of Creative Services, Music Publishing, North America. MBW caught up with Segal to discuss working at Apple, her personal passion for music publishing – and why the industry needs, in her view, to face the growing complexities of the digital rights business “head on”.... Apple has stood by the CRB decision, which could increase songwriter royalties in the States by at least 44%. Others, like Spotify, have appealed it, and been accused of effectively ‘suing songwriters’ as a result. What does this tell us about Apple and how it’s differentiated from rival services? It tells us that Apple really cares about creators and the process of creation, and wants to give life to a healthy creative ecosystem. The concept of [maintaining] a sustainable business model, while supporting the creative ecosystem, is fundamentally important to us. That differentiates us from other services anyway, but our position on the CRB has further differentiated us. With the position we’ve taken on the CRB, that type of stance isn’t actually new. Apple has been fighting for over a decade to make sure that money flows and songwriters get paid. We’ve definitely done way more than anyone else on that kind of thing. We just haven’t shouted about it. Another thing that really differentiates us is Apple Music’s personal curation, and the human element we have – putting the creators first and really focusing on them and enabling their vision. On that topic, the Beats 1 team do a phenomenal job of digging out the most amazing new music and drawing artists and songwriters out of themselves. Why is publishing considered worthy of its own division at 94
Apple Music? Because without songwriting and publishing, there is no music. It’s fundamental to everything. Publishing is something we’ve always taken care of, but it wasn’t until last year that it had a seat at the management table. It was absolutely necessary. Songwriters and publishers shouldn’t be an afterthought; I think some services do consider them a sort of afterthought, or an inconvenience. They are not an inconvenience at Apple. They are a fundamental part of the ecosystem. Yes, there is a great deal of complexity in the publishing
“APPLE HAS FOUGHT FOR OVER A DECADE TO MAKE SURE THAT MONEY FLOWS AND SONGWRITERS GET PAID... WE JUST HAVEN’T SHOUTED ABOUT IT.” business, and in some ways those complexities are only increasing. But we have to face them head on, as a company, and as an industry. To just consider them an inconvenience – not to tackle the issues and actually make sure that the creators get paid – is a massive mistake. What kind of complexities most concern you about the music publishing business? Greater agreement is needed on mechanical and performing rights splits. This is very technical, but it is so important. On different formats – downloads, interactive streaming, non-interactive streaming etc. – there are different splits between
the mechanical and performing rights. And these splits are also different depending on which country your [music is played in]. Generally speaking, traditionally, a local collecting society [PRO] would set the split, but that has started to change in recent years. There are local collecting societies around the world that have, and I’m trying to be a little diplomatic here... rubbed some of the music publishers up the wrong way. Some publishers feel like they haven’t seen the money that they should have seen, to be frank. Oh dear. As a result, there are trust issues. These are adding to major historical trust issues in this industry, in various directions – between labels and publishers, and between publishers and collecting societies, for example. As a result, some publishers now don’t want to just agree to whatever split the PRO in certain local countries wants to set. Theoretically, services like us don’t have skin in this game. If [a PRO] wants to set their split at 70/30, or 50/50, or 85/15, that’s no business of ours, so long as it doesn’t add up to more than 100. But when it gets to the point where it does add up to more than 100... that’s a problem. Everyone seems to agree it shouldn’t be our problem, but it becomes our problem if [the publishers and PROs] can’t come to an agreement themselves and where the two sets of rights aren’t licensed together by a single entity. It is a huge frustration. Deciding how much of a royalty is a mechanical right and how much is a performing right shouldn’t be up to us. We shouldn’t have to have an opinion, or be involved in that [process]. Is there a conclusion on the horizon, a solution? No. I would say not. The thing
