

30 tweet tagged #DeleteSpotify, alt-rockers Eve 6 wrote, “It’s not about Neil Young or Joe Rogan or wokeness or culture wars, it’s about Spotify’s blatant exploitation of artists.

Indeed, Young’s stand over COVID misinformation has blossomed into a more widespread reckoning with the music streaming economy at large, with the industry leader’s target on the dartboard. Still others have spoken out against Spotify, but haven’t taken any further action, whether due to a lack of control over their catalogs, or because they simply can’t afford to-to Young’s calculations, exiting Spotify means “losing 60% of my world wide streaming income,” which he calls “a huge loss for my record company to absorb.” Ironically, more artists would likely have already done the same if Spotify paid more than mere fractions of a cent per stream. In Young’s open letter to the company, he wrote, “I sincerely hope that other artists and record companies will move off the Spotify platform and stop supporting Spotify’s deadly misinformation about COVID.” That’s exactly what has happened since, with multiple prominent musicians removing their work from the service. Spotify bought the exclusive rights to Rogan’s massively popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience in 2020 for a reported sum north of $100 million, thereby helping to legitimize the various anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories that Rogan has amplified, and leading Young to stand with hundreds of medical professionals in proclaiming, “Spotify has become the home of life-threatening COVID misinformation.

Rock legend Neil Young pulled his solo catalog off Spotify late last week, taking a stand against the COVID-19 misinformation the streaming giant has helped to spread by continuing to platform Joe Rogan.
