Why are people boycotting Spotify? The 4 reasons, from Daniel Ek's Helsing bet to AI music

People are boycotting Spotify for 4 reasons: co-founder Daniel Ek’s investment in AI defense company Helsing, ICE recruitment ads, AI-generated music on the platform, and how little Spotify pays artists. Most artists who left name more than one.

The boycott started with indie bands in mid-2025 and spread to listeners and activist groups by the end of that year. In October 2026, Chicago musicians took it to the street and called a two-day blackout.

So here’s what’s behind each reason, who has actually left, and whether any of it changed Spotify.

Why are artists leaving Spotify over Daniel Ek and Helsing?

Helsing is a German defense company. It started with AI software for the military and now builds strike drones too.

In June 2025, Ek’s investment firm Prima Materia led a €600 million funding round in Helsing, and Ek became its chairman. That’s what started the 2025 wave of artists leaving.

Deerhoof went first, in June, with a statement that read: “We don’t want our music killing people.” Ek told the Financial Times the same month that he wasn’t concerned: “I am 100 per cent convinced that this is the right thing for Europe,” as Rolling Stone reported.

Ek stepped back as Spotify’s CEO on January 1, 2026 and became executive chairman. Spotify said the change made official a setup that had run since 2023, and co-CEOs Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström now run the company, NPR reported. He still chairs Spotify, so for the bands that left, nothing changed.

Why did Spotify’s ICE ads spark a boycott?

In October 2025, free-tier listeners in the US started hearing recruitment ads for ICE, the US immigration enforcement agency, between songs. Some users posted that they had cancelled, Newsweek reported.

Spotify said the ads were part of a government campaign running across TV, streaming and online, and didn’t break its ad policies. On January 8, 2026, it told Variety the campaign had ended late in 2025 and no ICE ads were running.

The ads also gave the boycott its biggest organized push. In December 2025, Indivisible, Working Families and the 50501 movement launched Spotify Unwrapped, timed against Spotify Wrapped. It asked people to cancel, and named the ICE ads, AI music and the Helsing investment.

How does AI music feed the Spotify boycott?

AI music is the reason that keeps growing. The complaint: AI-made tracks and fake artists land in playlists next to human ones, often with no label, and take a cut of the same royalty pool.

It got loud in summer 2025, when an AI band called The Velvet Sundown picked up more than 550,000 monthly listeners in about a month. Spotify has answered in steps since:

• September 2025: Spotify said it had removed 75 million spammy tracks in 12 months, banned unauthorized AI voice clones, and backed AI credits in song metadata, Consequence reported.
• April 30, 2026: the Verified by Spotify badge, which AI artists can’t get.
• August 11, 2026: the AI Persona badge, which flags AI-generated artist identities and keeps their music out of recommendations by default.

Boycotters say that’s not enough, because both badges sit on the artist profile, not on the song you’re hearing. And Spotify is building AI features of its own, like the UMG-backed AI remix tool co-CEO Alex Norström defended in May 2026.

That’s what the Chicago musicians took to the street on October 1, 2026, in shirts reading “Human Music Only.” They called a Spotify and Apple Music blackout for October 26 and 27.

What do Spotify’s payouts have to do with the boycott?

Pay is the oldest complaint. Taylor Swift pulled her music over royalties back in 2014. Two changes in 2024 made it sharper:

• The 1,000-stream minimum. Since April 2024, a track needs 1,000 streams in 12 months before it earns royalties at all.
• The audiobook bundle. In March 2024, Spotify added audiobooks to Premium in the US and reclassified it as a bundle, which pays songwriters a lower mechanical rate. The Mechanical Licensing Collective sued, a judge sided with Spotify in January 2025, and the MLC kept the case going with an amended complaint.

The bundle is why 4 of the 5 nominees for Songwriter of the Year at the 2025 Grammys skipped Spotify’s Grammy party.

Spotify’s side: it says it paid the music industry $10 billion in 2024, in its Loud & Clear royalty report, and that independent artists and labels earned about half of that. If you want the basics of how that money moves, start with what music royalties are.

Which artists have left Spotify?

Most of the artists who left are indie acts, and most cite Helsing first:

• Deerhoof, June 2025, over Helsing.
• Xiu Xiu, July 2025, over Helsing. The band now points fans to the streaming service Coda Music.
• King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, July 2025, over Helsing. Their catalogue moved to Bandcamp as pay what you want.
• Hotline TNT, August 2025.
• Massive Attack, September 2025, asked their label, Universal Music Group, to remove their music from Spotify.
• Sylvan Esso, late September 2025, as they launched their own label.
• Chicago musicians, September 2025: an open letter from Minor Moon and Smushie drew 70 to 80 local signatures.
• Café Tacvba, January 2026, asked Universal Music México and Warner Music México to pull its catalogue, citing Helsing, the ICE ads, pay and AI.

Is the Spotify boycott working?

Not by the numbers Spotify reports.

Spotify passed that mark in the second quarter of 2026, Music Business Worldwide reported. So the cancellations haven’t dented growth.

Some things did change. The ICE ads stopped, Ek stepped back as CEO, and AI labels arrived. Spotify has never credited the boycott for any of it, and the ICE campaign was a government campaign that ended on its own schedule, so honestly, nobody can say which protest moved what.

What to do next if you’re thinking about leaving Spotify

If you’re a listener, every reason above is a values call, and you can move your listening to Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer or Bandcamp. One catch: the Chicago blackout targets Apple Music too.

If you’re an artist, the bigger question is where your fans go when you leave. Deerhoof said it was an easy call because the band earns far more from touring, and they also said they don’t judge artists who can’t make the same move. Before you pull a catalogue, give your listeners somewhere to follow you: Bandcamp, your own site, or an email list you own. That’s the part that keeps paying you whichever platform you’re on.