In an interview with David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers Association, Apple VP Oliver Schusser made controversial comments regarding the music industry. The statement that drew attention was about free music, referring to the streaming services that offer it, although he was likely targeting Spotify.
Free music, a problem for Apple Music
Oliver Schusser, who also heads Apple Music, Apple TV+, and sports content at Apple, has strongly addressed this issue, stating that Apple Music is the only streaming service that doesn’t have a free service. He has focused on the issue by indicating that it’s not about money or anything related, and that they don’t plan to have one ever. In business terms, Apple considers music to be art, and they would never want to give away art. ”
It seems crazy to me that, 20 years later, we’re still offering free music. It’s a huge mistake. As a company, we consider music to be art and we would never want to give away art for free.
It’s clear that streaming services offer free content because they support advertising. And it’s not just Spotify; Amazon and a host of other apps that only offer a free plan are also included. For example, he clarified what happened with Apple TV+ and the popularity of “Separation” as the most viral series of the moment. In January 2025, with the return of the second season, all users who wanted to watch it had to pay for it, so the same applies to music on Apple.
Music publishers will surely be grateful for these comments.
The problem that Spotify and Amazon Music pose for music publishers and artists is that their market is expanding too much, as audiobooks have been added to their catalogs. In Apple’s case, everything is kept separate in terms of content. It has one app for music, another for books, and another for podcasts, which is free as it is solely a manager of this type of content.
Royalties are something that’s on the lips of every artist, publisher, and platform. Apple has a good reputation in this regard, being one of the brands that pays artists the most for their streams, along with Amazon Music, and twice as much as Spotify. In the case of offering free music in exchange for advertising, it’s something some people have become accustomed to, while others won’t give up their subscriptions for anything.
Spotify advocates converting its free users into paying subscribers in the future, although this rule isn’t always followed. Its user base may be the largest in the world, but that’s also due to advertising. What do you think about the statements made by Apple’s VP?
