Publications
Taylor Swift's record label boss has taken a swing at Spotify. The Grammy-winner pulled her tracks down from the popular music streaming platform last week. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek responded on Tuesday, estimating Taylor could miss out on more than R67 million ($6 million) in earnings in the upcoming year as a result.
'Our whole reason for existence is to help fans find music'
But Scott Borchetta, CEO of Taylor’s record label Big Machine, disputes the figure and is standing by the pop star’s decision.
The executive said Wednesday Taylor made R5.5 million ($496 044) from Spotify in the last 12 months.
“The facts show that the music industry was much better off before Spotify hit these shores,” Scott told Time magazine.
“Don’t forget this is for the most successful artist in music today. What about the rest of the artists out there struggling to make a career? Over the last year, what Spotify has paid is the equivalent of less than 50,000 albums sold.”
A Spotify spokesperson disputed the figure, telling Time Taylor had been paid R22 million ($2 million) within the past year.
The back-and-forth follows the publishing of a blog post by Daniel on Tuesday in which he insisted Spotify strives to support music artists.
“We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time,” he wrote in part.
“Our whole reason for existence is to help fans find music and help artists connect with fans through a platform that protects them from piracy and pays them for their amazing work.”
Taylor has directly addressed the issue herself. After pulling her music from Spotify November 3, days after the release of her chart-topping record 1989, the star said allowing her songs to be streamed on the service “didn’t feel right”.
“I felt like I was saying to my fans, 'If you create music someday, if you create a painting someday, someone can just walk into a museum, take it off the wall, rip off a corner off it, and it's theirs now and they don't have to pay for it,’” she told Yahoo! Music.
© Cover Media
