Spotify shares fell 12 percent within a week of Neil Young requesting the removal of his music from the platform, according to Nasdaq data.
Half of this dizzying drop has occurred in just three days, between January 26 and 28, after Young would have made good on his threat and forced the company to remove his work, the result of more than 60 years of artistic activity, from its streaming service.
Active since the 1960s, and now 76 years old, Young has publicly spoken out against the platform's dissemination of "misleading" information about COVID. Most notably, through the successful podcast of Joe Rogan, a comedian and television host who has become one of the most influential and lucrative podcasters in recent years.
In an official statement released by TechCrunch, Spotify regretted Young's decision and, at the same time, stated that it has removed more than 20,000 episodes of podcasts with misinformation about COVID since the beginning of the pandemic. Young in turn encouraged more artists to boycott the platform. Following his protest, Canadian singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell became the first major musical figure to stand with him and remove her catalog from Spotify.
Other artists, such as guitarist Lofgren of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and R&B singer India Arie, also joined the protest. Graham Nash, Young's bandmate in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, also declared his support after ?listening to the COVID misinformation spread by Joe Rogan on Spotify? and announced that he will be removing all of his output from the platform.
The conflict with Young is not an isolated case in the company's complex relationship with artists. Recently, several musicians have spoken out about how unfair they find the streaming model, especially Spotify and YouTube, which tend to give artists only a fraction of a penny in payments for plays of their works. It's not so easy to abandon Spotify, though: according to Media Research, the platform has 172 million paying subscribers, about 31 percent of the world's total number of paying subscribers, more than twice as many as Apple Music, its closest competitor.
Due to lower-than-expected growth, Spotify's market value had already been falling for months, and as of the first few weeks of this year its shares were devalued by 25 percent.
Spotify announces new measures against misinformation
Following the controversy, Spotify announced that it will incorporate new measures to combat COVID misinformation on its platform. In a communiqué signed by its president and founder, Daniel EkIn the coming days, the company has committed to post a content alert on all podcasts that mention COVID, with links to direct users to factual and scientifically verified information. Also, Joe Rogan, with whom Spotify has closed an exclusive contract in 2020 for more than US $$100 million, remains on the streaming schedule.
*With information from AFP, TechCrunch and Spotify.
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