Neil Young Removes Music From Spotify in Protest of Joe Rogan’s Podcast

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSpotify will remove Neil Young’s music from its platform, per his request, following his objections to Joe Rogan’s statements about the Covid-19 vaccine on his Spotify-hosted show.

The music is expected to be removed later Wednesday.A rep for Spotify said in a statement to Variety: “We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users.

With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic.

We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.” A rep for Young did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.While Young has spoken out about many political issues over the course of his six-decade career, his objections to Rogan’s statements about the vaccine have gained extraordinary traction since he posted a since-removed open letter to his management, Lookout, and label, Warner Records, demanding his music be removed from Spotify due to the streaming service’s distribution partnership with Rogan, both of whom he accused of spreading false information regarding COVID-19 and vaccines.“Please immediately inform Spotify that I am actively canceling all my music availability on Spotify as soon as possible,” he wrote. “I am doing this because Spotify is spreading false information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.“Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule,” the statement continued.