Spotify's Request to Throw Out Multimillion-Dollar Lawsuit Denied by Federal Judge

Spotify went public this April, and the stock was performing well as of late August.

In the motion to dismiss, Spotify alleged that Bluewater did not have “ownership interest” over much of the music that was at the heart of the suit and that they “[alleged] no ownership interest in any works.” The streaming company also pegged the number of songs in question as 1,372, far fewer than Bluewater claimed, and said that there were 23 works involved on which Bluewater had pending copyrights. The publisher rejected these claims, saying that they did possess exclusive rights, a statement supported by the court.?

Bluewater isn’t the only publishing company to lob a lawsuit at Spotify. Wixen Music Publishing sued them for $1.6 billion in January, citing well-known songs by Tom Petty, The Doors and other prominent artists. In May 2017, they paid a $43.3 million settlement to a group of songwriters who had filed a similar complaint.

Beyond copyright infringement issues, a lawsuit was filed last month against the company by a former sales exec who alleged equal-pay violations and gender discrimination.

As Billboard previously noted, the ruling in this case could have colossal ramifications for the entire music industry, particularly if a ruling is handed down that the streaming service does not need to pay mechanical royalties.