Deradoorian Removes Music From Spotify Over CEO’s Investments

Deradoorian joins a growing number of artists removing their music from Spotify. The singer-songwriter and former Dirty Projectors member cited CEO Daniel Ek’s investments in weapons technology-the primary reason for the recent wave of removals-and expressed concerns about potential changes to Spotify’s music usage rights. Spotify clarified that its Spotify for artists terms have not changed and do not affect artists’ essential music rights.

While many of Deradoorian’s albums are no longer available on Spotify, she stated her music remains accessible through other streaming and purchasing platforms. Her statement reflects long-held skepticism towards the platform,initially tempered by career necessity. “Since Spotify came along, I have always felt skeptical and opposed to their platform. Because it became the norm, I felt like I had to just put up with it and take what I could get.Perhaps that was true more so in the nascent stages of my solo career, but it doesn’t feel that way now,” she wrote.

Ek’s investment in the artificial intelligence weapons contractor Helsing spurred Deradoorian to investigate further, focusing on Spotify’s practices regarding artists’ music. She described a “slow erosion” of “our perceived ownership over our music-and the way its profits were used-was now too egregious to ignore.” While acknowledging she hadn’t conducted exhaustive research, Deradoorian concluded, “We all no that Spotify practices bad business. So, I just made the choice to stop it.”