Translated material
New songs by Western artists have stopped appearing on Yandex and VKontakte streaming services
The Russian music services Yandex.Music and VK Music cannot add fresh releases by Western artists to their libraries, RBC writes.
The press service of Yandex and VKontakte told the publication that the new content of foreign copyright holders is “so far limited” and “temporarily not released” in Russia, but catalogs uploaded until last week remain available.
Which tracks are currently unavailable, the companies did not specify.
Last week, the world's three biggest record labels - Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music - announced they were suspending operations in Russia due to the war in Ukraine.
Many foreign artists have begun to cancel their scheduled performances in Russia. Pink Floyd and its leader David Gilmour have announced that they will remove all their songs released since 1987 from digital music platforms in Russia and Belarus.
Of the significant musical novelties of the past week, the Yandex.Music and VK libraries, as the RBC correspondent was convinced, are missing, in particular, the Rammstein single “Zeit”, released on March 10 (Universal is the licensor).