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Five Indie Bands Quit Spotify After Founder's AI Weapons Tech Investment (theguardian.com) 48

Posted by EditorDavid from the islands-in-the-streaming dept.
At the moment, the Spotify exodus of 2025 is a trickle rather than a flood, writes the Guardian, citing the departure of five notable bands "liked in indie circles," but not "the sorts to rack up billions of listens."

"Still, it feels significant if only because, well, this sort of thing wasn't really supposed to happen any more." Plenty of bands and artists refused to play ball with Spotify in its early years, when the streamer still had work to do before achieving total ubiquity. But at some point there seemed to a collective recognition that resistance was futile, that Spotify had won and those bands would have to bend to its less-than-appealing model... This artist acquiescence happened in tandem — surely not coincidentally — with a closer relationship between Spotify and the record labels that once viewed it as their destroyer. Some of the bigger labels have found a way to make a lot of money from streaming: Spotify paid out $10bn in royalties last year — though many artists would point out that only a small fraction of that reaches them after their label takes its share...

So why have those five bands departed in quick succession? The trigger was the announcement that Spotify founder Daniel Ek had led a €6oom fundraising push into a German defence company specialising in AI weapons technology. That was enough to prompt Deerhoof, the veteran San Francisco oddball noise pop band, to jump. "We don't want our music killing people," was how they bluntly explained their move on Instagram. That seems to have also been the animating factor for the rest of the departed, though GY!BE, who aren't on any social media platforms, removed their music from Spotify — and indeed all other platforms aside from Bandcamp — without issuing a statement, while Hotline TNT's statement seemed to frame it as one big element in a broader ideological schism. "The company that bills itself as the steward of all recorded music has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that it does not align with the band's values in any way," the statement read.

That speaks to a wider artist discontent in a company that has, even by its own standards, had a controversial couple of years. There was of course the publication of Liz Pelly's marmalade-dropper of a book Mood Machine, with its blow-by-blow explanation of why Spotify's model is so deleterious to musicians, including allegations that the streamer is filling its playlists with "ghost artists" to further push down the number of streams, and thus royalty payments, to real artists (Spotify denies this). The streamer continues to amend its model in ways that have caused frustration — demonetising artists with fewer than 1,000 streams, or by introducing a new bundling strategy resulting in lower royalty fees. Meanwhile, the company — along with other streamers — has struggled to police a steady flow of AI-generated tracks and artists on to the platform...

[R]emoving yourself from such an important platform is highly risky. But if they can pull it off, the sacrifice might just be worth it. "A cooler world is possible," as Hotline TNT put it in their statement.
The Guardian's culture editor adds that "I've been using Bandcamp more, even — gasp — buying albums..."

"Maybe weaning ourselves off not just Spotify, but the way that Spotify has convinced us to consume music is the only answer. Then a cooler world might be possible."

Five Indie Bands Quit Spotify After Founder's AI Weapons Tech Investment More | Reply

Five Indie Bands Quit Spotify After Founder's AI Weapons Tech Investment

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  • I already use Band Camp (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Saturday August 30, 2025 @07:30PM (#65627140)

    That's where I get most of my new music, as pretty much all the artist I actively follow sell there. That or I buy the CD at the show and then rip it into mp3s. Easier just to pay the same amount and get mp3s off Band Camp.

    I have well over a 1000s mp3s covering numerous different genres. It's easy to play stuff off my phone over bluetooth. Why would I ever bother with paying a subscription?

    • Easier just to pay the same amount and get mp3s off Band Camp.

      Easier varies between people. For me there's nothing easy about MP3s and I suspect the same applies to everyone who has a set of speakers which support Spotify Connect.

      • Why would you get a set of speakers tied to an app?

        • For some people their phone is their entire life. They want an app for everything.

          • Wake up to the alarm on your phone. Remote start the coffee pot. Quick check email while getting dressed. Get notification coffee is ready. Remote start car. Leave house and change security status to "out". Open car door with app. Arrive at work and authenticate with 2FA on phone. Go to lunch and pay with phone. Get notification that someone rang your doorbell. Give voice instructions to delivery person to hide pac

          • You made the same mistake of assuming (like the parent) that equipment is somehow restricted to only an app. No, and that's not what I said. I merely said something was "easier".

            Actually funny case my last phone died earlier this year when a 10kg toolbox fell on it when I knocked over a work horse. What did I do? Played music via a CD, or from a network streamer, or from a vinyl record. The *easiest* way is to play via Spotify, no one said it was the *only* way. You assume too much.

            • I read a post about "speakers which support". Every speaker I've ever purchased supports whatever I choose to feed it. If you buy one that doesn't, you have chosen to inconvenience yourself.

              I'm sure the salesman told you it was a great convenience, you enjoy conversing with it, and it gets your Toaster Strudel perfect each time - but it's not a good speaker.

              • You have this entirely backwards. The point is I have speakers which support Spotify Connect yet are capable of traditional input means as well. Spotify Connect none the less is the easiest way to make them play music. Open my phone, click play in Spotify. It plays from analogue inputs (and digital ones) as well, but the Spotify Connect option over ethernet is the easiest. This isn't a hard concept to grasp.

                I'm sure the salesman told you it was a great convenience

                The speakers didn't support Spotify Connect when I purchased them and even now they aren't advertised

                • If you spent $18k on speakers, then you really got ripped off. 2 professional-grade monitors and subwoofer cost around $2k, maybe $3k if you care about the logo on the front.

                  "Easier varies between people" was certainly a valid statement. For most people, coming up with an extra 15 grand for speakers wouldn't be particularly easy. Even if it were, I would question whether spending that on a Bluetooth chip and media player app would be justified.

        • I didn't. I got a set of speakers which as a value added feature had the ability to stream from an app. And that feature still happens to be the "easiest" way to listen to music. If Spotify died tomorrow I'd just go back to listening to music like normal, probably playing MP3s from bandcamp, but that doesn't mean what Spotify is offering isn't currently *easier*.

      • For me, easy is listening to the same shit I have been listening to since 1995 or so.

        • But how do you do so? Get out of your chair like in the 60s before TV remote controls were invented? Easy has nothing to do with choice of music.

          • I made 6 MP3 DVDs. I've been listening to those since I made them, in 2007. They have many thousands of songs on them. I can listen to them for quite a while before I hear a repeat.

            • Oh my god you have to put something in a DVD player and use a DVD player interface to sort through them? Shoot me now.

              Okay jokes aside, not only do you clearly have no idea how much more convenient it is to have an organised database of music available to access from a device in your pocket, but ... seriously 1000s of songs on a DVD? I think having 1000s of individual CDs would be preferable to that. We're talking convenience and you've invoked one of the most widely regarded rubbish playback interfaces in

              • Oh my god you have to put something in a DVD player and use a DVD player interface to sort through them?

                No. I put them in the DVD player when I made them um....around 17 years ago. The only "DVD player interface" I use is the on button. The songs play automatically. I don't have to "sort through" anything. Sometimes I WILL hit one of the buttons labeled 1-6 to change which DVD is playing, but that does not happen to often.

                Shoot me now.

                Okay jokes aside, not only do you clearly have no idea how much more convenient it is to have an organised database of music available to access from a device in your pocket, but ... seriously 1000s of songs on a DVD? I think having 1000s of individual CDs would be preferable to that. We're talking convenience and you've invoked one of the most widely regarded rubbish playback interfaces in history.

                I'd have been far more accepting of you saying you have a full desktop PC sitting next to your music system to play music, at least then you have a hope in hell of finding something.

                I don't see what's inconvenient about it, other than needing to be in my car when listening to it. But in all fairness, that's generally where I am when I want to listen to music. If if n

    • I have well over a 1000s mp3s covering numerous different genres. It's easy to play stuff off my phone over bluetooth. Why would I ever bother with paying a subscription?

      My roommate doesn't pay a subscription on her iPhone SE 3 because she's on a relative's Apple Music family plan.

      That and I don't know how to get an MP3 albums purchased through Bandcamp onto her iPhone without buying a Mac new enough to run supported macOS or a PC new enough to run supported Windows. Nor do I know of any iPhone app other than the included Music app that lets a playlist contain both purchased music and subscription music. Last I checked, even though libimobiledevice can read and write files

      • For 25 dollars a year you can use the Apple Music app on Windows and it's iTunes Match feature.
        • Sorry, didn't read far enough to see the part about Linux. But iTunes Match should also still work on iTunes, as the name suggests. Then there is no need to transfer the mp3s, it's all in the cloud and available alongside any other purchased music, as long as the artist's tracks are indeed also available on the Apple Music store, iirc.
          • Forgot to add, you can match mp3s from pretty much any source and in any quality, and they will all be upgraded to 256kbps AAC and backed up for you permanently in the cloud, even if you cancel your subscription. :)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            as long as the artist's tracks are indeed also available on the Apple Music store

            I'm in touch with a few artists that have set up a Bandcamp artist account, and others who have an Itch.io account to upload albums packaged with Bandcrash, before they complete all the paperwork to get listed on Apple Music. Likewise, from 2014 to 2017, a bunch of artists were exclusive to GhostTunes (which later merged with Amazon) because they preferred its album-only sales structure and greater royalty rate. I admit that it wouldn't apply to most of what my roommate listens to (top 40 pop, pop standards

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Moochman ( 54872 )

              Interesting, thanks for the insight!

              So I did some digging and apparently iTunes Match does let you upload/backup any music, even if it's not on the Apple store. The files themselves remain DRM-free and downloadable anytime, but the cloud copies disappear when the subscription is cancelled.

              However, apparently the Apple Music subscription itself also includes the ability to sync and stream your own music from the cloud - however, I believe this requires you have a computer with the Apple Music app install

  • Switch to qobuz (Score:3)

    by maliqua ( 1316471 ) on Saturday August 30, 2025 @08:39PM (#65627222)

    It's not American owned

  • md (Score:1)

    by Venova ( 6474140 )
    bring back minidisc and cds if you want a cooler world and maybe even ipods that magsafe clip on your iphone
  • 5 bands no one ever heard of, leave spotify over a reason no one cares about...

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