You may know very well the story of Taylor Swift going against Apple and Spotify because these two decided to stream artists’ music without paying them any, or very little, royalties. After Taylor Swift pulled her entire repertoire from Spotify and called Apple out for originally not intending to pay publishers, labels or artists during the free three-month trial, she finally made up with Apple. Following a quite restless time, Swift tweeted she is putting her album on Apple Music ‘and happily so’.

When considering YouTube, things are rather different. Even if some people expected for the singer to pick on them too, it is unlikely to happen. Taylor hasn’t yet launched an aggressive campaign against YouTube for the same reason she blasted Apple and Spotify. Why? It seems that the dimension and notoriety of YouTube is not something you can mess with so easily. With the significant amount of visitors on its site, YouTube is perceived as a social media marketing giant and the place to go to discover and consume music. Stars are made on YouTube. 

On YouTube, Swift is able to monetize artists’ videos in more ways than Spotify and Apple can provide. You may also notice that some videos on YouTube have the Vevo mark. Vevo belongs to the group made out of Sony Music Entertainment, Abu Dhabi Media and Universal Music Group. YouTube made considerable investments in this website, just to have those videos streamed to it as well and give the opportunity for artists to increase value by uploading videos to Vevo, with the goal of monetizing these music videos through ads.

You want to see the latest music videos or check out Taylor’s previous work? You head for YouTube. Now you get the full picture regarding this case. Swift and artists in general get greater value from keeping their music videos on YouTube. The site is a great way to showcase what artists are up to, music videos, and live performances but it is also a discovery engine for the 1 billion unique visitors per month. With the recent launch of Music Insights for artists, YouTube is trying to show how it can provide more value to its homegrown artists through Music Insights.