Musicians seemed to find an ally in Steve Jobs ? after all, most work with Apple computers. But how did his company benefit?
Since Steve Jobs's death, I've had several discussions with musician colleagues and people on the business side of the industry about what he and Apple meant to them. Opinion is divided on iTunes, but every musician I know owns at least one Mac and wouldn't dream of using any other computer for programming or recording.
It wasn't only the fact that Macs are aesthetically pleasing that suggested Jobs understood us, it was the bundling of Garageband as part of the basic software package (even if, in my opinion, it isn't good enough for professional recordings), and the way in which software such as ProTools and Logic work seamlessly with the operating system. Jobs himself said (in 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds): "Picasso had a saying: 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists ? who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world."
Then came the iPod. Launched in 2001, its shuffle mode was accused of destroying the artist's ability to take the listener on a journey. When the iTunes store opened two years later, Noel Gallagher asked who selected the section of the song to be featured in the 30-second preview on the site, saying that the listener had no idea what part they were listening to ? the verse, the chorus or the middle-eight. "They should at least have the decency to put the chorus on there," he exclaimed. With iTunes recently extending previews to 90 seconds, chances are that it is.
Some felt the way the iTunes store enabled fans to cherrypick songs has been detrimental to the music industry, and that the price per download was too low, but at least Jobs managed to make people willing to pay for music downloads, something the labels had failed to do. "What he [Jobs] did for digital music and encouraging people to pay for digital music was pioneering," David Joseph, chairman and CEO of Universal Music UK, told his staff last week. "He totally changed the landscape for us, and for our future."
Martin Mills, chairman of Beggars Group, agrees there is no denying the effect Jobs had on the music industry. "It's hard to imagine today's record industry without iTunes," he says. "How can one deny the impact of an idea that has turned into the largest seller of music in the world in just a few years? And has done so while also being the greatest style icon of its era."
Beggars' roster includes Adele, Radiohead and Vampire Weekend, and Mills praises Jobs for not pandering to major labels. "Steve Jobs's legacy to music is immense," he explains. "Apple alone had the strength to manhandle music licences out of big companies intent on doing it themselves, and iTunes' independent editorial policy, judging music just on its merits, has benefited thousands of new artists."
And while some thought iTunes' prices devalued music, the fact is that Apple, unlike most other digital music services, are transparent when it comes to telling us where that money goes: Apple takes 30%, credit companies take their fee ? and the rest goes to artists/labels and songwriters/publishers. "He seemed quite honest to the music industry and artists," said U2's manager, Paul McGuiness. "Others took a little less interest in getting artists paid than Steve."
So what happens now? While Apple continued to develop and innovate, iTunes pretty much remains the same ? apart from a few tweaks such as Ping and Genius. With a 70%-plus share in the digital downloads market (16bn downloads to date), Apple may not feel it needs to change.
The last music-related Apple products Jobs developed, as far as we know, are iCloud, launched in the US this week, and iTunes Match, which gives you legal digital access to any song on your Apple devices for $25 a year. It has met with some resistance from the industry, with questions raised about the price, as well as its inability to distinguish between downloads acquired legally and those not. But though Jobs always drove a hard bargain, unlike Google and Amazon, he got licence agreements in place before launch (which could work to Apple's advantage when iCloud launches in countries that don't have the "fair use" rules the US does).
The question is: what have musicians and the music industry meant for Steve Jobs and Apple? Though it's clear Jobs loved music, the fact is music has mainly been used to sell Apple hardware. That's why iTunes could afford to have a relatively low profit margin ? the profit from sales of more than 300m iPods, so far, has easily made up for it.
Likewise, I'm sure the reason Apple is launching iTunes Match is not because it thinks it will make a profit on the $25 annual subscription fee, but because it's tied to Apple devices ? if you want your iTunes library to be available on your mobile phone, you've got to have an iPhone. And so, while the iTunes store is important to musicians, as they're finding it increasingly difficult to make money from recorded music, their music's capacity to sell Apple products remains priceless.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/oct/13/steve-jobs-apple-music
Tottenham Hotspur Energy efficiency Japan Adventure travel Cobham Enjoy England TwiTrips
No comments:
Post a Comment