Neil Young demands his music is removed from Spotify
In an open letter to his management team, record label, and Spotify executives, Neil Young has demanded his entire music catalogue be removed from the streaming service.
His reasoning behind the demand stems from Spotfiy giving a platform to podcasters who spread vaccine misinformation and dangerous rhetoric about the Covid-19 pandemic.
He wrote, “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.”
“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” he continued. “They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
Neil’s callout directly targets right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan, who regularly pedals an anti-vaccine sentiment on his show Joe Rogan Experience, and even claimed he used livestock medication ivermectin to “cure” his bout of coronavirus.
“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” the letter reads.
“Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”
Just 48 hours after Neil Young issued his public demand, Spotify confirmed they would be removing his music from their platform.
The company said they regretted the turn of events and hoped to “welcome him back soon”.
“We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users,” it said in a statement.
“With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.”
Neil Young responded to Spotify’s move, saying he was willing to take the hit to his yearly revenue, and urged other artists to contemplate a similar move.
“Spotify represents 60 per cent of the streaming of my music to listeners around the world. Almost every record I have ever released is available – my life’s music. (It is) a huge loss for my record company to absorb,” he said.
“I truly want to thank the many, many people who have reached out to me thanking me for taking this position – people who are health professionals on the front lines, people who have lost loved ones to Covid or who are worried for their own children and families. I have never felt so much love coming from so many,” said Young.
“I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about Covid.”
Image credits: Getty Images