If a Jake wants to fight 350 social media users including myself and receive 350 counter claims
It surely would not be his first counterclaim. Spotify as some of you may already know filed a counterclaim against him in 2020.
They ( Spotify ) referred to him as a "Fraudster" and alleged he engaged in fraud & harassment.
Civil Action No. 2:19-cv-00843-FtM-29NPM
SOSA ENTERTAINMENT LLC, Plaintiff, v. SPOTIFY AB, a Swedish Corporation; SPOTIFY USA INC., a Delaware Corporation; SPOTIFY LIMITED, a United Kingdom Corporation; and SPOTIFY TECHNOLOGY S.A., a Luxembourg Corporation, Defendants. Civil Action No. 2:19-cv-00843-FtM-29NPM SPOTIFY AB, and SPOTIFY USA, INC., Counterclaim and Third Party Plaintiffs, v. SOSA ENTERTAINMENT LLC and JAKE P. NOCH, Counterclaim Defendant and Third Party Defendant.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 1. Spotify brings these Counterclaims to expose and remedy a multi-year campaign of fraud and harassment directed at Spotify by Jake Noch and the entities he controls. Starting in 2016, Noch designed a scheme to artificially generate hundreds of millions of fraudulent streams on songs he had seeded on Spotify’s online music-streaming service. Noch’s objective was plain: to manipulate Spotify’s system to extract undeserved royalties at the expense of hardworking artists and songwriters.
2. The evidence of Noch’s fraudulent scheme is incontrovertible and includes:
? Blatant signifiers of artificial streaming, including highly irregular sudden spikes of streams to Noch’s content, and 99% of streams coming from Spotify’s adsupported service, among other signals (¶¶ 48-101);
? Written communications between a “bot farmer” and Noch, where Noch directed the creation of millions of fake Spotify accounts to artificially stream Noch’s content and generate unearned royalty payments (¶¶ 56-59);
? Noch’s decision to title his tracks to circumvent fraud detection and to mimic popular song titles—for example, naming a song “SAD!” in imitation of XXXTentacion’s hit—to confuse users and generate undeserved streams (¶ 105).
3. Fortunately, through Spotify’s fraud-detection efforts, Noch’s scheme unraveled. Beginning in March 2016, Spotify detected unmistakable signs that a significant number of streams of Noch’s content was artificial. Spotify’s own conclusions about the fraudulent streaming were confirmed when a whistleblower provided Spotify with firsthand, undeniable proof—including written communications between the whistleblower and Noch—that Noch had directed the scheme, including directing the creation of millions of fake Spotify accounts to artificially stream his own content.
4. With the damning evidence of Noch’s ongoing fraud in hand, Spotify’s response was appropriately forceful: Spotify made Noch’s content unavailable for further streaming and eventually imposed a ban on all content associated with Noch to prevent his abuse of Spotify’s platform and the diversion of royalties from legitimate, hard-working artists.
5. Undeterred, Noch and Sosa continued their deceitful efforts, including trying to smuggle their content back onto Spotify in violation of Spotify’s rules and asserting bogus claims of copyright infringement. Ultimately, Noch orchestrated this lawsuit against Spotify, which asserts yet more baseless claims. Spotify brings these Counterclaims and Third Party Claims to ensure that Noch’s fraud is not rewarded and to undo the harm caused by Noch’s misdeeds. INTRODUCTION
6. Jake Noch is a fraudster who has engaged in a multi-year campaign to generate artificial streams on Spotify’s online music service, scam undeserved payments from Spotify, and gin up bogus claims of copyright infringement after Spotify discovered Noch’s scheme and removed his content from its service.
7. Noch touts himself as a “musical prodigy” who started a “record label” when he was sixteen. In actuality, he has become notorious for unscrupulous dealings and illegal business practices throughout the music industry. Among other schemes, he has been accused of (i) withholding thousands in royalties from artists signed to Sosa, his record label; (ii) falsely reporting hundreds of tracks for copyright infringement on various streaming music platforms when he does not in fact own the rights to that content; (iii) flooding online streaming services with large quantities of useless artificially-created “music” (also known as “AI music”) in an effort to make himself look like a legitimate and successful artist and label; (iv) generating artificial streams of his content on streaming services to trigger unearned and undeserved royalty payments; and (v) using various subterfuges to place content on streaming services with the express purpose of setting up meritless copyright infringement lawsuits.
8. Lately, Noch has been attempting to use the federal courts in his efforts to extract funds from legitimate businesses. In addition to the present suit, Noch’s fledgling performing rights organization, Pro Music Rights (“PMR”), launched, and then quickly withdrew, ten copyright infringement actions in the Southern District of New York. Noch asserted similar copyright infringement claims against Spotify in this action but backed down once Spotify exposed the claims as meritless, though he has very recently asserted the same baseless claims in a misguided effort to interfere with Spotify’s relationship with Apple. Through PMR, Noch has also filed an antitrust action in the District of Connecticut, in which he lobs baseless claims against virtually the entire online streaming music industry for not taking a license from PMR.
9. Spotify has been one of Noch’s frequent targets, and this case derives from the fraudulent schemes that Noch has, on behalf of both himself and Sosa, directed at Spotify over the course of several years. Beginning in 2015, Noch used his record label, Sosa, to enter into agreements with certain music distributors to deliver his and Sosa’s content onto Spotify. Once their content was on Spotify, 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 hundreds of millions of times in total. This artificial streaming was fraud, and it directly violated Spotify’s express policies and governing agreements. Noch and Sosa’s purpose was plain: to defraud Spotify in an effort to extract unearned royalty payments, deprive legitimate artists of royalties, and deceive Spotify’s users about the actual popularity of Noch and Sosa’s music.
10. Spotify’s fraud-monitoring team found unmistakable signs that the streams of Noch and Sosa’s content had been artificially inflated. In particular, the content at issue was streamed almost exclusively using the ad-supported version of Spotify’s service, with irregular spikes in streaming and from abnormal patterns of locations—streaming patterns that, taken together, are highly anomalous and indicative of artificial and fraudulent stream manipulation
11. Spotify also received direct confirmation of Noch and Sosa’s fraud: one of their agents, whom Noch had directed to create millions of fake Spotify user accounts, decided to blow the whistle on Noch and Sosa’s illicit scheme. Noch and Sosa’s agent provided precise and contemporaneous information to Spotify about the means Noch and Sosa used to engage in their fraud, and then supplied documentation to support his account. Confirming that this fraudulent activity was being done on behalf of both Noch and Sosa, the documentation that the agent provided included screenshots of Skype conversations between the agent and Noch, who was using a Skype account labeled “Sosa Entertainment LLC” and “jake.noch.”
12. For a time, Noch and Sosa’s scheme bore fruit, as Spotify inadvertently paid out tens of thousands of dollars in royalties in connection with the fake streams generated as a result of their fraudulent activity.
13. Following discovery of the fraud, Spotify acted to root out the offending content by removing Noch and Sosa’s content and preventing its delivery onto Spotify’s platform. Spotify expended considerable time, resources, and manpower to protect its users and safeguard its platform from Noch and Sosa’s deceptive tactics. Even then, however, Noch and Sosa were undeterred. After Spotify removed their content, Noch would return, using Sosa to hopscotch from distributor to distributor, adopting aliases and/or renaming or slightly modifying previously removed albums and recordings in the Sosa Repertoire, all in an attempt to trick Spotify and evade its fraud detection systems.
14. After playing this game of cat-and-mouse for over a year, Spotify decided to issue policies and protections aimed at identifying Noch and Sosa’s content and preventing such content from going live for streaming on its platform. But not even this stopped Noch and Sosa, as they continued to manufacture new personas to find other ways onto Spotify’s platform in defiance of Spotify’s policies. Spotify continues to expend resources to confront and guard against Noch and Sosa’s fraud to the present day.
15. Noch and Sosa have caused substantial harm to Spotify, including through their siphoning of unwarranted royalty payments and by causing Spotify to direct significant time and expense to detecting and stopping the fraudulent activity. Noch and Sosa’s scheme was also targeted at and harmed Spotify’s users in New York and Florida (among other places), who were deceived about the popularity of Noch and Sosa’s content. Spotify brings these counterclaims to redress the damage caused by Noch and Sosa’s deceptive and improper actions, and to protect its platform and those who use it.
Case 2:19-cv-00843-JES-NPM Document 52 Filed 07/02/20 Page 7 of 70
There are 70 pages in this counterclaim plus exhibits way to much to copy/paste. If anyone wants to see the whole document I can upload it for download but I suspect this has been shared before. After the counterclaim, the case was settled out of court.
