Yes, I got one. I also went and read the website as well as did a search about the artist.

This is the claim:

"The plaintiffs are Melissa Ferrick, Jaco Pastorius, Inc., and Gerencia 360 Publishing, Inc. They allege that they own copyrights for which registration has been issued or applied for in musical compositions that Spotify made available for interactive streaming and/or limited downloading without a license, and that Spotify did so with respect to other musical compositions owned by others."

Unfortunately, I'm not privy to the distribution rights of each entity. However I looked up Ferrick and noticed that she's a CD Baby artist. My speculative guess is, she has a Digital Distribution agreement in place, which would make this frivolous. As for Jaco, and Gerencia, I have no idea.

There's another lawsuit of a similar sort from the TriChordist dude. I believe his is about the NOIs that are supposed to make their way to the publishing rights holders. His claim is that he's not getting his. When asked who is doing his distribution - he refuses to answer. Which tells me, somewhere in the distribution chain, someone screwed up the info on his songs.

For both of these people, its likely not Spotify's fault. I get proper NOIs constantly, my distributors have my correct information. I also read contracts very carefully, mostly due to a problematic distribution deal via The Orchard that came back to bite me in the ass. Fortunately I got out of that contract unscathed. Based on that, I'm guessing that in the case of Ferrick, someone didn't read their contract well enough.

But I could be wrong.

Jody Whitesides
A Funky Audio Lap Dance For Your Ears!
www.jodywhitesides.com