Neil Young, Joni Mitchell Spotify rift hits legal impasse, as many songs remain on platform

Neil Young’s attempt to divorce himself from streaming giant Spotify to protest the spread of Covid-19 misinformation has come to a legal impasse.

Neil Young performs in 2015. Picture: Michael Tran

Neil Young’s attempt to divorce himself from streaming giant Spotify to protest against the spread of Covid-19 misinformation has come to a legal impasse, with some of his tracks likely to remain on the platform as the final decision falls to the rights holders of his music.

Fans of the singer-songwriter behind 1972 album Harvest, as well as singer Joni Mitchell, will still be able to stream some of the artists’ greatest hits, with several of their tracks remaining on the platform on Friday, despite their requests that their work be pulled from Spotify over a stoush with podcaster Joe Rogan.

The inconsistency reflects the complexity of music ownership, with any decisions around streaming falling to the rights holder who would typically have a contract with the artist, according to legal experts.

Leading Australian music lawyer Jules Munro from Simpsons Solicitors said that an artist asking a streaming service to pull down a song was legally complex, as many major artists’ discographies were owned by multiple rights holders, not the musician themselves.

“Unless they’ve negotiated a right to require their label to ­remove the material, which is highly unlikely even for a superstar like Neil Young, they can only ask,” he said.

“It all comes down to the contract between the rights holder of the recordings or the song and the streaming companies themselves, and that contact can be very complicated.”

Young addressed this legal tension, saying that he had been reminded by his “legal forces” that “contractually” he did not have the control of his music to pull it from the platform.

While his record company Reprise/Warner Brothers appears to have removed Young’s tracks, there are still many rights holders that haven’t joined the boycott.

Classic albums Harvest, On the Beach (1974) and After the Gold Rush (1970) have been pulled, but top tracks Heart of Gold, Harvest Moon and Rockin’ in the Free World could still be streamed on Spotify on Friday.

Heart Of Gold and Harvest Moon were marketed as being part of the soundtrack for travel film Eat Pray Love, with rights held by Universal Island Records, according to Spotify.

Rockin’ in the Free World, The Needle and the Damage Done and Down by the River ­remain on the platform after they were included in various greatest hits compilations, with rights held by Rhino Entertainment.

Recordings Young made for charity concert Live Aid, owned by the Band Aid Trust, also ­remain on the platform.

Mitchell listeners were met with a “song unavailable” alert after selecting protest classic Big Yellow Taxi, though Both Sides Now, Come in from the Cold and Chelsea Morning were still available on Friday, along with ­albums Wild Things Run Fast (1982), Dog Eat Dog (1985) and Chalk Mark in the Rain Storm (1988) among others, which are all owned by Geffen Records.

Mr Munro, who recently represented Warner Brothers in legal action against Clive Palmer over his use of Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It in an ad, said that while legal questions about streaming services were still relatively new, it reflected a time-old question.

“Spotify may be a relatively recent phenomenon but the contractual and rights underlying those deals are not novel,” he said.

“The same issue would have happened if a legendary musician demanded a record label to withdraw CDs from a particular chain store – it’s the same issue falling to the label not the artist.”