Apple plans to charge between $9.99 and $14.99 per month for its upcoming on-demand Apple Music service, with 58 percent of its subscription revenues going to record labels. For every $9.99 Apple collects from subscribers in the United States, it will pay out $5.80 to labels. Additionally, Apple pays approximately 12 percent to publishers and/or songwriters, leaving the company with somewhere around 30 percent of the revenue from the Apple Music service.
The figures come from a leaked document shared by Digital Music News earlier this week. In its article, Digital Music News erroneously suggested Apple was paying less to music labels than other streaming music services like Spotify (after failing to take into account the publisher's fee), but as it turns out, the 70 percent that Apple pays out to rights holders is on par with the industry standard.
At least it's by industry standards. That's definitely a smart move for streaming. I'm not team anything, but I do support the streaming movement as a whole and this is definitely a good thing.
Back in 2002/2003 the major labels should have banded together and formed their own digital distribution platform where they would exclusively sell music online and keep ALL the money. They missed out big time by letting another retailer become the go-to place for the public.
