“Sparks Fly” between Taylor Swift and Apple
Blog Post
Apple’s new service, Apple Music, will launch worldwide on June 30th. Besides its well-known iTunes store, Apple Music will include a free Internet radio station, a $10/month streaming subscription plan, and a media platform that will let artists upload musical content. The streaming subscription plan includes a three-month trial subscription which is free to users and pays no royalties to the artists.
Apple Music’s new music streaming plan has been highly anticipated by the music industry, but its plan not to pay artists any royalties during its three-month trial period has drawn harsh criticism from artists worldwide. While many of the complaints were from independent artists and accordingly drew little public attention, a blog post from Taylor Swift did.
Swift knew this scenario All Too Well – she had previously pulled her albums from the music-streaming program, Spotify, over a royalty compensation dispute.
Therefore, on the morning of June 21, Swift was seeing Red and decided that she couldn’t just Shake It Off and had to Speak Now to defend the rights of artists worldwide. Accordingly, a Fearless Swift published a Tumblr post entitled, “To Apple, Love Taylor,” wherein she detailed why artists Should’ve Said No to Apple Music’s Mean plan to forego paying artists royalties during the free trial period.
However, less than 24 hours after Swift published her blog post, Everything Has Changed. That evening, Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, responded via Twitter, informing Swift We Belong Together and confirmed that Apple would pay artists royalties during Apple Music’s free trial period.
Now that Swift has confirmed that there won’t be a Blank Space on her paycheck from Apple, she has put the Bad Blood behind her and announced that her music will be available for streaming on Apple Music. While it appears that Apple may be Out of the Woods for now, unless Spotify’s tune changes, Swift may continue to say, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.
Apple Music’s new music streaming plan has been highly anticipated by the music industry, but its plan not to pay artists any royalties during its three-month trial period has drawn harsh criticism from artists worldwide. While many of the complaints were from independent artists and accordingly drew little public attention, a blog post from Taylor Swift did.
Swift knew this scenario All Too Well – she had previously pulled her albums from the music-streaming program, Spotify, over a royalty compensation dispute.
Therefore, on the morning of June 21, Swift was seeing Red and decided that she couldn’t just Shake It Off and had to Speak Now to defend the rights of artists worldwide. Accordingly, a Fearless Swift published a Tumblr post entitled, “To Apple, Love Taylor,” wherein she detailed why artists Should’ve Said No to Apple Music’s Mean plan to forego paying artists royalties during the free trial period.
However, less than 24 hours after Swift published her blog post, Everything Has Changed. That evening, Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, responded via Twitter, informing Swift We Belong Together and confirmed that Apple would pay artists royalties during Apple Music’s free trial period.
Now that Swift has confirmed that there won’t be a Blank Space on her paycheck from Apple, she has put the Bad Blood behind her and announced that her music will be available for streaming on Apple Music. While it appears that Apple may be Out of the Woods for now, unless Spotify’s tune changes, Swift may continue to say, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.