Spotify removes Neil Young music in feud over Joe Rogan’s false Covid claims

The music streaming platform Spotify is in the process of removing Neil Young's music after the company refused to take down Joe Rogan's podcast amid the musician's objections that it spread vaccine misinformation.

Rogan has been described by the New York Times as "one of the most consumed media products on the planet". His podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, is Spotify's most popular. In 2020, Rogan signed a $100m deal that gave the streaming company exclusive rights to the show.

But this week, Young posted an open letter to his manager and record label that was later taken down in which he said: "With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, [The Joe Rogan Experience], which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world's largest podcast and has tremendous influence. Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy."

A Spotify spokesperson confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday that the platform was taking down Young's music.

"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," the spokesperson said.

Since the pandemic, Rogan, who has legions of devoted followers, has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims. This month, 270 doctors, scientists, healthcare professionals and professors wrote an open letter to Spotify, expressing concern about medical misinformation on Rogan's podcast.

The letter highlighted a highly controversial episode from December that features Robert Malone, a virologist who was involved in the mRNA vaccine technology that led to some of the leading Covid-19 vaccines but has since been criticised for spreading vaccine misinformation.

"This is not only a scientific or medical concern; it is a sociological issue of devastating proportions and Spotify is responsible for allowing this activity to thrive on its platform," the letter read.

In the wake of the catalogue deletion announcement, Young posted a new message on his website further castigating Spotify as "the home of life-threatening Covid misinformation. Selling lies for money."

He said he made the decision because of worries that young Spotify users were "impressionable and easy to swing to the wrong side of the truth. These people believe Spotify would never present grossly unfactual information. They unfortunately are wrong. I knew I had to try to point that out."

Various figures - including Donald Trump Jr - had pointed out that Young no longer had control over his master recordings after he sold a 50% stake to the publishing company Hipgnosis in January 2021. Young admitted he was "reminded by my own legal forces that contractually I did not have control of my music", and acknowledged that his record label, Reprise, owned by Warner Music Group, allowed the music to be removed.

"Thank you Warner Brothers for standing with me and taking the hit - losing 60% of my worldwide streaming income in the name of the truth," he wrote.

He pointed fans towards rivals such as Amazon Music and Apple Music while criticising Spotify for "continuing to peddle the lowest quality in music reproduction", and thanked those who had praised his stand against the company: "I have never felt so much love coming from so many."

Alongside snark from rightwing commentators, there was public support for Young's decision, including from another Canadian musician, the rapper Cadence Weapon, who said: "Thank you Neil Young for your leadership. It will take principled sacrifice by the bigger artists who can afford to take the hit for things to start improving for the rest of us."

The Republican Kentucky senator Rand Paul reworked lyrics to Young's song Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) in a tweet criticising him - though it could easily be read as praise. "Bye Bye, Hey Hey / Neil Young is gone today / It's better to boycott / Than to just obey," Paul wrote. "Even though [Neil Young's] Ohio is one of the greatest protest songs of all time, free speech is kinda important also."