[aneil]

It was Joe's content to do with as he pleased, and his decision was to sell it and allow someone else to do with it as they pleased.

That's simple enough, but it's also simplistic because it assumes that property rights are the only thing we should care about.

Which value is more important - property rights (which depend on socialized services like justice and enforcement) or free speech (which thrive by removing regulation)?

[originalvichy]

You should ask Joe that. If Joe decided to sell he 100% had to have known that they will get to choose which parts of his content from the past to distribute until the end of their contract.

This is a non-issue.

[coldtea]

Well, that's Joe's non-issue or issue.

There's also another issue: the customer wanting to listen to those podcasts and who valued them as part of their Spotify subscription.

And that's not due to free market "those didn't were listened to enough, so we took them off" (that wasn't the case, and even if it was storage and distribution costs are negligible anyway, they could still keep them in perpetuity).

Instead that customer got shafted because "some" forced Spotify's hand.

[kzrdude]

> free speech (which thrive by removing regulation)

How do we know this?

Many markets show that they work best with a goldilocks-level of just-right regulation, and the level depends on the market.

[Notanothertoo]

None of the current markets are sustainable

[diego_moita]

> Which value is more important - property rights (which depend on socialized services like justice and enforcement) or free speech (which thrive by removing regulation)?

Don't ask us, ask J.R.. He remains free to return the 100 million to Spotify and broadcast his stupid crap elsewhere.

[throwbigdata]

I don’t think that’s how contracts work.

[cnelsenmilt]

Uh, it is? A business contract isn't indentured servitude. You can always break a contract. There will be consequences, but they are civil consequences, most likely losing a bunch of money.

[coldtea]

>It was Joe's content to do with as he pleased, and his decision was to sell it and allow someone else to do with it as they pleased.

And they did. They published those episodes.

Consistently with a free market, customers of Spotify should also be able to do with them as they pleased - listen to them or not, or even leave Spotify in protest.

Instead, some pressure groups, the media, and a couple of unrelated musicians forced Spotify to unpublish those.

[ghaff]

>"forced"

How did anyone "force" Spotify to do anything? Various people put public pressure on Spotify and Spotify took the action that it presumably thought was optimal for its bottom line. Which companies do all the time.

[coldtea]

>How did anyone "force" Spotify to do anything?

By making it costly not to do it, not in a free market (vote with wallets) way, but in a "will hurt you with bad publicity, government pressure, etc" way. Forcing doesn't need to be a gun in the head of the CEO.

>Various people put public pressure on Spotify and Spotify took the action that it presumably thought was optimal for its bottom line. Which companies do all the time.

Yes, like corporations did when they censored works because of pressure groups, like Tipper Gore's, stuff that promoted "homosexuality" or "decadent" black music in the past, etc.

Doesn't mean it was left to the individual customers to decide, or that corporations deemed the works they sold as unprofitable in themselves (that is, not selling).

Only unprofitable as in "not worth the trouble".

Which is a totally different thing.

[ryandrake]

> Forcing doesn't need to be a gun in the head of the CEO.

Wait, that’s exactly what needs to be happening in order to call it “forcing.” If there is a (difficult) choice, it’s not force.

[twmiller]

How is 'we will hurt you with bad publicity' not part of the free market in action?

[coldtea]

Because bad publicity is not a buy-not buy choice, and the decision to take the episodes down wasn't because they didn't have enough audience to be profitable.