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A patent infringement case against music streaming service Spotify has been filed by Bluejay Technologies, claiming that two of Spotify’s social features—”Remote Group Session” and its successor “Jam”—infringe on one of Bluejay’s patents.
Founded in 2014, Bluejay had developed a system in which one user could act as a host who curated, in real-time, a streaming playlist for sharing with friends. Other people could log into the session and listen in at the same time—a virtual DJ. Having developed this system in 2015, Bluejay developed its streaming app and became an approved broadcaster in the UK. It also looked for funding and held business meetings with companies working in music streaming and record labels concerning using their technology.
However, Bluejay claims that they demonstrated a system to Spotify in 2018 during meetings, but never heard from them again. Of course, they believe Spotify was interested because shortly after that it was quite loud about similar social engagement features. Sure enough, in 2020 Spotify launched Remote Group Session, and last year replaced it with Jam — both letting multiple users remotely listen and contribute to shared playlists together in real time.
According to Bluejay, these Spotify features infringe its patent by simulating live broadcasts of programmed playlists from a host to others online. They now sue Spotify in California, seeking damages and a court order recognizing the alleged infringement. Spotify also faces a separate ongoing lawsuit over how it classifies subscriptions.
