Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Spotify CEO Tells Taylor Swift To 'Shake It Off'

Daniel Ek
Spotify chief Daniel Ek has responded to Taylor Swift’s pulling her music from the streaming service.

In a lengthy blog post on the Spotify website, Ek reacts to the singer’s comments about compensation provided for artists and her accusation that Spotify is “an experiment,” saying that Swift would have made $6 million this year had she stayed on Spotify, which ultimately “works for artists in a way the music industry never has before.”

“Taylor Swift is absolutely right,” says Ek. “Music is art, art has real value, and artists deserve to be paid for it. We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time. Our whole reason for existence is to help fans find music and help artists connect with fans through a platform that protects them from piracy and pays them for their amazing work.”

According to Variety, the post goes on to defend Spotify’s business model and debunks the myths that the service doesn’t pay artists and drives down sales.  Ek also points to instances in which artists like Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and Lana Del Rey promoted their releases on Spotify, and called attention to the changing listening habits, regardless of the service.

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