Marc Mysterio’s Attorney: Amazon is ‘playing god with data’ Billboard uses for charts

NEW YORK, April 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marc Mysterio’s legal team, led by attorney Michael H. Joseph, will serve Amazon Music’s counsel with a letter of preservation of evidence imminently—as noted in Marc’s 3-Part YouTube Series exposing the Shadow-ban placed on his music using the IF/THEN protocol employed by Amazon Music— escalating the Irish-Canadian artist’s lawsuit against Amazon Music and DistroKid (Case No. 1:25-cv-01705).

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Feb. 27, 2025, the suit claims damages “in excess of $75,000,” with losses in the millions to date, alleging Amazon employed a shadow-ban on Mysterio’s songs by deploying an "IF/THEN" filter—essentially a simple “if this, then that” command, like telling a computer, “If it’s Marc’s music, then mark it with a dash (‘-’)”—rendering his tracks “artist-less” and unable to reach his 1.25 million fans, play on Amazon Stations, connect to related artists’ fans, or be considered for AI features normally available to all artists, even the below-mentioned, unheralded Neon Tom.

Mysterio, a 20-year music veteran and one of Amazon’s top global stars with over 80 million streams from September 2023 to August 2024—55% from Amazon Stations—saw his music blocked by the shadow-ban starting Sept. 10, 2024. The ban also threatens chart integrity, notably the Billboard Hot Dance and Electronic Songs Chart, where Mysterio charted based solely on Amazon streams.

By arbitrarily shadow-banning a charting artist for reasons known only to Amazon, the company can manipulate positions on independent charts like Billboard in the U.S. and the UK Official Charts, undermining the credibility of Billboard Magazine’s staff, artists, and their teams. “Amazon’s playing god with data that charts like Billboard Magazine—totally independent with no business ties to Amazon beyond collecting stream stats—rely on for calculations, for charts that Billboard’s readers and paying subscribers rely on,” Joseph said.

A 3-part YouTube series strengthens Mysterio’s case: Video 1 (March 19, 2025) shows “streaming errors” across his profile; Video 2 reveals “My Sabrina Carpenter Mix” with 17 of 50 songs by Carpenter, while “My Marc Mysterio Mix” has zero of 50 by Mysterio, contrasting Amazon Music Stations—algorithm-driven streams, not playlists—where Neon Tom, an artist with zero Amazon fans (equivalent to followers), lands two of the first 10 songs on his station, while Mysterio’s station played nearly 50 songs with none of his own. Video 3 details his station’s 225,463 streams and 57,453 listeners from the noted calendar year, and the Taylor Swift station’s 3,698,968 streams and 742,696 listeners of Mysterio’s songs from the noted calendar year, both bottoming out to zero on Sept. 25, 2024.

Marc Mysterio’s 3-Part YouTube Series expose Amazon’s IT backend, for example: Mysterio’s artist page URL (https://music.amazon.com/artists/B0041A1P4U/marc-mysterio) works without “/marc-mysterio” (https://music.amazon.com/artists/B0041A1P4U/), proving the 10-digit code “B0041A1P4U” drives identification—a key for discovery subpoenas. Amazon’s partial restore of Mysterio’s “Related Artists” to their pre-shadow-ban state in March 2025, post-complaint, without removing the shadow-ban itself, fueled the fight. “They showed they could fix it but didn’t,” Joseph said. “It’s more foolish than a 4th down trick play gone wrong.”

The preservation letter targets 17 evidence categories tied to “B0041A1P4U,” including metadata logs proving the shadow-ban’s scope from Sept. 10, 2024, backup snapshots showing Amazon’s restore capability, algorithm trails pinning intent, station logs quantifying damages—225,463 streams on Mysterio’s station and 3,698,968 on Taylor Swift’s, both zeroed by Sept. 25, 2024—and user metrics revealing 1.25 million fans cut off, per the YouTube series—all of which are dispositive to Marc’s claims contained in his lawsuit.

“Amazon’s half-fix—restoring Mysterio’s ‘Related Artists’ to their pre-shadow-ban state without removing the shadow-ban itself—is their 4th down fumble; they have essentially handed us the win by fixing and restoring the related artists portion of Marc Mysterio’s Amazon Music Artist Page but not simultaneously removing the IF/THEN code responsible for the shadow-ban when Amazon’s IT Staff could easily have done so—it shows clear and convincing intent to cause undue harm to Marc Mysterio, and the logs sought will show this” Joseph said, eyeing punitive damages.

Mysterio, known for collaborations with David Guetta, Crash Test Dummies, Flo Rida, Samantha Fox, and Trailer Park Boys—where he composed, appeared as a guest star DJ, and earned an IFPI Gold Award for the anthem from the Netflix Series entitled “L&W” (an abbreviation of the song title due to the explicit song title)—also scored a Gold Award with Alexandra Stan for “Balans.” He holds IBA boxing recognition as a contender for a vacant world title against Jake Paul.

“I was a top Amazon star who entrusted them as a voluntary exclusive artist, pulling my catalog from Spotify and Apple—if they’ll mistreat me like this, they could and likely would do it to any star, no matter how successful globally or how much you do for the community, including assisting terrorist victims” Mysterio concludes.

Marc Mysterio’s 3-part YouTube series exposing the Amazon Music shadow-ban can be viewed at www.alexaemail.com which links directly to the playlist.

For More Information

Attorney for Plaintiff Marc Mysterio:
Law Office of Michael H. Joseph
18 West 33rd Street, Suite 400
New York, NY 10001
Tel: +1-212-858-0503
www.newyorktriallawyers.org
michael@newyorktriallawyers.org

Marc Mysterio on X - Full Grok Bio Available
@marc_mysterio

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

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https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6bb0652d-f74e-4e88-b03f-5390fde0325d

A video accompanying this announcement is available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/072f47e8-1a23-4801-b1ea-b5e332438388