Taylor Swift Has Removed Her Entire Catalog from Spotify

Taylor Swift's record label, Big Machine Records, has removed her catalog from Spotify.

In a blog post titled "On Taylor Swift’s Decision To Remove Her Music from Spotify," the company wrote: "We believe fans should be able to listen to music wherever and whenever they want, and that artists have an absolute right to be paid for their work and protected from piracy."

According to Billboard, a source with intimate knowledge of the situation tells Billboard that the move was motivated by the Big Machine Label Group's ongoing negotiations around a sale of the label, with Big Machine ostensibly taking advantage of a new scarcity to drive up its sale price.

"This came as a complete surprise. Big Machine is in the process of selling itself, and that can't be forgotten here. [They're looking to] increase the multiple for the sale of that company. Scott Borchetta is a very old-school thinker. He's wrong."

When asked whether the move of posting an appeal risked coming across as desperate, "It's about our fans and trying to protect their investment in their collections -- a lot of playlists got greyed out." According to their blog post, Swift's music was on 19 million playlists.

When asked about whether any other artists had pulled records from the service, Billboard's source says that "I think at one time we had the john lennon catalog and it went down then went back up."

At publication time, other Big Machine Label Group artists, such as Florida Georgia Line, were still available on the streaming service.

Big Machine Label Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.