Taylor Swift just got Apple to change its royalties policy in less than 24 hours, and she didn’t even have to sic her “Bad Blood” girl posse on them.
In an open letter posted on her Tumblr yesterday morning, Swift wrote that she planned to withhold her album “1989” from Apple’s new Apple Music streaming service. Much like her previous decision to pull her music from Spotify, Swift’s grievance centered on inadequate compensation for musicians — namely, the fact that Apple would not be compensating writers, and producers or artists during the service's free 3 month trial period. Calling Apple’s move "shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company,” Swift positioned herself as a champion of musicians less fortunate than herself, writing:
"Thankfully I am on my fifth album and can support myself, my band, crew, and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt. This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field…but will not get paid for a quarter of a year’s worth of plays on his or her songs."
In a lightning-fast turnaround sure to launch a thousand “swift response" puns, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue sent out a series of tweets yesterday night indicating that Apple planned to change its policy in response to Swift’s letter.
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Swift was suitably appeased:
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Or, if you prefer your news delivered in the form of visual metaphors:
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