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Replies to post #9778 on Music Licensing Inc (SONG)
05/11/24 2:40 PM
If a Jake wants to fight 350 social media users including myself and receive 350 counter claims
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.
AI
