This week Taylor Swift became every indie musician’s best friend. Sadly, it’s not because they all sat down and recognised that 1989 is an absolute banger of an album. It’s because she spoke out to her 59.3 million Twitter followers and inspired some changes that will make your mate’s band a little extra cash.

Tay-Tay knows a little bit more about playing arenas and stadiums than she does about opening up a show at Oxford Art Factory, and she can easily make more money from touring in a year than the average indie band can dream of making in a lifetime. Even her recent video for ‘Bad Blood’ which featured around 17 different celebrity cameos has probably made her more cash than your favourite band’s entire discography. So what does she have to do with indie music?

Earlier this month Apple threw its hat into the music streaming ring, with the announcement of Apple Music. The lovechild of iTunes and Beats Music, it announced itself as a streaming service that promises the biggest library in the game, a free three-month trail, and with a 24/7 radio station to boot.

Apple Music seems to be a true competitor for Spotify, which has been ruling the game up until now. And with the revenue from streaming services doubling last year, it’s now one of the main ways that punters get their favourite tunes.

In a lengthy blog post entitled To Apple, Love Taylor, our hero outlined and explained why she would not be putting her globe-smashing album 1989 onto Apple Music. As part of that three-month trial period for new Apple Music users, Apple decided it wasn’t going to pay royalties to producers, writers, or artists during that time, which is where Tay-Tay (and many others) drew the line:

“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 3 months trial period… even if it is free for the fans trying it out.”

Unsurprisingly, once Swift got involved, it became big news. As soon as the blog post was published it was picked up by major news companies around the world. Literally within a few hours, Swift firmly had the attention of Apple, which publicly stated it was reversing the clause and “will pay artists for streaming, even during the customer’s free trial period”. Eddy Cue, the senior vice president of internet software and services at Apple, signed off with this tweet:

“And indie artists” is an interesting phrase. It acknowledges that some indie artists had a problem with the recent Apple Music announcement, but it’s clear that Tay is the one who tipped the scales.

Already, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon ranted about Apple (and iTunes) through Twitter. Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe fired up to let people know the raw deal he was getting through Apple, even claiming that Apple would remove the band’s music from iTunes if he didn’t comply with the free trial period.

Beggars Group, a collective that runs massive indie labels such as 4AD, Matador and Rough Trade, also publicly slammed Apple’s initial plan. In a press release, Beggars stated that the deal structure is “very progressive” but causes a number of problems for independent artists and labels – “especially for artists releasing new albums in the next three months, that all streaming on the new service will be unremunerated until the end of September”.

Here on home turf, the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR) publicly stated its own displeasure at the Apple Music terms and conditions, with Alison Wenham saying, “We are not satisfied that the deal being offered under this new initiative is fair or equitable to independent music companies”. Rolling Stone even reported that Apple executives have “refused to negotiate on this key point”.

So why did this all turn around when Swift became involved?

It’s a very simple, but very sad answer. Taylor Swift is really fucking popular. Like, unbelievably popular. At the end of the year Swift will be playing at ANZ Stadium, and that’s because of achievements like ‘Bad Blood’ breaking the 24-hour viewing record for a video on Vevo (20.1 million views in a day, if you were wondering). Or her album 1989 being the fastest-selling album in 12 years.

She’s a pop culture icon, and if she drops a fork at a restaurant, at least three major news sources are going to cover it. Which is part of the genius in Swift’s thinking – she has the power to get mainstream media attention and make enough revenue for Apple that they should be very afraid of losing her.

This isn’t even Swift’s first foray into music streaming-related protest. Late last year she pulled her music from Spotify due to their extremely low royalty payments, which sees it paying out $0.006 – $0.008 per song play.

It’s no secret (or it should be no secret) that it’s hard to get by in the music industry, especially when you aren’t the Swifts and Sheerans of the world. In ‘The Truth About Money In Music’ James Tidswell from Violent Soho talks about the day he had to apply for work at Maccas – the same day that Hungry Ghost got nominated for an ARIA.

Streaming is one of the fastest rising platforms for people to consume music, and the artists who have their music on these services should be paid – and probably a little better than half a cent per stream.

Ultimately, Apple’s decision to pay artists during the trial months is not a ‘Good Guy Apple’ moment, it’s a ‘Thanks For Being Decent, Massive Corporation’ moment. Apple is such a gigantic company that paying out 12 weeks’ worth of royalties for streaming will be a blip in the radar. And too be honest, the publicity Apple Music is receiving for paying the artists is probably worth more to them than the money it would have saved in the first place. While this isn’t a moment we should all be getting on our knees and thanking Apple, perhaps it is a moment we should give it up for Taylor Swift, saviour of indie artists everywhere.

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