Don’t Give Apple Too Much Credit for Bowing to Taylor Swift | WIRED

Eddy Cue unveils Apple Music at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, June 8, 2015. DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

APPLE IS SKILLED at attracting praise. Often, the tech giant deserves that praise. This is not one of those times.

On Sunday, high-ranking Apple exec Eddy Cue tweeted that the company would, in fact, pay royalties to musicians during the three-month free trial period of its new music platform Apple Music. This decision was a reversal of an earlier policy that became the center of controversy this weekend when megastar Taylor Swift wrote a blog post slamming Apple for its plan not to pay artists while Apple Music was in its trial phase. “It is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing,” Swift said, adding that she would be withholding her most recent album, 1989—that of “Shake It Off” fame—from Apple Music.

Taylor Swift responds to photographer accusing her of ‘rights grab’

Jon Stapley    June 23, 2015

An open letter from photographer Jason Sheldon to Taylor Swift protesting that she does not offer photographers a fair deal has prompted a response from her management.