The reasons for Spotify’s decision are not clear and our legal and negotiations teams are working to re-engage with Spotify to establish proper licensing for your underlying literary rights. Spoken Giants has been working in good faith to negotiate a blanket license for your comedy composition rights. In the last couple days we have seen online a report that Spotify indicates they are currently working with us to resolve this situation.  We wish this was true and are working to make this true!

 

Important points for you:

·      Spoken Giants represents you, comedians, who should get paid for the comedy content you write, just like songwriters get paid for the songs they write.

·      Spoken Giants wants your works that we represent to be available as widely as possible, across as many platforms as possible.

·      As we’ve worked to establish fair, equitable licenses with Spotify, Spoken Giants has never requested that Spotify take down comedy content.

·      Spotify unilaterally decided to take down content on the night before Thanksgiving, after business hours were over for the day and for the long holiday weekend.

·      A broad spectrum of comedians and record labels are being negatively impacted by Spotify’s retaliatory response to our professionally worded, legally sound requests to discuss fair compensation.

·      Spotify has not advised us on if, or when, they will restore comedy content on their service. Currently, so much great comedy is unavailable on Spotify because Spotify refuses to discuss paying you for what you write.

·      Not only is Spotify trying to punish comedians represented by Spoken Giants for asserting their right to be paid for the content they write but it appears that Spotify is also taking down comedy written by comedians who aren’t affiliated with Spoken Giants.

 

Our goal is to represent you, the members of Spoken Giants, and to work in a cooperative method with the platforms delivering your comedy content.  We have reached out to Spotify to rectify this as quickly as possible, keeping in mind your best interests.  I will endeavor to provide regular updates on where things stand and welcome your feedback.  

 

Thank you so much for your patience and your continued belief in Spoken Giants.

 

Jim King

CEO, Spoken Giants