Taylor Swift Spotify Controversy: Streaming Site CEO Blasts 'Blank Space' Singer For Taking Her Music Off!

Taylor Swift is on top of the music business right now after selling 1.3 million copies of new album 1989 in her first week, but it's her decision to remove her music from the streaming site Spotify that still has everyone talking.

In a blog post on Spotify's site, CEO Daniel Ek defended his music service as saving the music industry, not being a detriment to it.

"Taylor Swift is absolutely right: music is art, art has real value, and artists deserve to be paid for it. We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it," he wrote. "So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time. Our whole reason for existence is to help fans find music and help artists connect with fans through a platform that protects them from piracy and pays them for their amazing work."

According to the CEO, Spotify had paid out $2 billion to artists for  the rights to stream their music since inception of the company in 2008.

"When I hear stories about artists and songwriters who say they've seen little or no money from streaming and are naturally angry and frustrated, I'm really frustrated too," he continued. "We will do anything we can to work with the industry to increase transparency, improve speed of payments, and give artists the opportunity to promote themselves and connect with fans."

As MStars News reported, the "Shake It Off" singer told Yahoo! Music she feels that music is an art that should be paid for and not just handed out for free.

"If I had streamed the new album, it's impossible to try to speculate what would have happened. But all I can say is that music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment," she said. "And I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music."

Do you agree with Taylor taking her music off the streaming site?

We were young when we first saw you but now there’s 40MM who say stay, stay, stay. It’s a love story baby #justsayyes pic.twitter.com/n6tHkG8GCq

— Spotify (@Spotify) November 3, 2014