Neil Young catalyzed a controversy involving Spotify and the content on their platform, after asking for the company to choose between his music and the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Jan. 24. Following in Young’s footsteps, a number of artists have also asked for their music to be removed from the streaming platform.
Young’s request to Spotify was mainly in reaction to the spread of misinformation surrounding COVID-19 in episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. In his letter to the company, Young stated, “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines.” He went on to voice that he wanted all of his music off of the platform, effective immediately, saying that Spotify can, “Have Joe Rogan or Young. Not both.”
Along with Young, Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren and Crosby, Stills & Nash, in addition to several podcasters, withdrew their content from Spotify. In her statement to the platform, four days following Young’s, Joni Mitchell stated, “By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals.” Mitchell specifically mentioned episode 1,757 of the Joe Rogan Experience featuring Dr. Robert Malone.
Over the years, the Joe Rogan Experience podcast has been a source of commentary and criticism. On the show, Rogan has had guests that have made statements regarding the transgender community, neo-fascism and more recently COVID-19 regulations among other topics, that have caused an uproar of backlash. The Spotify exclusive currently has 11 million listeners, potentially one of the reasons why Spotify wasn’t willing to choose its artists over Joe Rogan.
Spotify has since responded to the situation by stating that they will be adding warning labels and links to credible information regarding COVID-19 to any content related to it. Rogan himself has also spoken out, via a video posted to Instagram, where he defended his platform, denied accusations of spreading false information and voiced his support for Spotify’s response.
The feud between Spotify, Rogan and artists has also brought to light other issues involving the platform’s treatment of musicians. Many artists have outwardly discussed how Spotify does not compensate them fairly for their content. Business Insider reported that musicians are only paid $.0033 to $.0054 every time one of their songs is streamed.
This is not the first time that disputes over the compensation of artists and free speech on streaming platforms have come to the public’s attention, and it is likely not the last. Keep up to date on responses from the platform on their news page.
