While all streaming music platforms are all known for the minuscule royalties they give to independent artists, Spotify is a frequent target of criticism due to its prominence in the space. Fight For The Future also launched a petition after Spotify filed a patent for technology designed to eavesdrop on users’ speech and use emotional data to target ads. UMAW’s “Justice At Spotify” called for the company to increase revenue share to $0.01 per stream and increase transparency.
The funding comes from Ek’s investment company Prima Materia, which last year earmarked $1.2 billion for investment in European tech companies.Īs the COVID-19 pandemic shut down music venues last year, activists launched multiple campaigns aimed at helping struggling artists and demanding that streaming platforms offer them a fair share of their growing profits. Nestel-Patt added that Spotify created software and AI that has eroded the music industry, and is now investing in similar technology that is to be applied on “battlefields” in order to, as Helsing’s website notes, “serve our democracies.”
“His actions proves once again that Ek views Spotify and the wealth he has pillaged from artists merely as a means to further his own wealth,” wrote Zack Nestel-Patt, an organizer with the Union of Musician and Allied Workers (UMAW), in a statement emailed to Motherboard. Some are even offering free or discounted music on competitor platform Bandcamp in exchange for proof that people canceled their Spotify subscriptions. The move has caused some artists to call for boycotts and bristle at the idea of the company’s streaming profits being used to fund military technology.
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