[logician76]

Apple wants to give it away for free, not the artists. Apple needs the artists, hence they need to pay.

Revenue rising with the new service will eat into the other revenue streams from sales. Subscription revenue has already been proven to be laughable with Spotify.

Saying that Apple gets to keep all the extra profit because they paid the artists during arbitrary terms set by Apple is incredibly short sighted, as the profit you speak of means profit to Apple, but a loss to the music industry.

[KingMob]

> Subscription revenue has already been proven to be laughable with Spotify.

True, but that's because the labels keep the vast majority of Spotify's payout.

[gress]

This is simply false. Apple's deal shares more revenue with the artists than any other service. Therefore if users adopt Apple Music, the artists will get more in aggregate.

http://recode.net/2015/06/15/heres-what-happens-to-your-10-a...

My point is not that I believe that Apple should keep the excess profit. It's that if Apple's service increases the overalls profit for the artists it's reasonable that they should share in the costs of marketing. Otherwise the artists are double dipping.

[logician76]

Artists are double dipping? Boy I hope you don't run into an artist who knows that you just said this...

[gress]

An artist like Taylor swift, you mean, worth $300M?