The podcast named ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, hosted by the famous comedian and actor Joe Rogan and described as the most popular podcast in the world with close to 11 million active listeners, has been criticized for misinforming people about COVID-19. has been the target of criticism. After this incident, the famous Canadian composer, songwriter and singer Neil Young also got involved, sparking controversy when he said that he did not want to be on the same platform with Joe Rogan and that supporting Spotify was destroying an art form.
After this incident, a strange event occurred on Spotify yesterday. An image that reads “Delete Spotify” appeared on the Spotify homepage of Belly, one of the 90s alt-rock bands, only in desktop view.
Belly describes Spotify’s stance on recent events as “disgusting”
Following this incident, all eyes naturally turned to Belly. The group, who made a statement on their Twitter account on Friday about Spotify’s attitude towards the latest events, does not pay the artists of the platform when they look at the business; however, it turned out that he considered it “disgusting” to use this income to fund false COVID-19 information, helping to prolong the pandemic that was keeping all artists from touring income.
While rights holders, usually record companies, are responsible for uploading an artist’s music to Spotify, the artists themselves can control the images used in the artist’s Spotify account. In this case, it seems likely that a representative of the group put this image on the page independently of the official rights holder.
The group, who wants their songs to be removed from Spotify, states that this process is quite complicated.
On the other hand, the group wants their songs removed from Spotify, just like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Making a statement on this subject on Facebook, the group states that although they want to delete their songs from the platform, this process is quite difficult and complex.
“If we don’t like them, why are we still on spotify? It’s so complicated,” the group said. “Once you’re in, it’s hard to get out. We’re looking at the options, but you’ll find that there are many people who oppose spotify policies and are still there,” saying that this means artists leaving Spotify. It is an indication of how difficult it is.
Speaking to Variety, Belly records in his statement:
“Spotify’s business model has been, from the very beginning, to lobby to devalue creative work and hold tight against the regulations that regulate royalty payments (along with other tech giants) while giving artists low salaries. Funding artists and disinformation – which could prolong the pandemic. and disinformation that could further harm artists by limiting live performance options – turning down and using a large amount of money that had to be dispersed to provide a platform would eventually be a straw.Yes, we believe in freedom of speech, but we do not seek to finance the deliberate disinformation and suspicion planted to undermine the notion of collective, public interest. We don’t believe we have an obligation to help (and get underpaid in the process).”