There was excitement on Monday 22nd June following Apple’s reaction to Taylor Swift’s statement that she won’t be making her 1989 album available on their new streaming service due to their decision not to pay artists for streams during their 3 month free trial period. Apple responded to announce that they have listened to both her comments and those of independent artists and have decided to pay artists after all, but how much will they be paying? Apple have declined to comment, but figures being thrown around are $0.002 a stream, drastically lower than Spotify’s payments of $0.006 – $0.0084. After the trial period, their payments will increase to 71.5% of revenues compared to Spotify’s 70% but does this make up for the drop in the initial 3 months?