Sucks To Be Spotify This Week
• It’s been a tough few days for Spotify, what with all the negative noise generated by Neil Young‘s request — and subsequent requests from Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren — that the service remove all of their music in protest of what Young claimed was all of the erroneous COVID-19 and vaccine info being disseminated by Joe Rogan‘s popular Spotify podcast, “potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation,” Young said, before giving Spotify an ultimatum — remove Rogan, or lose him and his music. You already know how that turned out.
On Saturday, Loudwire reported that Spotify had lost almost 25 percent of its market value so far in 2022, speculating that some of that loss could be attributed to the massive outcry of angry subscribers, sympathetic to Young’s cause, who reportedly jammed up Spotify’s customer service lines to cancel their subscriptions.
Against that backdrop, Spotify’s streaming rivals wasted zero time taking advantage of the growing drama: Apple Music tweeted: “The home of Neil Young. Listen to his entire catalog on Apple Music.” SiriusXM revived its Neil Young Channel, and Young himself posted a link on his website, neilyoungarchives.com, inviting his fans to subscribe to Amazon Music to stream his entire catalog, along with a free 4-month access code. Young added, “Amazon has been leading the pack in bringing Hi-Res audio to the masses, and it’s a great place to enjoy my entire catalog in the highest quality available.” Thanks, love earth, be well, neil.”
According to Billboard‘s calculations, Young’s decision to pull his music from Spotify will cost him about $754,000 annually, while Mitchell’s personal annual loss, based on her catalog’s performance for 2021, would be about $272,000 in total artist and publishing royalties.
On Sunday, Spotify blinked, responding to growing pressure from critics about supporting the spread of COVID and vaccine misinformation. Variety noted that CEO Daniel Ek posted a lengthy statement on Spotify’s website, outlining a plan to add warning labels on its global platform to any content that may skirt the line between “what is acceptable and what is not,” without specifying any content creators by name… like, say, Joe Rogan.
Ek added, “Based on the feedback over the last several weeks, it’s become clear to me that we have an obligation to do more to provide balance and access to widely-accepted information from the medical and scientific communities guiding us through this unprecedented time. These issues are incredibly complex. We’ve heard you — especially those from the medical and scientific communities.” [Additional info from American Songwriter]
