[jjulius]

And maybe, ya know, Spotify's reasoning before we assume that all of these removals are Young's fault.

Edit: Oh look, it's not just because Young made a stink about COVID shit, imagine that...

>Rogan went on Instagram Saturday to discuss the content of the old episodes, addressing two videos on social media of him saying a racial slur and another where he described a Black neighborhood as being similar to the Planet of the Apes movie.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/more-than-70...

[throwaway_r211]

Why do they need to remove the whole episodes though? Can't they just put a voice over through that part of the show?

"beep.. beep.. Spotify has had to interrupt this podcast as the next few moments contain words and ideas we deem to impure for our listeners to hear.. beep beep.." and that's why you shouldn't do DMT after eating a burrito.

[jjulius]

The answer to that can be found in a statement that Spotify's CEO made during a company town hall earlier this week[1]...

>"A publisher has editorial control over a creator’s content — they can take action on the content before it’s even published,” he says, like editing episodes, removing guests, or preventing one from publishing at all. Ek noted that Spotify does have editorial control over the properties it owns outright, like The Ringer and Gimlet, but emphasized the distinction between those studios and Rogan. “Even though JRE is an exclusive, it is licensed content. It is important to note that we do not have creative control over Joe Rogan’s content. We don’t approve his guests in advance, and just like any other creator, we get his content when he publishes, and then we review it, and if it violates our policies, we take the appropriate enforcement actions.”

So contractually speaking, they can't edit the content, essentially making it all-or-nothing when it comes to an episode. If Rogan feels strongly enough about having an episode put back up but with the kind of edit you suggested, then the onus to do so is on him, not Spotify. That's the deal that Rogan signed.

[1]https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/3/22915456/spotify-ceo-joe-r...