No, 1989 Won’t Be On Apple Music
When Apple first announced its new streaming service Apple Music, they said that subscribers would be able to stream everything available on the iTunes store. If that were true, it would’ve been a major coup in the streaming wars, making Apple Music the first on-demand streaming service to offer access to the Beatles’ catalog and Taylor Swift’s elusive 1989. Well, it turns out that that’s not quite true after all: BuzzFeed reports that representatives for Apple and Swift’s label Big Machine have both confirmed that Apple has been unable to secure the rights to Swift’s newest blockbuster. Only the rest of her catalog, which is also currently on other paid subscription services like Rdio and Tidal — not Spotify — will be available on Apple Music. And according to Big Machine, they’re not planning on putting 1989 on any streaming service anytime soon.
In other Apple Music news, their contract negotiations with labels have been under a lot of speculation lately. It’s true that labels won’t receive any royalties during the three-month free trial period that Apple Music is offering, but now the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe is claiming that Apple threatened to remove his band’s music from iTunes if he didn’t agree to those terms. According to a string of tweets by Newcombe, Apple “has a new deal they offered me: they said we want to stream your music free for 3 months…I said what if I say no, and they said ‘we’ll take your music off itunes.’ hard ball? fuck these satanic corporations.” Newcombe has a bit of a reputation as a crazy person, though, and Apple has (unsurprisingly) refuted claims that they’re bullying artists and labels into offering their catalog on Apple Music, so the notion that artists who decline will get their music pulled from iTunes may not be entirely true either.
In even more Apple news, they’ve reportedly revoked audio cable company Monster’s right to manufacture licensed Apple products due to Monster’s suit against Beats Music, which Apple purchased last year. Monster’s complaint alleges that Beats co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine basically cheated Monster — who designed and manufactured many of the early Beats headphones models — out of proceeds from the $3 billion sale to Apple. “It shows a side of Apple that consumers don’t see very often,” said Monster’s General Manager David Tognotti of Apple’s decision. “Apple can be a bully.”