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Thom Yorke, Atoms for Peace boycott Spotify for being unfair to new artists

Thom Yorke, Atoms for Peace boycott Spotify for being unfair to new artists
Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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Thom Yorke, front man for Radiohead and Atoms for Peace, has pulled his own music and that of Atoms for Peace from Spotify in protest of the streaming site’s lack of royalties for new artists. Yorke pulled his 2006 solo album, “The Eraser”, as well as the album “AMOK” from the joint band project, Atoms for Peace, which he leads. As of the writing of this article, most of Radiohead’s discography is still available on Spotify.

Yorke and his producer, Nigel Godrich, took to Twitter on Sunday, announcing the removal of their music from Spotify. The main beef that York and Godrich have with the streaming music service is that it doesn’t pay emerging artists enough money to make music a viable career. It’s only artists with huge discographies that can make a profit from Spotify. Yorke puts it plainly:

Reactions from Yorke’s fans were divided, some lauding his decision while others claiming that he’s hurting his dedicated fans. Yorke calls out a fan who writes, “your small meaningless rebellion is only hurting your fans…a drop in the bucket really.”

More and more artists are showing displeasure about how much money music streaming services like Spotify are giving back to the artists. Previously, Adele and Coldplay both pulled albums from the service but eventually gave in. Grizzly Bear also took to Twitter last year, telling fans that they made $10 from 10,000 streams of their songs.

Spotify has responded to Yorke and Godrich by saying the company will pay out $1 billion to rightsholders by the end of this year. Here’s what the company had to say:

“Spotify’s goal is to grow a service which people love, ultimately want to pay for, and which will provide the financial support to the music industry necessary to invest in new talent and music. We want to help artists connect with their fans, find new audiences, grow their fan base and make a living from the music we all love,” said a spokesperson in a statement provided to TechCrunch today. “Right now we’re still in the early stages of a long-term project that’s already having a hugely positive effect on artists and new music. We’ve already paid $500 million to rightsholders so far and by the end of 2013 this number will reach $1 billion. Much of this money is being invested in nurturing new talent and producing great new music.

We’re 100% committed to making Spotify the most artist-friendly music service possible, and are constantly talking to artists and managers about how Spotify can help build their careers.”

Yorke has been very critical about the music industry in the past, implementing a “pay what you feel” pricing model for Radiohead’s 2007 album, “In Rainbows”, which isn’t available on Spotify. It’ll be interesting to see if other artists follow Yorke and Godrich’s lead to pull music in protest of unfair revenue shares.

[Source: The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch]

Lewis Leong

Lewis Leong

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