Remember again in 2014 when U2 gave away an album’s price of songs to each iTunes consumer on the planet? And it turned out that numerous them did not need stated album wherever close to their music library — to the purpose that Apple needed to launch a particular software to take away it? That was utterly my unhealthy, U2 lead singer Bono wrote in an article for The Guardian.
When Bono approached Tim Cook, together with Eddy Cue and Phil Schiller in regards to the concept, he was met with some incredulity. “Are you speaking about free music?” Cook stated, in response to Bono. “But the entire level… is to verify musicians receives a commission.”
“‘No,’ I stated, ‘I don’t assume we give it away free. I feel you pay us for it and you then give it away free, as a present to individuals. Wouldn’t that be great?'” Bono wrote.
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“Tim Cook raised an eyebrow. ‘You imply we pay for the album after which simply distribute it?’ I stated, ‘Yeah, like when Netflix buys the film and provides it away to subscribers.’ Tim checked out me as if I used to be explaining the alphabet to an English professor. ‘But we’re not a subscription group,'” Cook stated within the excerpt. “‘Not but,’ I stated. ‘Let ours be the first.’ Tim was not satisfied. ‘And this is just to people who like U2?’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I think we should give it away to everybody. It’s their alternative whether or not they need to take heed to it.”
It was clearly a humbling lesson for the band after they realized that many individuals not solely did not need to take heed to it, however did not need it there within the first place.
“As one social media wisecracker put it, ‘Woke up this morning to find Bono in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, wearing my dressing gown, reading my paper.’ Or, much less type, ‘The free U2 album is overpriced.’ Mea Culpa,” he wrote. “‘I take full accountability. Not [U2 manager] Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue. I’d thought if we might simply put our music inside attain of individuals, they may select to succeed in out towards it. Not fairly.'”
Bono additionally recalled a happier tie-up with Apple on the iPod, which feted its twenty first anniversary simply yesterday. It was U2 that satisfied Steve Jobs to allow them to be in these well-known iPod silhouette advertisements for the primary time, and in addition talked him into constructing the U2 version iPod in black with a purple click on wheel — marking the primary time it wasn’t white. Amusingly, additionally they requested Jobs for some Apple inventory, even a symbolic quantity — which he refused, in his typical direct model. “‘Sorry,'” stated Steve, in response to Bono. “‘That’s a dealbreaker.'”