Then there’s radio, which brings its own set of quirks. In a key distinction, though, Spotify effectively pays Rogan’s salary through its $100-million licensing deal, making it more of a media company than a retailer like Amazon. That’s unforgivable.”Ī representative of Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.Īrtists who want to protest Spotify and Rogan, specifically, will find that some of the biggest competitors have their own flaws, other than not having the same reach.Īfter ditching Spotify, Young started promoting Amazon Music, owned by, which has faced criticism for allowing books with COVID-19 misinformation to be promoted through its e-commerce site (not to mention Amazon’s labor issues). “They are consciously doing the wrong thing for money on purpose. But I can call them up and say, ‘I wish you would do it.’ Which is what I’m going to do. “They own my publishing and my revenue stream, so that means they are the ones making the decision and I can’t just call up and say, ‘Hey, I want to do what Neil did,’” Crosby told The Times on Monday. Indeed, Crosby, who vehemently agrees with Young’s position on Spotify and Rogan (the former bandmates have publicly clashed over the years), sold his recorded music and publishing rights to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group last year. It’s unlikely the owners of those catalogs would want to forgo Spotify’s streaming revenue after forking over so much money in the hopes that streaming would make their investments pay off. Top-tier songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have sold their songs and recordings for nine-figure payouts. Many artists don’t even own their catalogs, creating additional difficulties. Artists such as Mitchell have to go through their labels to get their tunes off the platform. The big labels - Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music - all have licensing deals with Spotify, as do the indies through music rights agency Merlin. The top musicians typically don’t have direct relationships with streaming services their music appears on the app through licensing deals with their labels and publishers. The company’s status as a promotional tool is as important as its function as a moneymaker through actual listening, and that helps touring bands develop the fan bases that buy concert tickets.Įven when artists want to leave Spotify - and some do - it isn’t as simple as pressing the skip button. Getting onto a popular Spotify playlist is a supercharged version of getting onto a record store end cap in the 1990s, exposing new artists to millions of listeners. ![]() The company, through its curated playlists such as RapCaviar, functions as the equivalent of a Tower Records in its heyday, combined with the biggest radio station conglomerates. ![]() Spotify’s power extends beyond the balance sheet. “Streaming income, while by no means the whole income picture, is the key income source now, and it’s driving the sky-high valuations that are allowing some artists to sell off and then sail off into the sunset with a yacht-load of cash,” said Bill Hochberg, a music industry lawyer in Los Angeles. Billboard estimated that Young and Mitchell are forsaking 10% of their annual earnings to bail on Spotify. Young said leaving Spotify would cost him 60% of his streaming earnings.Īlthough artists these days make most of their money touring, royalty checks from Spotify are not easy to part with. It’s unclear whether Spotify’s response will be enough to quell the turmoil and relieve pressure on other artists to act.Ĭutting off that profit pipeline would be a big deal for artists and their labels. The company agreed to publish its “platform rules” and add content advisories to episodes that discuss COVID-19, though it appeared to set a high bar for what it considers misinformation. ![]() ![]() The exit of Young and Mitchell was enough to get Spotify Chief Executive Daniel Ek to release a lengthy statement on Spotify’s “critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users.” He didn’t mention Rogan by name. Fellow Canadian rocker and polio survivor Joni Mitchell followed suit in solidarity (the friends share the same manager and record label). When Neil Young pulled his music from the Swedish streamer over its airing of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” he invited others to join him. For those following certain parts of Twitter during the last week, it would have been easy to come away with the impression that Spotify was facing a mass exodus of artists protesting COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on Joe Rogan’s immensely popular podcast.
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