Apple Music is doing well for itself, which is probably an understatement. But there are plenty of people, both on the consumer side and on the industry side, who might not have jumped on board with the platform. To help with that, Apple is bringing on some new talent to help bolster relationships with songwriters.
According to a new report from Variety, Apple Music’s publishing arm has recently hired Lindsay Rothschild, formerly of Google. Rothschild will be working as the Head of Creative Services, Music Publishing, for North America at Apple Music from this point on. While Rothschild was at Google, she helped lead songwriter and publisher relations at YouTube.
It appears Rothschild will be doing the same thing at Apple, plus a bit more:
“Rothschild will be tasked with building strong working relationships with the songwriter community, in addition to key creatives and A&R on the publishing side of the music industry. The position also entails being able to guide rights-holders through the Apple ecosystem and identify areas of incremental value within their musical compositions — for instance Apple-developed software like GarageBand and Logic.”
Relationships with songwriters is a potentially touchy subject right now. As it stands, Apple Music is the only major streaming music service that isn’t fighting songwriters getting higher royalties. We reported back in March that Apple Music was the only holdout, with the other major players, including Spotify, Google, and Amazon, all fighting to keep royalties the same. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has already approved the royalty hike for songwriters, and those companies against it are trying to appeal the decision.
In April, in a follow-up story, we heard that Apple was winning a “PR war” due to its decision not to appeal the royalty hike for songwriters. In the same report, it was stated that Spotify was actually losing subscribers due to its decision to try and limit songwriter royalties. Of course, Spotify did just announce 100 million global subscribers, so the platform isn’t stumbling too much.
Our Take
This is a strong move on Apple’s part, as it continues to strengthen the publishing arm of its streaming music service. Plus, Apple’s position as it relates to songwriter royalties is a positive move all around, and hopefully that means even more music finds its way to Apple Music.
[via Variety]
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