Neil Young performed last weekend in Victoria, British Columbia at the United For Old Growth march and rally, aimed at protecting old-growth trees and promoting “forest stewardship.” In his first live appearance since Farm Aid in September 2019 he said: “I’m only here for those trees up there. It’s a precious, sacred thing, these old trees. They show us the power of nature when we are being threatened. They show us the past. They show us our future. That’s something that I hope our Canadian government and business section will recognize. This has to do with Canada. It has to do with the ages, if we’re lucky enough to have ages. These trees have lasted so long. They deserve Canada’s respect.” Then he played 'Heart of Gold'.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young have pulled their respective solo catalogs as well as the music they made together from Spotify, Rolling Stone reports. “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast” a joint statement announcing that they plan to remove their music reads - “While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform”.

MBW founder Tim Ingham discusses Neil Young’s decision to remove his catalog from Spotify in protest to what he deems Covid-19 misinformation appearing on the platform, on Talking Trends podcast: “Ultimately, people aren’t loyal to music streaming services, whatever playlists they’ve built – they’re loyal to the artists they love. Fans will spend hundreds of dollars they don’t have, sitting next to a drug addled lunatic on a long night-bus ride, walk hours in the pissing rain, just to attend a Neil Young concert. They’ll switch music streaming provider with a waggle of their thumb”.

Billboard calculates losses Neil Yung and Joni Mitchell are going to have due to their withdrawal from Spotify: "At an estimated $2.8 million in streaming royalties last year, Young’s decision will forego about $1.2 million each year for him and his label, Warner Music/Reprise (Spotify accounted for about 43%). Of that, Young likely received half — $600,000. On top of that, Young earned $308,000 in publishing revenue from Spotify last year. Half of that — $154,000 — he would receive for the songwriter share with the other half going to Hipgnosis Songs. For Young, personally, the decision to pull his music from Spotify will cost him about $754,000 annually. In 2021, Mitchell’s recording catalog earned $373,000 from Spotify revenues. Like Young, Mitchell’s heritage contract likely earns her half of those revenues, adding up to about $186,500 in artist royalties she is foregoing. Her publishing, including her songwriting share, earned about $702,000 annually, of which about 11% — $79,000 — came from Spotify. Mitchell’s personal annual loss, based on her catalog’s performance for 2021, would be about $257,000 in total artist and publishing royalties", Billboard estimates.

LA Times traces Neil Young's fights against corporations throughout his career: "Over the decades, Young has made the news for indicting: MTV’s corporate ties; musical peers including Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones for earning millions selling their music for commercials; record mogul David Geffen’s market-driven tastes; Monsanto and corporate control of family farms; the owner of Lionel trains for announcing its closure (Young ended up buying the company); the sonic inferiority of compact discs; and the ways in which tech companies have been willing to compromise on audio quality for bigger profit margins".

Neil Young has posted an open letter to his website directing his management and record label to remove all of his music from Spotify, which he accused of “spreading fake information about vaccines—potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them”. He wrote “they can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both”, referencing the Spotify podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, which doctors have decried for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, Rolling Stone reports.

Fucked Up release an epic 19-minute punk beast 'Year Of The Horse – Act One'; Night Beats are part psychedelia part garage in 'New Day', a fun strange song; The Armed release a familiar-sounding yet new 'All Futures'; it took Neil Young decades to share his folk-waltz 'Daughters', well it's here now.

Neil Young has sold 50 percent of the worldwide copyright and income interests in his 1,180 song catalogue to the U.K. investment firm Hipgnosis Songs, Variety reports. This deal includes both 50% of the publisher's share and 50% of the writer’s share in Young’s music, spanning his work with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Crazy Horse, in addition to the singer/songwriter’s full solo catalog. Industry experts Music Business Worldwide consulted suggest that the deal would have cost Hipgnosis in the region of $150m. Hipgnosis's Merck Mercuriadis told Rolling Stone "there will never be a ‘Burger of Gold’", since Young has never licensed his music for commercials.

Neil Young filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Donald Trump's campaign for playing his songs at campaign rallies. The complaint filed in New York federal court states that "Plaintiff in good conscience cannot allow his music to be used as a 'theme song' for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate". Young alleges that Trump's campaign lacks a license to publicly perform 'Rockin' in the Free World' and 'Devil's Sidewalk'.

Neil Young is creating his own version of bootleg series - the plan is to take famous concert bootlegs, track down the actual master recordings and release them himself via his website. He promises "radically better sound" than on usual bootlegs. Young plans on bootlegging the bootleggers by using artwork from the original release. Frank Zappa did something very similar with his Beat the Boots! series in the early Nineties.