1) Apple didn’t want to pay artists.
Apple announced it’s attempt to jump into the music streaming stampede early June with it’s new music service called Apple Music. The service costs $9.99 a month with a three-month free trial.
However what Apple did not mention was that it did not plan on paying artists for this free three month trial period. Enter Taylor.
2) Taylor wasn’t cool with that and shamed Apple.
Taylor Swift published an extensive letter titled “To Apple, Love Taylor” on her Tumblr that essentially called out Apple for not paying artists during these three month trial periods. Taylor called it “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike [the] historically progressive and generous company.” “We don’t ask you for free iPhones,” Taylor jabbed last before twisting the knife. “Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”
3) This isn’t the first time Taylor has made a stand
This is not the first time Taylor Swift has made a stand for musicians and how they are paid. Last year Taylor withdrew her music from Spotify saying in an interview with Yahoo “I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music.” Spotify’s CEO fired back in a blog post writing that piracy did more damage to Musicians’ bottom line:
“Today, people listen to music in a wide variety of ways, but by far the three most popular ways are radio, YouTube, and piracy – all free. Here’s the overwhelming, undeniable, inescapable bottom line: the vast majority of music listening is unpaid. If we want to drive people to pay for music, we have to compete with free to get their attention in the first place.” As of today, Taylor’s music is still not on Spotify.
4) Taylor won her duel with Apple
Shortly after being publicly shamed by Miss Swift Apple announced via a series of tweets that it would pay artists during the three month free trials of its music services:
Apple will always make sure that artist are paid #iTunes #AppleMusic
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
5)The fight is not over.
As The New York Times writes, the fight is not over for Taylor and other musical artists. For instance the music industry has spent years fighting for radio play royalties (Taylor Swift’s label is the only label to find success in this fight): “The record industry is still fighting for that radio royalty. But in 2012 Ms. Swift’s label, Big Machine, struck a deal with the country’s largest broadcaster, Clear Channel, that would pay those royalties for the first time; other independents and even a major, the Warner Music Group, followed Big Machine’s lead. (Clear Channel is now known as iHeartMedia.)”
