With several different music subscription services having popped up in recent years and the rumors that Apple is planning to release their own version of such a service, subscription based music is definitely starting to take off. In a recent interview by AllThingsD, Jimmy Iovine, the CEO of Beats, revealed that he persistently pushed Steve Jobs to create a subscription music service all the way back in the early 2000s.
iTunes was still in its early form 10 years ago when Iovine first approached Jobs with the idea. Jobs, however, was hesitant upon hearing the suggestion. The Beats CEO stated in the interview, “I was always trying to push Steve into subscription. And he wasn’t keen on it right away. [Beats co-founder] Luke Wood and I spent about three years trying to talk him into it. He was there, not there … he didn’t want to pay the record companies enough. He felt that they would come down, eventually.”
Jimmy Iovine was trying desperately in the early 2000s to get subscription based music to take off as a way of protecting the industry from the increasing prevalance of piracy. He said that Jobs was certainly the one that “smelled it the most”; however, no one was ready to adopt the technology at the time.
Iovine stated that he has an upcoming meeting with Eddy Cue, who holds a significant position in managing iTunes, although he didn’t say what the meeting would be on. Perhaps he’ll still be able to help bring subscription music to iTunes, even if it is over a decade later.
Image Credit: Cult of Mac
