http://www.genxglow.com/beatport-am-only-denver-s-a554
As only Beatport is really applicable to this blog, I decided to post this anyways to raise awareness and to see what people have to say.
In the 43 page court brief filed December 1, 2010, Regas Christou, claims that Brad Roulier used his connections at Beatport to coercise DJs to play at only Beta nightclub when they came to Denver. How did he do this? By threatening to remove an artist and/or their entire label from the Beatport marketplace if they played at a venue outside of Beta. And to add insult to injury, Christou also claims that AM Only told talent buyers affiliated with his club's in Denver, that top-tier DJs were not available on dates that he requested. However, a talent buyer also associated with Christou requesting the same names in Phoenix, Arizona on the same dates, magically were available.
The document lists many examples and proof to validate these claims. And what good would any court filing be without name dropping Deadmau5? According to the document, Christou's talent buyer offered $15,000 (more than double the market rate for such a performance at the time) to play at Vinyl for two hours after his performance at Red Rocks. Deadmau5 expressed interest in the offer, but after meeting with his agent, said that he could not accept because he was afraid of angering Roulier.
In the latter part of the document, Christou counts his losses: "(i) its revenues and profits from performances of A-List DJs have decreased significantly; (ii) its ability to compete with Beta has been frustrated, causing SOCO to lose actual and potential customers and past and future profits and harming SOCO’s goodwill and reputation; (iii) the reputation of SOCO’s clubs and Mr. Christou have been diminished, resulting in inability to form business partnerships and greatly increased costs of booking all live performances, including but not limited to A-List DJs; (iv) the negative effect on SOCO’s revenues has significantly reduced the going concern or sale value of SOCO’s component business including The Church and Vinyl; (v) revenues from patrons visiting other of SOCO’s clubs in the South of Colfax district both before and after performances by A-list DJs has decreased; and (vi) the effect of diminishing the reputation of and number of visitors to SOCO’s clubs has significantly reduced the value of real property owned by SOCO’s component entities."
What Happens Next
Not only has Christou filed these claim against the parties, but he requests a jury as well. Which means, he's not trying to have this settled out of court, he wants a trial. If you read the briefing, I think that you would agree that Christou has a good bit of arguments that may help him win this court case. No official statements from the opposing parties have been released. Because as we all know, there are two sides to every story. However, their silence might also speak volumes as well. Beatport is rapidly turning into the Facebook of EDM (those of you that have seen "The Social Network" will understand what I'm talking about).
I'm curious to see how this trial will play out. We're talking about some of the biggest brands in electronic music--who knows, Deadmau5 could be called as a witness. Some other examples of malpractice that were given in the document also provide quotations against Beatport, yet lack a name next to the quotes. Not exactly sure what this means, but I'm guessing they are trying to protect some people.
Read The Full Court Brief
It takes about 30 minutes to get through, but there are a lot of juicy details in the document that make it a dynamic read.
Anybody else getting some infantile-vibes from this entire argument?