Neil Young notified his management on January 24th that he wanted his music off of Spotify, because he objected to the company allowing Joe Rogan to spread misinformation about Coronavirus and the vaccines for the virus on the platform. “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,” explained Young.
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Initial reports represented Neil Young as delivering a him-or-me type of ultimatum. And today, hiss legendary catalog of music has been removed, while Spotify’s most listened to podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” is still on the streaming service.
Some expected the matter to die down since other artists didn’t join Neil Young and ask for their music to be removed from Spotify. According to Newsweek, the customer support chat for Spotify had been overwhelmed on January 27th, and users received this message: “We’re currently getting a lot of contacts so may be slow to respond.”
Spotify is the most popular streaming service with 172 million subscribers, and has 31% of the market. Apple Music on the other hand, has a 15% share, and seems to be trying to increase its audience by luring listeners who don’t support Spotify’s stance when it comes to Joe Rogan.
The home of Neil Young.
Listen to his entire catalog on Apple Music: https://t.co/sUGtz4JbB9 pic.twitter.com/YgRMygUqhi
— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) January 28, 2022
While some may minimize the frustrations of upset Spotify subscribers as an extension of the pro-vaccine/anti-vaccine division in the United States, many are troubled by the inconsistency. Why has Spotify removed thousands of episodes with COVID misinformation, but not Joe Rogan’s? Here’s the statement released by a Spotify spokesperson to The Hollywood Reporter on January 26th:
“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 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.”
It is still unknown if courting Neil Young fans will move the needle for Apple Music, but at the very least, it was a well-played effort to gain audience share.
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