More than 30 music creators based in Seattle have signed a letter criticising Spotify and pledging to remove their tracks from the market leading streaming platform. They follow a number of other artists who have pulled their music from Spotify in recent months in protest over CEO Daniel Ek’s investments in the defence sector, though the new open letter also runs through other criticisms of the digital music giant.
“Spotify’s harmful actions have escalated beyond just meagre payouts to artists”, they write. It has “shown us time and again that they are bent on undermining art to an extreme degree and using our money to invest in anti-human practices both within their own company and externally”. Despite the fact that “many artists get most of their streams from Spotify”, they go on, “we don’t have to put up with this”.
Ek is an active investor in German AI defence tech company Helsing via his venture capital business Prima Materia. He’s been involved in the defence firm since 2021, but that involvement has been back in the news more recently because Prima Materia led a new €600 million funding round, and Ek himself is now Chair of the defence business’s board.
Various artists have removed their music from Spotify in protest, including Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. In their open letter, the 30 Seattle-based music creators cite a recent statement from King Gizzard which reads, “A PSA for those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology”.
However, it’s not just the drones that the open letter criticises. While conceding that “the economics of streaming are difficult on any platform”, it argues that Spotify has instigated more “harmful actions” than many of its competitors.
It then lists Spotify’s demonetising of grassroots artists, its prioritisation of cheaper production music on mood music playlists, and its failure to deal with the increasing problem of AI-generated tracks.
Under pressure from the major labels, in 2023 Spotify announced thresholds that any one track must pass before it is allocated any royalties. Although the thresholds are currently pretty low, it has nevertheless demonetised millions of tracks by grassroots artists and independent labels on the platform.
Spotify’s pushing of cheaper production music onto its hugely popular mood music playlists has long proven controversial. More recently the streaming service has reportedly commissioned music for those playlists directly to further reduce its costs, and the assumption is that an increasing amount of mood music will be AI generated in the future.
There has also been much debate about seemingly AI-generated tracks getting traction on Spotify of late. Most controversial are those AI-generated tracks that falsely claim to be by known artists, which raise issues around publicity rights and trademarks in addition to any copyright concerns.
The open letter references one such track. It says, “Spotify posted an AI track falsely attributed to Blaze Foley, an artist who died years ago. While the track was taken down due to the actions of Foley’s estate, Spotify took no responsibility for this egregious violation of Foley’s artistic legacy and, instead, pointed fingers at the music distributor”.
All these issues combined, the letter concludes, mean the time has come for artists to come together and take action. “As individual artists, we have the power to create powerful music”, it says, “but our impacts on the music industry will remain small if we act alone. It is together that we can have an enormous impact”.
“Seattle is known as a place where new ideas gain steam”, it goes on. “From the music of Nirvana and Shabazz Palaces, to movements like the World Trade Organisation protests, Seattle has led the fight against corporate interests in our own powerful way that inspires others to join in. Now is a time for Seattle artists to lead together”.
Signatories of the letter include: Afrocop, Ben Urv-Wong, Casey Rosebridge, Christopher Icasiano, DJ Roxy Music, Elias Hampton, Fantasy A, ff00ff, Gretta Seabird, IQU, Jesse Gallaway, Jesse Moneyhun, Josh Hou, Jovino Santos Neto, Kaley Lane Eaton, Kevin Sur, Lada Laika, Leanna Keith, Levi Fuller, Melia/YAYA, Mt Fog, Nathan Womack, Noel Brass Jr, Oliver Elf Army, Dr Professor Wizard, Select Level, Sockpuppet, Summer Sleeves, Stargazr, Tim Van Buren and Wax Thématique Records.