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. The Stockholm company counts 381 million users, including 172 million paying subscribers, in 184 countries, and in 2020 paid out $5 billion in music royalties, accounting for roughly 20% of recorded music revenues that year.Ĭutting off that profit pipeline would be a big deal for artists and their labels. 4 on its music business Power List for 2022. Spotify is hugely important to the music industry The issues speak to the trickiness of the debate over COVID-19 misinformation, free speech, music rights and the role of Spotify in the modern music industry. The reasons why more artists haven’t abandoned Spotify include a stew of political hesitancies, music ownership complications and business incentives. It’s unclear whether Spotify’s response will be enough to quell the turmoil and relieve pressure on other artists to act. 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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