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Taylor Swift brings '1989' to Apple Music after all
Taylor Swift demonstrated her power in the entertainment industry when she wrote an open, widely publicized letter to Apple slamming the company for not paying artists during Apple Music's three-month trial period for each new customer. Apple quickly reversed that policy, promising to pay every artist, even indies, during the trial period. It seems Swift is ready to forgive and forget -- today, she announced that her newest album, 1989, will be available on Apple Music. "After the events of this week, I've decided to put 1989 on Apple Music... and happily so," Swift tweeted.
Apple says it will pay artists during Music's free trials (updated)
Taylor Swift has a lot of clout in the streaming music world, it seems. Just hours after the singer railed against Apple for declining to pay royalties during Music's 3-month trials, Apple's Eddy Cue has promised that his company will pay musicians "even during [the] customer's free trial period." That includes indie artists, he says. It's not clear what prompted the apparent change of heart (beyond the obvious public relations problem), but it wasn't hard to see turnaround as a possibility. Apple has been positioning Music as a sort of anti-Spotify that courts the artists who don't like the streaming status quo, such as Swift -- it wasn't going to succeed if those same performers jumped ship, whatever the reason. Update: Cue tells Recode that Swift's letter, and pressure from other artists, prompted the change. He reached out to Tim Cook to make the change, and told Swift herself about the new policy. As for how Apple is compensating artists during trials? Cue isn't divulging the exact rate, but he says that it's a per-stream payout rather than the usual revenue percentage. About the only thing up in the air is whether or not Swift and indie labels will offer their full catalogs to Apple Music. If you ask Cue, it's simply too soon to know.
Taylor Swift slams Apple for skimping on Music royalties during trials
Taylor Swift isn't just miffed at Spotify for its low payouts to musicians... she has a beef with Apple, too. The pop star has written an open letter saying that Apple Music won't get her latest album, 1989, because the service isn't paying artists or producers during subscribers' 3-month trial period. According to Swift, it's not about her own cut. She's more concerned about the "young songwriter" who's counting on that first single to stay afloat. While she's a fan of Apple steering listeners toward paid streaming, she doesn't think that it's fair to ask people to "work for nothing," especially when the iPhone maker has plenty of spare change to spend.
Judge rules Pandora has to increase royalty payouts to BMI
Pandora's propensity for litigation is pretty storied by this point, but it seems like the internet-radio outfit's luck has run out. A New York judge has ruled that Pandora must raise its payout rates to Taylor Swift's music publishing house BMI, from 1.75 percent of its revenue to 2.5 percent, according to The New York Times. The full ruling is still being kept under wraps at the moment, but naturally, Pandora says it's going to appeal the decision. Given that an appeals judge recently ruled in the outfit's favor to keep royalty payout rates from rising, it isn't clear what could happen in this instance. For artists' sakes, let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself here. [Image credit: Getty Images for TS]
Apple reportedly in talks with Taylor Swift for Beats Music exclusives
Exclusive content was mentioned more that once during Tidal's recent relaunch at the hands of Jay Z & Co. Not to be outdone by the celebrity-backed competition, it seems Apple is also looking to offer releases that you won't be able to find anywhere else -- at lease for a period of time. Bloomberg reports the folks in Cupertino are in talks with Florence and the Machine, Taylor Swift and "more than a dozen" others about exclusive deals for its upcoming streaming service. The former has an album that's set to drop in June -- a follow-up to 2011's Grammy-nominated effort Ceremonials. If you'll recall, Ms. Swift's catalog will be available on Tidal, as it doesn't have a free option like the service she spurned last year.
Taylor Swift will be available on Jay Z's Tidal streaming service
Most people still have no idea what Tidal is, but that's likely to change if Jay Z continues playing his cards right. See, the music mogul has just convinced Taylor Swift to give the Norwegian hi-fi streaming service -- that he snapped up -- the right to stream most of her albums. As she's one of the world's best-selling artists, she certainly has the following to help spread the word about the company. But doesn't Taylor dislike streaming services? Well, not exactly. She left Spotify last year, because she wasn't happy with its free, ad-supported tier -- on the other hand, she stayed with Rhapsody and Beats Music, because they don't have a free option.
Engadget Daily: Holiday Gift Guide, Amazon's Hachette deal and more!
It'll soon be time to wrap those presents, so to help with with the burden of holiday shopping, our latest Gift Guide offers ideas for the tech-savvy folks you're buying for. Read on for the rest of our news highlights from the last 24 hours, including the Microsoft Band review, another day in the Taylor Swift/Spotify saga, Amazon's truce with Hachette and more.
Taylor Swift's label shoots down Spotify's $6 million payout claim (update)
Taylor's camp is snapping its figurative fingers at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, while uttering "Oh no, you did not!" for saying that the superstar was on track to earn over $6 million from the streaming service within the next year, if she didn't pull her catalog. According to Big Machine (Swift's label) CEO Scott Borchetta, Taylor's music earned only $496,044 in the past 12 months from domestic Spotify streaming. Thus, he's finding Ek's statement hard to believe, especially since Taylor apparently earned more from her Vevo videos within the same timeframe. The songstress did get $2 million overall from global streaming, at least that's what a spokesperson from Ek's company told Time, but we're guessing that's not enough to convince Borchetta that they're potentially getting a $6 million payout this year.
Allow Activision to introduce you to Taylor Swift
If you're anything like us, you threw off your Taylor Swift comforter this morning, changed out of those Taylor Swift jammies, and thought to yourself, "Today is one more day to win a chance to meet Taylor Swift." Thankfully, Activision and upcoming family-friendly music game Band Hero are teaming up to make that dream a reality. If you purchase a copy of Band Hero in the month of Novemeber (why, that's this month!), you can enter for a chance for two to meet Taylor Swift. Alright, alright, now calm down. You're panting. It's going to be alright. After you pick up your copy of Band Hero tonight, slowly remove the instruction manual from the inside of the game box and simply enter the code from its back at this website. According to the site, you could supposedly win some other stuff or something, but whatever.
Making the most of Preview.app for image editing
Inspired by Bear Grylls's (of Discovery's Man vs. Wild) "make the most out of your situation" scenarios, I present you with a tutorial for making the most out of Preview.app. While not as powerful as graphics editing powerhouse Adobe Photoshop, Preview can oftentimes get you from Point A to Point B -- and sometimes quicker too. Like Bear Grylls, you'll need to parachute out of a plane and into the house of a friend who doesn't have Photoshop -- just kidding. First, a little bit of background. Preview comes pre-installed on Mac OS X, and it's the default image viewer on the system. For PC-to-Mac converts, you could think of it as the Microsoft Paint of OS X; except that it can do a whole lot more. Besides the ability to open a host of image file formats (JPG, BMP, GIF, among them, and even PSD and AI files), Preview can also open PDF files natively. I actually prefer it over Adobe Acrobat for opening PDFs, as I find that they open much quicker using Preview. And like Adobe Reader, Preview contains advanced features, such as annotating.
