Apple wants to secure exclusivity deals for its music streaming service

Apple Inc. has asked Florence and the Machine and more than a dozen other artists for exclusive deals to promote a revamped Beats Music, and persuade people to ante up for what they’re accustomed to getting pretty much for free. The company’s in talks with the British group, which is set to release an album in June, about giving Apple limited streaming rights to a track, and has approached Taylor Swift and others about partnerships, according to people familiar with the matter. The idea is that exclusives will be bait for music lovers loathe to pay for subscriptions. Tidal, a Beats rival owned by Jay Z and 16 other musicians, is using a similar tactic as the industry tries to steal the march from platforms like Spotify and YouTube that let people listen gratis, so long as they sit through ads. The offering from Apple — whose iTunes is the world’s largest seller of music — will be the most-watched subscription-only effort yet. It’ll come to the game with the advantages of “a whole ecosystem of devices with a loyal and rabid fan base,” said Russ Crupnick, managing partner of the research firm MusicWatch. “A lot of the infrastructure is already in place.”