10 Artists That Went Head-To-Head With The Music Industry And WON
1. Taylor Swift Vs Spotify And Apple
Just before the release of her sixth album, titled 1989, Taylor Swift withdrew all her songs from Spotify. She was actually the most listened to artist on the platform, with over 25% of users streaming her tracks. The move naturally made the news. Her reasoning was, controversially, that she should be paid for the music she makes or at least paid more than the $0.006 - $0.0084 Spotify pays its artists per play. She sent out a message saying musicians should be the ones determining how much their work costs, not their record labels.
Some months later another feud sprung up, this time concerning another industry giant: Apple. Apple had plans to offer a three month trial period of their streaming services in which subscribers would be able to listen to music for free. Great for the customer, but actually the artists Apple planned to make use of would not see a penny of the royalties owed to them for the use of their products. She put out an open letter to the company, urging them to change their plans, and removed her album from the service.
What happened? Apple immediately changed their minds and paid royalty rates, so Swift offered her music back to the streaming site. A win all round. Not to mention that, after going head-to-head with probably the two most influential companies in the music industry, Swift emerged with a number 1 album which was the fastest selling album in the US since 2002, plus three more number 1 singles.
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