Artists Are Removing Music From Spotify Due to CEO Daniel Ek’s ‘Investment in A.I. War Drones’ ⇥ nme.com

Tim Bradshaw and Ivan Levingston, Financial Times:

Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s investment company is leading a €600mn funding round in Helsing, valuing the German defence tech group at €12bn and making it one of Europe’s most valuable start-ups.

The deal comes as the Munich-based start-up is expanding from its origins in artificial intelligence software to produce its own drones, aircraft and submarines.

Laura Molloy, NME:

Xiu Xiu have announced that they are in the process of removing their music from Spotify, over CEO Daniel Ek’s “investment in AI war drones”.

[…]

It comes after Deerhoof also recently pulled their catalogue from the platform for the same reason, stating: “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech,” Deerhoof said in a statement.

Financial relationships between the music industry and arms suppliers has been documented before, but it was more of a hop-skip-and-jump away. Ek’s investment is pretty direct. A Spotify subscription boosts his net worth, which he puts into his fund, which gives that money to an drone company he helps oversee.