to-be-launched streaming service Apple Music. In a series of tweets, he called Apple a “satanic corporation” after threatening to remove the band’s music from the iTunes Store if they didn’t play according to the above rules. Speaking with Rolling Stone, Apple denies such allegations.

An Apple spokesperson says that if an artist doesn’t want to sign up for its new music streaming service, “it will not be taken off”.
We already knew that Apple wouldn’t pay a dime to artists during the three-month trial period, but Newcombe’s allegations could hurt the company’s reputation. Meanwhile, Apple is preparing to launch the service on June 30, with Canada remaining on the waiting list, as the official page says, “coming soon”.

Of course, launching such a service involves tons of negotiations, Eddy Cue emphasized, speaking with Rolling Stone. Jimmy Iovine shed some light on other issues:

“A lot of artists are confused,” he said. “If you get 100 million streams on a song and you’re only being paid on 20 percent, the check’s not going to look good. The money’s not going to look fair.”

Eddy Cue also addressed concerns raised about whether consumers will agree to shell out $120 per year to listen to music instead of owning it:

“People will pay for great services,” he said. “They said they wouldn’t pay 99 cents for a song but they did. We’ve always believed that. When you go to work, you don’t work for free; nobody works for free. Nobody can say, ‘I want to work for free.’ Nobody says that.”

Apple Music will kick off on June 30 in 100 countries. You ready?

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