Taylor Swift lets Apple Music stream 1989 after royalties U-turn

Singer has shaken off her row with tech giant

Apple Music changed their artist payment policy after Taylor Swift's angry open letter (Getty Images)

Taylor Swift has signalled that she's kissed and made up with Apple by revealing she will be putting her hugely successful album 1989 on Apple Music (and "happily so").

The "Shake It Off" singer caused the tech giant to change its policy over royalties for artists after writing an open letter on her Tumblr account.

She called out the iPhone makers for initially refusing to pay artists during a three month free trial of Apple Music and said she was withholding her latest album.

"We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation," she wrote on Twitter at the weekend.

To which the tech firm responded: "We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple."

Swift was quick to come back with a tweet expressing her relief. "I am elated and relieved. Thank you for your words of support today. They listened to us," she wrote.

Today she went one step further and gushed: "This is simply the first time it's felt right in my gut to stream my album. Thank you, Apple, for your change of heart."

Up to now only Swift's earlier albums have been available on streaming services such as Tidal, Beats Music, Google Play Music and Rhapsody.

She also made it clear that she hadn't done "an exclusive deal" with Apple.

Last year Swift hit headlines when she pulled her entire back catalogue from music streaming service Spotify while she was promoting new album 1989, which sold 1.287 million copies in its first week.

The 25-year-old said at the time that "valuable things should be paid for", arguing that "music should not be free" and artists should not "underestimate themselves or undervalue their art".

"I felt like I was saying to my fans, 'If you create music someday, if you create a painting someday, someone can just walk into a museum, take it off the wall, rip off a corner off it and it's theirs now and they don't have to pay for it," she said.

"I didn't like the perception that it was putting forth and so I decided to change the way I was doing things."

Spotify subsequently begged Swift to return with a "we love you" playlist and insisted that nearly 70 per cent of its revenue goes back to the music community.