Young made a public demand on Monday that his manager and label pull his catalog from Spotify in protest of the streaming platform’s exclusive distribution of The Joe Rogan Experience after a group of 270 doctors, scientists, professors and other medical professionals published an open letter earlier this month saying Rogan and his guests were spreading misinformation around COVID-19. Mitchell’s personal annual loss, based on her catalog’s performance for 2021, would be about $272,000 in total artist and publishing royalties, Billboard estimates. But, for the purposes of these calculations, it is assumed all of her recordings will be pulled from Spotify.) (Note: at time of publishing, only Mitchell’s recordings for Warner Music Group had been removed from Spotify, and Universal Music Group - with whom she worked from 1982 to 1991 - did not respond to requests for comment.

Assuming Reservoir Media, with whom Mitchell signed a new administration deal last September, takes a standard 10% administration fee, that means Mitchell will be missing out on about $85,600. Her publishing, including her songwriting share, earned about $735,000 annually, Billboard estimates, of which about 13% - $94,000 - came from Spotify. Like Young, Mitchell’s heritage contract likely earns her half of those revenues, adding up to about about $186,500 in artist royalties she is foregoing. That’s 12% of her total $3.23 million in label revenue for sales and streams.

In 2021, Mitchell’s recording catalog earned $373,000 from Spotify revenues, Billboard estimates. Half of that Spotify total - $154,000 - he would receive for the songwriter share with the other half going to Hipgnosis Songs, which bought Young’s publishing catalog for an estimated $150 million last year.įor Young, personally, the decision to pull his music from Spotify will cost him about $754,000 annually, by Billboard‘s calculations. On top of that, Young earned $308,000 in publishing revenue from Spotify last year, Billboard estimates - about 19% of his total $1.624 million in publishing revenue. Selena Gomez Tests Positive for COVID-19, Cancels 'Tonight Show' Appearance Overall, Spotify streams accounted for about 14% of Young’s total solo sales and streams recording revenue, which Billboard estimates at almost $8.46 million last year.

Of that, Young likely received half - $600,000 - under terms of a standard heritage contract. (While Young claimed Spotify plays were 60% of his worldwide streaming income, that percentage is most likely his global plays and royalties would be less since Spotify pays less on average per stream than many of its competitors.) At an estimated $2.8 million in streaming royalties last year, that means Young’s decision will forego about $1.2 million each year for him and his label, Warner Music/Reprise. Until Wednesday, when Spotify announced it was complying with Young’s demand to remove his catalog, the streaming platform accounted for about 43% of Young’s global streaming revenue, Billboard estimates. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell‘s decisions to pull their music from Spotify this week come at a real cost - hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for each of them that’s unlikely to be made up elsewhere.

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