SFX May Face Beatport Investigation

Art & Music Recording, based in Italy, has requested the Delaware judge overseeing SFX’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case force the company to reveal what it knows about how the charts of its Beatport online music store are being manipulated or “juiced.”

AMR is currently suing SFX in a Colorado court after six tracks from artists associated with the plaintiff were removed from Beatport, which the company has said had a negative effect on its business. In the suit AMR claims it never did anything to modify the charts, but its requests for evidence were rebuked by SFX, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Now AMR is requesting that the bankruptcy court bring this information to light, as it is relevant to creditors if there are elements which skew chart results, which the AMR lawyers describe as Beatport’s “bread and butter.”

“Favorable placement on Beatport’s website and charts creates high visibility for the DJs and their labels, which in turn creates demand for the DJs, thereby generating significant income to the DJs and their label,” AMR lawyers wrote.

The record company chose to go to the bankruptcy court before a deicision was taken in the Colorado suit because it is “genuinely concerned about being bounced back and forth between the Bankruptcy Court and the State Court and possibly facing a claim by Beatport that such discovery is in violation of the automatic stay,” and “believes it has no choice but to come to this Court first” Amplify reported. The next hearing in the case is Sept. 26.