Spotify Sued Over Discovery Mode: ‘A Modern Form of Payola’ – Billboard

A Spotify subscriber says Discovery Mode is just a form of “pay-for-play” that misleads listeners. The company calls those claims “nonsense.” The Spotify app is displayed on a smartphone screen. David Tramontan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Trending on Billboard Spotify is facing a class action lawsuit claiming its Discovery Mode and editorial playlists are a “modern form of payola” that allow record labels and artists to secretly pay to promote their music. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday (Nov. 5) in New York, alleges that Spotify’s recommendation tools are a “deceptive pay-for-play” program, but that the streamer misleads consumers into trusting that they are neutral and based on personal musical tastes. Related “Spotify exploits that trust by marketing itself as a platform that offers organic music recommendations — whether through its algorithmic or curated playlists — only to secretly sell those recommendations to the highest bidder,” reads the lawsuit, obtained by Billboard. The case was filed by a Spotify subscriber named Genevieve Capolongo, who seeks to represent “millions” of other users who were allegedly misled by Spotify’s offerings. Her lawyers say she used the platform’s personalization features for years, but “kept hearing the same major-label tracks” that “bore little resemblance to
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