Apple Music to revise payment-free trial period after Swift protest
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Los Angeles (dpa) - Apple Music says it will pay rights holders for music played during users' trial period of its new streaming service, reversing its earlier position after Taylor Swift's protest.
"#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period," Eddie Cue, a senior Apple executive, tweeted hours later. "We hear you, @taylorswift13 and indie artists."
US country pop singer Swift hours earlier said she would be withholding her latest album 1989 from the service in protest at the tech giant's plan not to pay artists for any of the music streamed by customers during the three-month free trial period.
"This is not about me," said Swift, who acknowledges that she and her team can rest on earlier successes to carry them through.
"This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt (...) but will not get paid for a quarter of a year's worth of plays on his or her songs."
"I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company," she wrote in a blog post on Tumblr.
Apple's new service, launched June 30, streams music to customers directly from the internet, rather than downloading to play as per the iTunes model.
The streaming model is currently dominated by Spotify. Swift pulled all her music from the Swedish company's catalogue last year in protest at the advertising-financed version of the service, which is free for users.
After Cue's announcement, Swift tweeted "I am elated and relieved.
"Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us."
Before Swift's comments, Apple had defended the planned payment hiatus, saying the proportion of subscription revenues it pays to rights holders in the long run is a couple of per centage points higher than industry standards.
