Out, damned spot

Bad news for Taylor Swift fans who listen to her on Spotify: You are never, ever getting back together.

Not right now, anyway.

Swift is taking her music off the streaming service - her new hit album 1989, her back catalogue, the lot.

Last week, her single Shake It Off was the most played song on Spotify, and this week it is not available.

Two days ago, she was on 19 million Spotify playlists, and now she is on zero.

She joins English musician Thom Yorke in protesting about streaming. Now there is an odd couple.

But good for her.

Back in July, Swift wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which she strongly defended artists' rights, or more specifically, their money.

"Music is art, and art is important and rare," she said.

"Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.

"It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is.

"I hope they don't underestimate themselves or undervalue their art."

Obviously, Swift has decided that the fee of $9.90 per month for Spotify's Premium service was just not enough.

For that amount, the service's users are able to listen to as many songs (online and offline) as they want every 30 days for less than ten bucks.

To me, it is crazy. Sure, an artist can get his music out there, but is it truly valued?

I remember when, as an undergraduate, I had to decide between eating lunch or spending my money on just one cassette tape.

Music actually had a value back then, which is as it should be.

Musicians on Spotify earn less than one cent each time their song is played - in fact the average is between US$0.006 (S$0.007) and US$0.0084.

This means that an artist could earn as little as US$6,000 even if his song is played a million times.

I did the maths on that twice.

TOUGHER TO GET PAID

I love free stuff as much as the next guy, but the fact is that content creators are having an increasingly tougher time getting paid.

But who am I kidding? This is how it has always been.

The people who live for money will always get paid.

The people who live for beauty will always get pummelled.

Which raises the question of what the aftermath of this will be - who will be seen as the good guy?

Some people may agree in principle, but object to who is making the point.

There are already comments that take offence to a millionaire deciding she wants to make even more money.

Whichever side you take, there is still something inspiring when an artist like Swift takes a stand.

An artist wielding real power - now that is a rare and terrifying beast.