Music, Taylor Swift and Apple : The Power of One

No, this is not a review of The Power of One, a Bryce Courtenay book. Although I expect I'll be writing that review within a few years. Stay tuned while I write about music, Apple and Taylor Swift instead?

• Taylor Swift wrote an open letter to Apple on her website's blog - To Apple, Love Taylor - explaining why she doesn't like something they've chosen to do. Apple's new music streaming service will not be charging for music for three months (yay for users / customers), nor pay artists for the use of their music (not so yay for the artists). Swift explains why this is unfair to artists, writers and producers. "We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation." I like your thinking, Taylor Swift.

• The world responds by writing about Swift's letter / blog post. Apple is rich and has the money to pay artists, the world says. So let Apple pay the artists. In a world built on (and from, I think sometimes) money where those with a lot of money often also have a lot of power and influence, like Apple or Taylor Swift, it's nice to see the big fish being kind to and thinking about the small fish. Nice to see the 10% occasionally thinks about the 90% who aren't famous superstars or big companies.

• Apple then responds to Swift's missive. Oops, they say. Our bad. Taylor's right, we'll do it her way. Paying artists for the use of their art might actually be a good thing. So yeah, we will be paying them for their hard work, their efforts, their dedication to music, writing, producing. We are indeed a big company and you know what, Taylor has a point. We make a lot of profit. We expect to be making a lot of profit once people start paying for our new service. And the goodwill factor involved in giving something away for free for three whole months? Even better. After all, Netflix only gives away one free month. So yeah - we can indeed afford to pay artists and we will. Actually, Apple's senior executive Eddy Cue didn't use those words.I just invented them. What he did say:

#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period

— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015

Apple will always make sure that artist are paid #iTunes #AppleMusic

— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015

We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple

— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015

The power of one. If a 'relative nobody' had spoken out about this very problem, chances are Apple might have come across their statement and agreed with them. Tough luck for them, though, might have been a likely response. After all, we're a company. Companies are about making money. Although... Good publicity and lots of positive word-of-mouth advertising are great money-makers too.

Whether Apple always intended to pay artists for their work or was still deciding whether they would, I don't know. Honestly, I'm no Apple expert and didn't even know about their new music service until reading about Taylor Swift's letter to Apple yesterday. What I do know is that Taylor Swift got a lot of good publicity. And so did Apple. Win - win situation for the both of them. And for the music industry. And for me! Go, Taylor! And Go, Apple. Now, what was the name of your new music service again? Right... Apple Music... I'm going to go and see what all the hype is about... Now that I know your new product exists, I'm curious!

Just in case you're wondering: I own one Apple product - an iPod I bought in 2009.

Six year after buying it, it still works well and I'm still happy with it. It contains music 

(my entire music collection, in fact), audio books and photos. Oh, and a cool card 

game I've enjoyed lots of quality time with. Thanks for allowing me to take my music

and photos with me wherever I go, Apple, and for making a product that still works 

after six years of use when other devices I've bought only lasted about two-ish years.