Taylor Swift does not play. She’s been very clear about her feeling that music should not be free. It’s a valuable art, she says, and anything valuable should be paid for.
With this in mind, she not only withheld her new album 1989 from Spotify (prompting almost a million sales in one week), she then withdrew her entire back catalogue from the streaming service. It makes sense to withhold her new material – after all you do want people to buy your record – but the back catalogue beef doesn’t make as much sense.
Spotify is very sadabout the break-up. ‘We love Taylor Swift, and our more than 40 million users love her even more – nearly 16 million of them have played her songs in the last 30 days, and she’s on over 19 million playlists,’ they sobbed into their best friend's shoulder.
‘We hope she’ll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone. We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy. That’s why we pay nearly 70% of our revenue back to the music community.’
The royalties paid by Spotify are not high enough for some artists though, and many have complained about it before.
Like many a heartbroken ex, Spotify did the only thing it could think of: it made Taylor a mixtape in the hope of winning her back. Cute, but we think the bazillions of dollars she’s making from selling her album will win out in this case.
Having said that, can you guys just kiss and make up? We actually really miss our Swift on Spotify.
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.