Spotify
NEW YORK – A woman unhappy with the music suggestions Spotify gives her will have to go to arbitration instead of pursuing a class action lawsuit in New York federal court.
“Payola” is the term being thrown around as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton begins an investigation into the streaming service and others. His probe into whether Spotify is accepting bribes to promote certain artists followed a pair of lawsuits filed last year, and Spotify called Genevieve Capolongo’s case “nonsense.”
Judge John Koeltl on April 30 ordered her case to arbitration because of the Terms of Use to which she agreed when she created her account.
“There has been no showing that these procedures will not afford the plaintiff a fair opportunity to present her claims; the National Arbitration and Mediation rules thus provide no basis on which to conclude the arbitration agreement is unenforceable,” Koeltl wrote.
Capolongo says she spent years creating playlists and discovering new artists, but when Spotify played the “same major-label tracks” and created allegedly personalized playlists with music that didn’t fit her habits, she took issue. She sued the company Nov. 4 in New York federal court.
Capolongo’s lawsuit points at Spotify’s “Discovery Mode” and goes into the history of radio DJs trading exposure for money. Being featured on one of the discovery playlists can boost streams by nearly 20 million, the suit says, generating up to $163,000.
Capolongo’s suit points at a conspiracy theory from 2024 that claims a Sabrina Carpenter song would be played for listeners with wildly different tastes in music and some who had never listened to her.
“The allegations in this complaint are nonsense,” a Spotify spokesperson told Legal Newsline. “Not only do they misrepresent what Discovery Mode is and how it works, but they are riddled with misunderstandings and inaccuracies.
“Discovery Mode is a feature artists can use to flag priority tracks for algorithmic consideration in limited contexts: Radio, Autoplay, and certain Mixes. It doesn’t buy plays, it doesn’t affect editorial playlists, and it’s clearly disclosed in the app and on our website.”
Lawyers at Faruqi & Faruqi and Stephan Zouras will have to battle in arbitration after failing to convince Judge Koeltl that Spotify’s terms and conditions are unenforceable. They argued arbitration would prevent her from seeking injunctive relief, provide for inadequate discovery and would cause their client to pay more fees than what she could recover.
