Taylor Swift Shuns ‘Grand Experiment’ of Streaming Music  

“I’m not willing 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.”

It seems rather old-fashioned to continue beating this dead horse, otherwise known as rejecting various forms of digital distribution. There has seemingly been a big PR push lately by the music industry to guilt Spotify into increasing its royalty rate. Music, and entertainment in general, exists in a marketplace and there are many options to choose from. People are consuming more entertainment than ever, have greater access to recorded entertainment than ever before, and it goes hand-in-hand that the price would naturally decrease. If people can’t listen to Taylor Swift on Spotify, they’ll listen to her on YouTube, download the album for free off a torrent site, or stop listening to her altogether (which will happen anyways in a few years, at which point the value goes to zero). If she wants to make more money, she ought to focus on the areas of entertainment where people cannot replicate the experience so easily, i.e. concerts and live shows. In the mean time, it is worth considering that Spotify is likely not intentionally undercharging their users to rip-off artists. However, it is likely that by trying to limit distribution channels, Taylor Swift and others are trying to rip-off consumers by selling music in a less competitive marketplace.