Music

Spotify removes John Mulaney, Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, and other comedians from service over a royalties dispute

Published

3 years ago

December 6, 2021

Spotify has removed hundreds of comedians’ works after they tried to push for a change in the way streaming services pay them royalties.

The audio streaming giant moved to drop comedians such as John Mulaney, Jim Gaffigan, Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, and Mike Birbiglia from the platform last week. But despite that, Spoken Giants, the global rights administration company representing the comedians, said Saturday it wants to resume conversations with Spotify.

“Spoken Giants has a clear process for engaging with DSPs, other digital platforms, and terrestrial and satellite radio to discuss compensation for comedy writers,” Spoken Giants CEO Jim King, a former executive at music rights company BMI, told Insider. “In our discussions, we’ve offered a blanket license for our repertoire of comedy works so comedians can begin to receive the royalties they’ve rightfully earned. Unfortunately, Spotify removed the work of individual comedians rather than continue negotiating with us.”

“We have now requested an immediate meeting to resolve this situation because, copyright lingo aside, the reality is that individual comedians are being penalized in retaliation for collectively requesting the same compensation that songwriters receive,” King added.

The comics joined the Spoken Giants-led coalition, looking to get paid a royalty on a copyright for jokes they’ve written that are played on radio or digital audio services, like Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandora, and YouTube.

After stalled negotiations with Spoken Giants, Spotify sent an email to the global rights company right before Thanksgiving, saying it was taking down the comedians’ content until an agreement could be reached.

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Spoken Giants specializes in helping creators collect royalties for copyrights of spoken-word media like the comedians’ jokes. The company has been in talks with other radio and audio streaming entities since the spring.

“Spotify does provide entertainers with exposure and access to large audiences,” said Spoken Giants CEO Jim King, a former executive at music rights company BMI. “So having their work taken down is harmful to each individual creator.”

More artists and creative talent are demanding increased royalties from streaming services, particularly songwriters. Streamers previously opted to appeal a federal ruling from the US Copyright Board raising the rates for royalties in 2018. Spotify was among other major music and audio content streamers, like Apple, Amazon, Pandora, and Google, who said they were fighting royalty boost.

According to the Wall Street Journal, comedians are paid as “performers” through their label or distributor, and by digital performance rights organization SoundExchange every time a digital service streams their content. However, comics are currently not paid as writers of their own work, like how songwriters are paid for the use of their music and lyrics.

With streaming and increased listenership of comedy albums, comedians can collect more money from their work across these platforms, King added.

Spotify said comedians’ labels and distributors are also a part of the conversation.

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Music

Why I boycott Headies Award – Rapper Erigga

Published

1 year ago

July 12, 2023

Seun Okerayi

Nigerian hip-hop artist Erigga Agarivbie, better known as Erigga, said he started boycotting the Headies Award after his 2020 album ‘The Erigma II’ lost out in the Best Rap Album category at the 14th edition of the award show.

He accused Headies organisers of disrespecting artists from the South-South region.

Erigga made the allegations via his Twitter handle on Wednesday, hours after the nominees for the 16th Headies were announced.

Despite releasing an album, ‘The Lost Boy,’ in the year under review, the Warri-born rapper did not secure any nominations.

Venting his anger on Twitter, Erigga shared the art cover of his 2020 album ‘The Erigma II’, with the caption: “Na from here I don take boycott all these f*ckers (Headies) the disrespect was too much for the south south to take… If you don’t like us and not going to respect our craft then it’s f*ck you and everything you represent; that’s it.”

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Entertainment

Friends advised us to quit music – Ajebo Hustlers

Published

1 year ago

June 7, 2023

Seun Okerayi

Nigerian musical duo, Ajebo Hustlers have disclosed that some of their friends advised them to quit music because they weren’t making a fortune from the profession initially.

Music

Singer Portable captures hearts as artiste performs Apostle off album with live band (Video)

Published

2 years ago

December 10, 2022

Titilope Ahide

Controversial Nigerian singer Habeeb Okikiola better known as Portable who has been known for always trending for the wrong reasons has managed to captured the hearts of netizens in his latest video.

In the videos shared by Portable via his official Instagram page, the singer performs a track titled, Apostle off his new album with a live band while on the podcast tagged “Echoo Room.”

Recall Intel Region had earlier reported that Portable who breaks into the Nigerian music industry with his hit song “Zazoo Zeh” featuring Olamide and Poco Lee in December 2021 released his debut album “Ika of Africa” on November 25th, 2022.

According to Portable the album houses 16 tracks with no feature noting that he would only feature artistes for remix.

While on the podcast, Portable dished out a brighter side of him as he sings his song, apostle featuring the loba band crew whose Instrumentals and backups were absolutely nothing but amazing.

The song, Apostle by Portable addresses the trending conversation among Nigerian pastors who uses the money donated by church members to get bulletproof cars for themselves and families as they don’t want to go heaven.

Sharing the video, Portable accompanied it with the caption, “I had fun today doing one track out of my album titled Apostle with the loba band crew @echooroom_ I can’t wait for you all to watch what we came up with … wait on it #Drzeh #zehnation #zazlive band Nice one @babyluvgram.”