Former grad students accuse Spotify of stealing idea for 'Jam' feature

RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — A group of former postgraduate students sued Spotify for $10 million in Virginia state court on Tuesday, accusing the audio streaming giant of plagiarizing their idea for a social experience feature.

Elizabeth Hopkinson, Hunter Noxon, Thomas Daley, Richard Whelchel and Caroline Loef were studying advertising at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Brandcenter when they came up with a “game changer,” which they called “Spotify JAMS.”

“Spotify users would be able to listen to music in real time with any other Spotify user, whether they are in the same room or across the country,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint. “A person could start a JAM or join a friend’s JAM or collaborate to their songs, or chat with friends about song choice."

What started as a class assignment quickly became a passion project that the group worked on for two semesters, they say. According to the group, they received overwhelmingly positive feedback from faculty who encouraged them to submit their idea to the Sweden-based company.

The group claims they reached out to Spencer Hansen, a purported Spotify employee, in April 2017. The group shared their idea, along with extensive documents describing a project that they claim would allow Spotify to leverage the platform to “make listening once again a social experience."

The group never heard back from Spotify, but six years later in 2023, Spotify released “Jam.” Spotify’s describes the feature as “a personalized, real-time listening session for your group to tune into together. Jam builds on some of our popular social features and combines them with our personalization technology to take real-time listening with pals to the next level.” With it, users have the capability to create a shared listening queue.

The group argues in their complaint filed in Richmond circuit court that the similarities in the feature are more than a coincidence.

“Spotify used plaintiffs’ ‘Spotify JAMS’ idea and concept without asking the plaintiffs, without permission from plaintiffs, without notifying plaintiffs, and without compensating plaintiffs, thus unjustly enriching Spotify,” the group said. “Upon information and belief, Spotify has made a lot of money on the idea, which was first originated by plaintiffs."

Spotify responded to the complaint, stating that they have no record of ever receiving the idea in the first place.

“Simply put, your clients’ claims rest solely on an unsolicited pitch that was not delivered to anyone at Spotify because it was sent to a non-existent email address,” Spotify lawyer Linna Chen said in an email to the plaintiffs. “As such, your clients have no factual or legal basis to make their implied breach of contract, unfair trade practices, fraud, and conversion claims."

Spotify announced in August 2025 that the feature reached 100 million monthly listening hours.

“When we launched Jam, the idea was simple: Music is better when it’s shared. Since then, listeners around the world have been queuing up tracks, enjoying them in sync, and soundtracking moments together, whether across the couch or across continents,” the company wrote on its website.

The group, represented by Williams Mullen, seeks a jury trial whereby a jury will determine whether Spotify unjustly profited from the group’s idea. The group further asked the court to order an accounting of all business done and profits made by Spotify as a result of the JAM concept.

Neither the group nor its attorneys immediately responded to requests for comment.