Apple – RightsTech Project

Apple’s iPhone Sales Drop Again, but Services Are a Bright Spot

July 27, 2016By rightstech

The introduction of the 4-inch iPhone SE earlier this year appeared to hurt revenue and profits as some customers bought that device instead of Apple’s bigger, more expensive models.

“Apple is moving from only iPhones matter to iPhones and services matter,” said Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Securities, who estimated that nearly one-third of the company’s quarterly profits came from services like App Store purchases, Apple Music subscriptions and the iCloud storage business. Revenue in the segment rose 19 percent to $6 billion.

Source: Apple’s iPhone Sales Drop Again, but Services Are a Bright Spot – The New York Times

Tech Giants Boast an Edge in Music Streaming

July 25, 2016By rightstech

Because streaming music advances their other ambitions, Apple Music, Amazon, Alphabet’s Google and YouTube units, don’t need their services to be hugely profitable, though none of them are selling subscriptions at prices that suggest a willingness to lose money. That gives the tech companies a major advantage over smaller companies like Pandora Media Inc., Spotify AB and French counterpart Deezer, whose main businesses are music streaming.

“I think that any company that has some other motive [for offering streaming] is going to win,” said Paul Young, a music-business professor at the USC Thornton School of Music. That is at least partly because the music-only companies are burdened by heavy costs. The paid services typically spend 70% of their revenue on licensing music and much of the rest on acquiring customers.

Source: Tech Giants Boast an Edge in Music Streaming – WSJ

Apple Dusts Off its Ebooks Playbook for Music

July 19, 2016By rightstech

Library_of_Congress_(1) It’s hard to tell whether Apple is simply trolling Spotify with its pitch to the Copyright Royalty Board to adopt a fixed, per-use royalty rate for songwriting rights on streaming services in place or the current revenue-based formula, or whether it’s a serious proposal. But if it’s the latter, the CRB should at least consider the source before adopting it.

Apple Proposes Simplified Statutory Licensing Scheme to D.C.

July 16, 2016By rightstech

Apple has submitted a preliminary proposal to the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board to simplify the way music-streaming companies pay songwriters and publishers — in a way that could make it more expensive for rivals like Spotify and YouTube to keep offering free streaming.

Right now, streaming companies pay songwriters and publishers between 10.5 percent and 12 percent of their overall revenue, according to a complicated formula. (Labels and other owners of recording copyrights negotiate their own terms.) The money is divided into public performance and mechanical royalties, then paid to collecting societies and publishers.

Source: Apple Proposes Simplified Statutory Licensing Scheme to D.C. | Billboard

Apple Music, Dubset Partner to Stream Previously Unlicensed Remixes and DJ Mixes

March 15, 2016By admin

Dubset Media Holdings has announced a partnership that will allow Apple Music to stream remixes and DJ mixes that had previous been absent from licensed services due to copyright issues.

Thousands upon thousands cool mash-ups and hour-long mixes have effectively been pulled out of the underground and placed onto the world’s second-largest music subscription service. Dubset is a digital distributor that delivers content to digital music services. But unlike other digital distributors, Dubset will use a proprietary technology called MixBank to analyze a remix or long-form DJ mix file, identify recordings inside the file, and properly pay both record labels and music publishers.

Source: Billboard

Apple Launches Mobile Payments in China

February 18, 2016By admin

mobile-pay Apple introduced its mobile payments system to China through a partnership with China UnionPay, as the iPhone maker teams with the country’s largest payment and clearing network.

Users can sign up by adding their bank card information into the Wallet application on Apple devices. Customers of 19 lenders, including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China, will be able to use Apple Pay through UnionPay’s point-of-sales network, UnionPay said Thursday.

China is an increasingly critical component of Apple’s business, helping it sell a record 13 million iPhones during the September debut-weekend of its latest handsets.

Source: AdAge