Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has published a blog post responding to Taylor Swift pulling her music from the streaming service.

While defending how the company pays artists, he makes reference to Hozier's breakthrough hit 'Take Me to Church' saying that: "In the months since that song was released, it’s been listened to enough times to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for his label and publisher."

Although Spotify pay out less than a cent per-stream, a song like 'Take Me to Church', which has more than 50 million plays, can still make real money.

He then added that a major artist like Taylor Swift would make $6 million from streaming revenues this year and that the company has paid $2bn in royalties to labels and publishers.

His over-arching argument is that streaming is better than piracy, saying: "We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time."

Mr Ek added that claims that services like Spotify hurt album sales are unfounded, and an example or correlation being confused with causation. He writes that sales would still be falling if Spotify did not exist, and that download sales are falling at the same rate in regions where Spotify is not available.

The CEO also highlights the non-monetary advantages that Spotify offers to artists, particularly to "promote themselves and connect with fans."

Swift clarified her position with regards to music streaming in an interview with Yahoo! Music last week, reiterating her belief that the format devalues music.