Caribou's Dan Snaith Calls Removal of Four Tet's Records from Streaming a "Desperate and Vindictive Act"

"Knowing more about what is going on behind the scenes with this case only makes me more sure of this opinion"

BY Allie GregoryPublished Nov 23, 2021

Ahead of finally performing a rescheduled three-day run of shows in Toronto this week, Caribou's Dan Snaith has emerged from the ether to stick up for his "mentor" — Four Tet's Kieran Hebden — amid his royalty battle with Domino Records, and the subsequent takedown of his first three albums for the label.

Responding to a lengthy Twitter thread posted by Hebden yesterday (November 22), Snaith called the removal of Four Tet's albums a "desperate and vindictive act."

"[Hebden's] decisions throughout this have been consistently motivated by settling a fair precedent for other artists in similar situations rather than by his own self-interest," Snaith wrote. "It's often assumed that independent labels have the same interests at heart and are benevolent actors in the current music industry climate ... It is clear from their actions, that the management at [Domino Records] are not."

Snaith continued: "Knowing more about what is going on behind the scenes with this case only makes me more sure of this opinion. Taking down Kieran's albums rather than allow a precedent to be set for musicians to receive fair share of streaming revenue can only be seen as a desperate and vindictive act."

As previously reported, Hebden said that the removal of 2001's Pause, 2003's Rounds and 2005's Everything Ecstatic was "heartbreaking," adding, "people are reaching out asking why they can't stream the music and I'm sad to have to say that it's out of my control."

In the thread, the artist noted that he signed with Domino "before streaming and downloads were something we thought about." Hebden is due to bring his legal case against the label to court in January, where he'll present an argument to secure a rate of 50 percent of streaming royalties. Meanwhile, Domino is fighting to maintain its rate of 18 percent of all streams and downloads.

See Snaith's comments below.
 

Latest Coverage