Bono has offered an apology for Apple downloading U2’s 2014 album “Songs Of Innocence” onto each iTunes user’s account, calling the incident an “overreach” on his part.
In an excerpt from his new memoir “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” published by the Guardian Saturday, the artist took responsibility for the pummeling that U2 and Apple took amid the controversy, citing his “vaunting ambition” as the reason he approached Apple CEO Tim Cook with the idea at the time.
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“Are you talking about free music?” Bono remembers Cook asking him of the idea. “You want to give this music away free? But the whole point of what we’re trying to do at Apple is to not give away music free. The point is to make sure musicians get paid.”
In the excerpt, Bono recalls a 2014 meeting with Cook, U2 manager Guy Oseary and Apple executives Eddy Cue and Phil Schiller at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
“‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think we give it away free. I think you pay us for it and then you give it away free, as a gift to people. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’” Bono writes.
Bono continues by sharing the CEO’s skepticism regarding the idea, and his ultimately persuading Apple to kick off Apple’s music subscription platform with the album.
“Tim Cook raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean we pay for the album and then just distribute it?’ I said, ‘Yeah, like when Netflix buys the movie and gives it away to subscribers.’ Tim looked at me as if I was explaining the alphabet to an English professor. ‘But we’re not a subscription organization,’” the excerpt reads. “‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Let ours be the first.’ Tim was not convinced. ‘There’s something not right about giving your art away for free,’ he said. ‘And this is just to people who like U2?’”
“‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I think we should give it away to everybody,’” the excerpt continues. “It’s their choice whether they want to listen to it.’”
What ensued shortly after was a controversy that many iTunes users can recall, with customers discovering the album on their phone, with no explanation as to how they’d received it.
“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, less kind, ‘The free U2 album is overpriced.’ Mea Culpa,” Bono said of the reaction at the time. “If just getting our music to people who like our music was the idea, that was a good idea. But if the idea was getting our music to people who might not have had a remote interest in our music, maybe there might be some pushback.
“At first I thought this was just an internet squall, but quickly realized we’d bumped into a serious discussion about big tech,” Bono continued. “I take full responsibility. Not Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue. I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite.”
“Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” which is published by Cornerstone, will be available for purchase on Nov. 1.
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