A few days later, Joni Mitchell also demanded that her music be removed. Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who have a deal to host and produce Spotify podcasts, expressed their own “concerns” over the spread of “pandemic-related misinformation”.
Spotify shares, which were down 44 per cent over the past year at $191.92, dropped another 18 per cent on the news.
Since then, a small but growing cadre of artists has followed Young’s lead. His pushback has also led to larger questions about the streaming service’s support for Rogan, who has suggested that young people do not need to get vaccinated, and its responsibility for monitoring content distributed on its platform to hundreds of millions of listeners.
As the news of the musicians’ protest spread, so did what appeared to be a Spotify consumer boycott. Hashtags like #cancelspotify and #ByeSpotify gained traction on Twitter.
Spotify boss Daniel Ek pushed back at employees demanding the ouster of Rogan, saying the controversial podcaster is vital to the platform’s future and it is not the company’s place to “dictate the discourse” of his show.
The subscription music streaming service has invested over $1 billion in the podcasting business, led by marquee exclusive shows such as The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan’s podcast is the platform’s highest-rated show, with each episode bringing in more than 10 million listeners.
For many artists, the long-simmering tensions with Spotify have more to do with money than any podcast.
Many musicians argue that Spotify does not fairly compensate them.
For each dollar of revenue Spotify earns, 59 cents goes to the owner of a song’s sound recording, while Spotify keeps 29 cents. Artists are paid between $0.0033 and $0.0054 every time their song is played, according to Insider.
But Mr Ek brushed off the potential cost of the fallout. “It’s too early to know what the impact may be, and usually when we have controversies in the past those are measured in months and not days,” he said on a recent earnings call.
