CUPERTINO, CA (Hypebot) – UPDATED: U2 is working with Apple to create a new digital music format that would assure that songwriters and artists get paid for creating music. Their plans "might just save the music industry," according to a preview of a Time Magazine cover story posted online Thursday morning. Time reporter Catherine Mayer spent the last week with the band, including travelling to Cupertino for their Apple album giveaway and performance. But that's just the start of what they have planned, according to Bono.
DETAILS + UPDATE:
U2 makes millions from live performances. But that's not true for all artists, particularly those just starting out. Bono told Time:
“Songwriters aren’t touring people.
Cole Porter wouldn’t have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn’t coming to a stadium near you."
Details were scarce, but Bono told Mayer that the band hopes their new digital music format "will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music – whole albums as well as individual tracks."
Does U2 hope that sponsors will subsidize all music, as Apple did this week with U2 to the reported tune of $100 million? More likely the question is, what value-added trick does Bono have up his sleeve? Lossless sound? Extra content? Video? Will it be "protected" by some new kind of DRM?
UPDATE: A source familiar with the projects tells Billboard: "It's not a new format, but rather a new way to package and present an album This is focused on creative advances, versus shifts in technology."
