By Eileen Tilson
There is an interesting debate going on right now about whether Apple’s new iCloud platform is actually infringing upon copyright owners. Recently indie label Numero had some pretty strong words about why they decided to opt out of joining into iCloud:
“We feel that a great risk is being taken by Apple and the major labels that have accepted the terms of this new product wholesale with not a thought beyond the 150M those so-called“big four” will probably divide and pay to their top executives. By that, we mean that laws that protect compositions and copyrights for songs are, more or less, being trampled under these agreements,” according to label head Rob Sevier. He continued:
“Apple and their major label “partners” have created a reward system that is both incomprehensible in scope and totally out of sync with iCloud’s streaming peers’ (Rdio, Spotify, et al) financial mechanics … we feel that Apple’s pittance is an insult not only to them, but every other musician, living or dead.”
Numero Group’s Ken Shipley offered his iTunes Match math in the comments at a Hypebot post: “0.0035 cents per ‘match’ if you’ve got a library of 5000 songs, .0006 of which you need to break off to the publisher.”
But as Digital Audio Insider notes, each song in a collection of 5,000 songs would get 0.35 cents per match, not 0.0035 cents per match (the former is 100 times greater than the latter). That’s because 0.35 cents (or $0.0035) times 5,000 equals $17.50, which is rights holders’ share of the $25 iTunes Match annual fee.
What do you think? Is this something beneficial for music, or is this going to hurt musicians in the long run?
Apple’s new iCloud platform is a great technology in our modern world. I’m very happy to learn their different technologies. Songs are pretty cheap to collect using Apple’s new iCloud. Thanks for sharing 🙂