Field Dispatch
Mark Kratter vs. Spotify | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have time for one more quick thing. Also,
Speaker 1: digital music news reporting this Spotify shows up a lot
Speaker 1: in the news, especially lately. Spotify asked judge to shift
Speaker 1: undisclosed filtering practices lawsuit to federal court. Spotify has officially
Speaker 1: moved to shift to federal court the undisclosed filtering practices
Speaker 1: lawsuit filed against it by artists and attorney Mark Crater.
Speaker 1: I know a little bit about this, but it says
Speaker 1: here Spotify set that shift in motion with a notice
Speaker 1: of removal yesterday after Crater fired off an amended complaint
Speaker 1: and aggressively sought an injunction in late June. But to recap,
Speaker 1: the plaintiff maintains that Spotify in March retooled its streaming
Speaker 1: and recommendation system without informing the public or artists themselves.
Speaker 1: The alleged pivot fueled a sudden, simultaneous and systemic collapse
Speaker 1: in streams across Crowter's multiple artist profiles, according to the complaint. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting, So in other words, he's basically he's
Speaker 1: suing saying, Look, Spotify has changed the way that they
Speaker 1: do this, the way they do their filtering system, and
Speaker 1: because of that change, my streams. My streaming numbers are
Speaker 1: way down. I'm not getting the traffic I was I have.
Speaker 1: I have a gut reaction to that. But we'll finish
Speaker 1: this article quickly and then we'll I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: I think. So it refers to five artist pages for
Speaker 1: the amended action and Spotify's just submitted retort. However, upon
Speaker 1: closer inspection, the plaintiff appears to operate additional profiles as well,
Speaker 1: like a distinct Mark Crater band singles page on top
Speaker 1: of the main Mark Crater band profile, for instance. That
Speaker 1: can be a problem having too many profiles and with
Speaker 1: actual consumption data factoring prominently into the action. Crater is
Speaker 1: accusing Spotify of making the relevant changes to boost major
Speaker 1: label catalogs at the expense of indies. Now, Spotify is
Speaker 1: weighed in on the suit and filed to shift the
Speaker 1: showdown from the Stanford Superior Court to the US District
Speaker 1: Court for the District of Connecticut. There's more here about that,
Speaker 1: specifically about what Crater is trying to do in terms
Speaker 1: of moving the case to the US District Court. I
Speaker 1: just would say, though I'm not sure, I'm not someone
Speaker 1: who wants to defend Spotify but I don't know. Can
Speaker 1: you if you're an artist and you have your music
Speaker 1: on a platform and that platform changes something about how
Speaker 1: the algorithm works, how their search functions work, how they're
Speaker 1: filtering works in this case, can you then sue them
Speaker 1: for that because they've damaged you in some way. I
Speaker 1: am pretty skeptical. I don't want I don't want to
Speaker 1: say this is frivolous, but I don't know. I kind
Speaker 1: of do want to say this is frivolous. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, these platforms, and I don't have much
Speaker 1: experience directly with Spotify because I haven't been releasing my
Speaker 1: own music, But I mean I have some experience with YouTube.
Speaker 1: They're always changing their rules and how things work and
Speaker 1: what shows up and what doesn't in searches and et cetera,
Speaker 1: and how the algorithms work. They're always they're always changing things.
Speaker 1: So as Facebook, you know, so as a lot of
Speaker 1: these platforms. But and and in the case of YouTube,
Speaker 1: a lot of creators, a lot of podcasters have been
Speaker 1: damaged in many different ways, in many different instances over
Speaker 1: the years by YouTube specifically. And I've had my problems
Speaker 1: and complaints about YouTube, But I don't know I mean
Speaker 1: to actually sue one of these platforms for changing how
Speaker 1: they do things. I mean, it's not as though I
Speaker 1: would assume it's not as those Spotify somebody sat in
Speaker 1: a room at Spotify and said, let's really screw over
Speaker 1: Mark Crater. We're going to change something about how our
Speaker 1: platform works so that we can decimate this guy's streaming numbers. Right.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was any malicious intent here on
Speaker 1: the part of Spotify, so I'm not sure about going
Speaker 1: and suing them. It seems strange to me. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's frivolous, And again, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be defending Spotify. You know, obviously, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I will always advocate on behalf of artists
Speaker 1: because of my background. But I just I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a fight that I would have chosen
Speaker 1: with Spotify. I mean, they're a private company. They can
Speaker 1: I don't think they're publicly traded, are they. They can
Speaker 1: really kind of make whatever rules they want to about
Speaker 1: how their platform operates, right. I Mean, we had a
Speaker 1: discussion on a not on this show, but on a
Speaker 1: podcast that I do separate from all of this, where
Speaker 1: we were talking about you know, does a platform the
Speaker 1: rights of a platform to control how it operates and
Speaker 1: how and whether someone can even be operating on their platform.
Speaker 1: You know, these are private companies that you know, we
Speaker 1: might not like it. It might feel like censorship when
Speaker 1: they do things to either remove us from their platforms
Speaker 1: or to potentially hide our content or lower our streaming numbers,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But ultimately, they are private companies and they
Speaker 1: have a right to do what they want to. So
Speaker 1: I just don't think this is I don't think this
Speaker 1: guy Mark Cratter is going to win. I guess that's
Speaker 1: my long winded way of saying that
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