Hello, everyone! It’s a thrill to learn you’ve found time amidst your busy day to spend a few minutes on our blog. Everyone seems to be talking about Taylor Swift lately, so it only seems right that we chime in with our two cents as well. We are fans of her music, even if not everyone on our staff is willing to admit that fact publicly, but we cannot help being a little unhappy with the real reasoning behind her move against Spotify. Read on to find out why.
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Taylor Swift has been the talk of the music industry for a little over two weeks at this point, and if her marketing team continues their efforts our obsession with her every move could easily stretch into December. This is certainly good for Taylor, who has a new album on shelves and a world tour in 2015 that needs to move tickets, but it’s also good for the music business. Why? Because the things Taylor Swift has us talking about are the same topics we have been needing to address as an industry for some time. Streaming payouts are low, but the general consensus is that more and more people are embracing them as their main source for new music. How do we fix this? Can it be fixed? I don’t know the answer to either, but over the weekend we learned a little bit more about the reason for Taylor’s sudden disappearance from Spotify earlier this month.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Swift pulled her catalog from Spotify, Scott Borchetta, the CEO of Taylor Swift’s record label Big Machine says that her music was pulled from Spotify because the streaming platform refused to restrict her new release to its premium paid service. “We never wanted to embarrass a fan,” Borchetta told Nikki Sixx during his Sixx Sense syndicated radio show Friday. “If this fan purchased the record, CD, iTunes, wherever, and then their friends go, ‘Why did you pay for it? It’s free on Spotify.’ we’re being completely disrespectful to that superfan who wants to invest.”
To clarify, Borchetta is referring specifically to Spotify’s free service, which allows non-paying users to enjoy the content offered on the platform without committing to pay a monthly fee for access. It’s not streaming itself he’s against, which is exactly why Taylor’s music can still be found on services like Rdio or Beats Music. Their catalogs are only available to users who have paid a fee for access. The payout to Swift per stream is still low, but it is above zero.
“We determined that her fan base is so in on her, let’s pull everything off of Spotify, and any other service that doesn’t offer a premium service,” said Borchetta. “Now if you are a premium subscriber to Beats or Rdio or any of the other services that don’t offer just a free-only, then you will find her catalogue.”
These statement differ from the reasons Taylor Swift initially offered for removing her music from the popular streaming service. When news originally broke of the removal, Swift told the press:
"If I had streamed the new album, it’s impossible to try to speculate what would have happened. But all I can say is that music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment. And I’m not wiling 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. And I just don’t agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free. I wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal this summer that basically portrayed my views on this. I try to stay really open-minded about things, because I do think it’s important to be a part of progress. But I think it’s really still up for debate whether this is actual progress, or whether this is taking the word “music” out of the music industry. Also, a lot of people were suggesting to me that I try putting new music on Spotify with “Shake It Off,” and so I was open-minded about it. I thought, “I will try this; I’ll see how it feels.” It didn’t feel right to me. 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.” I didn’t like the perception that it was putting forth. And so I decided to change the way I was doing things.”
The above is a beautiful and well-worded sentiment about the value of creative expression and the desire to have some control over how people access your work. That said, it does not address the financial aspect of things quite as much as Borchetta’s quotes to Nikki Sixx. This is surely due in part to Taylor’s desire to speak honestly with fans about her own feelings towards streaming, but it’s hard to feel like the initial comments did not also attempt to mislead industry insiders as to the real reason for the change. It was never about how the art was reaching fans, but rather whether or not a pay wall was put in place between fans and the art. Spotify tried to offer fans a direct link to the music that did not require money and they were stopped. Beats, Rhapsody, and Rdio charged people first and then gave them access. It may be a saying as old as time itself at this point, but ‘money talks’ feels relevant once again.
What I find interesting about all this nonsense regarding streaming is the fact neither Taylor Swift nor anyone who works with her have made comments about YouTube. The video streaming platform, which does not require financial contribution of any kind for access to content, has music videos, as well as videos featuring song streams that are taken from phase of Taylor’s career. You can chart her entire existence in the public eye on YouTube, for free, from anywhere with an internet connection. Unlike Spotify however, there is never really an option to support the artist you’re listening to. There is no merch store tie-in, and the payouts for video streams is not exactly something to write home about. Spotify has at least tried to make it easier for artists to promote themselves and hustle merchandise through their platform. What makes YouTube better?
Considering the fact Taylor Swift has yet to pull her music from other streaming services, let on alone sites that offer ‘free’ access, it seems all this fuss over her so-called bold decision to leave Spotify is little more than another successful attempt at fueling the PR engine that keeps the young songwriter’s career in the headlines. Will she see a tiny loss of income as a result of not sharing music on Spotify? Maybe. Will it matter in the grand scheme of things? No. The attention to her music generated by this press blitz will more than cover any lost wages, and even if it doesn’t Taylor has millions at her disposal already. Money talks, but only when Taylor allows it to do so. She is controlling the conversation right now, and that is really what matters most. I just wish she would use to benefit more people than herself.
