Music Industry Responds to Apple Music Unveiling

The Internet was busy Monday, following Apple’s unveiling of its new music streaming service, as artists, executives and rival companies sounded off. Perhaps the most interesting comment came from Spotify CEO Daniel Elk, who tweeted “oh ok,” in response to the news. That tweet has since been deleted. The reactions were mostly hopeful, but also rather cautious. “The amount of listening happening on streaming is still very small. Apple is going to rapidly increase the market for all of us,” commented SoundCloud founder Alex Ljung, when asked about the new service at a music conference in France. “They’re very large and they have a lot of cash and they’re very good at marketing and they’ve very good at building hardware,” added Ljung. “I’m all for it.”

Officials at independent labels were also enthusiastic about the launch, particularly the new Connect feature, which allows artists to share content with fans directly on the Apple Music app. The feature would fill a void, one indie publisher said, as there hasn’t really been an effective social media outlet for musicians since MySpace. Still others were concerned that the real problem for artists is YouTube, where millions of users upload videos everyday. Many of those videos feature music from artists that will never earn a dime for those videos, regardless of how often they’re played.

While Spotfy’s reaction to a new player in the industry they currently dominate was rather trite, other industry players were, seemingly, more enthusiastic. Rdio, another streaming service, issued a statement welcoming Apple to the streaming game. “We look forward to responsible competition in the massive effort to make music available legally for anyone to enjoy anytime, anywhere,” the statement read. Rhapsody, meanwhile, took advantage of the opportunity to remind consumers that their service will be cheaper than Apple Music. Apple is charging users $9.99 a month, following a free three-month trial period, while Rhapsody subscribers only pay $7.50 a month.

The Apple Music service will officially launch on June 30th.