Apple bows to Taylor Swift

Pop star Taylor Swift wrote an open letter to Apple, regarding the Apple Music streaming service and the fact that the artist weren’t getting paid during the user’s trial period. Obviously the media went into a frenzy, because it’s Taylor Swift, it’s streaming, and it’s Apple.

The result? Apple, through Eddy Cue, bows their heads, recognise their error, and pays artists per stream during the user trial period (as opposed to a chunk of the revenue when users are actually paying).

Free trials of services when there’s content involved is hard. Everyone wants to get paid. I don’t fully agree with Taylor Swift’s open letter (aka blog post on Tumblr), and the free iPhone comparison is a bit weird, but there are obviously points there.

This could’ve been a PR nightmare for Apple and it’s streaming service, but the company did the only reasonable thing. Hopefully Apple changed their stance for the right reasons, and not just to avoid the bad press. And luckily they can afford to pay the artists involved, so no harm no foul.

In other news, there’s a lot of hilarious requests as to what Taylor Swift should ask Apple to do next. Your Twitter feed is probably just as full of them as mine is. Leave it to the twitterverse to talk snark when possible.

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