STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – After musicians protested Spotify’s $100 million deal with podcaster Joe Rogan, despite his spreading COVID misinformation, the streamer reported a loss of $4 billion which will delay them from paying out the week’s 0.10¢ royalty payment to artists.
As renowned musicians like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell speak out against Spotify’s lucrative deal with COVID skeptic Rogan, the Swedish media company warns this will impact other artists’ bottom lines.
“We care deeply about the content on our platform,” explained Spotify spokesperson Lars Földrik. “Whether we’re paying the former host of Fear Factor tens of millions of dollars to ask Jordan Peterson how an all-beef diet cures COVID, or paying the world’s musicians fractions of a cent so users can indefinitely stream every song they’ve ever written – we care.”
This week shares of Spotify were down about 12%, meaning that musicians the world over would not receive their royalty payments, which are also in danger of being reduced to 0.08¢.
“Wait, I’ve been getting Spotify payments this whole time?” questioned touring folk musician Sarah Chalmers, of Manchester, UK. “I assumed those were just a rounding error by my bank.”
“I depend on that weekly 0.03¢ royalty in exchange for the rights to my life’s work, but if I have to forgo it so that the 7th lead from Newsradio gets paid millions to reassure disaffected young MMA fans that they know more about epidemiology than Dr. Fauci, then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make,” declared classical composer William Brycewith.
“Oh God, I’m not getting my 0.10¢ royalty payment this week? How am I gonna explain this to my wife and kids,” asked forlorn songwriter Bruce Springsteen, of New Jersey.
Back at Spotify, the company charted a plan forward. “This $4 billion stock loss has been hard for our bottom line,” explained Földrik. “Before this backlash we had absolutely no idea that paying tens of millions of dollars to promote potentially harmful medical advice meant that we had some sort of… what’s that English word… ah yes, responsibility.”
In promising news, Spotify assured shareholders that it was close to a deal with recording labels allowing them to not pay artists anything at all for their music.
