Earlier I criticized the move to give away U2's latest album to all iTunes users. I reasoned that it was a bad idea from the perspective of U2 or Apple. Well, not so fast.
It turns out that about 26 million people downloaded the entire album, and 80 million downloaded at least one track, or streamed some of it. That's not many compared to the total number of iTunes users (about half-a-billion) but it is a lot when you consider that up until then, only 14 million iTunes users had bought anything by U2. Keep in mind that doesn't mean the band has suddenly acquired more fans: they had only released two albums since the iTunes store opened in 2003. So one can assume that most of the downloads were old fans with no need to buy their music off iTunes unless their cassette of The Unforgettable Fire falls apart.
The amount that Apple paid for rights to the album hasn't been released. I’ve seen amounts between 5-30 million dollars. Even if it’s the lesser amount, that’s still a good payday, since artists don’t make much off of music sales anymore - for a band of their age, concerts are where the money is. Some articles are saying Apple spent $100 million on this, but that’s their total promoting this project, not the amount paid to the band or their label. But still, that’s a big expense to have taken care of.
But here's the unexpected part: U2's old albums have seen an increase in (paid) downloads. As I write this - a month later - The Joshua Tree is 39th in iTunes album downloads, one ahead of Katy Perry's last album. Achtung Baby and their singles collection have also made the top 100.
So I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was actually a good deal for U2. They may have received some bad publicity, and been the butt of late-night monologues, but in terms of getting their music to people, and making money doing it, the scheme was much better than any ordinary album launch. So Apple can expect other established artists to ask to get in on their next promotion.
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