Taylor Swift

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Taylor Swift has Apple changing its tune.

Hours after the pop superstar criticized the giant tech company in an open letter posted online, Apple announced Sunday that 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. “

Apple has maintained that it negotiated revenue-sharing at rates that are slightly higher than the industry standard, to compensate for the three months that it plans to offer its streaming service without charge.

“We had factored that in,” Cue said Sunday. But he added, “We had been hearing from artists that this was going to be rough on them, so we are making this change.”

Cue didn’t to say how much Apple will pay in royalties for streaming during the free period. He said Apple will share 71.5 percent of its revenue from paid subscriptions within the U.S. and 73 percent from subscriptions outside the country, while other services generally share about 70 percent.

Some artists had worried they would miss out on opportunities to get a financial return from new music that is released during the three-month trial.