Apple Music Faces Resistance From Indie Labels

The other day it was revealed what Apple had planned to pay the record labels in order to license their songs to stream on Apple Music. According to the figures, it would see Apple pay the labels 71.5% of the revenue generated by the service, which apparently is slightly higher than the industry standard.

However it seems that this did not sit well with the indie labels, which according to a report from The Telegraph is giving Apple a lot of resistance at the moment. The issue here isn’t so much the revenue split itself, but the fact that Apple will be giving users a three month trial period. This is compared to other platforms which typically offers a month before requiring users to subscribe, or in the case with Spotify it will see them play ads in between songs.

According to Andy Heath, the chairman of UK Music, it seems that because of this, there are no indie labels in the UK that have agreed to Apple’s terms, claiming that this will “literally put people out of business”. If you recall our previous report also mentioned that the three month trial period was also an an issue of contention with the major labels.

However presumably with the major labels having more resources, they could cope with it. That being said assuming this is true, what this means is that if you’re a fan of indie artists and labels, you might have a hard time finding their artists of Apple Music, at least until Apple and the labels are able to agree on terms acceptable to both sides.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Audio
Tags: Apple Music, Music