Apple Music’s top executive Oliver Schusser weighed in on the cost of music during a keynote interview at the National Music Publisher Association’s annual meeting in New York on Wednesday, questioning how competing streaming platforms are still offering free tiers and suggesting it devalues music as an art form.

“I think it’s crazy that 20 years in, we still offer music for free,” Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and international content, told NMPA CEO David Israelite during their discussion Wednesday evening. “We’re the only service that doesn’t have a free service. As a company, we look at music as art, and we would never want to give away art for free. 

“It makes no sense to me,” Schusser continued. “We don’t have a free service, we will not have one, we have no plans for one.”

Schusser’s comments weren’t aimed at any one particular streaming service, though as he notes, many of Apple Music’s competitors offer free ad-supported tiers, including Spotify, the world’s largest streaming service. 

In a statement, a spokesman for Spotify said the company remains the largest revenue driver in the music industry and said the ad-supported tier helps draw in more fans who would then convert to the premium offerings instead. 

“Spotify paid out over $10 billion to the music industry in 2024 — the most of any service. Our multi-tier model is a key factor in consistently paying out more than every other retailer or streaming service annually,” Spotify’s spokesman said. “Beyond the dollars the ad-supported tier generates, more than 60 percent of Premium subscribers began as ad-supported users. Bringing in consumers who are interested in music, deepening their engagement, and then presenting them with opportunities to upgrade to a broader suite of Premium features is our blueprint, and it’s working.”

The price of streaming services is a perpetually hot-button topic in the music industry, as the business is in a constant push to ensure music’s value is maximized. While streaming saved the industry from an era of rampant piracy by offering fans a convenient alternative that’s still cheaper than buying individual albums, executives still argue the services could still be priced higher to reflect music’s worth. Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer, for example, said during an investor conference last year that ad-supported streaming platforms should be charging users a “modest fee” for the service, as Billboard reported at the time.  

Elsewhere in the meeting, the NMPA reported that music publishing revenue in the U.S. grew to over $7 billion last year, a 17 percent jump from the year prior. Still, Israelite and NMPA evp and general counsel Danielle Aguirre also suggested that growth is getting stifled by challenges like strenuous government regulation (mechanical royalties, for example, are determined by the Copyright Royalty Board, a three-judge panel at the library of congress). 

The NMPA also pointed toward Spotify and Amazon Music offering their subscriptions as bundles with audiobooks, which has caused songwriters’ royalties to drop. Aguirre said Wednesday that “we lost over $230 million” last year from Spotify’s bundles, and that in the first three months since Amazon started bundling, “we’ve seen a 40 percent decrease in music revenue from Amazon.”

“Even with that pressure, mechanical revenue still grew last year, but imagine how much stronger that growth could’ve been if those tactics hadn’t been deployed,” Aguirre asked. 

Spotify’s bundling strategy proved controversial in music publishing last year, with the NMPA announcing it filed an FTC complaint against Spotify during last year’s annual meeting. The Mechanical Licensing Collective, meanwhile, sued Spotify, though that suit was dismissed earlier this year. Spotify, for its part, reported in its Loud and Clear report back in March that it’s paid $4.5 billion to publishers and songwriters over the past two years. 

Aguirre also pointed toward social media, which she said was “failing songwriters” over paltry payments. She pointed toward TikTok, which she said drew $18.5 billion in revenue last year, with 85 percent of videos on the platform featuring music. 

Israelite, for his part, mainly preached a message of solidarity across the music business with the songwriter class Wednesday night. “Without a healthy songwriter economy, the entire system suffers,” Israelite said. I’m calling on recording artists, managers and record labels to stand with non-performing songwriters whenever and wherever they strive.”

The meeting included several awards and performances as well. The NMPA showcased Billboard Songwriter Award winners Gracie Abrams, who was named breakthrough songwriter of the year, and Aaron Dessner, the triple threat award-winner, and the two performed a duet of Abrams’ hit I Love You, I’m Sorry, which they co-wrote. 

Also during the evening, Kacey Musgraves was named this year’s Icon Award recipient, and beloved country songwriter Rhett Akins was honored as a Non-Performing Songwriter Icon. Akins’ son, the country star Thomas Rhett, performed his father’s music, and Leon Bridges honored Musgraves with a cover of her song “Lonely Millionaire.” Musgraves closed the evening as she performed “The Architect” from her latest album Deeper Well.