U2? 81 million Apple iThing-strokers know a place where the Beats have no shame

Re: Hmmmm

I have in the past bought music by U2 (a 'best of' album). Although it was on CD. So far I have used an Amazon voucher to purchase one song via download. I have 200 CDs worth plus rips in iTunes though.

And it turns out that I downloaded U2 onto my iPad. So I'm one of the 26-odd million that downloaded the whole thing. Well actually I'm not. Out of curiousity I looked to see if it was there, and magically it was. Without me doing anything, and despite not having synched the device with a PC in a while. And iCloud being off on the iPad, so far as I was aware. Apple must have re-enabled it at some update or another.

I suspect in that light, that the 26m downloads is therefore less impressive. I'm not angry. All Apple did was give me some free music. Admittedly they did take a few MB of my download allowance, but I'll live.

It was a properly dull album though. I listened all the way through and I think there was one song that was vaguely memorable. I suppose if you're going to give an album away for free, you may as well make it a dull but OK one, so you can sell the good stuff on the next one.

Digital Distro Deal

I think the digital distro of an act's music has it's own contract/rates/variant on physical media these days, so the artist(s) are probably backshafted by design there, too.

Why on earth do you think 70% is reduced income? Production, distribution and storage (i.e. the shop's rent, electricity, etc) that need to be paid for if you buy a CD on the high street.

According to the BBC those three things add up to £2.72 of an £8 CD — see http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23840744

So from a physical CD sale, the bit equivalent to that for which Apple charges 30% adds up to... 34%.

Mysteries

I buy a loaf of bread in a store. The store gets what it paid the bakery and its cut. How does the farmer get paid?!?

Now before I get labelled a jackass, I understand your real question which is more about how do the artists get a fair share of the revenues. The artist's cut is controlled by a contract negotiated between one party that has literally tens of thousands of alternatives and another that has a dozen. The record company knows a dozen ways to "win" (or, as I'll mention later, minimize its risks) and, you, the artist don't know any. Perhaps you walk in with a manager or attorney with experience, which is good, until you realize that they too take a percentage of your deal, have multiple clients (diversified risk) and will be coming into this office tomorrow with somebody else, so, perhaps your representation is not as prepared to go to 11 in negotiations as they suggested when they were romancing you, the unrealized genius.

Did the band selling the CD at the show do better than if you had purchased through iTunes. Most assuredly. But we'd all do better if we self-distributed. Distribution, though, is hard and if a musician would rather spend her time writing a new song than negotiating new sales channels, I can see making that choice and we all understand that if someone sells something for you, they get a cut. If she were great at the business stuff, she should form a record company and get into the aggregator/distributor business. In that milieu, she's a superstar.

With regards to digital sales, though not as profitable as the concession sale, no band can play everywhere to everyone and keep their stand open 24/7. The band should be selling at shows and through iTunes. It is a show biz cliche to ask the question "What's better 100% of nothing or 5% of something?" No citations, but I think the chance that the 100% of the nothing that becomes something big and does pay off is less than 20 to 1. (Besides, if one chooses one's partners wisely, the little slice of nothing becomes a relationship that may turn into bigger and better opportunities tomorrow.)

Record companies operate under a fundamental premise: even the best talent pickers will be wrong 9 out of 10 times, whether it's the wrong act or the wrong time in that act's development. Artists very, very rarely have a second chance. This is why one would rather be a record company than an artist, not that any thing's easy. If you look closely at the biz in the glory days, many artists never even had the one chance. They were signed, got an advance, recorded one album which got shelved without release, and were dropped by the label.

Today the technology of recording is far more accessible and the costs of distribution two magnitudes lower. No one says that a sustainable music career requires iTunes, but it doesn't hurt. Meanwhile, the real lesson is that the record company is less important than it was.

How does the artist get more? The artist takes more risk and does more work or becomes so big that they reverse the power mismatch that was there at the beginning of their career. But the person buying music is still absolutely vital in answering the question how does the artist gets paid.

"Please, can someone tell how that helps the musicians get paid? "

You're comparing iTunes to the wrong thing. Buying a CD is of declining significance. The relevant comparison should be;

"I download the music through The Pirate Bay, TPB gets paid advertising clicks, the music company gets 0%, and the artist gets paid a percentage of 0%."

Now can you see how iTunes helps? I don't think anyone is thinking that iTunes is great, but at least it does pay the artist something.

And many performers don't. Performers differ, and there is no simple pat solution to how all performers should be paid.

Then just use the storefront. Music is DRM free and comes in a standard, well-supported file format. So when you're shopping around, you can factor in iTunes as an option regardless of whether you've bought any hardware from Apple. A truly price-conscious customer would check all the options.

I think you will pass on quality also then

Re: Where's the "there" here?

Apple is extremely excited about how many people they managed to piss off at once.

Re: U2 and apple

"So why is he wanting to even be seen close to Apple"

Because he wants more money, and world peace doesn't put bread on the table, or gold plate on the hubcaps - whatever floats your boat.