In the wake of Spotify CEO Daniel Ek investing $700 million in the AI military startup Helsing, artists have been removing their music from the streaming service. The list includes Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hotline TNT, WU LYF, Young Widows, and more. Now, Deradoorian is joining them.
The art-pop musician, who released her latest album Ready For Heaven earlier this year, wrote on Instagram, "I have removed all of my albums that I own from Spotify. If there is a time where it feels safe and fair to re-upload them I will.... You can stream my albums on all other DSPs including Bandcamp. And, it is always appreciated if you can afford to buy them! Thank you!"
A rep for Spotify cited this line from Deradoorian's caption: "Thennnnnn, all of these videos popped up about Spotify forcing us to agree for them to utilize our music in myriad ways without us consenting first was the final nail for me." The rep issued this statement to Stereogum in response to Deradoorian's comments:
You might be seeing some misinformation online about a “change” to the Spotify for Artists’ Terms of Use. These claims are false. There have been no recent updates to our Spotify for Artists terms nor do these terms govern artists’ music rights.
To be clear: Any claims that Spotify can do “whatever it wants” to your music are simply untrue.
Spotify’s Terms of Use for our listeners (not artists) were recently updated, but they are not the same thing as the Spotify for Artists Terms of Use. The Listener terms explain what listeners can and cannot do on our platform. When they mention ‘User Content,’ they mean things like listener-created playlist covers, podcast comments, and playlist titles. The listener Terms also give Spotify permission to display those sorts of things across Spotify. These listener Terms have nothing to do with the distribution of your music.
Since Massive Attack, the rare major label artist to join the protest, announced their intention to pull their music from Spotify, Helsing released a statement that its technology is not involved with the genocide in Gaza. "Currently we see misinformation spreading that Helsing’s technology is deployed in war zones other than Ukraine," the statement on their website reads. "This is not correct. Our technology is deployed to European countries for deterrence and for defence against the Russian aggression in Ukraine only."
