The punchlines and standup routines of hundreds of comedians have been removed from Spotify after an impasse between the audio streaming company and the performers over royalty payments.
Tiffany Haddish, John Mulaney, Kevin Hart, Mike Birbiglia, and Jim Gaffigan are among the household-name performers who now have fewer comedy tracks available for streaming on the platform.
The comedians signed with Spoken Giants, a global rights administration company founded in 2019, seeking to be paid royalties not just for their performances, but for the intellectual property in their comedy routines, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Spoken Giants said that negotiations with Spotify to tackle the issue started during the spring, but that without warning, Spotify removed several albums from famous comedians just before Thanksgiving.
'@Spotify unilaterally decided to take the content down on the night before Thanksgiving when everyone was about to begin a four-day holiday. Just as we were all about to slip into a food coma.. #StandUpOnSpotify,' the organization tweeted on December 1.
John Mulaney (left) and Jim Gaffigan (right) are among the household name performers who now have fewer comedy tracks available for streaming on the platform. The comedians signed with Spoken Giants, a global rights administration company founded in 2019, seeking to be paid royalties not just for their performances, but for the intellectual property in their comedy routines
Spoken Giants alleged that negotiations with Spotify to tackle the issue started during the Spring, but that without warning, Spotify removed several albums from famous comedians just before Thanksgiving
Spoken Giants is now advocating for the entertainers to get paid royalties over copyright for the actual content of their specials on streaming services such as Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandora, and YouTube
Spotify said it has paid 'significant amounts of money for the content in question, and would love to continue to do so' but it was necessary to remove the comedy albums until reaching an agreement
The move also seemed to have taken the comics by surprise, with Birbiglia taking to Twitter after Thanksgiving to inquire about the sudden removal of several albums such as his 'Two Drink Mike' special and Mulaney's 'New in Town.'
On November 27, he tweeted: 'Random question: Does anyone know why some of the Comedy Central albums got taken off Spotify? 3 of mine are gone, some of Mulaney's, one of (Dave) Attell's, but then some are still there— like (Mitch) Hedberg. Anyone know about any rights things happening behind the scenes with comedy albums?'
Spoken Giants is now advocating for the entertainers to get paid royalties over copyright for the actual content of their specials on streaming services such as Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandora and YouTube.
Comedians are directly paid by their label and digital performance rights organization for their content on digital services, but they are now demanding payment for their jokes.
Currently, they aren't compensated as writers for their comedy routines.
Spotify might argue that it needs
