海角大神

This week, music diva Taylor Swift聽delivered a good news/bad news riff to her fans when she announced a world tour at the same time as she also pulled her entire catalog from the聽music streaming service, Spotify.听

This comes on the heels of her new album, 鈥�1989,鈥� the Oct. 27 release that is on track to have sold 1.3 million copies in its first week, according to Billboard.

Spotify, the popular British-Swedish online music streaming site, extended an olive branch to the singer-songwriter on its website: 鈥淲e hope she'll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone."

While Spotify was urging Ms. Swift to #justsayyes in a social media campaign based on her 2008 hit song 鈥淟ove Story," the decision by the singer and Big Machine Label Group to pull all of her songs point up the compensation problems that continue to roil the music industry. In fact, they鈥檙e evident in Spotify鈥檚 plea, says popular music historian, John Covach, director of the Institute for Popular Music at the University of Rochester in New York.

鈥淭hese streaming sites pay nano-pennies to musicians,鈥� says Profesor Covach. Anyone who is under the impression that streaming services such as Spotify, which pay royalties to the聽artists聽whose music they stream, are the ultimate answer to the conundrum of how to compensate musicians for their recordings, 鈥渘eeds to think again,鈥� he says.

Covach notes that a recent blog post from a consortium of bands whose music聽is being streamed showed they received royalties in amounts of between $36 and $58 per month.

鈥淭he idea that these micro payments are going to build a meaningful model for artists鈥� compensation is just not realistic,鈥� says Covach, 鈥渁t least not yet.鈥�

Spotify says that about 70 percent of its income goes to the artist.

Swift was one of the site鈥檚 most popular musicians.听Some聽16 million of its 40 million users streamed a Taylor聽Swift tune during the past 30 days, according to Spotify.

Swift penned聽her thoughts about the future of the music industry in The Wall Street Journal this past July, writing: 鈥淧iracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically ... Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free."聽

Swift isn鈥檛 the first bestselling artist to withhold her music from the site. Beyonce, Garth Brooks, AC/DC, the Beatles, and Coldplay are among the other stars who at various times have not allowed Spotify users access to their catalogs. Her songs are still available for sale on iTunes.

In its聽search for a reliable source of income,聽Covach says, the music industry appears to be returning to the model that ruled musical聽entrepreneurship before the ascent of the recording industry: touring.

鈥淲e鈥檙e just seeing the main source of income going back to聽live performance,鈥� he says.

鈥淏ack in the early R&B days, most artists saw records as a sort of calling card that would allow them to charge more for tickets to their live performances,鈥� he says, referring to the 1950s and early 60s. He notes that the glory days of record companies paying for band development and large tours, 鈥渕ay very well be a thing of the past, with the exception of the really big names such as Beyonce and of course,聽ironically,聽Taylor Swift.鈥�