Kratter v. Spotify Venue Battle Intensifies as Artist Seeks Remand

Photo Credit: Sydney Riggs

Artist Mark Kratter’s “undisclosed filtering practices” lawsuit against Spotify has gotten very ugly, very fast: Moments after the DSP moved to shift the case to federal court, Kratter has fired back against the “frivolous” request and demanded attorney’s fees for his trouble.

We covered Spotify’s straightforward notice of removal yesterday. In short, citing potential damages of over $75,000, the streaming platform filed to transfer the action from state to federal court.

Evidently, that isn’t sitting right with the plaintiff, who doubles as an attorney and is accusing the platform of discreetly overhauling its stream-calculation approach to boost major label catalogs at the expense of indies.

Enter Kratter’s new notice to the Stamford Superior Court, which he requested maintain the docketing of his pending motions (one seeking a temporary injunction, the other pushing for expedited discovery) and “[s]chedule hearings upon remand.”

Also on the remand front, Kratter submitted a related request to Connecticut’s lone federal district court. Because Spotify’s “removal is improper, frivolous, and unsupported by any objectively reasonable basis,” kicking the case back to the state-level court is appropriate, according to the legal text.

The way the filing party sees things, “the primary relief sought is injunctive and equitable in nature, and Spotify has not met and cannot meet its burden to establish that the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.”

Additionally, the relevant monetary damages are “ancillary, unquantified, and insufficient to satisfy the jurisdictional threshold,” the motion drives home.

Furthermore, Spotify’s desired “removal is frivolous and appears designed solely to delay” the aforementioned state-level injunction and discovery motions, per Kratter.

(The injunction would bar Spotify “from continuing to apply undisclosed filtering rules and the 1,000-stream royalty threshold in a manner that suppresses” the plaintiff’s streams and royalties. Meanwhile, Kratter is seeking “expedited discovery on a narrow and specific set of Spotify’s internal engineering records, algorithmic logs, and rule-change documentation.”)

In support of this position, Kratter indicated that his suit “asserts only state-law causes of action” – unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and an alleged violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act among them.

Finally, the plaintiff included with his motion an affidavit (“My Complaint asserts only state-law claims”) and a proposed approval order calling on Spotify to cough up the above-noted “reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred as a result of the removal.”

Put differently, we have a back-and-forth legal battle on our hands, and with Kratter in the driver’s seat as both artist and attorney, the showdown is proceeding at a comparatively fast pace.

Time will tell whether this means the central claims are actually litigated. Despite containing explosive allegations, other Spotify streaming manipulation complaints have been tossed on technical and procedural grounds.