Taylor Swift Calls Out Apple, Forces Them to Pay

Taylor Swift... for President? The girl knows how to get things done. She withheld the rights to her latest album, 1989, from the new Apple streaming service because of their non-payment of royalties during a free trial period.

Well, Apple blinked, and upped their rates yesterday in response to the protest. 

Taylor took to her Tumblr page to explain why she was pulling the album. She said it was due to Apple's three-month free trial they were offering to customers. She said during that time Apple would not be paying the artists which include producers and songwriters among others.

She summed it up by saying, “We don't ask you for free iPhones. Please don't ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation."

Well, the power of T-Swizzle is real because Apple was paying attention, as was the rest of the internet. Last night, Eddy Cue, a high ranking Apple official responded to Taylor and the rest of the music industry by writing on Twitter: "#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer's free trial period. We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple."

Swift followed up with her own tweet about the change, writing: "I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us."

In an interview with Billboard, Cue said that Apple had heard "concern from a lot of artists" about the lack of compensation. He also said once he and Apple CEO Tim Cook decided to pay the artists, Cue personally called Swift, who is in Amsterdam on tour. He said, "We have a long relationship with Taylor, so I wanted her to hear directly from us."

Like we said, the power of T-Swift, you go girl.