Spotify removes popular comedians’ content over royalties dispute
Spotify has pulled the works of some of the most popular comedians, including Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, John Mulaney, and Jim Gaffigan due to a royalties dispute. First reported by The Wall Street Journal, a number of high-profile entertainers are pursuing royalty payments for their jokes when they’re played on the radio, as well as on services like Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, and SiriusXM.
The comics’ efforts are backed by global rights administration company, Spoken Giants, which works to ensure that entertainers are properly compensated for spoken-word content. As the WSJ notes, comedians are typically paid by their label or distributor — along with digital performance rights organization SoundExchange — when a digital service plays their content. However, they’re technically not compensated for writing that content, something that Spoken Giants hopes to change.
After failed negotiations with Spoken Giants, Spotify removed hundreds of comedians’ content from the service. In a statement to the WSJ, Spotify said that it already paid “significant amounts of money for the content in question, and would love to continue to do so.” The Verge reached out to Spotify with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
There’s no word whether Spotify will try to reach an agreement with Spoken Giants again, or if the comedians’ content will ever return. With Spotify expected to have over 400 million users by the end of the year, the affected comedians may be missing out on massive amounts of visibility.
Spotify has pulled the works of some of the most popular comedians, including Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, John Mulaney, and Jim Gaffigan due to a royalties dispute. First reported by The Wall Street Journal, a number of high-profile entertainers are pursuing royalty payments for their jokes when they’re played on…
Recent Posts
- The FCC has finally decreed that 25Mbps and 3Mbps are not ‘broadband’ speed
- CIA allegedly made fake social media accounts to troll the Chinese government
- Pornhub shuts down in Texas to protest age verification law
- SpaceX successfully launched its Starship, but the vehicle was ‘lost’ after reentry
- TikTok is now asking users to call their Senators to prevent a US ban
Archives
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011