Spotify Reinstates Rock Group's Music for Streaming Following Band's Boycott

Spotify has reinstated Crosby, Stills and Nash's music for streaming, following the band's previous boycott of the service. The group had expressed dissatisfaction with their music being available in the same place as former Fear Factor host Joe Rogan's podcast, due to "misinformation" spreading. According to ET, Crosby, Stills and Nash will donate portions of their Spotify revenue to "COVID-19 charities for at least a month."

The controversy surrounding Rogan's podcast was sparked earlier this year when legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young — who has long been a musical compatriot to David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash — requested that his music be pulled from the service, citing unsubstantiated statements on Covid-19 made by Rogan and guests of the podcast. Many artists soon followed suit, including Crosby, Stills and Nash. Other artists that joined in the protest include Joni Mitchell, India Arie, and 90s alt-rockers Eve 6.

"We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify's Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences," bandmates Crosby, Stills and Nash said at the time. "Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don't want our music – or the music we made together – to be on the same platform."

Spotify responded to the mass musical protest, with a spokesperson telling The Washington Post in a statement, "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-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil's decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon."

Notably, the protest did have an impact on Spotify, as it was later revealed the company took a hit on subscribers. According to The Daily Mail, in February Spotify's stock price was down 44% over the past year. The outlet also noted that the company's stock price fell another 11% after Spotify stated that it would not provide annual guidance. Ahead of the early 2022 numbers, Spotify had announced that it gained an 18 percent rise in subscribers, as well as a 40 percent increase in advertising revenue, in the final quarter of 2021.

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