Mike Birbiglia

On Wednesday, November 25th, after business hours closed and Americans looked forward to a long Thanksgiving weekend, Spotify suddenly took down thousands of comedy tracks by Robin Williams, John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia, Jeff Foxworthy, and more. The move appears to be an aggressive response to new organizations trying to collect literary royalties on behalf of comedians. On November 27th, Birbiglia tweeted, “Random question: Does anyone know why some of the Comedy Central albums got taken off Spotify? 3 of mine are gone, some of Mulaney’s, one of Attell’s, but then some are still there— like Hedberg. Anyone know about any rights things happening behind the scenes with comedy albums?” Earlier this year, Birbiglia signed with Spoken Giants, a rights administration company formed in 2019 to ...