Taylor Swift reveals what it was like to confront Apple
Swift wrote the blog post, which she published on Tumblr, after friends had sent her screenshots of the contracts Apple had sent them regarding Apple Music. Here's how she described her experience confronting Apple to Vanity Fair's Josh Duboff:
I wrote the letter around four A.M. The contracts had just gone out to my friends, and one of them sent me a screenshot of one of them. I read the term 'zero percent compensation to rights holders.' Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll write a song and I can't sleep until I finish it, and it was like that with the letter.
Swift shared the letter with one person before publishing it - her mother. She told Vanity Fair:
I read it to my mom. She's always going to be the one. I just said, 'I'm really scared of this letter, but I had to write it. I might not post it, but I had to say it.'
In June, just days before the official launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter to the company that criticized its decision not to pay artists any royalties during the free trial period. She called the move "shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive ad generous company." Less than a day later, Apple reversed its decision and announced that it would pay artists during that free trial period.
Although Swift's letter convinced Apple to change its policy, the pop singer said she was nervous before posting the message - especially since she was criticized for the op-ed she wrote in The Wall Street Journal last year about Spotify's free music streaming model.
Swift told Vanity Fair she was worried "people would say, 'Why won't she shut up about this?' My fears were that I would be looked at as someone who just whines and rants about this thing that no one else is really ranting about."