Battle looms after singer Taylor Swift stops streaming music on Spotify

Spotify has stopped streaming Taylor Swift's music at her request, setting up a business struggle between the leading purveyor of a new music distribution system and the industry's most popular artist.

The music streaming service sounded like a spurned boyfriend in a humorous statement announcing the split. The music was removed on Monday after the request late last week. Now none of her songs are available to its 40 million users. "We were both young when we first saw you, but now there's more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay," Spotify said, paraphrasing Swift lyrics "It's a love story, baby. Just say yes".

A spokeswoman for Swift, whose single was the most-played song on Spotify last week, did not immediately return a call for comment.

The decision means a large number of fans will have only one option to hear Swift's new album, , and that is to buy it, which hundreds of thousands of people have already done. Swift is making a political statement and a savvy business move.

Music streaming services and file sharing have sharply cut into sales for artists over the past couple of years. Many artists say fees Spotify pays to record labels and music publishers, with a portion eventually funnelled to musicians, are too small.