artists aren’t screwed by Apple on sales they are screwed by their labels, and that’s been the case sinc day 1. Artists make their money by touring labels make the $$ on song/record sales. That’s been the industry my entire life.
The money the apple is making from the sale of songs is a replacement of the retail channel that no longer exists. They haven’t taken money from any artists via iTunes. The reality is that music, like all entertainment today, is mor fragmented than ever. There will never be another Beatles not because the Beatles were or were not great but because you will never have the consumer base so united to just a handful of genres or artists. That’s not Apple stealing money from artists that’s the natural fragmentation of the consumer base as more and more options became available.
When we were kids how could you have possibly been exposed to a foreign artist with no distribution deal in the states? Blind chance at best, today it’s an Internet search.
Or an indie band with no contract? Unless you were old enough to go to a show and they just happen to come to your town you likely would never hear of them. Today it’s nothing more than an upload of a file to iTunes and the entire world can find and buy your song if they like.
The entire model is different today, that’s not Apple screwing anyone.
As I’ve stated before we are saturated with entertainment content its value intrinsically is worth less today. $8 a month for thousands of on demand films and shows.. Tons of free to the viewer entertainment all over you tube free apps and games etc etc. 3 minutes of entertainment isn’t worth much today.. That’s not apples fault that’s the realities of the world we have more entertainment content than we can possibly consume so its value declines as a whole.
So Apple Streaming will make MORE money for Artists than selling Digital Downloads?
Sorry but everyone in the industry sez otherwise. BTW Streaming ends up screwing the customer also because now you own absolutely nothing. It's bad enough that all that music on an iTune account is basically a temporary form of very limited ownership now with streaming the customer owns absolutely nothing.