Oliver Schusser Says He Thinks It’s ‘Crazy’ That Music Is Free

At the 2025 National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) annual meeting in New York, Apple Music’s Global Head criticized competitors and their ‘free music’ offerings.

“It’s crazy that 20 years on, music is still offered free,” Oliver Schusser said in response to NMPA President & CEO David Israelite asking him what part of the value chain for songwriters he would redesign if possible. Schusser is of course referencing no-cost, ad-supported streaming tiers offered by Spotify, Amazon Music, and others. “We’re the only service that doesn’t have a free service. That’s not because of the money or anything. As a company, we look at music as art and we would never want to give away art for free. It just makes no sense to me.”

Schusser’s comments underscore a fundamental tension present in today’s music industry—while streaming has rescued the industry from the piracy-plagued years of the early 2000s, the prevalence of free music tiers continues to erode the perceived value of music. Apple Music has always required a paid subscription to access, but many platforms use free, ad-supported models to attract users with the hopes of converting them into paying customers.

Spotify argues that this approach benefits the industry by driving more listeners to paid plans—with the claim that over 60% of its Premium subscribers started as free users. While the economics of free music is great for Spotify, that isn’t so for songwriters and publishers. As Israelite noted, songwriters and publishers are often compelled by law to license their work to these services, regardless of whether they agree with the free model or not. This lack of choice and Spotify’s recent bundling shenanigans combined with regulatory restraints have left songwriters and publishers with declining royalty rates.

Digital Music News previously highlighted comments from NMPA General Counsel Danielle Aguirre, who whipped out napkin math to show just how much publishers and songwriters are losing because of Spotify’s bundling reclassification of their Premium subscribers. The result is stark—$230 million lost this year, with a projected loss of $3.1 billion by 2032. Spotify isn’t the only DSP engaging in bundling either. Amazon’s similar move caused a 40% drop in music revenue from its platform in just three months.

Schusser emphasized Apple Music’s commitment to creators during this conversation, stating: “We make every decision based on what’s good for artists and songwriters.” He pointed to Apple’s efforts to properly credit songwriters and provide tools for catalog visibility, reinforcing the company’s stance that music should be valued and compensated as art rather than given away as a loss leader.