Artists’ Spotify boycott gains momentum following CEO’s AI weapon investments

In June, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investment into AI defence tech company Helsing came to light, prompting denunciation from certain artists.

Ek’s venture capital company Prima Materia first invested in Helsing in 2021. However last month, it emerged that the company led a €600 million funding round at Helsing and Ek himself is now Chair of the defence company’s board.

In response, the band Deerhoof were the first to completely pull their music from Spotify, explaining “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech”. Since then, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Xiu Xiu have joined the boycott, urging users to cancel their subscriptions to the platform.

Spotify has faced boycotts in the past, with legacy artists such as Joni Mitchell and Neil Young removing their music because of COVID misinformation spread by Joe Rogan’s podcast. No matter how renowned, losing 2 artists had limited impact on overall Spotify subscribers. A boycott must spread far and wide to have a lasting impact.

However, more creators are moving to Tidal and other platforms for their personal music consumption. This is in protest against the meagre royalty payments generated by Spotify streams, and artists want to see other artists paid fairly.

As the UK government becomes increasingly focused on streaming reforms, tensions for Spotify seem to be rising from multiple angles. Could the growing contempt for Spotify’s practices be enough to create permanent change?