Can a popular digital streaming service hold up under the
glare of the spotlight?
When megastar Taylor Swift released her latest album,
1989, at the end of October, she also took that
opportunity to announce that she was removing her entire song
catalog from Spotify, a popular digital music streaming
service.
Swift justified her stance by stating that artists should be
paid for their art, implying that digital streaming services like
Spotify do not fairly compensate the songwriters and musicians who
are making the music. Swift's record label, Big Machine
Records, acknowledged that the move was simply a good business
decision.
After seeing Swift's new album sell a staggering and
industry leading 1.29 million copies in its first week alone, it is
hard to argue against the move. But the bigger question is whether
Swift's abandonment of Spotify will have a greater impact on
the place that digital streaming has in the music industry.
