Beggars Group Shares Open Letter Addressing Concerns About Apple Music

Image via Justin Sullivan/Getty

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Image via Justin Sullivan/Getty

Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty

It’s been only a little over a week since Apple announced plans for Apple Music, their new streaming service. While the jury is still out over whether this is the solution to streaming, there has been a lot of discussion about how this service will pay independent artists (as it stands right now, right holders will not be paid for streams during that three month free trial period).

Beggars Group, the record company umbrella that owns 4AD, Matador, XL, Rough Trade, and Young Turks, among others, took to their site today to voice their concerns about this. In an open letter, Beggars stated they haven’t signed with Apple claiming, “We struggle to see why rights owners and artists should bear this aspect of Apple’s customer acquisition costs.”

Read their full letter below.


To Beggars Group Labels Artists and Managers:


We thought it was time to update you on the situation with Apple Music, following speculation in the press, some of it ill-informed. Apple have been a wonderful partner for the last decade, and we confidently trust they will continue to be so. We have recently been in discussions with Apple Music about proposed terms for their new service. In many ways the deal structure is very progressive, but unfortunately it was created without reference to us, or as far as we know any independents, and as such unsurprisingly presents problems for us, and for our coming artist releases. We are naturally very concerned, especially for artists releasing new albums in the next three months, that all streaming on the new service will be unremunerated until the end of September. Whilst we understand the logic of their proposal and their aim to introduce a subscription-only service, we struggle to see why rights owners and artists should bear this aspect of Apple’s customer acquisition costs.


And given the natural response of competing digital services to offer comparable terms, we fear that the free trial aspect, far from moving the industry away from freemium services – a model we support – is only resulting in taking the “mium” out of freemium.


We are also naturally concerned, as ever, as to whether we and you are being treated on a level playing field vis a vis the major labels and their artists. Additionally, we have reservations about both commercial and practical aspects of the Artist Connect area. It is a mistake to treat these rights as royalty free, especially in the light of recent licenses with services like Soundcloud.


At the moment we do not have an agreement with Apple Music that would allow us to participate in the new service. However, we very much hope that the obstacles to agreement can be removed, for us and for independent Merlin-member labels as a whole, and that we will be able to fully support this potentially exciting new service in the coming days.

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