It looks like Taylor Swift has changed her mind about music streaming
Swift has repeatedly argued that music streaming devalues music, likening it to music piracy and file-sharing in a 2014 op-ed article for the Wall Street Journal.
In fact, Swift dislikes music streaming so much that she yanked all of her music from Spotify, stopping people from streaming it online and forcing them to buy her albums.
But now Swift's music has appeared on Tidal. All of her albums are available to stream, but not her most recent release "1989." It looks like Jay Z has convinced Swift that streaming is good after all.
Jay Z acquired Aspiro, the company behind streaming services Tidal and WiMP, earlier this month. Tidal is a more high-end service than Spotify, charging double the monthly subscription cost for its high-resolution streaming that lets people listen to music in better quality than Spotify or iTunes.
Swift could have been persuaded to come back to music streaming due to the high-end nature of Tidal. The star mentioned in a Time magazine interview that she liked the "premium packages" that customers buy on streaming sites Beats Music and Rhapsody in order to access her music. She said that "On Spotify, they don't have any settings, or any kind of qualifications for who gets what music."
It's also possible that Jay Z discussed the value of music streaming with Swift. He held a meeting in Los Angeles with some of the biggest names in music in February before the Grammy Awards. It is reported that stars like Kanye West, Daft Punk and Madonna came together at the meeting to talk about music streaming and the value of music, subjects that Swift is clearly passionate about.