When it started Apple announced that it would not pay artists a dime for the first three months of the service and they should be lucky to contribute to Jobs' Mob's pile of cash.

It seemed that Apple changed its mind after popular beat combo artist Taylor Swift stomped her stilettos and got upset about it.
However the Independent  smelt a rat. After all Taylor Swift objecting to something is not really bad for your business. Think of all the ex-boyfriends she slags off in her records – it did not seem to do their careers any harm.

The Independent pointed out that thanks to Swift, we are being asked to believe, Apple will now pay a whopping $0.002 per stream before tax. This means that if your song gets a million listens will result in a cheque for two grand to be split between the artist, the label and the tax man.

"Rubbish money in it for superstars like Taylor Swift, peanuts, and rotten ones at that, for virtually everyone else," the Indi points out.

Then the writer  Andrew Dewson appears to start channelling me and the fun started.

"The original message Apple sent the music industry was crystal clear – your work is worthless compared to ours. The geeks have inherited the earth, and their revenge on the cool kids is brutal. So long as Apple is making money, the input put into creating the art it is selling or giving away has no monetary value. Zip. Nada."

So why then did Swift even sign up for it, given all her objections earlier on in the week? The short answer would be to do a search on Taylor Swift and Apple. Until last week Swift was a big fan of Apple and has a large number of products and apps for the iPhone.

She runs an iPhone herself and very publically ran down Apple's rival Spotify for playing much more than Apple is now offering.
Immediately after her objection, Apple "backed down" and announced a scheme which was an even bigger insult to the musicians that have the misfortune to be on its streaming service. Apple gained publicity, as did Swift, and the real losers was the rest of the music industry.

Dewson ended his piece with something which would normally seen on Fudzilla:

"The more Apple dominates the more it resembles a cult, with Steve Jobs an L. Ron Hubbard-like presence whose power grows ever more mythical. It gives me the creeps almost as much as the people who work in Apple's stores give me the creeps."

I normally write about how the mainstream press is fast becoming an extension of the Apple Press Office so thumbs up to the Independent.