Tim Ingham of Music Business Worldwide reports on a wide-ranging interview with Jimmy Iovine about Apple Music. One recurring theme is how wrong Iovine believes it is that artists are encouraged to give their work away for free on services like YouTube and Spotify:
The fact is that ‘free’ in music streaming is so technically good and ubiquitous that it’s stunting the growth of paid streaming.
Two things have to happen: free has to become more difficult or restricted, and the paid services have to get better.
It blew my mind that the day after I walked out on stage [to announce Apple Music at WWDC in 2015], YouTube mobile was licensed.
Iovine also indicates that the Apple Music team has moved away from doing as many album exclusives and is now focusing more heavily on video content:
We tried it. We’ll still do some stuff with the occasional artist. The labels don’t seem to like it and ultimately it’s their content.
But we’re doing exclusive video content now, and putting a lot of money into that.