But these statistics are not a true indication of whether these are Spotify's 'premium' or 'fremium' users which is one of the contentious issues for the powerful songstress. With 25% of Spotify's listeners having streamed her songs, she was on 19m playlists and the lead single from 1989, 'Shake if Off', went straight to number one on Spotify. This sounds like a fair deal that Taylor Swift and Big Machine have requested right? But No! Spotify have a strict policy regarding this issue and they will only take albums if it's available to ALL their users! Spotify couldn't comply with this request and so she has taken the drastic step to remove her entire music catalogue. Her record label Big Machine asked Spotify to allow only users who pay a 'premium' for streaming rather than their 'freemium' users who are allowed to listen to music for free with adverts. ![]() Windowing is a very popular method which record labels adhere to in order to increase album sales. One would think she has a personal gripe against Spotify but in fact the issue here is about 'windowing'. She clearly is not opposed to streaming music in general as her music (apart from 1989) remains on Rhapsody, Beats, WiMP and JB HIFI NOW. The speculation surrounding Taylor Swift's decision to remove her entire music catalogue from Spotify has been in overdrive. But the question is, can all artists afford to exclude Spotify to have a 'windowing strategy? SPOTIFY couldn't comply to deliver Taylor Swift's music to Premium users only Remember artists had the same fears about iTunes back in 2003 and this week Spotify revenue in Europe has overtaken income from iTunes downloads for the very first time. ![]() BUT given that streaming is predicted to be ubiquitous 5 years from now Taylor Swift may need to shake off her streaming inhibitions sooner rather than later. This ‘windowing' strategy which has certainly paid dividends for now has sold more than 1.287 million copies in the week ending Nov 2. Some say it's reportedly due to a dispute regarding streaming revenue dividends which are a lot lower than download revenues. But now she's even pulled her entire back music catalogue from the popular streaming service. Taylor Swift's "1989” album’s notable absence on Spotify was due to a ‘windowing' strategy.
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