Will The New Apple Partnership Inspire Publishers?

After years of battling over trademark, today Apple Corps and Apple came together to sell music by The Beatles.

With this long battle finally settled into partnership, it raises questions for what this type of partnership could mean for digital publishing. Amazon is arguably to eBooks what Apple is to MP3s, and the retailer has gotten a lot of grief from publishers for trying to sell their books for bargain prices and for bypassing publishers to make deals directly with literary agents. While the major publishers still work closely with Amazon, it is not without a close eye.

While this new music partnership is a bit different –as the two Apple companies battled primarily over their name– the music industry has been notoriously slow to innovate when it comes to selling MP3s. Apple pushed for DRM-free music and the labels pushed back. Apple is now pushing for a music streaming service, and the labels are pushing back.

From the consumer’s point of view, Apple has changed the way we access and listen to music and for the better. With the invent of the Kindle, Amazon is arguably trying to do the same thing for books. Seeing this long awaited partnership announced gives some hope to progress in the digital realm. But we admit, Amazon will have to behave. What do you think?

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.