Taylor may have been too swift to dump Spotify says Quincy

Quincy Jones has leapt to the defence of the music streaming website Spotify. The site was recently in the news after high profile US pop artist Taylor Swift withdrew her music from the service.

Swift went to the extreme of removing all her music after initially holding back her recent new release.

"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. And I just don't agree with perpetuating the perception that music has no value and should be free,” said Swift.

Quincy Jones has countered this argument by saying, "Spotify is not the enemy. Piracy is the enemy. Spotify is paying out 70% of their revenue to musicians and rightsholders. If I had to release 'Thriller' Michael Jackson today, you can be sure I'd want it on Spotify. The genie is not going back in the bottle friends. Let's work together to find solutions to the music industry's problems."

Spotify allows users to listen to millions of tracks for free but the service is interrupted by advertising. For a monthly premium users get access to the commercial free service. Recently, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Talking Heads’ David Byrne have been very critical of the model.