Taylor Swift pulls her music from Spotify as new album debuts

Taylor Swift's catalog was pulled from Spotify Ltd.'s music service at the request of the 24-year-old musician, who has criticized streaming as a cause of declining album sales.

Neither Swift nor her team has commented on the decision to remove her music, which Graham James, a spokesman for Spotify, confirmed in an e-mail. Closely held Spotify has also published a blog post asking her to come back.

"We hope she'll change her mind and join us in building a music economy that works for everyone," the London-based company said.

Swift grew up in Wyomissing, in Berks County.

Losing Swift deprives Spotify of the biggest pop star in the United States. Swift's latest album, 1989, was released last week and may sell the most copies in one week since 2002, according to Billboard.

Swift described streaming, piracy, and file sharing as reasons for the decline in album sales over the last several years in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in July. Major artists have been practically giving their music away for promotion, Swift wrote.

Online services such as Spotify, Rdio, and Deezer have positioned themselves as a new revenue stream for artists who rely on touring, sponsorship, and merchandise sales to counter declining album sales. Spotify pays almost 70 percent of its revenue back to the music industry.

Some television shows, notably Breaking Bad, have attracted a larger audience thanks to streaming services like Netflix Inc. Yet musical artists have bemoaned the lack of money they receive from music streaming services, and Radiohead front man Thom Yorke pulled solo work from Spotify last year.