People: Apple changes policy after Swift speaks up
Taylor Swift has Apple changing its tune.
Hours after the pop superstar criticized the tech company in an open letter, Apple announced Sunday it will pay royalties to artists and record labels for music played during a free, three-month trial of its new streaming music service.
“When I woke up this morning and I saw Taylor’s note that she had written, it really solidified that we needed to make a change,” said Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue.
Apple had already agreed to share revenue from paid subscriptions to the new Apple Music service, which will cost $10 a month. But Swift said she would withhold her latest album from the service because Apple wasn’t planning to pay artists and labels directly for the use of their music during the free, introductory period.
“We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation,” Swift wrote in an open letter posted Sunday on her Tumblr page, under the heading “To Apple, Love Taylor.”
‘Star Wars’ actor arrested in S.C.
A former child actor who starred in one of the “Star Wars” movies faces charges after leading South Carolina deputies on a high-speed chase.
Colleton County Sheriff’s deputies on Wednesday arrested a 26-year-old man they confirmed through a former talent agent was Jake Lloyd, who played a young Anakin Skywalker in the 1999 movie “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” Sgt. Kyle Strickland said Sunday.
The man gave his name as Jake Broadbent, Strickland said. The man’s birthdate matched the actors listed by movie database IMDB.com and a hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado, where Lloyd was born.
The man was charged with failing to stop for officers and reckless driving after hitting speeds over 100 miles an hour, Strickland said.
Deputies in coastal Charleston County initially tried to stop the fleeing vehicle early Wednesday afternoon, but quit chasing after the man drove into neighboring Colleton County, Sheriff’s Office Major Eric Watson said Sunday.
The chase lasted for more than 25 miles before Lloyd drove off Interstate 95, plowed through a fence, and continued speeding along a parallel frontage road, authorities said. The road ended at a dead end, but the vehicle kept going into a wooded area before it hit several small trees and stopped. The man had not posted bond and remained in jail Sunday, Strickland said.
Lloyd said in a 2012 interview that the role he performed when he was 10 made his youth hellish because he was bullied by other children.
The birthday bunch
Singer-actor Kris Kristofferson is 79. Actor Michael Lerner is 74. Actor Klaus Maria Brandauer is 72. Singer Peter Asher (Peter and Gordon) is 71. Singer-musician Todd Rundgren is 67. Actress Meryl Streep is 66. Actress Lindsay Wagner is 66. Singer Alan Osmond is 66. Pop singer Cyndi Lauper is 62. Actress Tracy Pollan is 55. Actress Amy Brenneman is 51. Actress-TV personality Carson Daly is 42. Pop singer Dina Hansen (Fifth Harmony) (TV: “The X Factor”) is 18.