What other industries can try this? For a restaurant built on a cement foundation... maybe the cement company can release a product to fix the cracks in their flawed mixture, and then demand 10% of every pizza sold in the building. ... I think the industry needs to get away from OS vendor tyranny, somehow.
If you write a software program for a client, you get paid. If a actor works for a day on a TV show he may get cheques forever.
If you hire a photographer for a wedding, you will pay him the same rate as a contract developer. But you won't own the rights to the photos and keep having to pay the guy if you want copies.
I can understand the owner of the TV show or owner of a song charging for commercial use, in the same way if you work for Gmail Google will sell the product forever.
Gmail developers past and present don't get cheques every year.
> If a actor works for a day on a TV show he may get cheques forever.
Most actors get paid either a fixed fee or hourly. It's only the top talent that can negotiate points. And honestly, that's pretty good for the producers, since that decreases their risk if the TV show or movie doesn't do well.
> If you hire a photographer for a wedding, you will pay him the same rate as a contract developer. But you won't own the rights to the photos and keep having to pay the guy if you want copies.
This part is so weird to me. But I honestly suspect that most photography customers don't care so much about owning the rights to the photograph they pay for, as long as they can use it how they want. And over time, the norm gradually became baked into the industry.
This is the key point. If you hire an actor for a live stage show, it is a one time fee. The live show happens, the tickets are sold, the actor gets paid, and at the end of the day everyone goes home.
But what if you recorded that show? You’ve now made a copy of a performance. When you sell a copy of that recording, you’ve made a copy of the actors work. But you only paid for the single live show, so or course there should be some kind of further compensation. The original payment was to see their one-time performance. The actor still owns the artistic/intellectual rights to their interpretation/performance. If you want a copy of that, they need to get paid.
For software developers, they are paid specifically to create intellectual property and as part of their employment agreement, any IP rights belong to the company. But this is part of their contract.
It’s all in how the employment agreements are setup. Any actor/photographer/etc could be hired to a contract that would allow unlimited copies without royalties. It happens all the time. But. if you are an actor with enough clout, such a contract would be very expensive. I’d also imagine stock photo shoots work this way. The models are paid a one-time fee with an unlimited release.
But, I think the key part is that contracts with royalties are cheaper (cashflow) for the producers. The actors get paid a small fixed amount with a percentage of the ongoing profits. The alternative would be a large payout initially with no share of the profits. Both contracts are possible, but the former spreads the risk (and rewards) across a larger pool of people.
Whether or not this applies to Apple and foundational use of software is a different story, but it’s pretty well established for arts.
My very limited understanding of retail real estate in the US is that leasing agreements in shopping centers and malls typically include a percentage of sales.
This is Tim Cook being an arrogant shithead towards the EU once again. This hubris is exactly how he got fined last time - it seems he didn't learn his lesson.
> Vestager was well into the second half of her investigation, and she was unlikely to be swayed by the platitudes and buzzwords Cook came prepared to deliver. Nor did Cook advance his cause when he spent a one-on-one meeting interrupting and talking over her, according to those briefed on the encounter. Apple declined at the time to comment about the meeting.
I don’t think this will end well. EU is slow to move, but they will and it’s obvious that Apple is not acting in good faith. Whether the request of EU is right or not, they can legally impose some rules and they are binding as long as you are willing to sell in that market.
Yeah, this piece is remarkably unclear in its message, but my read is similar.
It sounds like they're not actually changing much at all, and continue to plan to charge a fee on software released through alternatives, like 3rd party marketplaces or the web.
Personally - whoever thought that replacing "Fee" with "Commission" was a good call, when the words are literally synonyms (to the point that MW defines commission as "a fee paid to an agent") is smoking some drugs.
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My entire read here is: "We're changing some words to try the lawsuit again". I hope the penalty here from the EU is sharp and quick.
> App Store apps that communicate and promote offers for digital goods or services will be subject to new business terms for those transactions — an initial acquisition fee, store services fee, and for apps on the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (EU) Addendum, the Core Technology Commission (CTC).
This means that for example the Kindle app on Apple's app store will continue to not offer in-app-initiated ebook purchases.
I'm doubtful that the EC will deem this scheme to be fully compliant with the DMA.
> App Store apps that communicate and promote offers for digital goods or services will be subject to new business terms for those transactions — an initial acquisition fee, store services fee, and for apps on the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (EU) Addendum, the Core Technology Commission (CTC). The CTC reflects value Apple provides developers through ongoing investments in the tools, technologies, and services that enable them to build and share innovative apps with users.
It is not very clear from the press release: will developers still have to pay Apple even if their apps are coming from 3rd party AppStores? And if so, how much?
Sooo if you can freely distribute your apps on iOS now and you can steer people to your website for purchases (eg outside the Appstore) - doesn’t that mean that you can get away from paying the 5%?
Who is advising Apple on these actions? Is it a team out of California? Because their approach to working with the EU seems pretty obviously unproductive and will (as it has in the past) hurt Apple, leading them to give up even more than they may have wanted, where if they worked collaboratively in good faith, they'd probably be able to negotiate the EU into a position more favorable to their preferences.
> Normally when the EU regulates a given sector, it does so with ample lead time and works with industry to make sure that they understand their obligations.
> Apple instead thought that the regulatory contact from the EU during the lead time to the DMA was an opportunity for it to lecture the EU on its right to exist. Then its executives made up some fiction in their own minds as to what the regulation meant, announced their changes, only to discover later that they were full of bullshit.
> This was entirely Apple’s own fault. For months, we’ve been hearing leaks about Apple’s talks with the EU about the Digital Market Act. Those talks were not negotiations even though Apple seems to have thought they were. Talks like those are to help companies implement incoming regulations, with some leeway for interpretation on the EU’s side to accommodate business interests.
> If Apple had faced reality and tried to understand the facts as they are, they would have used the talks to clarify all of these issues and more well in advance of the DMA taking effect.
> But they didn’t because they have caught the tech industry management disease of demanding that reality bend to their ideas and wishes
Readit News
I've never understood the Arts and royalties.
If you write a software program for a client, you get paid. If a actor works for a day on a TV show he may get cheques forever.
If you hire a photographer for a wedding, you will pay him the same rate as a contract developer. But you won't own the rights to the photos and keep having to pay the guy if you want copies.
I can understand the owner of the TV show or owner of a song charging for commercial use, in the same way if you work for Gmail Google will sell the product forever.
Gmail developers past and present don't get cheques every year.
Most actors get paid either a fixed fee or hourly. It's only the top talent that can negotiate points. And honestly, that's pretty good for the producers, since that decreases their risk if the TV show or movie doesn't do well.
> If you hire a photographer for a wedding, you will pay him the same rate as a contract developer. But you won't own the rights to the photos and keep having to pay the guy if you want copies.
This part is so weird to me. But I honestly suspect that most photography customers don't care so much about owning the rights to the photograph they pay for, as long as they can use it how they want. And over time, the norm gradually became baked into the industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hollywood_strikes
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This is the key point. If you hire an actor for a live stage show, it is a one time fee. The live show happens, the tickets are sold, the actor gets paid, and at the end of the day everyone goes home.
But what if you recorded that show? You’ve now made a copy of a performance. When you sell a copy of that recording, you’ve made a copy of the actors work. But you only paid for the single live show, so or course there should be some kind of further compensation. The original payment was to see their one-time performance. The actor still owns the artistic/intellectual rights to their interpretation/performance. If you want a copy of that, they need to get paid.
For software developers, they are paid specifically to create intellectual property and as part of their employment agreement, any IP rights belong to the company. But this is part of their contract.
It’s all in how the employment agreements are setup. Any actor/photographer/etc could be hired to a contract that would allow unlimited copies without royalties. It happens all the time. But. if you are an actor with enough clout, such a contract would be very expensive. I’d also imagine stock photo shoots work this way. The models are paid a one-time fee with an unlimited release.
But, I think the key part is that contracts with royalties are cheaper (cashflow) for the producers. The actors get paid a small fixed amount with a percentage of the ongoing profits. The alternative would be a large payout initially with no share of the profits. Both contracts are possible, but the former spreads the risk (and rewards) across a larger pool of people.
Whether or not this applies to Apple and foundational use of software is a different story, but it’s pretty well established for arts.
It’s used incentivize landlords to maintain high traffic shared shopping areas.
And it’s not everywhere, for all kinds of tenants, and tenants with negotiating power can sometimes negotiate this down or out.
> Vestager was well into the second half of her investigation, and she was unlikely to be swayed by the platitudes and buzzwords Cook came prepared to deliver. Nor did Cook advance his cause when he spent a one-on-one meeting interrupting and talking over her, according to those briefed on the encounter. Apple declined at the time to comment about the meeting.
https://www.politico.eu/article/how-vestager-took-a-bite-out...
It sounds like they're not actually changing much at all, and continue to plan to charge a fee on software released through alternatives, like 3rd party marketplaces or the web.
Personally - whoever thought that replacing "Fee" with "Commission" was a good call, when the words are literally synonyms (to the point that MW defines commission as "a fee paid to an agent") is smoking some drugs.
---
My entire read here is: "We're changing some words to try the lawsuit again". I hope the penalty here from the EU is sharp and quick.
This means that for example the Kindle app on Apple's app store will continue to not offer in-app-initiated ebook purchases.
I'm doubtful that the EC will deem this scheme to be fully compliant with the DMA.
It is not very clear from the press release: will developers still have to pay Apple even if their apps are coming from 3rd party AppStores? And if so, how much?
So yes, they'll pay the Core Technology Commission, apparently it's 5%. The per download fee will be phased out.
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A legal press release.
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This article is a good read: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...
> Normally when the EU regulates a given sector, it does so with ample lead time and works with industry to make sure that they understand their obligations.
> Apple instead thought that the regulatory contact from the EU during the lead time to the DMA was an opportunity for it to lecture the EU on its right to exist. Then its executives made up some fiction in their own minds as to what the regulation meant, announced their changes, only to discover later that they were full of bullshit.
> This was entirely Apple’s own fault. For months, we’ve been hearing leaks about Apple’s talks with the EU about the Digital Market Act. Those talks were not negotiations even though Apple seems to have thought they were. Talks like those are to help companies implement incoming regulations, with some leeway for interpretation on the EU’s side to accommodate business interests.
> If Apple had faced reality and tried to understand the facts as they are, they would have used the talks to clarify all of these issues and more well in advance of the DMA taking effect.
> But they didn’t because they have caught the tech industry management disease of demanding that reality bend to their ideas and wishes
Deleted Comment
To me this is reading: we’re moving from extortion to racket
"The EU threatened to fine us for our anti-competitive behavior, so we rebranded it in hopes of not getting fined"