Taylor Swift Gets Apple Music to Pay Up
On Sunday morning, Taylor Swift took Apple to task for the royalty agreement on its news music streaming service. Her open letter on Tumblr, titled “To Apple, Love Taylor,” said, “I’m sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free 3 month trial to anyone who signs up for the service. I’m not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months. I find it to be shocking, disappointing and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company.”
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“Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing,” the pop singer argued on the behalf of music-makers everywhere, many of whom had voiced their discontent with the royalty policy. She concluded her letter saying, “We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”
It was a sentiment shared by many independent music artists and producers. Just a few weeks earlier, the American Association for Independent Music had chimed in, “Since a sizable percentage of Apple’s most voracious music consumers are likely to initiate their free trials at launch, we are struggling to understand why rights holders would authorize their content on the service before October 1st.”
It took less than 24 hours for the “historically progressive and generous company” to respond via Twitter, and it didn’t wait until morning to make its announcement. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, personally called Swift to deliver the news before tweeting at 11:29 p.m., “#AppleMusic will pay artists for streaming, even during customers’ free trial period.”
Cue followed up with a feel-good response a minute later: “We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple.” Later, Cue said that the company will pay artists on a per stream basis during the free trial period, although Cue declined to say what the rate would be. Once the free introductory period is over, Apple Music will pay music owners 71.5 percent of Apple Music’s overall subscription revenue in the United States.
Swift tweeted her response and addressed it to her fans and supporters: “I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us.”
Related Link: Apple Muscles Into Streaming Music Market
Swift’s crusade on social media showed the increasing weight that collective opinions on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook can have to force a change in corporate policy and direction. In a comic echo of that power, BuzzFeed promptly put together a list of 18 more issues Swift could fix through the power of social media, ranging from the battery life of iPhones to the size of Pringles cans.
Apple Music is launching on June 30, offering users a free, three-month subscription period. After that, the service will charge $9.99 a month for individuals and $14.99 a month for families with up to six members.
Quote of the Day: A Big Hurdle for the Tax Cuts
“He goes in and campaigns on an issue, and the challenge is he then talks about executing drug dealers. Why do you think the press is going to cover the tax cuts if you’ve given them the much more exciting issue?”
-- Grover Norquist, president of tax-cutting advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, on President Trump’s failure to sell the tax law.
The Obamacare Mandate That Could Produce $12 Billion in Fines in 2018
Republicans effectively eliminated the individual Obamacare mandate in the tax package signed late last year. Although the new regulation reducing the mandate penalty to zero doesn’t take effect until 2019, President Trump has cited the rule change as a victory over the health law so many conservatives oppose. “Essentially, we are getting rid of Obamacare. Some people would say, essentially, we have gotten rid of it," Trump told a crowd in Michigan two weeks ago.
However, many parts of the Affordable Care Act are still in effect and will continue to operate even after the individual mandate is eliminated in 2019.
In particular, the employer mandate, which requires companies with more than 50 employees to offer health benefits or face fine of roughly $2,000 per worker, will continue to play a significant role in the Obamacare system. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the mandate will produce more than $12 billion in fines in 2018 alone.
Some conservative groups are pushing lawmakers to stop enforcing the employer mandate, but the IRS is still working to enforce the law. According to The New York Times Monday, the IRS is sending out notices to more than 30,000 businesses that have failed to comply.
Chart of the Day: It’s Still the Economy, Stupid
Security may be the top policy issue for Republican voters, but the economy is the top concern for Democrats, independents and voters overall, according to Morning Consult’s latest polling on the midterm elections. Health care is third on the list, followed by “seniors’ issues.” The results are based on surveys with more than 275,000 registered U.S. voters from February 1 to April 30.
Number of the Day: $13 Billion
An analysis by Bloomberg finds that the roughly 180 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the first three months of the year saved almost $13 billion thanks to the corporate tax cut enacted late last year. Those companies’ effective tax rate dropped by more than 6 percentage points on average. About a third of the tax savings went to 44 financial firms.
How a Florida Doctor with Social Ties to Trump Delayed a $16B Billion VA Project
A West Palm Beach doctor who is friends with Ike Perlmutter, the chairman of Marvel Entertainment and an informal adviser to President Trump on veterans’ issues, has held up “the biggest health information technology project in history — the transformation of the VA’s digital records system,” Politico’s Arthur Allen reports. Dr. Bruce Moskowitz “objected to the $16 billion Department of Veterans Affairs project because he doesn’t like the Cerner Corp. software he uses at two Florida hospitals, according to four former and current senior VA officials. Cerner technology is a cornerstone of the VA project. … Moskowitz’s concerns effectively delayed the agreement for months, the sources said.” Read the full story.