Big Machine pulls Taylor Swift’s entire catalogue from Spotify

Taylor Swift’s label, Big Machine Label Group, has today pulled her entire catalogue from Spotify.

Media reports suggest the decision was made last week without consulting the streaming service and is a bid to increase its profit margin as it readies for a potential sale. According to the NY Post, Big Machine owner Scott Borchetta, who founded the label in 2005, is looking for a price around the $200 million mark.

The Financial Times has reported Big Machine initially endeavoured to keep Swift’s tracks on the paid Spotify tier only but the service requires rights holders to be on both tiers or none at all.

Spotify has released a statement about Swift’s decision, citing lyrics from her 2008 track Love Story:

“We love Taylor Swift, and our more than 40 million users love her even more – nearly 16 million of them have played her songs in the last 30 days, and she’s on over 19 million playlists.

“We hope she’ll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone. We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy. That’s why we pay nearly 70% of our revenue back to the music community.

“PS – Taylor, we were both young when we first saw you, but now there’s more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It’s a love story, baby, just say, Yes.”

Her latest LP 1989, released last week, hit #1 on the ARIA Albums chart, #1 in the UK, selling 90,000, and is on track to sell over 1.3 million copies in the US, marking the Billboard chart’s biggest sales week by a female since Britney Spear’s racked up 1.319 million in first week sales when she released Oops! … I Did It Again in 2000.

Interestingly, Swift’s catalogue (excluding 1989) is still available to stream in the US via Rhapsody.