Back in November 2019, Spotify was hit by a lawsuit from an independent music company seeking “over $1bn in damages” from the streaming platform for an alleged series of offences.
The suit was filed by Florida-based Sosa Entertainment LLC and its sister company – royalty collection firm Pro Music Rights LLC (PMR), both of which are owned by Jake P. Noch.
Sosa claimed at the time that it hadn’t received full royalties linked to over 550 million streams on Spotify and alleged that SPOT removed the tracks associated with these streams.
The process began “in or about” May 2017, alleged Sosa, and the tracks were cut from the service “without advance notice [and] without ever telling [Sosa and PMR] why their songs were removed”.
In the latest development from that case,The United States District Court For The Middle District Of Florida Fort Myers Division issued a document last week revealing that Spotify has now moved to enter into settlement negotiations with Noch and his company Sosa.
Sosa Entertainment, Jake P. Noch, and Spotify have issued a joint motion to stay for a period of 60 days, “in order to allow the parties to attempt to negotiate a resolution of this matter”
According to the filing, which you can read in full here, “the parties have recently made progress towards a potential resolution of the litigation”.
Adds the document filed by the court last week: “Rather than continuing to expend time and resources litigating the case, the parties propose a brief, sixty (60) day stay of the proceeding in order to focus on attempting to resolve this matter.
“The parties assert that a stay is appropriate in order to conserve the parties’ and the Court’s time and resources by avoiding litigation that will be unnecessary if the case is resolved.”
It adds that Noch and Spotify “propose filing a joint status report” within 60 days of the entry of an order staying the case.
Sosa’s November 2019 lawsuit lawsuit claimed that Spotify “manually blanket-banned” the tracks associated with the 550m streams, and then “deliberately and maliciously blacklisted from its platform the Plaintiffs and their founder, Jake Noch, along with each and every single artist, composer, and writer associated with [the parties]”.
Spotify hit back in May last year with a countersuit directing a number of serious allegations against Noch and Sosa.
SPOT claimed in the countersuit that “Noch directed third parties to create millions of fake Spotify accounts, and deployed these fake accounts to artificially stream his and Sosa’s content up to hundreds of thousands of times daily, and upwards of hundreds of millions of times in total.”
The streaming company also claimed that its fraud-monitoring team found “unmistakable signs that the streams of Noch and Sosa’s content had been artificially inflated”.
In response to Spotify’s allegations, Sosa founder Jake Noch told MBW at the time that the company’s “claims are laughable and blatantly false”.
He added: “Furthermore, if, as they allege, someone who has ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia and was 16 at the time could jeopardize their business operations, Then I hope that every one of their shareholders has a very diversified portfolio.
“A company such as Spotify that is built on the theft of intellectual property puts every single one of its shareholders at risk, and I foresee Spotify becoming the next Enron.
“I also greatly look forward to the day we get to go to court, and I hope that all of Spotify’s shareholders will pay close attention to these cases.
“These cases will show them that Spotify is just a house of cards and that a small breeze will cause the house to collapse
“This is clearly evidenced by Spotify pouring so many resources into a smear campaign against someone who is only 21. Time will prove that we are right. Until then, I remain confident and joyful, knowing that Spotify will be the next Enron.”
Earlier this month MBW reported that Florida-based Performing Rights Organization Pro Music Rights (PMR) is preparing to go public in the United States, having filed a form S-1 registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the end of 2020.
The company’s listing won’t be underwritten by an investment bank, according to the document, which adds that PMR intends “to request a market maker to apply to make application for quotation on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board”.Music Business Worldwide
