I read that he actually doesn't own the rights to his music catalog any more, so technically Spotify could ignore his demands. Although if that's true, it's surprising the article doesn't mention it.
I'm confused. I read Neil Young recently sold significant stake in his music catalog to an investment company [1]. Doing something like this pretty much nullifies that investment. Perhaps the particulars of the deal he signed still allows him to do this, in which case the investment company made a bad deal.
If Spotify is just doing this as a courtesy, without full permission from all relevant stake holders, or specific contractual cover, then the investment company should be looking to sue both Neil Young and Spotify.
Surely I'm missing something.
1. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/neil-young-sells-50percent-o...
This is the music business after all.
Or they factored that into the price. The dude is known for political activism as much as he is for his music.
Any investor who did their due diligence knows that Neil Young is very opinionated about how his music is used. So if he negotiated for continued control over his music, the investors should have known he was going to cost them money.
I think it depends on how much of his catalog he was the song write on? There seem to be some veto writes that songwriters get even if they have sold the rights to their master recordings.