TORONTO – Taylor Swift hasn’t let go of her bad blood with music streaming service Spotify.
In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Swift commented on her now famous letter to Apple – which criticised the tech giant for its decision not to compensate artists during the free-trial period of its streaming service Apple Music.
Swift’s letter prompted Apple to change its policy and compensate artists. But last year, when Swift confronted music streaming service Spotify about how it compensates artists, she said the company largely ignored her – calling it “a startup with no cash flow.”
READ MORE: Taylor Swift to put ‘1989’ album on Apple Music
“Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about,” Swift told Vanity Fair.
“And I found it really ironic that the multibillion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the startup with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine.”
The pop star’s feud with Spotify started in July 2014, after she published a Wall Street Journal op-ed saying artists should “value their art” and should be paid appropriately for the music they make.
She added that services like Spotify could hurt music sales, because users are able to listen for free without a paid subscription that eliminates ads.
“Music is art, and art is important and rare,” Swift wrote in the WSJ. “Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is.”
Swift famously pulled her music from Spotify in November 2014.
After Swift published her open letter to Apple in June, the company announced it would pay royalties to artists and record labels for music played during the free three-month trial of Apple Music. Swift then decided to put her 1989 album on the streaming service.
READ MORE: Apple’s about-face on music royalties a victory for musicians and shrewd business move
According to the Vanity Fair interview, Swift wrote the letter at 4 a.m. after seeing the terms included in Apple Music’s contracts.
“The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term ‘zero percent compensation to rights holders’,” said Swift.
“Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll write a song and I can’t sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter.”
Apple Music is currently the only streaming service to have Swift’s album in its catalogue; however, she has said this isn’t an exclusive deal with the tech company.
Swift will appear on the cover of the September issue of Vanity Fair, where the interview will be featured.
– With files from The Associated Press
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