Imagine a global music industry in cahoots with AI battlefield robots – it’s not a futuristic dystopian sci-fi musical, it’s just business in 2025.
And history will remember Australian psych-rock phenomenon King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard among the first artists to opt out.
King Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie says they have long been concerned by Spotify. Credit: Getty Images
“To those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology,” the band posted on Instagram in July. “We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr Evil tech bros to do better?”
This month, the band’s frontman Stu Mackenzie spoke to the LA Times about his reaction to Ek’s investment in European defence technology company Helsing and the decision to leave the platform.
“A bit of shock, and then feeling that I shouldn’t be shocked,” he said.
“We’ve been saying f--- Spotify for years. In our circle of musician friends, that’s what people say all the time, for all of these other reasons which are well documented. We saw a couple of other bands who we admire, and thought ‘I don’t really want our music to be here, at least right now.’ ”
The Melbourne band’s choice to leave on ethical grounds comes as active resistance to Spotify grows in the independent music sector.
David Bridie is pulling his music from Spotify.Credit: James Henry
Recently in Adelaide, when Melbourne musician David Bridie accepted his Outstanding Achievement Award from the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR), he used his speech to announce that he too was removing his catalogue from Spotify.
“Being an independent artist ... you’re free to speak your mind,” he said. “Spotify used to be a necessary evil. Now it’s just evil ... We can’t be complicit in death technologies.”
Leah Senior is among those making a move off Spotify.
Melbourne singer-songwriter Leah Senior had cited the same grounds for withdrawing her music weeks earlier. “Something just snapped,” she told The Music Network.
“Artists are made to feel like we need [Spotify] … I’m saying we don’t.”
Through his venture capital firm Prima Materia, Ek led a $1.08 billion round of funding in Helsing, a defence technology company developing AI systems for battlefield surveillance and drone operations. He also serves as chairman of the company, which supplies the militaries of Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, the UK and more.
Asked to address musicians’ concerns, a Spotify AUNZ spokesperson said they were unable to comment.
Outrage over Spotify’s expropriation of musicians’ work to these ends rises as the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) tightens its embrace of the controversial streaming service. In June, Spotify was named as the presenting partner of the ARIA Awards for the next three years.
The arrangement will “translate into real export opportunities,” ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd announced, while Spotify AUNZ managing director Mikaela Lancaster hailed “an exciting new chapter for Australian music”.
Neither indicated any financial relief to artists who continue to decry minuscule royalty payments, even as streaming profits boom for Spotify and the major labels. Among those who see the platform as both exploitative and ethically compromised, the sponsorship deal has been widely received as inappropriate.
“Why would ARIA support a platform that’s ultimately eating its constituents?” asked Paper Jane singer-songwriter Buck Edwards on social media. Writer Nick Milligan suggested the deal was like vegan activist “Morrissey partnering with Lone Star Steakhouse”.
“There goes the last of the ARIAs’ credibility, at a time when more independent-minded musicians are pulling their work from Spotify,” posted Canberra singer Simone Swenson. “The ARIAs lost relevance years ago,” wrote Melbourne jazz composer Aaron Searle. “This is just further evidence of how out of touch they are.”
The major labels’ affiliations with Spotify are no secret. They were given equity in the company in 2008 as part of music rights negotiations. But the ARIAs pairing is “tone deaf”, says Sydney manager/promoter Jordan Verzar, “at odds with the beliefs and value systems of the majority of artists who make up the charts that ARIA compiles”.
Russell Kilbey from veteran Sydney indie band The Crystal Set was pointed about saddling ARIA with Spotify’s “demonic and unconscionable” baggage. “ARIA may have a big problem selling this marriage to the war-weary public.”
An ARIA spokesperson told this masthead they “respect anyone’s decision to raise concerns, but this partnership will deliver an unprecedented global platform for Australian music … [by] leveraging Spotify’s global scale and expertise in music discovery.”
The context of streaming profits being channelled away from creators’ pockets is especially pertinent to independent artists. Aside from tiny royalty percentages, smaller acts lose again under a pro rata system where listener subscriptions are distributed according to who gets most streams globally, not which tracks were actually streamed.
But leaving Spotify, with its vast global reach and majority market share, is not an easy option for many. For Warren Fahey, whose Rouseabout Records has issued more than 200 Australian albums this century, “it would be financial suicide”.
“Now that CDs have stopped, Spotify is the label’s primary source of income,” he says, although he stresses that income “relates to the number of active releases in our catalogue. An indie with half a dozen releases, or a DIY artist, cannot access this advantage.”
Matthew Tow of indie band Drop City sees the current impasse as temporary, and the market leader’s decline as inevitable. “Change will come when musicians feel they can get their music to a wider audience without the need for Spotify. There are many other platforms around.”
Meanwhile, the optics are stark: independent artists removing their music in protest, while our national music awards unites unapologetically with a platform whose chief executive is personally invested in the military-industrial complex.
Memories tend to be short in the music business and protests short-lived. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell famously removed their catalogues in objection to Spotify’s platforming of COVID misinformation in 2022. Today both artists have dozens of albums back up and streaming.
This time, objections strike deeper to questions not just of content moderation but of the platform’s ethical foundations. Whether more artists will speak out against Spotify or withdraw from the ARIA Awards in protest remains to be seen. But the disconnect is widening, and whispers of dissent are rising to a chorus.
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