Taylor Swift, 24, made the decision recently to pull her music from Spotify by stating, “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.”
After justifying her decision, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek responded to Swift with an explanation of how Spotify does in fact make her money and she was on track to make $6 million before pulling her tunes.
In his response Ek began by saying, “Taylor Swift is absolutely right: music is art, art has real value and artists deserve to be paid for it.”
He then continued on, defending Spotify, “All the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time. Spotify has now paid $2 billion in royalties. That’s two billion dollars worth of listening that would have happened with zero or little compensation to artists and songwriters through piracy or practically equivalent services if there was no Spotify.”
He also explained several things about Spotify including they do in fact pay artists and are extremely “frustrated” by reports that artists are not seeing money from streaming.
“The music industry is changing and we’re proud of our part in that change, […] We will do anything we can to work with the industry to increase transparency, improve speed of payments, and give artists the opportunity to promote themselves and connect with the fans- that’s our responsibility as a leader in this industry; and it’s the right thing to do,” Ek stated.
He also explained that Spotify does pay artists like Swift huge money and they “are on track to exceed $6 million a year, and that’s only growing, we expect that number to double again in a year.”
While Taylor probably won’t even miss $6 million, Ek’s explanation should help artists realize the benefits of sites like Spotify to them before pulling their music away as Swift did.
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Telisa Carter
Telisa enjoys learning and writing about all things entertainment in the world of Hollywood. When she isn't catching up on her favorite TV shows, she likes to read, and obsess over all things football.
