No, Pfizer does NOT have a piece of Neil Young’s publishing catalogue

Conspiracy theorists are always contorting themselves to prove their crazy allegations. A few of them thought they’d found a smoking gun when it comes to Neil Young’s fight against Spotify that was triggered by Joe Rogan’s COVID misinformation and lies. Ready? It’s a good one.

The conspiracists claim a connection between Neil, his music, and vaccine manufacturer Pfizer. Ergo, the reason Neil has come out against Joe Rogan and his anti-vaccine stance is that he’s in the pocket of Big Pharma. He’s doing their bidding when it comes to promoting Pfizer vaccines because the company owns a piece of his music.

Uh, no. But you can see why a weirdo conspiracist would glom onto this.

The truth is that a former CEO at Pfizer now has a gig as a senior advisor for Blackstone, an asset management company. It currently has a partnership with Hipgnosis, the company that bought 50% of Neil Young’s publishing catalogue.

Neil had to clarify everything in a (now-deleted) letter entitled “Folks, clearing things up.” It was transcribed by Stereogum.

The letter that prompted me to act on Spotify was written by 270 hundred medical professionals, not doctors. I erroneously said they were doctors after having read disinformation on the internet. About a third of them were doctors. But many of the rest were nurses and hospital assistants. I respect and honor all those people and the work they continue to do as I write this.

I read their whole letter.

I still support them. My mistake was calling them all doctors. I read and usually believe the Guardian and the Guardian made a rare mistake:

The Guardian: “Menace to public health: 270 doctors criticize Spotify over Joe Rogan’s podcast” and Rolling Stone: “A Menace To Public Health: Doctors Demand Spotify Puts an End to Covid Lies On Joe Rogan Experience”

So I was misinformed too!
Glad it wasn’t a life and death decision for me.

I still stand beside the medical professionals and others who signed that great letter. I stand with them, at their side.

Also fyi-

To clarify more bad misinformation online that is used to make points against me in some of the letters included here:

The publishing share Hipgnosis has in my copyrights is in the Hipgnosis Songs Fund that is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange.

The Blackstone investment went into a separate Hipgnosis Private Fund and none of that money was used for the Hipgnosis Songs Fund. Pfizer has not invested in Hipgnosis but a past Pfizer CEO is a senior advisor for Blackstone…

So much for big Pharma!
So much for PHARM aid!
Clever but wrong.
Be well,
Love earth,
NY

Hope that clears things up, anti-vaxxers.