Massive Attack have become the latest artist to withdraw their music from Spotify.
They follow King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and Canadian post-rockers Godspeed You Black Emperor!, who have all exited the platform in protest at founder Daniel Ek’s investments in the military AI company Helsing.
At the same time, the band have announced that they have signed up to No Music For Genocide, a group of over 400 artists and labels who have blocked their music from streaming services in Israel. Artists on board include Amyl and the Sniffers, Faye Webster, Rina Sawayama and Wednesday.
Massive have issued a statement, which says: “Unconnected to this initiative and in light of the (reported) significant investments by its CEO in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft, Massive Attack have made a separate request to our label that our music be removed from the Spotify streaming service in all territories.”
They continue: “In our view, the historic precedent of effective artist action during apartheid South Africa and the apartheid, war crimes and genocide now being committed by the state of Israel renders the No Music for Genocide campaign imperative.”
“In the separate case of Spotify, the economic burden that has long been placed on artists is now compounded by a moral and ethical burden, whereby the hard-earned money of fans and the creative endeavours of musicians ultimately funds lethal, dystopian technologies. Enough is more than enough. Another way is possible.”
For their part, Spotify and Helsing have put out statements in reply. “Spotify and Helsing are two totally separate companies,” Spotify said, adding that Helsing is “not involved in Gaza” and its efforts were “focused on Europe defending itself in Ukraine”.
It should be pointed out that Daniel Ek is the chairman of Helsing. That particular company has said: “Currently we see misinformation spreading that Helsing’s technology is deployed in war zones other than Ukraine. This is not correct. Our technology is deployed to European countries for deterrence and for defence against the Russian aggression in Ukraine only.”
Massive Attack’s move is significant in that they are the first major label group to exit Spotify. This means they would be unable to use Bandcamp, which is reserved for independently-signed artists. They do, however, have their own website. And other streaming services – ones that don’t invest in military tech - are very much available.
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