Mark Kratter vs. Spotify | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, we have time for one more quick thing. Also,

0:03 Speaker 1: digital music news reporting this Spotify shows up a lot

0:07 Speaker 1: in the news, especially lately. Spotify asked judge to shift

0:11 Speaker 1: undisclosed filtering practices lawsuit to federal court. Spotify has officially

0:16 Speaker 1: moved to shift to federal court the undisclosed filtering practices

0:20 Speaker 1: lawsuit filed against it by artists and attorney Mark Crater.

0:26 Speaker 1: I know a little bit about this, but it says

0:28 Speaker 1: here Spotify set that shift in motion with a notice

0:32 Speaker 1: of removal yesterday after Crater fired off an amended complaint

0:36 Speaker 1: and aggressively sought an injunction in late June. But to recap,

0:43 Speaker 1: the plaintiff maintains that Spotify in March retooled its streaming

0:48 Speaker 1: and recommendation system without informing the public or artists themselves.

0:54 Speaker 1: The alleged pivot fueled a sudden, simultaneous and systemic collapse

0:59 Speaker 1: in streams across Crowter's multiple artist profiles, according to the complaint. Okay,

1:05 Speaker 1: that's very interesting, So in other words, he's basically he's

1:08 Speaker 1: suing saying, Look, Spotify has changed the way that they

1:13 Speaker 1: do this, the way they do their filtering system, and

1:16 Speaker 1: because of that change, my streams. My streaming numbers are

1:20 Speaker 1: way down. I'm not getting the traffic I was I have.

1:25 Speaker 1: I have a gut reaction to that. But we'll finish

1:28 Speaker 1: this article quickly and then we'll I'll tell you what

1:30 Speaker 1: I think. So it refers to five artist pages for

1:35 Speaker 1: the amended action and Spotify's just submitted retort. However, upon

1:39 Speaker 1: closer inspection, the plaintiff appears to operate additional profiles as well,

1:44 Speaker 1: like a distinct Mark Crater band singles page on top

1:49 Speaker 1: of the main Mark Crater band profile, for instance. That

1:54 Speaker 1: can be a problem having too many profiles and with

1:56 Speaker 1: actual consumption data factoring prominently into the action. Crater is

2:00 Speaker 1: accusing Spotify of making the relevant changes to boost major

2:05 Speaker 1: label catalogs at the expense of indies. Now, Spotify is

2:09 Speaker 1: weighed in on the suit and filed to shift the

2:13 Speaker 1: showdown from the Stanford Superior Court to the US District

2:17 Speaker 1: Court for the District of Connecticut. There's more here about that,

2:21 Speaker 1: specifically about what Crater is trying to do in terms

2:25 Speaker 1: of moving the case to the US District Court. I

2:30 Speaker 1: just would say, though I'm not sure, I'm not someone

2:34 Speaker 1: who wants to defend Spotify but I don't know. Can

2:38 Speaker 1: you if you're an artist and you have your music

2:41 Speaker 1: on a platform and that platform changes something about how

2:48 Speaker 1: the algorithm works, how their search functions work, how they're

2:52 Speaker 1: filtering works in this case, can you then sue them

2:56 Speaker 1: for that because they've damaged you in some way. I

3:01 Speaker 1: am pretty skeptical. I don't want I don't want to

3:04 Speaker 1: say this is frivolous, but I don't know. I kind

3:08 Speaker 1: of do want to say this is frivolous. I mean,

3:12 Speaker 1: first of all, these platforms, and I don't have much

3:14 Speaker 1: experience directly with Spotify because I haven't been releasing my

3:17 Speaker 1: own music, But I mean I have some experience with YouTube.

3:21 Speaker 1: They're always changing their rules and how things work and

3:24 Speaker 1: what shows up and what doesn't in searches and et cetera,

3:26 Speaker 1: and how the algorithms work. They're always they're always changing things.

3:30 Speaker 1: So as Facebook, you know, so as a lot of

3:32 Speaker 1: these platforms. But and and in the case of YouTube,

3:37 Speaker 1: a lot of creators, a lot of podcasters have been

3:40 Speaker 1: damaged in many different ways, in many different instances over

3:45 Speaker 1: the years by YouTube specifically. And I've had my problems

3:50 Speaker 1: and complaints about YouTube, But I don't know I mean

3:55 Speaker 1: to actually sue one of these platforms for changing how

3:59 Speaker 1: they do things. I mean, it's not as though I

4:02 Speaker 1: would assume it's not as those Spotify somebody sat in

4:06 Speaker 1: a room at Spotify and said, let's really screw over

4:10 Speaker 1: Mark Crater. We're going to change something about how our

4:13 Speaker 1: platform works so that we can decimate this guy's streaming numbers. Right.

4:20 Speaker 1: I don't think there was any malicious intent here on

4:25 Speaker 1: the part of Spotify, so I'm not sure about going

4:29 Speaker 1: and suing them. It seems strange to me. I don't

4:34 Speaker 1: know if it's frivolous, And again, I don't want to

4:38 Speaker 1: be defending Spotify. You know, obviously, at the end of

4:41 Speaker 1: the day, I will always advocate on behalf of artists

4:46 Speaker 1: because of my background. But I just I don't know

4:50 Speaker 1: if this is a fight that I would have chosen

4:56 Speaker 1: with Spotify. I mean, they're a private company. They can

4:59 Speaker 1: I don't think they're publicly traded, are they. They can

5:03 Speaker 1: really kind of make whatever rules they want to about

5:05 Speaker 1: how their platform operates, right. I Mean, we had a

5:09 Speaker 1: discussion on a not on this show, but on a

5:12 Speaker 1: podcast that I do separate from all of this, where

5:16 Speaker 1: we were talking about you know, does a platform the

5:20 Speaker 1: rights of a platform to control how it operates and

5:24 Speaker 1: how and whether someone can even be operating on their platform.

5:28 Speaker 1: You know, these are private companies that you know, we

5:31 Speaker 1: might not like it. It might feel like censorship when

5:33 Speaker 1: they do things to either remove us from their platforms

5:37 Speaker 1: or to potentially hide our content or lower our streaming numbers,

5:41 Speaker 1: et cetera. But ultimately, they are private companies and they

5:43 Speaker 1: have a right to do what they want to. So

5:49 Speaker 1: I just don't think this is I don't think this

5:52 Speaker 1: guy Mark Cratter is going to win. I guess that's

5:55 Speaker 1: my long winded way of saying that