Amazon has removed the documentary ‘The 30 Second Song Movie’ from its Prime Video without any notice or reason. The documentary was made by world record breaking indie band The Pocket Gods and focused on the unfair royalties paid to artists from streaming services. The band created 10 albums, each containing 100 songs that were just 30 seconds long, as a way to challenge the unfair royalties paid to artists by Spotify, and other major streaming services.
“We’ve spent the last year making our documentary on music streaming & our campaign for fair royalties so we were excited when the film was picked up in January by Amazon Prime Video,” says vocalist Mark Christopher Lee “but we still don’t know the reasons why all they have told us is that is does not fit their content guidelines despite it passing all their guidelines in January so not sure what has changed.”.
The band’s efforts have caught the attention of BBC News and Sky News, and they have even had meetings with Spotify founder Daniel Ek and the company’s Head of Music. The Pocket Gods are campaigning for an ethical alternative to the major streaming services that pay 1p per stream, which is 50x Spotify’s current rate. While Amazon has not given a reason for the removal of the film, it is worth noting that Amazon also owns and operates its own music streaming platform – Amazon Music.
“We are passionate about this issue and we thank Amazon for their initial interest but, as we want to get the message out there to as many people as possible we are making the film available for free via our Youtube and Vimeo channels. We want to continue the debate and we hope the film helps with this and goes towards creating a better future for artists and songwriters.”