It's Unnecessary for Taylor Swift To Remove Her Albums From Spotify.

Taylor Swift's recent move to not stream her new album "1989" on Spotify was impactful. An artist like Taylor Swift with her huge fan base and popularity will most likely influence many other artists to follow up in her footsteps and remove their music from online streaming services as well. What does this mean for the music streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Beats Music? Online music streaming services are expected to increase in popularity by a whopping 238% over the next five years while digital download sales decrease by 30%. This means that listeners are certainly benefiting from online music streaming more than the artists themselves. However, artists gain revenue from many other sources besides album sales. Despite the decrease in music sales, there has been an increase in fans purchasing tickets to attend concerts, which enable artists to gain a respectful amount of money that is "lost" through online streaming, so much so that many feel that concert tickets are actually under priced. Artists can gain revenue through merchandise and interviews and live shows, not just album sales.

Removing her music on Spotify doesn't make much sense either, "Spotify royalties tilt toward the artist’s favor compared with those of online rivals such as YouTube and Pandora." Taylor swift is keeping her music on YouTube and Pandora despite less royalties on each site. Taylor Swift argues that removing her music off online streaming services has helped her album sales. For example, both "Red" and "1989" saw album sales of a million plus, and neither were streamed on Spotify. However, her album that was released before "Red," "Speak Now," saw a million plus sales as well, even though that album was allowed to be streamed. Also, it can be argued that much of Taylor Swifts fan base isn't the type to be illegally downloading /streaming music anyways, so they will purchase her album nonetheless. And for those who do illegally download music, they can simply download it completely free and listen to it without Taylor Swift being compensated at all. If her album is still on Spotify, Taylor Swift is at least still being paid, even though it is a small amount.

Link to article: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-03/taylor-swifts-war-on-spotify-doesnt-make-sense