How Our Convoluted Copyright Regime Explains Why Spotify Chose Joe Rogan Over Neil Young
from the one-of-them-is-a-lot-more-costly dept
Spotify’s decision to hitch its star to podcaster and font-of-COVID-misinformation Joe Rogan has sparked a wave of pushback from musicians, some of whom--among them Neil Young, India Arie, and Joni Mitchell--have pulled their music from Spotify in protest. Spotify, for its part, has stood firmly by Rogan.
That Spotify would stand by a show that consistently undermines vaccines and blithely spreads misinformation is disappointing--but, financially, it’s perfectly predictable.
The short version:
The law and economics of music streaming lead to one inevitable result: Spotify pays money when it streams music. It makes money when it streams podcasts. Therefore, Spotify has an incentive to keep people using Spotify -- just not for music.
The legal regime around music licensing makes breaking even -- let alone turning a profit -- nearly impossible. Because the industry is notoriously secretive about its financials (a problem in and of itself), raw data is hard to come by. But the fact remains that investors (and industry observers) agree that music streaming as a loss-leader -- something that incurs a net loss for the service doing it, in the hopes of potentially looping consumers into the parent company’s product ecosystem. Apple Music and Amazon Music, the second and third largest streaming services by market share, both operate at a loss. Spotify, which has been in the US market since 2011, turned its first profit in 2021. It is still unclear whether it will manage to repeat the achievement.
In short, experience indicates that a streaming service that plays only music will consistently lose money. And while this is a complex issue with many moving parts, one of the biggest is the law -- the market it creates, and the behavior it incentivizes.
But First, How Does Music Copyright Work?
Each track involves not one, but two copyrighted works; the recorded performance (the “sound recording”), and the underlying composition (the “musical work”). Legally, these are two distinct things. This is partly a historical artifact; songwriting hit its stride in the very early 20th century, before mass distribution of recorded music was even a glimmer in anyone’s eye. Compositions got copyright protection in 1906 (and were thus given the now-confusingly-vague designation of “musical work”). Over the first half of the century, publishers and performing rights organizations sprang up to promote, distribute, and license songwriters’ work. It wasn’t until mid-century that the recording industry began to flourish on its own, and sound recordings didn’t even gain copyright protection until the late 1970s.
Because of this history, the two industries – songwriting and recording – operate under wildly different licensing structures. Copyright is, at its core, a government-granted right to exclude; when one player starts to accumulate a high volume of those rights, the risk of abusive market behavior rises. The composition side of the equation messed around and found out early. By the 1940s, the government had intervened and set up a complex system of antitrust enforcement, rate-setting, and mandatory licensing regimes. The result was a market that, for all its faults, remains relatively stable and predictable for licensees (and, as a side benefit, provides some transparency on how songwriters are paid).
The recording industry, by contrast, gained its copyright (and thus its monopoly power) in the mid 1970s. By then, antitrust law was in the middle of a Chicago school backlash that considerably narrowed its scope and purpose and regulators had lost the taste for the kind of vigorous enforcement that marked the early part of the 20th century. While regulators in the 1940s were willing to go after the songwriting industry’s bad behavior (cartels, extractive pricing, strong arm tactics, etc) their counterparts in the late 1970s were less enthusiastic. And so, unlike their composition-side brothers, labels exist in an unconstrained free market.
Why It’s So Hard For Streaming Services to Make Money
As mentioned above, we have very little hard and fast data about how much labels are charging and what kinds of side deals they are striking to extract value from these services. But given what we do know about the industry -- and what the U.S. government has outright assumed is going on when doing things like setting royalty rates -- we have a pretty good idea.
Because labels have no meaningful guardrails on their licensing practices, they are free to maximize their own profit however they see fit. When it comes to streaming, their ideal situation is to extract as much value as possible without forcing the service completely under. This means that licenses are priced with the assumption that the streaming service will have to take on some (ideally sustainable) amount of debt to cover their licensing obligations. The alternatives to this aren’t a whole lot better, either; things like equity stakes, sweetheart deals, and algorithmic preferencing or promotion are commonplace.
The result of all this is that it is structurally impossible for a streaming service to turn a profit using standard music deals alone. Labels are rational economic actors. Profit is value that is not being captured by labels; labels will rationally set prices to ensure that none of that value goes un-captured. Labels have the power to shut a service down simply by walking away from the table.
Why Spotify Can’t Quit Joe Rogan
It means that, despite being a music streaming company, music is (and will always be) a revenue loss for Spotify. To have any hope of turning a profit, it needs a low-cost, high-revenue offering. Enter podcasts – specifically Rogan’s podcast, which commands a minimum ad buy of $1M, along with a commitment to buy other ads on Spotify-hosted podcasts.
So, when forced to choose between retaining portions of its legacy music catalog and keeping one of the only offerings that actually makes the service money, Spotify made the obvious (if morally objectionable) choice. It chose Joe Rogan.
And barring a major overhaul of music licensing law, starting with sound recordings, this will keep happening. We’ll either end up in a world where all mainstream streaming services will be backed by deep-pocketed tech giants (such as Apple, Amazon, and Google), or where music services are stuck relying on non-music content to stay afloat--even when that content is harmful.
Meredith Rose is Senior Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge
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Filed Under: business models, copyright, joe rogan, licensing, loss leaders, neil young, podcasts, streaming
Companies: spotify
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A simple solution for this problem.
Abolish Copyright.
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Re: A simple solution for this problem.
Is "killing batman" also one of your simple solutions?
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Re: Re: A simple solution for this problem.
Abolishing copyright is a Vegemite of solutions - it improves any.
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Re: Re: Re: A simple solution for this problem.
Vegemite also tastes like crap (I've had some, so I should know).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A simple solution for this problem.
BTW, before I get misinterpreted, I never ate feces, but I had eaten vegemite.
Then again, I guess it's hard to tell the difference between them...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A simple solution for this problem.
I'd argue with you but since I'm from the town that produces Marmite (the superior yeast extract), I'm happy to accept your opinion that the Australian version is inferior ;)
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Killing batman?
Don't rush it. Batman's release into the public domain (in his originally published form, anyway) in (according to reputable sources ͣ ) 2034 should kill him plenty.
ͣ some guy on the internet
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There might be a strawman there.
Batman is big. Batman will thrive if he enters the public domain. People love Batman. They also love authenticity and won't stop paying for official Batman things. Abolishing copyright entirely will hurt small artists actually looking to make money, but the length and scope of copyright must be severely reduced in order to prevent copyright maximalists from hurting many small artists looking to make money, most artists making art for noncommercial purposes, and the general public.
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Re: There might be a strawman there.
This I totally agree with.
My glib reply was an instance of the "It's simple; we kill the Batman" meme to demonstrate that calling something simple is...not so much.
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Re: Re: There might be a strawman there.
"My glib reply was an instance of the "It's simple; we kill the Batman" meme to demonstrate that calling something simple is...not so much."
Calling for the abolition of copyright isn't calling for the death of the angsty dark vigilante though.
It's more like calling for the killing of Hitler. Which, in the 1930's, would certainly have shaken up and harmed Germany quite a lot but would, in the long-term, certainly be preferable to the alternative.
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Re: There might be a strawman there.
Will it though? How much do they actually rely on copyright to make money? I know some are vigorous about enforcing their copyrights, but that doesn't mean that makes them any additional money (and it may cost them money).
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Re: Re: There might be a strawman there.
"How much do they actually rely on copyright to make money?"
Directly or indirectly? By directly enforcing them right now they probably don't. But, without copyright, major labels would certainly have no qualms about dipping into the public domain and taking songs wholesale, and the mainstream would never know that the song originate elsewhere. They could be on the hook for plagiarism if the originator wasn't credited, but without copyright there's no need for the labels to pay one cent to songwriters of any successful song they take.
Given that most of the public barely even understand that most pop artists don't write their own songs, let alone research who actually wrote them, that seems to me like a lot of musicians would be screwed - after all, if they think that new Rihanna song is the original, why would they buy the version from the guy they don't know wrote it?
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Re: Re: A simple solution for this problem.
"Is "killing batman" also one of your simple solutions?"
If Batman would, no matter what, always end up a serial killer then yes.
The problem with copyright is that it's based on a fundamental violation of basic principles - like people owning what they bought and sole governance over their property and information in their possession.
You simply can not apply any part of the old medieval heresy laws or information control and hope to not make it horrible. Hell, We know for a fact already that every invention and infrastructure of information storage and transmission over the last century has had to fight for its existence, tooth and claw, because progress has turned out to be the outright enemy of the principles of copyright.
As I usually say, the right to control copies of information being made is unreasonable from the get-go.
Author right of content paternity is the only part worth salvaging, as is the right to profit from commercial application and deny political use. Both of which would be better served by making any created works fall under Trademark and Branding legislation instead.
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Important thing to remember: Spotify didn’t only give Rogan a bigger platform—it paid many millions of dollars to make his podcast exclusive to that platform. Even if Spotify doesn’t agree with or condone everything Rogan has said (and that’s a questionable claim in and of itself), it sure as shit deserves some responsibility for funding Rogan’s ability to spread dumb bullshit.
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"Spotify didn’t only give Rogan a bigger platform"
Did it though? It took a podcast that's available literally anywhere podcasts can be streamed (i.e. the whole internet) and made it so that you had to go to Spotify. While that no doubt attracted more people to Spotify as designed, I doubt that's a bigger platform overall, as the original platform was "people who use Spotify + others".
"it sure as shit deserves some responsibility for funding Rogan’s ability to spread dumb bullshit."
That's the problem. They explicitly paid him to do what he was doing already (which included platforming disinformation), and the group of people funding him now included Spotify customers who would never even consider listening to his show.
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I’ve no doubt that Rogan’s podcast being available in other places helped its reach, but Spotify putting its corporate weight behind that podcast certainly helped lend it the credibility it needed to truly explode its audience. The exclusive nature of the deal likely helped sell the podcast as a “this is a Super Important Thing” podcast to people who’d probably never had any experience with podcasts before.
I could be wrong, but when a show like his is literally valued at millions of dollars, it does tend to make that podcast seem like a much bigger deal than it was before the sell-out.
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I'd go the other way with my thoughts, really. Spotify, for whatever reason, decided they needed to make popular podcasts exclusive to attract more subscribers. Rogan was popular, so they grabbed him and they gambled on the idea that even though they'd lose some of his base due to "selling out", they'd get enough new subscribers to compensate.
I certainly could be wrong, but unless being on Spotify convinced a bunch of people to start listening who hadn't before, I don't see how Rogan got more listeners as a result. Most likely it was just a case where he got a bunch of money while Spotify hoped to upsell his listeners he used to go elsewhere to go with them.
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A fair point.
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Re: Re:
It's come out that Spotify is paying Rogan at least $200 million, for a 3 & 1/2 year contract (and has responded to serious criticisms by merely establishing a few very minor and purely cosmetic measures)
So it's clear that Rogan has not only no interest, but also no reason, to care if a few listeners fall by the wayside -- Rogan is definitely being strongly incentivized to keep on pushing his trademark style of BS and mis-info, (not so) cleverly disguised as soft-on-facts interviews and "just talking".
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And it this active support and promotion of Joe Rogan's habitually irresponsible misinfo, by Spotify, that Neil Young and other critics of Spotify, are objecting to -- this is the central issue in this boycott.
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Re:
Here's a fun question for you Stephen:
What opinions would you support Spotify funding? Be specific.
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Re: Re:
I'd guess factual ones? No ones that are clear grifts to scam the uneducated and convince people to risk the lives of others because they're too weak to do things that eradicated previous pandemics?
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Re: Re: Re:
Define factual. Some "facts" change and become "falsehoods" over time with new evidence and vice versa. Are only current "facts" permitted? What happens when the "facts" change?
Define grift. Is mens rea, important here? If so who gets to define it?
Nice deprecation and demonization of those you disagree with.
These are the only criminal items on your list, and even they are subjective. They are also already illegal under existing law and do not require censorship. If anything the censorship would make it easier for the criminal to get away with the crime as you'd be denying evidence for others to use against the criminal. (Harder to prosecute if you don't have evidence, and harder to convince others of their wrong doing in a public forum.)
Censorship doesn't help against misinformation. If anything the very people you're trying to "protect" will simply view your censorship as the ultimate proof of the censored content's validity and trustworthiness. Especially by those that already distrust authority.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Nice deprecation and demonization of those you disagree with."
"If the patriotic choking sounds coming from the ventilator tube fits..."
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Opinions rooted in facts and reasonably sound logic. Whether I agree with those opinions is irrelevant so long as they’re at least based on facts.
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Wait a tic, I was under the impression that that question was literally impossible to answer given the response to it in the past when asked of others tends to be nothing but silence and yet you manged it in two sentences, that can't be right...
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Re:
They don't even have to be factual, just that the person doing the interview challenges the points being brought up. Rather than presenting people with no real authority as experts on the subject, and letting them spout whatever misinformation they want unquestioned and allowing clear falsehoods to be presented as being on the same level from actual CDC and other experts' positions.
The problem with Rogan isn't just the bad information he platforms, it's that he allows nutters to launder any stupid theory they have as if they had credibility, safe in the knowledge they'll never get any meaningful pushback.
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And just to add injury to insult, Rogan's record is that he actually pushes back much harder, against the actual, recognized experts who provide actual, confirmable information and justifiable, sound expert opinion.
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That actually makes perfect if warped sense as if his preferred guests are bullshit peddlers then it's understandable that he would be hostile to those that would debunk them, if only to ensure that the garbage pushers feel like he'll provide a welcoming space to make their pitches.
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The reason he’s happy to have bullshit peddlers on is simple: Controversy creates cash. (Hat-tip to wrestling promoter Eric Bischoff for that turn of phrase.)
Rogan knows the bullshit peddlers are controversial, regardless of whether he believes what they’re peddling. He knows people will tune into his podcast to hate-listen to the bullshit, to get angry about it, to disseminate it themselves with all kinds of debunkings and such. That’s exactly what he wants. The controversy generates more revenue for him, which makes him keep creating controversy. Rogan’s bullshittery is an ouroboros powered by greed and ignorance, and he won’t care about that until he loses either the money, the attention, or both.
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Re: Re:
Hey Koby, just log in bro...
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Music streaming is little more than advertising. The labels and copyright holders should be paying the streaming companies for the marketing services being provided, so far, at no charge to them.
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Um, my music is on Spotify, and I wouldn't want people to be paying Spotify to profit off of my music while I get nothing. Contrary to all the moaning that Spotify doesn't pay artists anything, most of my income comes from Spotify (actually, Bandcamp but Spotify is catching up!).
Music streaming makes sense on bandcamp where you can then buy the album, but it makes little sense on streaming services such as spotify where streaming is the product itself.
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Re: Re:
His perspective is probably influenced by the Payola scandals, and music industry history since then.
How much that reality would still apply to music streaming services as it did/does to music radio play, is of course a legitimate question.
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Re: Re: Re:
That's fair. It's just nonsensical when streaming is-as I said-the product per se and not a means to acquire the product.
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That's a very convoluted spin. Spotify didn't "choose" anything. The choice was between Neil Young leaving Spotify or Neil Yong staying. And that choice was entirely Neil Young's.
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Neil young made the decision to tell his publisher to tell spotify "drop rogan or young". Spotify made the proactive decision to respond. Its decision was that it would drop Young.
No one is discounting Young's decisions, but you have completely discounted that Spotify also had a choice. And even though profit made that decision a foregone conclusion, Young gave them the option to base their decision on something other than profit. Spotify made a decision.
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Re: Re:
You can tell that Spotify made a decision, technically true. However, it was a trivial decision regardless of the profit considerations. If you came to me with an ultimatum "me or X," and you are not my wife, the only ethical "choice" would be "X." No?
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Not really. It could also be your boss, your kids, your parents, your husband, or a bunch of other people.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
or, y'know, the government. They might have a little coercive power in "me or x" situations.
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For some reason -- I can't imagine why (/s) -- the Sacklers and Perdue Pharmaceuticals neglected to give that argument a whirl, whether in the Court of Law or in the court of Public Opinion.
Why do you think it would be any more credible an "argument", coming from Spotify?
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Re: Re:
and this is distinct from David Crosby's having left Spotify.
When Crosby left, he didn't give an ultimatum. He just left. Same issue, but less "censorship", more "boycott". Possibly because he was informed by Spotify's decision regarding Young.
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Hard to have less "censorship" than zero.
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And just like Young, you are having a moral panic moment and demanding others take action to appease you.
Spotify chose to stick up for Rogan, instead of forever failing to appease the censors and fickle public. Good for them.
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I’m pretty sure Young would’ve had his music yanked from Spotify by his legal team or whatever if Spotify hadn’t taken his music off the service first. And besides, something tells me Young is plenty “appeased” with not having his music on Spotify if that means his music isn’t indirectly associated with Joe Rogan’s podcast.
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And as became usual in the last years, we have very knowledgeable microbiologists and virologists commenting on vaccines. There is also another way to looks at things - the podcast in question provided just another point of view on our problems. Not just Rogan's point of view but also scientists' ones, including the current vaccine developers'. Spotify chose to keep that speech up available for everybody, instead of blocking it as Young (famous microbiologist, I assume) asked. Kudos to Spotify!
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You sound like someone who thinks the solution to every problem is always “in the middle” and always involves some form of “compromise”.
If one group of people is saying “queer rights” and another group is at least implying (if not outright saying) “the state should execute queer people”, what sort of compromise between those two positions would satisfy both groups?
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Re:
Motte, bailey.
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You can trot out that catchphrase all you want. It doesn’t scare me and it won’t shut me up. (And you can’t afford my asking price for shutting up, anyway.)
If one person is spreading scientific information and another person is spreading easily disproven disinformation, and they’re both talking about the same topic, for what reason should we consider both “sides” to be equal in credibility? And for what reason should we try to find a “compromise” between the two that gives even a spark of credibility to that disinformation?
The same reasoning behind those questions also applies to the one I asked above: When an issue involves one relatively benign position and one extreme position, for what reason should we seek a “compromise” that gives the extremist position any weight as a possible solution to the issue?
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Re:
You likely hit a wrong button. Who are you replying to? What was the catchphrase? Who are those censorial asshats that want you or Joe Rogan to shut up? Who tries to scare you? Show me and I'll stand by your side condemning those bastards.
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You.
“Motte, bailey”. It seems like something a fair number of our right wing–supporting trolls have tried to turn into a “gotcha” phrase to shut down arguments.
Well, I dunno about censorial, but you definitely wanted me to shut up by using the motte-and-bailey fallacy to insinuate that I had no actual argument.
You can’t and won’t shut me up by trotting out a simple catchphrase and thinking you’ve “won”. The only two ways to shut me up are to kill me or pay me, and I doubt you have the money to afford either option.
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Please clarify.
Where is the motte, where is the bailey, and where is the fallacy?
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Re:
The suggestion that 'if you jump off a high building you can learn to fly before you reach the ground', is just another way of looking at things
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As I sometime paraphrase, if you're a journalist and someone tells you it's raining and another tells you it's clear and sunny, you job isn't to report both sides. Your job is to look out the windows and work out who's lying.
"Another point of view" can be silly entertainment in a situation where it's obvious one is wrong. But, in a pandemic it can get people killed. Sadly, that's not hyperbole and I have many examples of people who went to their death bed opposing vaccines because someone like Rogan led them to believe fiction.
Unfortunately, Rogan's persona isn't journalism, it's an "entertainer" who chats with "interesting" people. It just so happens that those people are almost invariably dangerous con artists who place human life below their bank balance.
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He doesn't even really chat with some of those people. He lets them spew dangerous nonsense, nods his head, and does little-to-nothing in terms of pushback against or a deeper exploration of what was said. He doesn’t give a shit about the extraordinary responsibility that comes with the extraordinary power he has by virtue of his podcast being as popular as it is.
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My entire experience (no pun intended) with Rogan is through the Knowledge Fight podcast, which is dedicated to tearing down Alex Jones's faulty logic and tactics. Jones has appeared on a couple of Rogan episodes and I've heard the teardowns, which basically consist of pointing out how Rogan let obvious propaganda fly and (apparently) inadvertently laundered some dangerous disinformation to reach larger audience than Alex could get on Infowars.
Rogan doesn't seem to give a crap beyond getting stoned and talking rubbish with "controversial" people, and whether or not he realises how he platforms dangerous propaganda, he seems to absolutely do it.
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The same can be said of the US government and any mainstream media outlet. You don't see any meaningful changes there now do you?
He doesn't have to. That's the flip side of free speech. You can say more or less what you want as an opinion. Just as much as anyone else can. The responsibility for interpretation and deriving meaning is an exercise left to the listener.
If you think that Rogan's podcast is crap or filled with disinformation, then don't listen to it. No-one is forcing you to. If others want to listen to it, they should be able to do so unimpeded by those that don't. If you have a problem with that, then you don't support free speech at all, nor Democracy which demands and requires it.
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You can’t expect institutional changes to happen overnight.
All actions have consequences. Even victory has its price.
The power of being able to speak one’s mind carries with it a responsibility not to be reckless with one’s words. This is partly why we have laws against defamation and fraud. But it’s also why we teach kids about bullying: Words can do damage that isn’t perceptible in the way you can see a black eye on a kid who’s been punched. It’s why we teach kids that lying is wrong, too.
Joe Rogan has a podcast with a hefty listener base; a not-zero number of people in that group treat his word (and the words of his guests) practically as the gospel truth. In that regard, Rogan has a responsibility—social, not legal—to be careful with the information he presents, the guests he chooses to platform, and how he talks about what those guests say. If he platforms someone with little-to-no scientific credibility because he thinks they’re “interesting” and lets them spew unscientific garbage without pushing back, that is the height of irresponsibility.
If someone wants to listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast, that is their right. I won’t deny them that. But I am free to use my free speech to express my opinion of those people and the podcast they adore. I’m also free to use my free speech to criticize Spotify for continuing to carry and promote his podcast.
And I’m also 100% completely free to tell you that you can either pay me to shut up or fuck all the way off. Calling me a “censor” isn’t going to make me go quiet.
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Re: Re: Ohhhh my turn!!!
No true Scotsman.
This is fun throwing out random fallacies with the implication that they are refer to the poster without providing a shred of evidence.
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"If you think that Rogan's podcast is crap or filled with disinformation, then don't listen to it."
And our free speech allows us to say that Spotify are being assholes to host Rogan when he pushes the bullshit which has seen the US bring out a mountain of corpses composed of 700k-800k needlessly dead americans courtesy entirely due to large parts of the US making defying basic science and medical guidelines a test of loyalty.
This is the point where this disinformation becomes arguably more horrifying than every crackpot website to merely spout extremist propaganda in itself. There is a death toll.
It's Rogan's choice to be a disingenious and casually racist asshole.
It's Spotify's choice to keep hosting Rogan.
It's our choice to condemn spotify for this the same way we feel free to condemn the local nazi bar and the Westboro Baptist Church.
And your entire argument seems based on the premise that we need to abstain from making use of our rights to respect Rogan being a raging shithole and Spotify for assisting him in this.
Tolerance is not a universal moral imperative; It's a peace treaty. And part of the explicitly understood provisions there is that you neither need nor should tolerate those whose entire contribution is malice.
Whether you are an alt-right apologist or some horribly misguided fence-sitter doesn't really matter at this point.
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"a mountain of corpses composed of 700k-800k needlessly dead americans"
The known current body count as of today is 960,157, which represents the vastly disproportionate rate of 16% of total COVID deaths (with the US having just 3% of the total world population).
That comes with caveats, of course. On the one hand I very much doubt that certain states such as Florida are accurately reporting information, and we also can't really trust figures from places like China, India and Brazil. On the other, only counting pure COVID deaths doesn't capture the other problems caused by it, such as people who die of non-COVID conditions that could have been treated earlier if hospitals weren't overrun.
So, the true death toll is likely much higher and a large part of the reason why it's so disproportionate is because of people like Rogan who either lie directly or give a power and an audience to people who do.
"Tolerance is not a universal moral imperative; It's a peace treaty."
Karl Popper's Paradox Of Tolerance - sometimes to protect a tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of those who are intolerant, because by tolerating them you eventually destroy what is worth tolerating.
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Or to put it another way: Refuse to kick bigots out of your community and they’ll eventually make your community nothing but bigots.
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Re:
A few bad apples eventually spoils the whole barrel.
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Re:
See, this is where I disagree. The very base of supporting free speech is not supporting what you agree with, but the right of existence for what you don’t.
When you agree to drawing lines, someone else comes along and makes a new one just a bit closer in. And eventually you have eroded all free speech options.
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Re: Re:
"The very base of supporting free speech is not supporting what you agree with, but the right of existence for what you don’t."
Yes, but that doesn't mean you have to hang around with them, help pay for them or provide them your property to speak from.
I can support the free speech of Rogan and his disinformation crew, or the right for Nazis to speak their mind. I can also exercise my own right not to do business with people who support those things or frequent those premises.
There is no contradiction here. I'm not trying to shut them down, merely performing the equivalent of changing the channel if a TV show comes on that I don't like. I didn't oppress anyone's right to free speech by changing the channel.
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Re: Re: Re:
We also don't have to lie that what Rogan doing is merely "speech we disagree with" or that its existence is in any way threatened.
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And we also don’t have to pretend that Rogan is owed a spot on Spotify, or any other platform, only because some people find his speech objectionable. Defending the right of those with whom we disagree to speak doesn’t mean giving them the right to use a platform they don’t own.
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Re:
Or, to break it down for people who still don't understand:
Free speech: Rogan and his guests spouting bullshit
Also free speech: People calling them out on that bullshit
Also free speech: People deciding they don't want to support the platform that hosts the bullshit
Also free speech: People calling on others to join them in a boycott of the platform that's supporting bullshit
Also free speech (or to be more accurate, free market): Spotify siding with Rogan instead of the people demanding they cancel his contract (though it would also be free speech/market if they went the other way in response to the boycotts.)
Even if you're dishonest enough to pretend that people are saying what they're saying because they don't share the same political opinion as Rogan, rather than the more realistic opposition to spreading of outright lies (and how damning is it to modern discourse when basic medical information is now politically bipartisan?), there's nothing here that doesn't represent free speech. Unless, of course, you're also stupid enough to think that free speech means free audience or freedom from consequences. In which case, yet again, some people need to let the adults make the grown up decisions.
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Re: Re:
I have no evidence either way. And don’t care enough to go looking.
See above, other than the fact that everyone in political commentary wants to discuss him, I have no idea who he is or what he says.
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Re: Re: Re:
"I have no evidence either way. And don’t care enough to go looking."
Yet, your self-proclaimed ignorance never stops you from have an opinion, does it?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
My opinion?
Spotify made a decision that they believe is best for their business.
If you don’t like it go elsewhere.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"If you don’t like it go elsewhere."
...and some people are. While expressing their reasons to others while doing so. Some of these people are paying customers, some are artists who feel they can no longer have a business relationship with Spotify. Which is not a problem.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I can't remember, is that your position on social media moderation as well?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes.
As I’ve stated my problem is not so much with censoring/moderating/your-term-here politicians; rather that politicians shouldn’t be using social media, another company’s private property, for official communication.
Despite my nostalgia for the good-old-days of open use and moderation by categorisation eg compuserve, it’s not a practical reality today.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"politicians shouldn’t be using social media, another company’s private property, for official communication."
Do you have the same opinion when they use other forms of private property for communication, such as radio, TV, newspapers, billboards, appearances at privately-held venues, etc.? Or just social media?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
To the majority of that reply: no.
But for a ver specific reason.
Only social media puts the communication at the direct control of someone other than the communicator.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How?
The person posts what they wish to post, other people respond. Every other form of communication I've mentioned has some kind of intermediary that can have control, especially if a broadcast is not live. TV has producers who can demand edits, as does radio. Newspapers have editors. Billboards typically have someone approving what goes on them. Live events usually have moderators. In formats when people are allowed to respond, the responders are going to be selected from a large pool of potential people and will have their responses filtered in some way, whether that's for time, relevance or something else.
The only major difference is that with social media some of the work is automated, but this can be waived for the speaker if it's an official government communication (as in, not the self-deluded whining of someone who chooses to use his personal account while in office) and then would apply mainly to the comments.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, I’d say it’s been a very long time since politicians, national anyway, used newspapers as official government distribution of information.
Billboard? When and where?
Official news broadcasts (TV/RADIO/.GOV web sites) are usually live at first. So that doesn’t really count.
My point being, wtf are they doing using non-government tools for government communication in the first place?
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Re:
As far as I can read; that’s not what happened here at all.
Spotify made a business decision. No bow forced anything here.
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Re: Re: Re:
My response was to the statement “And our free speech allows us to say that Spotify are being assholes to host Rogan”
I may have clicked reply in the wrong spot. Apologies if that was the case.
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Re:
"And as became usual in the last years, we have very knowledgeable microbiologists and virologists commenting on vaccines"
We also have conmen and morons commenting on them. Not a good thing during a global pandemic that's killing more people every day than died on 9/11.
"the podcast in question provided just another point of view on our problems"
When the point of view is from batshit fantasists or people who directly profit from selling snake oil, that's a problem.
"Not just Rogan's point of view but also scientists' ones, including the current vaccine developers'"
Has he had current vaccine developers on there? I'm aware of him having anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists and doctors who claim to have been involved in the mRNA vaccine early in development (but neither involved with the COVID vaccines or the non-mRNA vaccines available). But, not people involved with the actual current vaccines. Could you point me to the episode where such a person was a guest?
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Re:
It's pretty obvious you're deliberately mischaracterizing Robert Malone here.
He developed the mRNA vaccine about as much as Shiva Ayyadurai invented Email.
Just another COVID conman, so of course he'd naturally be a favorite of fake-medicine-grifter Rogan.
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I read your argument as "if not for copyright, Spotify would make money by streaming music and hence wouldn't hesitate dropping Rogan because if it is a right thing to do." But is it? Is your opinion that Rogan is a menace and should be censored a majority opinion? Or is it a minority-but-knows-what-unwashed-majority-needs opinion?
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Doom
In the whole wide world they can only find one person people will listen to...and that's Joe Rogan?
O, gods, we are truly doomed.
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Re: Doom
Who are "they"?
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Re: Re: Doom
Spotify, of course.
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Re: Re: Re: Doom
My bad, I misread. Thought you referred to listeners.
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This Rose stinks
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Re: This Rose stinks
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Re: Re: This Rose stinks
Because it's BS, duh.
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Re: Re: Re: This Rose stinks
It’s facts. You flag posts with facts because you don’t like the facts? That’s censorship. If you have other facts to add or if you think the facts are mis-stated, make your case. Otherwise you’re just closing your eyes to the facts.
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Moderation is a platform/service owner or operator saying “we don’t do that here”. Personal discretion is an individual telling themselves “I won’t do that here”. Editorial discretion is an editor saying “we won’t print that here”, either to themselves or to a writer. Censorship is someone saying “you won’t do that anywhere” alongside threats or actions meant to suppress speech.
Now show me how flagging a post is the same thing as censorship.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This Rose stinks
Cool story bro. Not remotely true but still cool.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This Rose stinks
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This Rose stinks
It doesn't matter if it's facts or not. Behave like a raging asshole, be treated like a raging asshole.
Also, how stupid do you have to be to think that market cap is the same as making money? One it the total worth of the company's holdings and shares, the other is profit. Spotify has since it inception actually never made a profit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This Rose stinks
I'm closing my eyes cause your so-called facts amount to nothing more than BS. Tough shit, snowflake.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: This Rose stinks
Though I differ than most on what constitutes censorship (the who aspect) we almost all agree that it involves blocking or removing something.
Community flagging simply collapses the comment. Requiring an extra click or tap to view it. Your post wasn’t removed or blocked.
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Re:
The music industry is powerful, just not omnipotent at the level that the industry wants. Here's the thing - when you have other powerful corporate entities to deal with, you often have to compromise. Odds are, you won't get everything you want. Because nobody is going to operate in a way that is completely detrimental to themselves with no upside.
This is literally the same argument the music industry makes every year. They claim they can't make money, then boast about how much money they've made despite multiple ongoing financial crises and how much bonus money they're giving to Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman to run the RIAA. Frankly, the RIAA championed this argument. The fact that it's now biting them back in the ass is honestly richly deserved.
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Science
"That Spotify would stand by a show that consistently undermines vaccines and blithely spreads misinformation is disappointing--but, financially, it’s perfectly predictable."
It is difficult to comprehend the towering ignorance of the person who wrote that above.
Joe Rogan had a conversation with the inventor of the vaccine technology. The doctor holds 9 patents on that technology. So, in your blithely jaundiced view talking about "vaccines" that: 1) don't work,, and 2) have a larger injure/kill rate that all vaccines previous put together that means that the doctor that invented the vaccines is undermining them?
Moving on, do you even know what the definition of blithely is? "In a happy and carefree manner." So to translate your phrase, Joe Rogan happily and carefree-edly spreads misinformation? What misinformation would that be? The doctor that invented the technology is misinformed? How would you know? You are apparently saying you know more about the vaccines than the guy who invented them. And you have determined that that doctor is happily spreading misinformation.....about his own vaccines. And Rogan is chatting with him about it.
And the above is somehow "disappointing" to you that Spotify "sides" with a conversation between a prestigious doctor and Joe Rogan? Can you tell us once again what is disappointing to you about that?
The truth is that neither Neil Young nor you have listened to that conversation. Meaning you don't know what you are talking about. Isn't it about time that you stopped spreading misinformation?
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Re: Science
As always, restless's post is 100% the complete opppsite of reality in every possible way.
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Re: Re: Science
Frankly I expected him to show up on the post about the government agreeing that maybe the police's armaments should be toned down a bit. He's slipping.
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Re: Science
Don't work, my ass.
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Re: Re: Science
More than 56% of people who took the COVID vaccine have, since then, died. You can't argue with that fact.
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Re: Re: Re: Science
Citation needed....
Also, 100% of the people who died at one point breathed oxygen, therefore the answer is clearly to ban oxygen.
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Re: Re: Re: Science
No, but we can argue with mendacious crap.
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Just a reminder: Your ass is not a credible source of information.
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Re:
I'd like it if he could share the laughable source of disinformation he's parroting so that the rest of us can react accordingly.
Just in case anyone's as dumb as the poster above is - according to NPR, 214 million people have been vaccinated in the US alone:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/28/960901166/how-is-the-covid-19-vaccinatio n-campaign-going-in-your-state?t=1645439233289
I'm sure everyone had noticed if 56% of those people had died, given that it would mean around 120 million people, or over 1/3 of the US population had died within a year.
Since we've not seen that, we are clearly dealing with some extraordinarily stupid people who accept any conspiracy theory at face value despite it being obviously not true, and the rest of us would do well to inoculate society against those sources lest the anti-vaxxer infection continue to spread and kill even more people than they already have.
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Re: Re: Re: Science
The fact that the world's population has not suddenly dropped by several billion people means that I can and will argue with that 'fact'.
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Re: Re: Re: Science, you can't explain that!
That would be in the realm of 5 billion people dead in the last two years bro.
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Re: Re: Re: Science
The Vaccine doesn't immunize against mortality, bro.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Science
I'd settle for immunization against fools and assholes.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Science
Unfortunately, I don't think there will ever be a vaccine for that.
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Re: Science
Shhh honey. The adults are talking.
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Why is it disappointing that Spotify exercised its first amendment right to publish the content they choose to? This site is largely dedicated to advocating for that concept.
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Re:
Yes. Spotify is exercising its 1st Amendment right. However,
-Freedom of Speech is not freedom from criticism.
-Artists whose music is on Spotify have just as much a 1A right to withdraw their music from Spotify as much as Spotify has in platforming Joe Rogan.
-The government is not involved, so the issue of the 1A is irrelevant.
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Publishing content, in and of itself, is not the issue here. The issue lies with the decision from Spotify to keep Joe Rogan’s podcast on the Spotify service (and Rogan on Spotify’s ostensible payroll). Given the myriad issues people have with said podcast, Spotify choosing to platform Rogan and alienating both potential customers and musicians is, at best, a disappointing decision.
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Re:
FTFY.
Don't try to pass off your dislike of Rogan's content as "constructive criticism" of Spotify. You just don't like his content and want it banned in hopes of forcing others into your "authoritative sources" and desired behaviors though lack of choice.
Just remember, Chickens come home to roost. That same method can and will be used against you one day. With your posts here as the ultimate justification for others to get away with it.
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Re: Re:
"You just don't like his content and want it banned in hopes of forcing others into your "authoritative sources" and desired behaviors though lack of choice."
No, at best he wants to not support liars and propagandists financially, and wishes to inform others that the lies are leading to very negative consequences.
Which, despite the complaints from the knuckle draggers, is as much free speech as the lies.
"Just remember, Chickens come home to roost."
Yes, they do. But, some of us are tired of reading Herman Cain awards detailing how people sacrificed their lives on the altar of lies and would like the private enterprises who are funding them to not do so.
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Re: Re: Re:
Yes it is. As is my distaste for his distaste. I never said it wasn't.
I had to look this one up..... *sigh* Yeah, I'd expect that from reddit....
Agreed. It is depressing and disheartening to loose people over something so stupid.
And that's where the rub is.... Trying to force a private enterprise to censor others is an attack on free speech. Not at the legal / governmental level, but at the concept level.
This is what Young was trying to do: Force Spotify to silence Rogan to keep his fans and their ad revenue, at the cost of Rogan's fans and ad revenue. Denying Spotify the right to freedom of association / speech. Not in the form of legal proceedings but in the form of business transactions. In the process, Young also censored his fans. By assuming that all of his fans would fully support such an undertaking by him, and thereby firmly painting all of his fans that listen to his music on Spotify as having an anti-Rogan political stance to Spotify. In addition to painting all of Rogan's fans as pro-Rogan supporters who would leave if Rogan was banned. A misrepresentation if even a single fan on either side disagreed, and one that Spotify had no real means to determine the facts of on it's own.
Thus we have three censored groups borne from one censor. This is the reason why it's impossible for free speech to exist along side censorship. You cannot prevent just one side from speaking. You create additional censored groups because it takes at least two groups / individuals to communicate. Censoring one speaker also censors the listeners' right to communicate support of the speaker as they are speaking. Implementing these ultimatums as a societal norm means constantly censoring others. Often for petty reasons. The circumstances are extreme here, hence the press, but once normalized, this behavior would be used for far less. Leading to an abandonment of free speech as a concept and pillar of society.
If you start making these requirements, you're effectively saying "Shut up and let us speak for you." It leads to the Ministry of Truth, and that is not a path any Democracy should head down.
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If we were trying to force Spotify to yank Rogan off its service, you might have a point. But we’re not. So you don’t.
Boycotts are not censorship. Artists yanking their music from Spotify to protest the company’s support of Joe Rogan is not censorship. People saying “Spotify is being double-mint dumb for choosing Rogan over musicians” is not censorship. And Spotify choosing to dump Rogan for being more trouble than he’s worth wouldn’t be censorship, either—because Rogan could still publish his podcast on any other platform that would have him (or create his own platform and publish it there).
If Spotify had refused to both dump Young’s music and Rogan, wouldn’t that have refused Young’s right of association by way of forcing his music to remain associated with Spotify (and Rogan by proxy)?
I don’t think he gave a shit about his fans in that regard. He didn’t have to, either. This situation was about his music being associated with Spotify; whether his fans would follow his music to a new platform and/or boycott Spotify was ultimately irrelevant.
All of them? No. But an overwhelming majority? I can believe it.
Except no one was censored. Young was (and still is) free to keep his music off Spotify; he had (and still has) that right. Both his fans and Rogan’s fans were (and still are) free to tell him he was stupid for doing so; he couldn’t (and still can’t) stop either group, let alone both of them, from doing that. And Spotify was (and still is) free to keep associating with Rogan despite the criticism from Young, Young’s fanbase, and Rogan’s detractors. And if Spotify chooses to stop associating with Rogan at some point, that doesn’t invalidate any of those positions.
If you can show me which “side” was barred from speaking—and I mean completely and utterly prevented from saying anything on any platform by either threats or actions meant to suppress any and all expression—you might have a point here.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but no one here is calling for Spotify to be legally barred from carrying Rogan’s podcast or for Rogan’s podcast to be regulated in re: what speech can and can’t be on it. Anyone who has called for such things to happen is a jackass who can be ignored.
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Re:
That's their choice yes.
The legal ability of Spotify do so aside, Young forced the issue. He's perfectly capable of pulling his music off without it turning into a national news event. He didn't. He chose to openly decry Rogan, and issue an ultimatum of censorship in public to Spotify. As is his right to do so. But the "forcing his music to remain associated with Spotify" is Young's choice. "Rogan by proxy" is the choice of the public on an individual basis and one that Young has no direct control over. Nor should he. I didn't before this whole mess. In that regard, Young's ultimatum failed to achieve it's goal. Indeed it's achieved the exact opposite.
That was the entire point of Young's ultimatum and had everything to do with it. It was Young using his fans (and their ad revenue) as leverage against Spotify. Young wouldn't have made his ultimatum that way otherwise. It's completely relevant.
Under those conditions free speech can never be infringed by anyone and therefore we should have an amendment to repeal the First as it's completely unnecessary. The High Court on the other hand would disagree with you. Absolute totality of the inability to speak is not a requirement of infringement. Nor is it at the concept level of free speech.
I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a difference from "Freedom of Speech as defined in the United States Bill of Rights" and "freedom of speech as a societal concept." You seem to be arguing from the former.
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And that was his right. Spotify could have chosen (and ultimately did choose) to remove Young’s music. It also could’ve chosen to yank Rogan’s podcast. It could have chosen to ignore Young and let his legal team have his music taken down, too. Young’s ultimatum was, at worst, a childish ploy—but it wasn’t a call for censorship.
Except it wasn’t. Spotify voluntarily removed his music to avoid a legal battle that it likely would’ve lost. By ignoring Young and keeping his music on the service until a legal order/battle settled the situation, Spotify would’ve been violating Young’s right to have his speech disassociated from Spotify (and Rogan by proxy).
His music isn’t on Spotify any more, so I’d say his goal—disassociating his music with Rogan’s podcast—was achieved, even if the way it happened wasn’t the outcome he had in mind.
It wasn’t enough leverage, given the outcome. And even then, it was his right to tell Spotify “if I go, I’m taking my fans with me” even if some of his fans didn’t want to go with him. And if they didn’t jump ship, they still wouldn’t be censored because they can still criticize Young’s decision. Young’s decision to yank his music from Spotify was his alone to make, regardless of how his fans felt.
You’ve never heard of “prior restraint”, have you, Squidward?
If you’re going to argue that someone has been censored, you’ll need to prove that they were prevented from speaking their mind on any platform. That typically happens through threats of violence (e.g., “post this and I’ll kill you”) or legal action (e.g., “post this and I’ll sue you”). Someone who is banned from Twitter for posting racial slurs has not been censored. Someone who has their music yanked off Spotify has not been censored.
I’m well damn aware that my definition of censorship is a bit stricter than most. All that means is I don’t use the word without restraint for situations where it doesn’t apply. And so far as I see it, nothing in this situation amounts to either censorship or an attempt at censoring others.
Yes, there is.
Yes, I am.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I had to look this one up..... sigh Yeah, I'd expect that from reddit...."
Yes, dark humour but aimed at exposing the numbers of people who claim that COVID is fake then die from it.
"This is what Young was trying to do: Force Spotify to silence Rogan to keep his fans and their ad revenue, at the cost of Rogan's fans and ad revenue."
No, he knew he'd not have a meaningful effect on Spotify directly and he doesn't have the leverage to convince them to remove Rogan just because he said so. The actual aim was to get people to talk about Rogan's misinformation and allow people who were otherwise unaware of the massive problems that Rogan is causing to not do business with such an unethical supplier.
This is not censorship, it's the free market at work. Why do you hate the free market?
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Correct.
Incorrect.
Joe Rogan has every legal right to publish his podcast, to say whatever he wants on his podcast, and to let anyone else say whatever they want to say on his podcast. I would not dare say otherwise; that way lies madness.
That said: I can and will say that Joe Rogan is an irresponsible dipshit who gives a platform to lies and mis- and disinformation. I can and will say that Spotify paid $100 million to associate itself with Rogan—and, whether Spotify likes it or not, the speech of Rogan and his guests. Spotify’s management can do something about Rogan’s podcast if they feel said podcast is damaging the reputation of Spotify. Letting him continue his irresponsible bullshit damns Spotify as much as it damns Rogan himself.
Spotify can boot his podcast off the service and it wouldn’t be an infringement of his First Amendment rights. Other platforms can refuse to host the podcast and it still wouldn’t infringe on Rogan’s right to free speech. No one is legally, morally, or ethically obligated to give him a platform. If he wants a platform when all the reputable platform providers have told him to fuck off, he can build one himself.
I don’t want Rogan’s podcast banned from existing. I want it to be so obscure as to be meaningless—to be so maligned as a podcast for fringe crackpots that it stops playing a role in national politics. It’s sad that more people believe an MMA commentator with no medical background whatsoever over credible scientists with combined decades of experience in the field of biology and virology. That you apparently see no problem with that is…telling.
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Re:
You want him censored. Rendering his actions meaningless is effectively denying him the ability to speak. An effective ban. Did you forget to include a *tee-hee* in that technical "Why are you hitting yourself?"
Now you're just admitting you want to politically silence him. It's not good enough for you to deny him the ability to speak, you seek to deny him the ability to engage in politics outright.
No, you are just trying to take away the platform he and his fans already have. While also trying to prevent them from getting another one. That he and his fans are not obligated to have a platform, but your fully within your rights to obligate others to take platforms away from them? Again, where's that *tee-hee* that's missing?
Agreed. They have a much better point of view on subjects of medical relevance than someone without such a background.
The problem here is your desire to censor and ban political view points you dislike, and your willingness to demonize others to further your cause.
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Everything I say and do is meaningless. I’m still here speaking my mind. Try a better argument.
No, he can engage in politics. What I want is for him to be seen as such a fringe crackpot that his political activity is effectively worthless. (Well, outside of modern American conservative politics, that is.) That wouldn’t deny him the ability to engage in politics—only the ability to be taken seriously. And no one is entitled to be taken seriously, including me or (especially) you.
I couldn’t take it away if I actively tried. But even if I could: So what? They’re not entitled to that platform. Nobody is legally entitled to use Spotify as a platform—and that holds true for both musicians like Neil Young and podcasters like Joe Rogan.
I’ve never once said I have that right, and I’ll thank you not to shove words down my throat that didn’t first come from it.
If some dumbassed Republican politician wants to keep comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust, that is their legal right. But I have a legal right to call their opinion stupid and call them a jackass for expressing it. I also have a legal right to say that I hope Twitter ends up banning that kind of bullshit one day—because that wouldn’t be censorship. (The jackass can still go to Parler or Truth Social and bray all the live-long day.)
And I’d say similar things about a Democrat politcian who wants to abolish Section 230 because “think of the children”, lest you think this is entirely partisan bullshittery.
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Re: Re:
We get it, you hate free speech you disagree with.
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Re: Re: It's painfully obvious and rather pathetic
Bro, the problem here is you want Stephan to be a mannequin for you to project opinions onto, and he keeps not obliging your dipshittery.
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Re: Re:
That's a lot of bullshit which all boils down to "You condemning the nazi bar is an infringement of the nazi's right to be heard"
"The problem here is your desire to censor and ban political view points you dislike, and your willingness to demonize others to further your cause."
...says the shitwit who's gone through about a dozen comments with wordwalls all based on the same false premise: That a private entity choosing to actively condemn another private entity is akin to government censorship.
You are - fundamentally - wrong in that assumption. No one here has advocated censorship or banning. That's just you being a disingenuous asshole propping up yet another strawman.
You being "demonized" in no other way than by us pointing out that you are lying through your teeth in every assertion. There is nothing wrong in refusing to patronize the nazi bar nor about making no bones about our assessment of the nazi bar. Yet that's the exact metaphor of what you try to imply. Repetitively.
If you want respect and credibility then perhaps try not using long debunked stormfront talking points to make your case.
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Re:
"Why is it disappointing that Spotify exercised its first amendment right to publish the content they choose to?"
You have a first amendment right to dress up like Hitler and wander around your local Jewish community quoting Mein Kampf. Being allowed to do something and that being a good thing to do are not there same thing.
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Graph: How $1 Flows from Spotify to Recording Artists
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A legal decision
Ultimately: Spotify made a business decision. If you don’t like it go elsewhere.
A few artists decided to gamble publicly on making a (new) name for themselves by pulling their music in protest. That is also their right.
All the hype around this is purely political.
Spotify isn’t going to give up money to make a few washed up artists happy.
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Re: A legal decision
"Ultimately: Spotify made a business decision. If you don’t like it go elsewhere."
Some people are, some people aren't. Young and others making more people aware of the reasons someone might want to leave is part of the process.
"All the hype around this is purely political."
...which is free speech.
What's happened here - Rogan has platformed some disgusting and dangerous misinformation that probably has already led to people dying. A group of scientists wrote an open letter to Spotify stating that he's playing a dangerous game. Young saw this, and threatened to leave if Rogan's content wasn't moved, then Spotify agreed to honour his request.
There is nothing wrong with the sequence of events, unless you're of the opinion that artists lose their right to political opinion when they sell a few records, that people only you think are relevant should have a voice, or that people should be forced to financially support a business they are opposed to.
You whining about how washed up Young supposedly is only highlights the importance of political discussion - if he's having such an effect, imagine if someone you think is relevant spoke out against propaganda.
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Re: Re: A legal decision
I believe that’s exactly what I said.
There’s much ado about nothing here. This kind of sequence happens all the time.
I’d also point out, though, all this discussion about this man has brought him attention. 6 months ago I didn’t have a clue who he was. Now I know he’s some sort of pod blogger or YouTube guy who got a million dollar deal on Spotify and is allegedly anti vax.
Looks like a variation of the Streisand Effect to me.
You (population) took some talk show guy 99% didn’t know about and thrust him mainstream.
That’s my point with “this is political”.
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Re: Re: Re: A legal decision
He was famous and influential enough to get a $100 million dollar podcast deal. Just because you hadn't heard of him doesn't mean he wasn't already well known.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: A legal decision
Touché
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