Shadowban Lawsuit Attorney Vs. Amazon Music Cites Federal Circuit-Recognized Filter Similarity

NEW YORK, April 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Billboard-charting artist and undefeated boxer Marc Mysterio is intensifying his legal battle against Amazon Music and DistroKid (Case No. 1:25-cv-01705, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York), alleging a shadowban suppressed his music’s visibility. Mysterio, who earned over 80 million streams from September 2023 to August 2024, claims Amazon Music used a filter to erase his artist metadata, costing millions in royalties.

His legal team draws parallels to Amazon’s conditional logic filters, as noted in In re PersonalWeb Techs. LLC, 961 F.3d 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2020).

Mysterio’s counsel alleges Amazon Music deployed an “IF/THEN” style filter, similar in style and concept to Amazon’s “If-Match” and “If-None-Match” mechanisms, to replace his artist metadata (“Marc Mysterio”) with a dash (“-”), rendering songs “artist-less” and invisible on stations.

“This filter mirrors the conditional logic in PersonalWeb, where Amazon’s S3 service uses ‘If-Match’ to trigger actions when metadata matches a condition,” said Attorney Michael H. Joseph. “If the artist metadata matches ‘Marc Mysterio,’ the system sets it to ‘-,’ disconnecting his 1.25 million fans and 55% of streams from Amazon Music Stations and Amazon Curated Playlists—including Marc’s own,”

In PersonalWeb, the Federal Circuit described S3’s “If-Match” as enabling operations when metadata (ETags) match, a conceptual parallel to Mysterio’s alleged filter.

A three-part YouTube series, viewable at shadowban.me, supports Mysterio’s claims, showing streaming errors, zero songs in his station mix, and a stream drop from 80 million—including over 3,700,000 streams on Taylor Swift’s Amazon Artist Station— to near zero by Sept. 16, 2024, for which Mysterio claims he was not properly compensated by Amazon and Distrokid.

“Amazon’s restoration of my ‘Related Artists’ section post-lawsuit proves their control, yet the shadowban persists, showing intent,” Mysterio said. His team’s preservation letter demands 17 evidence categories, including metadata logs and programmer IDs tied to his artist code (B0041A1P4U), to expose the filter’s activation.

“Amazon’s manipulating data, undermining independant charts like Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs,” Joseph said, citing Mysterio’s chart success. A 20-year music veteran with collaborations including Flo Rida and David Guetta, Mysterio urges artists like Taylor Swift to join his cause. “This fight is for every creator silenced by, or indirectly benefiting from shadowbans—it’s an existential battle,” he concludes.

About Marc Mysterio

Marc Mysterio’s “The Dancefloor”, a voluntary Amazon exclusive, impacted Billboard’s chart, adding to his legacy including collaborations with David Guetta, Crash Test Dummies, Samantha Fox, Netflix’s Trailer Park Boys, and Avicii (according to Billboard), amassing over 80 million streams and 1.25 million Amazon Music fans before the alleged shadowban. An undefeated boxer, Mysterio has challenged Jake Paul to a title fight on a to-be-confirmed basis and advocates for artists’ rights against platform suppression. Marc shares a common friend with Taylor Swift in AEW’s Jeff Jarrett, and has publicly called on Swift to speak out in support of his cause given her history of advocacy for artists’ rights—from her Spotify boycott, to supporting Kesha in her legal battle against Sony Music.

Key Facts You Need To Know:

Marc Mysterio Amazon Streaming/Listener Stats

Letter of Preservation of Evidence

Marc Mysterio/Travis Kelce Billboard Article

VMP: Unpacking the Allegations Behind Marc Mysterio's Lawsuit Against Amazon Music: A Shadowban Exposé

@marc_mysterio on X - Career Bio

IBA Boxing Chairman’s Letter

Marc Mysterio on Trailer Park Boys

Marc Mysterio Press-Photo

Press Contact:

Ralph Bennett
[email protected]
https://veritaseditions.net/

Legal Contact:

Michael H. Joseph, Esq.
[email protected]

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