Taylor Swift's abrupt departure from Spotify and subsequent he said/she said banter clearly shows that the young pop-country singer is happy to shake off all association with the free streaming music provider.
One week after Team Swift pulled the entire discography off the site, Spotify issued a statement saying that she would definitely be missing out on the great opportunity its free service provides to connect her with her fans without them having to resort to piracy. In addition, they also said that as the site grows, Swift has the potential to be paid in the amounts of $6 million per year from her music streamed on its service.
But, according to the ongoing battle of words, Swift's camp does not see the numbers quite as optimistically.
Swift's camp says that Spotify's numbers are inaccurate because the singer has only received less than $500,000 from them.
Spotify remained steadfast in its claim.
"The simple fact is that we paid roughly half a million dollars to Taylor's label and publisher in the single month before they took her music off the service," Spotify said in a statement.
The most important details to note are that Spotify mentioned that it paid Swift's label and publisher the half a million dollars. Universal takes a cut of that payment, then her publisher that distributes her music, Big Machine, also takes a cut before Swift sees any of the profits from the sales of her albums and music.
So taking into consideration all the hands that need to be paid before the cash reaches Swift, it is entirely possible that even though she may have only received $500,000 from Spotify, the actual number that was paid out could add up in a year to $6 million.
According to observers, it is highly unlikely that Swift's music will be made available on any legal free streaming sites soon although her discography can still be downloaded from illegal torrent sites and YouTube.
