‘F--- Spotify': Artists pull music over CEO's AI war tech ties

Imagine you open your Spotify app to stream your favorite album just to find out it's gone

Well, fans of Australian rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard now know the feeling

The group is one of several artists pulling their music from the platform in protest of a tech investment tied to warfare

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek co-founded Prima Materia, a tech investment firm backing a company building AI-powered military drones

Financial Times reports the firm made another significant investment even before Russia's 2021 invasion of Ukraine

As a result, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's Spotify page is now nearly empty, where only a few collaborations with other bands remain due to a label contract

Their 1.4 million monthly listeners will have to tune in elsewhere. The band confirmed the move on Instagram, saying

new demos collection out everywhere except Spotify, expletive Spotify. They even encourage

fans to bootleg the tracks The move follows similar departures from American group Deerhoof who announced their removal from Spotify last month In a statement on their website month their website they wrote million of his Spotify

chairman of AI Battle Tech a headline we enjoyed rea want our music killing peo

Shushu announced their de their music as well. In an they said we are currently

all of our music off of g violent Armageddon portal, Spotify, urging their fans to cancel their subscription with

the streaming platform. When pointing to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Ek defended the move, telling

the Financial Times, "...there's an enormous realization that it's really now AI, mass, and autonomy that

is driving the new battlefield. We can't understate the implications of that for this conflict in Ukraine, or really any

conflict going forward." Spotify just posted a quarterly loss Tuesday despite growing its premium base to $276 million

In that call, The Hollywood Reporter said ECK admitted their ad business hasn't met expectations

With Straight Arrow News, I'm Kennedy Felton. Download our app or visit san.com for more