Calvin Harris says his 'girl' Taylor Swift has changed the music industry after Apple agreed to pay musicians for songs played on its new music streaming service.
The Shake It Off singer, 25, said yesterday she would hold back her latest album 1989 from Apple Music in protest at the technology giant's "shocking and disappointing" decision not to pay for songs streamed during a three-month trial period.
It prompted an Apple executive to tweet this morning that the musicians would be paid.
Eddy Cue, senior vice president for internet software and services, wrote: "Apple will always make sure that artist are paid. AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period. We hear you taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple."
Harris, who is dating Swift, tweeted: "I just played a gig inside a giant owl and my girl just changed the entire music industry. What a day."
I just played a gig inside a giant owl and my girl just changed the entire music industry what a day
- Calvin Harris (@CalvinHarris) June 22, 2015
Swift's standing against the consumer giant came after she withdrew her entire catalogue from popular music streaming service Spotify in November.
In a letter published on her website yesterday, Swift said: "I'm sure you are aware that Apple Music will be offering a free three-month trial to anyone who signs up for the service.
"I'm not sure you know that Apple Music will not be paying writers, producers, or artists for those three months.
"I find it to be shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company."
Swift said she was making a stand not for herself but for new artists or bands, young songwriters and producers who would not be paid for a quarter of a year's worth of plays.
"These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child," she added.
"These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.
"I realise that Apple is working towards a goal of paid streaming. I think that is beautiful progress.
"We know how astronomically successful Apple has been and we know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the three- month trial period ... even if it is free for the fans trying it out.
"Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing."
When she took her music off Spotify last year Swift argued that the streaming company's ad-supported free service undermines the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters.
She claimed Spotify was conducting a "grand experiment" which failed to fairly compensate the creators of music.
Swift later tweeted to her 59 million followers: "I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article