

"This could be just window-dressing," he says. Will Rogan's audience actually listen to an advisory and then hunt down other COVID information? Yet it's not clear that anyone has effectively dealt with the issue of misinformation spread through podcasts, Wihbey says. Spotify has shown more transparency in the past few days than it ever has about how it deals with questionable content, and the new policy is a good first step, says John Wihbey, a Northeastern University professor and specialist in emerging technologies. The company announced that it would add a warning before all podcasts that discuss COVID-19, directing listeners to factual information on the pandemic from scientists and public health experts. WHAT IS SPOTIFY DOING TO QUIET THE PROTESTS? Popular podcasters, particularly the outspoken ones, are likely to be watching this protest very closely to see if Spotify will stick up for the right to speak freely. Spotify was set to overtake Apple last year as the biggest podcast platform in the United States, the world's largest market, by number of listeners, according to the research firm eMarketer. The Swedish company is gunning to be the premiere podcasting platform, investing hundreds of millions of dollars since 2019 to buy podcast companies like Gimlet and Anchor, and sign top hosts like Rogan and Dax Shepard. In the long term, Spotify has more control over potential revenue from podcasts than it does for music, Mulligan says. He's the centerpiece of the company's strategy to become an audio company rather than just a music company.
SPOTIFY JOE ROGAN DR MALONE LICENSE
Spotify reportedly paid more than $100 million to license Rogan's podcast, its most popular. Music accounts for the vast majority of Spotify's revenue, but Rogan represents its future. Everyone in Spotify's top 10 list of most-streamed artists, led by Drake's 44 billion, are from past the turn of the century, with the possible exception of Eminem, who first became popular in 1999.įor those artists, and for Spotify, taking a stand like Young's would have much more serious financial consequences. While losing Young and Mitchell may be a psychic blow, what would really matter is if a more current artist takes up the cause. "And that is what at risk if more artists essentially tried to push their fans to other places."

"Spotify has a huge amount of cultural capital that is itself power," says Midia Research's Mark Mulligan. Spotify is not always popular with musicians, many of whom complain that it doesn't pay them enough for their work. It had 31 percent of the 524 million worldwide music stream subscriptions in the second quarter of 2021, more than double that of second-place Apple Music, according to Midia Research.

Pulling music off Spotify isn't necessarily easy - often it's the record company, not the artist, who controls that. The rock band Belly put the message "Delete Spotify" in the background of its Spotify page, but you could still stream their music. Podcaster Brene Brown also said she was halting new podcasts without saying exactly why. So did Nils Lofgren, a guitarist who plays in one of Young's backing bands, Crazy Horse, and also with Bruce Springsteen. Joni Mitchell said she was standing in solidarity and also asked for her music to be removed. Saying Spotify was complicit in spreading misinformation, Young told the company that it could have his music or Rogan's podcast - "not both." Spotify agreed to remove his music from the service. Malone has become a hero in the anti-vaccination community. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation on COVID-19. His protest came after dozens of doctors and scientists wrote an open letter to Spotify, complaining about Rogan's decision to have a podcast discussion with Dr.
