Confused
Article seems to first indicate S. policy is on content of songs, but then it spins to the artist alleged lifestyle? Unclear.
R&B artist R. Kelly can no longer be found on playlists curated by streaming music giant Spotify after it introduced a new New Hate Content and Hateful Conduct Public Policy. The gist of the policy is that if a recording is hateful, Spotify may “remove it (in consultation with rights holders) or refrain from promoting or …
R. Kelly,..... wow, I'm surprised, given the allegations made against him, and the evidence found in his possession he gets airplay anywhere. It went to trial, there was evidence, somehow he avoided being found guilty, but there was a strong case. Contrast this with how recently, other people have been dropped after mere allegations of misconduct.
Regarding Tim Minchin, you should start with the animated "Storm" as a great intro to him.
Spotify says it’s willing to deal with such debates, has teamed with advocacy groups to develop its policy
I would like to think that all advocacy groups are started for the right reasons - to tackle issues that need tackling.
However, they (the advocacy groups) need to turn everything up to eleventy-stupid just to be heard. but they never say "our work is done" or "we have achieved parity". The second any organisation is created, self-perpetuation becomes top priority.
They are run by a self-appointed minority. They are not accountable to anyone, not even to people/groups/interests they claim to represent. Dismissively suggesting I join such advocacy groups, is not the answer. There are so many claiming to speak on my behalf, there simply isn't enough hours in the day.
Banning recordings based on the content - fine in principle, care needs to be taken with satircal works etc but OK as long as rules clear and applied even handedly.
Banning recordings by people with criminal convictions - Not a good idea. Reformed criminals and works unrelated to the crimes will be affected, but morally defensible if they had a fair trial.
Banning recordings by people accused but found not guilty of crimes - Terrrible idea, completely wrong in principle, mob justice, completely unjustifiable.
Spotify are not banning recordings: they are saying that they, Spotify, will not stream them in the worst case and will not add them to playlists they curate in lesser cases. This would be equivalent to banning only if Spotify were the only way for someone to access music, which they are not: they're not. even anywhere near being the only way someone can stream music.
"Banning recordings based on the content"
It makes me ask what their standard is - a subjective "feel" (that includes the political and/or religious bias of the reviewer), or a set of clear guidelines that are viewable online?
I expect the 'feel' part because it EMPOWERS THEM more. A bit of payola to 'decide differently' maybe?
Muse's "Uprising" - how would they view THAT one?
Or, how about some retro punk from Star Trek IV (NSFW)? [that song was allegedly written and performed for the movie]
There are clearly songs about killing cops, sexually abusing women, etc. that have gotten airplay for DECADES, so I wonder if a right-leaning political commentary song would be considered "hate" but those other examples would NOT be... by left-leaning "moderators".
Dangerous policy indeed. We already KNOW what Faece-b[ook,itch] did to Diamond and Silk [referenced in a congressional hearing, even!] and I would venture to guess that Spotify will continue "more of the same". (t's how they think out there in Silly Valley, or in the case of Spotify, Sweden), after all...
/me points out that in 2002, shortly after Sweden added "sexual orientation" to the list of things towards which there could be 'hate speech', a Swedish pastor was charged with the crime of 'hate speech' because of a sermon. I guess he was reading from Genesis about Sodom and Gomorrha or something. Whatever. Point is, the conviction WAS overturned, but it's the fact they CHARGED the guy with 'hate speech' for preaching his religion...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85ke_Green
Not like he's the Westboro Baptist "Church" or anything.
On a side note, /me points out that, according to christianity, sin is universal, and really no one sin is worse than another (they're all bad). So assuming homosexual behavior is a sin, so is lying. And that's so universally practiced that EVERYBODY is going to hell! And I think lying does more collateral damage.
In any case I don't think Spotify qualifies as "moral police", k-thx
Let's not forget Mr Blobby. In fact I'm at a loss to think of a band who wouldn't be affected by this.
I think we're going for a re-run of John Denver becoming the poster boy of banned music after people assumed his hiking song was about drugz,
@Dave 126
I could tell you some stories about rock stars, tour managers, and groupies,... if I could remember them all. Although one I do remember was told to me buy a guy that did some tour management for Dave Lee Roth. he was managing the UK leg of the Skyscraper tour. A well known groupie, who was not the youngest, brought her 15 year old daughter to the backstage door. The tour manager promptly told her to do one. Tour Managers have this thing about keeping the acts out of jail.
Derek and Clive were originally just on tapes passed around bands that were using Virgin Studios - theybered never intended for release. Sexual violence, racist lyrics, mocking religion, all there. However, Peter Cook has made a huge contribution to tackling hypocrisy and corruption
The service has defined hateful as “content that expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability.”
Given near all hip hop songs glorify violence, misogyny, drugs, and hate, I can only presume Spotify has now delisted the whole genre? I expect rather a few skinhead favourites will also disappear.
>content that expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics...
Part of me says, "at last, a statement so wide it doesn't create discrimination" and another little part of me dies knowing "incites hatred or violence" is, these days, interpreted as, "someone disagreed with me."
I guess Spotify is going instrumental.
well, Vivaldi was accused of having a somewhat scandalous relationship with a teenage opera singer [for whom he apparently wrote several operas for her to sing in]. He denied everything, of course, but who knows... and nowadays, isn't JUST A SCANDAL reason enough to BAN and DEFAME people? yeah, 'trial by fake news' indeed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Gir%C3%B2
I don't believe anyone is qualified enough to act as my censor. Ultimately, something is going to offend someone at some point. If they head down that path, where does it end. Many famous songs have an element of offense, or rebellion against the norm. Art can be beautiful or offensive, placid or frightening and many other things juxtaposed or not.....but it's all about perspective. Even if something happens to offend someone, it should be the right of all people to appraise it. It should be up to people to make up their own minds; not for actors behind the scenes to prevent you from ever hearing it....lest you learn something about the world that might be controversial.
Do some research on the long history of this song, and the reactions of various authorities and moral arbiters and artists to gain a complete understanding of all the arguments that will be rolled out and rehashed yet again regarding the issues of censorship, appropriate types of content and ultimate acnowledgement as literary works rather than dangers to society. Then you'll see how all the "what about rap, punk, metal, etc" arguments are direct parallels (the Nick Cave example given is directly and conciously in this lineage of this song, by the way). We are dealing with art and imagination here, and artists often imagine not nice things to make art from.
As to acceptable artist behaviour, well the playlist is going to end up being pretty sparse if that particular criterion is to be used. Read an average rock band biography and you'll find plenty of just causes and impediments to pass the purity tests being set here. Many artists outside of the "rebellious" genres being far more atrocious than the "bad boys" of rock, who are actually nice well behaved boys in some cases.
I presume Saint John Lennon and his popular beat combo will be next in line anyway, he having been a merciless mocker and insulter of the disabled in print, tv interviews, etc throughout these golden 1960s, as a starter example on his particular lengthy charge sheet if we are to suffer another round of trials in this long running series of prosecutions.
I presume Saint John Lennon and his popular beat combo will be next in line
If it decreases the likelihood of hearing Imagine ever again I'm all for it.
On a more serious note, how the hell they named a major airport after such an unpleasant, misogynistic, wife beating, offensive twunt like Lennon I'll never know.
Well obviously it was because the logo was already designed so they saved a lot of money straight away.
There are other plans for Beatle renaming:
Lime Street Station is to become Ringo Starr's End of the Line.
The Two Mersey Tunnels will be now known as the George Harrison's Underground and
Mersey Ferries are becoming Uncle Paul's Great Big Mystical Yellow Ferry Riving Crossings Ltd.
Gerry Marsden is pressing for the Ferris wheel to be named after him but it's a rather slender hope.
If we don't want to see this kind of commercial censorship then we should refuse to use services that do it. They are fully within their rights to host whatever songs they like. We should vote with our feet.
Very seriously considering leaving all these streaming services, buying CDs and creating my own personal one.
Grunty - I wonder how long it'll be until they pull this like Amazon did. I was happily doing exactly that with Amazon. I have been trying with OneDrive and Groove and that seems to be doing great so far. Except I can't find a really good android player that will play off of OneDrive. I also wonder if there is an alternative that will work with Alexa too. The other half really like alexa (we did some comparisons to google) and it's all over the place here.
@Timmy B
I had some backups to One Drive, ... photos, but they pruned the allowance some time back and that put me over,... so I don't really use it any more. Didn't think you can play directly from One Drive? Music counts against your storage allowance too iirc.
I doubt Google will ever drop your music allowance... I presume they are using the data for market anaylisis, training their AI, etc. It's cheap real world experience for them.
@Timmy B
Spotify is not banning or censoring music, they're just not promoting sensitive artists via playlists etc. So yep, you can even search and listen to Gary Glitter on Spotify, just don't expect to see him on their official playlists. Ultimately, I subscribe for the music on Spotify, not the playlists - that is just a bonus.
than to stream. When the censors (spotify, apple, google, amazon, facebook, or government) come for the streams, they can't as readily destroy my CDs or MP3s. The flag represents another way to get prohibited/censored music.
El Reg, thanks for the Nick Cave tip. Great track. I think I'll fire up some (German) BPjM-sanctioned Die Ärzte or maybe some 2 Live Crew after that.
I'm a live and let live kind of guy and I don't agree with this censorship.
Also, what is officially deemed offensive is a list that grows daily.
I don't use Spotify much and only have the free version and I see some really old songs have been removed from playlists because of this. They still exist padding the playlist but the artist and song name are blank and they don't play.
This is the worry, Richard.
Who decides the precedence of offense?
Punks take offence at country music.
Rappers take offence at Punks.
Country music fans take offence at Rappers.
Everyone is puzzled by goths.
It's a bit tongue in cheek but you get the idea - we all take offence at something. In a free society we are all free to say things others find offensive. This is freedom and the gist of JP in the C4 interview.
The service has defined hateful as “content that expressly and principally promotes, advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual based on characteristics, including, race, religion, gender identity, sex, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, or disability.”
"See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup?
Yeah buddy, that's his own hair!
That little faggot got his own jet airplane.
That little faggot he's a millionaire."
Of course, the fact that Knopfler was being ironic will be lost to the baying mobs, just as it was lost to the baying mobs in Canada.