Apple Music Might Soon Cut Down On Delivering Exclusives

Apple Music executive and co-founder of Beats Jimmy Iovine recently sat down for an interview revealing some of the tech giants plans for its music business. Iovine defended Apple Music’s paid-only model, while also saying that they will soon be moving away from providing exclusive albums.

“The fact is that 'free' in music streaming is so technically good and ubiquitous that it's stunting the growth of paid streaming,” Iovine told Music Business Worldwide. “It blew my mind that the day after I walked out on stage [to announce Apple Music at WWDC 2015], YouTube mobile was licensed.”

The Apple Music executive also said that because of streaming services offering its “freemium” model, a lot of musicians now feel that there’s very little money in recording music. He also says that some musicians now use their music simply for promotion to get exposure, sell tickets and make money from their other merchandise.

“If Apple Music has a free tier we would have 400m people on it. That would make my job real easy, Iovine remarked. “But we believe artists should get paid. That’s why I went to Apple.”

“Artists are getting screwed. Period. I don’t see how anybody stands behind it. It’s all of our responsibility to change it.”

Spotify remains the top music streaming service with over 50 million paying customers. Apple Music is trying to catch up, but the last reported number of paying users it has was only over 20 million as of February 2017.

This is also why Iovine decided to work with Apple’s Eddy Cue, Tim Cook and Steve Jobs, because they all follow the same philosophy. He also said that he believes that paying subscribers should be “advantaged.” This one of the reasons why Apple Music is now focusing on delivering original video content as well, according to Apple Insider.

“Two things have to happen: free has to become more difficult or restricted, and the paid services have to get better."

The Apple Music executive was also asked about exclusives, and it looks like the company is slowly moving away from that. “We tried it. We’ll still do some stuff with the occasional artist. The labels don’t seem to like it and ultimately it’s their content,” Iovine said.

Right now, Apple is now focusing on its exclusive video content, and Iovine says that they’re putting a lot of money into that.

Apple Music’s initial strategy was to deliver exclusive albums from the likes of Drake, Frank Ocean and Chance the Rapper. The problem with exclusives is that record labels, artists and fans can’t seem to agree on whether the practice is good for everyone. With Iovine’s recent statements, it seems like Apple has been pressured by music labels to cutdown on delivering exclusives.

The Wall Street Journal reported back in 2016 that labels weren’t so optimistic about albums being streamed exclusively on some services. The record labels felt that it could hurt the total streaming numbers of an album. This could then result in lost revenue for labels, according to The Verge.