BLUEWATER MUSIC SERVICES CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. SPOTIFY USA INC., Defendant. ROBERT GAUDIO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SPOTIFY USA INC., Defendant. A4V DIGITAL, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. SPOTIFY USA INC., Defendant. ROBERTSON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SPOTIFY USA INC., Defendant Case No. 3:17-cv-01051, Case No. 3:17-cv-01052, Case No. 3:17-cv-01256, Case No. 3:17-cv-01616 United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division Filed April 03, 2019 Counsel Christina Manna, Joshua D. Wilson, Liz A. Natal, Matthew G. Sipf, Richard S. Busch, Tara N. Stampley, King & Ballow, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiffs. A. Grace Van Dyke James, Breeding Henry Baysan PC, Knoxville, TN, Christopher Jon Sprigman, Michael Steven Carnevale, Sarah A. Sheridan, Thomas McMahon Cramer, Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP, New York, NY, Harrison Frahn, Jeffrey E. Ostrow, Michael H. Joshi, Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, LLP, Palo Alto, CA, Nicholas R. Valenti, Samuel F. Miller, Miller Legal Partners PLLC, Nashville, TN, for Defendant Frensley, Jeffrey S., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 This matter is before the Court upon Spotify's “Motion to Compel Plaintiffs to Rectify Deficiencies in Their Document Productions and Comply with Basic Discovery Obligations.” Docket No. 217. Spotify has also filed a Supporting Memorandum of Law. Docket No. 218. Plaintiffs have filed a Response in Opposition. Docket No. 231. Spotify has filed a Reply. Docket Nos. 245, 246. For the reasons discussed below, Spotify's Motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. I. INTRODUCTION In this copyright infringement action, Plaintiffs allege that Defendant Spotify USA Inc. (“Spotify”) is making unauthorized use of musical compositions that belong to Plaintiffs “in blatant disregard of the exclusive rights that are vested in copyright owners.” Docket No. 1, p. 1. Specifically, Plaintiffs claim that Spotify has reproduced and streamed 2,339 copyrighted works without the appropriate license and without paying the applicable royalties. Id. at 2-24. Spotify denies these allegations. This Motion seeks to compel Plaintiffs to remedy alleged deficiencies in the form and substance of their document productions. Docket Nos. 217, 218. II. LAW AND ANALYSIS A. Discovery Requests and Motions to Compel Discovery in federal court is governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provide that a party may request production of documents or other tangible items as long as the information sought is within the scope of discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). In general, the scope of discovery extends to nonprivileged information that is relevant to any party's claim or defense, regardless of whether the information sought is admissible, that is “proportional to the needs of the case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The Rules were amended, effective December 1, 2015, in part to address the alleged costs and abuses attendant to discovery. Under Rule 26, “[t]here is now a specific duty for the court and the parties to consider discovery in the light of its ‘proportional[ity] to the needs of the case ....’ ” Turner v. Chrysler Grp. LLC, No. 3:14-1747, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11133, at *2, (M.D. Tenn. Jan. 27, 2016), quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The following factors are relevant to a consideration of whether the scope of discovery is proportional: (1) the importance of the issues at stake in the action, (2) the amount in controversy, (3) the parties' relative access to relevant information, (4) the parties' resources, (5) the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and (6) whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) (numbering added). “Nevertheless, the scope of discovery is, of course, within the broad discretion of the trial court.” Carell, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57435 at *5, quoting Lewis v. ACB Bus. Servs., Inc., 135 F.3d 389, 402 (6th Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). After making a good faith effort to resolve a dispute, a party may move for an order compelling discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1). The moving party “must demonstrate that the requests are relevant to the claims or defenses in the pending action.” Carell, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57435 at *5, quoting Anderson v. Dillard's, Inc., 251 F.R.D. 307, 309-10 (W.D. Tenn. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). “If relevancy is shown, the party resisting discovery bears the burden of demonstrating why the request is unduly burdensome or otherwise not discoverable under the Federal Rules.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). B. The Discovery Matters at Issue 1. Alleged Defects in the Form of Plaintiffs' Productions (a) Metadata and Production Format *2 Spotify contends that Plaintiffs (and third parties represented by Plaintiffs' counsel) have produced documents without the metadata that would be expected with such documents, and in formats other than the ordinary course of business formats for those documents, inhibiting Spotify's ability to access and use them. Docket No. 218, p. 7-10. Spotify argues that Plaintiffs have only corrected metadata deficiencies in “limited instances,” and “for a substantial portion of their productions, they have failed to provide metadata required by the ESI protocol.” Docket No. 245, p. 2. Plaintiffs respond that they have already provided the metadata that Spotify claims to need. Docket No. 231, p. 3-6. Specifically, Plaintiffs contend that they have produced an overlay that provides “CREATEDATE” and “LASTMODDATE” fields, and that some of the metadata information is contained in the documents themselves (e.g., on its face, an email displays the date the email was sent and received). Id. Plaintiffs argue that their documents are “reasonable and appropriate and searchable,” and that they “should not be required to create documents for Spotify's document specific software to view documents.” Id. at 4. Plaintiffs contend that they are not able to provide certain metadata, such as SENTDATE and RECEIVEDDATE, because their production software did not pick up this information, and their litigation support team is not able to produce an overlay to provide it. Id. at 5. They also state that they have already reproduced some emails with the appropriate metadata. Id. at 6. Regarding metadata, the Parties' Stipulated E-Discovery Protocol (“the Protocol”) states: a) Metadata. Each party shall take reasonable steps during search and production to preserve the integrity of ESI, such as metadata, associated with the documents produced. A party shall produce for each electronic document a load file containing the following metadata information (if it exists): Docket No. 93-1, p. 6 (emphasis added). This paragraph is followed by a chart that lists the types of metadata that must be provided, along with a sample name and a description of each. Id. at 6-7. Twenty-six types of metadata information are specified for inclusion. Id. The Parties' decision to specify that electronic documents “shall” be produced with associated metadata reflects the general understanding that metadata can be a very important part of an electronic document. Citing the well-known case of Sprint/United Management Co., this Court has noted that: Certain metadata is critical in information management and for ensuring effective retrieval and accountability in record-keeping. Metadata can assist in proving the authenticity of the content of electronic documents, as well as establish the context of the content. Metadata can also identify and exploit the structural relationships that exist between and within electronic documents, such as versions and drafts. Metadata allows organizations to track the many layers of rights and reproduction information that exist for records and their multiple versions. Metadata may also document other legal or security requirements that have been imposed on records; for example, privacy concerns, privileged communications or work product, or proprietary interests. John B. v. Goetz, 879 F. Supp. 2d 787, 878-79 (M.D. Tenn. 2010), quoting Williams v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co., 230 F.R.D. 640, 647 (D. Kansas 2005) (emphasis added and footnotes omitted). The fact that certain information contained in metadata (e.g. “sent” and “received” information on an email) may seem to be apparent on the face of the document in no way replaces the value of the metadata itself. See John B., 879 F. Supp. 2d at 880, quoting 7 Moore's Federal Practice – Civil § 37a.03[1] (“A document produced electronically may be more useful than a hard copy of the data or document in certain cases because it may contain metadata that is not revealed in a printout but that can be essential to a full understanding of the document. For example, a printout of an email message may include only a generic reference to a distribution list that fails to refer to the individuals who received the message.”). *3 Plaintiffs do not assert that they were unable to provide metadata because it did not exist. See Docket No. 231. Instead, Plaintiffs' difficulties appear to stem from internal issues: Plaintiffs utilized document production software that did not pick up the date that email was sent or received, or their files were received in a PDF format as opposed to an email format. Id. at 5-6. Plaintiffs do not explain why they chose to use document production software that did not pick up all of the metadata, or why they received and produced emails in a PDF format. To the extent that Plaintiffs have already been able to cure their metadata deficiencies by reproducing documents with the metadata intact or creating overlays that contain the metadata, they need not take any further steps. For other documents that have been identified as lacking metadata and have not been cured, Plaintiffs must reproduce them with metadata as specified by the Protocol. (b) Formatting Deficiencies Spotify contends that some of the documents produced by Plaintiffs “suffer from severe formatting deficiencies that make them completely or partially unintelligible and therefore practically useless at any stage of this litigation ....” Docket No. 218, p. 10. Spotify argues that this type of production violates the Protocol, and that Plaintiffs' supposed remedial actions are insufficient. Id. at 10-12. Spotify also contends that “Plaintiffs' production includes a number of careless errors relating to their Bates-numbering that violate the ESI Protocol ... including separate documents bearing the same Bates number and differences in the formatting of the Bates numbers across their production.” Id. at 13, n.5 (internal citation omitted). Spotify asks the Court to compel Plaintiffs to submit a sworn affidavit explaining certain alleged anomalies and discrepancies between Plaintiffs' original production and the remedial production. Id. at 11-12. Plaintiffs respond that they have already reproduced the documents that had formatting problems, which Plaintiffs contend was “caused by a minor technical error.” Docket No. 231, p. 6-7. They argue that this issue is moot and was resolved prior to the filing of this Motion. Id. at 7. Regarding the assertion that their production contains Bates-numbering errors, Plaintiffs argue that they reproduced these documents pursuant to an agreement between the Parties where “Spotify agreed that Plaintiffs would not have to comply with Paragraph 14 of the E-Discovery Protocol for the first production, thus Plaintiffs provided the files as agreed pursuant to Paragraph 14(c) of the E-Discovery Protocol.” Id. at 9. Spotify does not contest that Plaintiffs have purported to fix their formatting and intelligibility issues; rather, Spotify lacks confidence in the fix and wants to question Plaintiffs about it. See Docket No. 218, p. 12; Docket No. 245, p. 3. This concern appears to be based on “the severe formatting issues with the earlier productions and Plaintiffs' derelict conduct to date.” Docket No. 245, p. 3. In the absence of any evidence that Plaintiffs have not remedied the identified formatting problems as they claim to have done, the Court is not inclined to intervene. The only such potential evidence identified by Spotify is the alleged fact that “while Mr. Price's initial production appears to have comprised just 359 documents, the ‘reproduction’ comprises over 1,300 documents – nearly four times the size of the initial production.” Docket No. 218, p. 12. There may be a simple and practical reason for this apparent discrepancy, and indeed, Spotify has not advanced any theory of nefarious intent. Nevertheless, in order to put the issue to rest and hopefully eliminate one source of conflict, Plaintiffs are ordered to provide Spotify with an explanation as to why Mr. Price's replacement production is so much larger than his original production. Regarding “careless errors related to Bates numbering,” such errors are somewhat commonplace in large-scale litigation, and Plaintiffs claim to have corrected them. If there are any documents that continue to suffer from such errors and are thus unusable, Spotify should identify those specific documents to Plaintiffs for renumbering. (c) Identification of Third Party Productions *4 Spotify contends that “Plaintiffs have also inexplicably and unjustifiably refused to clearly identify on the face of their productions which documents were produced from the files of third parties Price, Audiam, Songwriters Guild of America (‘SGA’) and ClearBox in response to subpoenas issued by Spotify.” Docket No. 218, p. 12. Spotify asserts that it is prejudiced for several reasons by not knowing the source of the documents in Plaintiffs' production. Id. at 12-16. Spotify asks the Court to compel Plaintiffs “to use distinct Bates-numbering for each third party ‘document production’ that Plaintiffs have taken upon themselves to produce.” Id. at 16. Plaintiffs respond that they have properly identified third party productions. Docket No. 231, p. 7-10. Plaintiffs argue that: they told Spotify how they intended to produce the documents and Spotify never objected or asked for the productions to be separately Bates-labelled; “the documents themselves indicate who the document is from;” “Spotify has access to the metadata where custodians from those organizations have been clearly identified;” Plaintiffs have already identified which productions contain documents from third parties; and “Plaintiffs have reproduced the Jeff Price and Audiam Productions for Spotify and relabeled the documents under an Audiam Bates No.” Id. at 8-9. The Court credits Spotify's argument that it needs to know the source of documents produced in discovery; however, at this stage of the litigation, the Court is not inclined to have the Parties reproduce documents unless it is absolutely necessary. Therefore, the problem will be addressed as follows. Plaintiffs are ordered to identify the documents that constitute third party productions by Bates number range, and name the source of each of those productions. 2. Alleged Defects in the Substance of Plaintiffs' Productions (a) Thomas Dolby's Documents Spotify contends that Plaintiff Thomas Dolby “has willfully refused to search for and produce documents in response to Spotify's document requests.” Docket No. 218, p. 17. Spotify argues that Plaintiffs have an obligation to search for responsive documents in Mr. Dolby's possession, custody or control because: in their initial disclosures, Plaintiffs listed Mr. Dolby as an individual likely to have discoverable information; in discovery, Spotify has sought documents from Plaintiffs, including Mr. Dolby; Mr. Dolby is a party to the Robertson case and parties have an obligation to produce responsive documents; and Plaintiffs “have expressly represented that Mr. Dolby possesses relevant documents.” Id. at 17-20. Further, Spotify asserts that “Plaintiffs do not state that they have actually searched Plaintiff Dolby's files and therefore have no basis to assert that Mr. Dolby has no responsive documents.” Docket No. 245, p. 4 (emphasis in original). Plaintiffs respond that they “have in no way admitted that Plaintiff Thomas Dolby has willfully refused to search for and produce documents.” Docket No. 231, p. 11. Rather, Plaintiffs assert that Lisa Moberly, in her role as administrator of Lost Toy People, “has the documents that would be relevant to Defendant's discovery requests and has produced them.” Id. Plaintiffs argue that Mr. Dolby hired Ms. Moberly to handle the copyright administration, and “[a]ny additional searches of Mr. Dolby's documents would be duplicative.” Id. Plaintiffs further argue that they identified Ms. Moberly as the custodian in the Dolby matter, and Spotify, which did not object to this designation, is now attempting to improperly increase the number of custodians. Id. While the Parties' Protocol discusses the process for choosing custodians whose electronic documents are to be searched (Docket No. 93-1, p. 3-4), it is not clear that Spotify ever agreed to a list of custodians that did not include Mr. Dolby. The exhibit cited by Plaintiffs as evidence that the Parties had agreed on such a list in August 2018 is actually a February 14, 2019 letter that indicates instead that the Parties were not in agreement on the issue of whether Ms. Moberly is the appropriate custodian for Robertson. Docket No. 214-11, p. 2. Plaintiffs have not pointed to any law, and the Court is not aware of any, that would allow Plaintiffs to avoid searching the documents of a Party to this lawsuit for those that might be relevant and responsive to a discovery request. Mr. Dolby is a named Party; certainly it is at least conceivable that he might have some such documents. If he does not, whether because he does not deal directly with paperwork or for any other reason, Plaintiffs can state as much. (b) AMLC Documents *5 Spotify contends that “Plaintiffs have also refused to search for and produce any documents relating to Lisa Moberly's, Brownlee Ferguson's, and Charles Sanders's involvement in the American Music Licensing Collective, or AMLC, even though such documents are plainly responsive to several of Spotify's requests, namely Request Nos. 7-11 of Spotify's Second Set of Requests for Production.” Docket No. 218, p. 21. Spotify argues that “[w]hile it is true that Requests Nos. 7-11 do not mention the AMLC by name, that is no basis for Plaintiffs' failure to produce the documents in question. Any reasonable person responding to these requests in good faith would surely recognize that the requests plainly encompass documents relating to Ms. Moberly's, Mr. Ferguson's, and Mr. Sanders's involvement with the AMLC.” Id. at 22. Spotify asserts that it “cannot know or practically list every single person or entity that might be encompassed by a document request.” Docket No. 245, p. 5. Plaintiffs respond by asking: “How could Spotify intend for a request to encompass AMLC documents when the request does not state so?” Docket No. 231, p. 12. Plaintiffs also argue that they have “valid reasons for not producing these documents: i) Spotify's request came after the document production deadline; ii) these documents were not mentioned in their second request for production; and iii) these documents, if they exist, are not relevant to the litigation.” Id. Spotify asserts that documents relating to Lisa Moberly's, Brownlee Ferguson's, and Charles Sanders's involvement in the AMLC would be responsive to Request Nos. 7-11 of its Second Set of Requests for Production. Docket No. 218, p. 21-22. These Requests were served on July 30, 2018. Docket No. 217-6, p. 21. The Court has reviewed the Requests and finds that they are relevant to the claims or defenses in the pending action. See Carell, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57435 at *5. The burden then shifts to Plaintiffs to demonstrate why the Requests are unduly burdensome or otherwise not discoverable under the Federal Rules. Id. Plaintiffs have not demonstrated, or even addressed, any burden that the Requests would pose. See Docket No. 231. Instead, Plaintiffs focus on the fact that the Requests do not specifically mention the AMLC, as well as Plaintiffs' “valid reasons for not producing these documents.” Addressing Plaintiffs' reasons first, the Court finds that these Requests were served on July 30, 2018 as part of Spotify's Second Set of Requests for Production of Documents, and that this discovery was served before the substantial document production deadline of December 17, 2018. Docket No. 217-6, p. 21; Docket No. 83, p. 1. Plaintiffs have an obligation under the Federal Rules to produce responsive, nonprivileged documents in their possession, custody or control that are responsive to properly served discovery requests, absent valid objection or showing of undue burden or lack of proportionality. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26. This obligation exists regardless of whether those responsive documents, if any, relate to the AMLC. To the extent Plaintiffs are withholding any nonprivileged documents that are responsive to Request Nos. 7-11 on the grounds that such documents mention or relate to the AMLC, they are ordered to produce them. (c) Audiam Documents Spotify contends that “aside from a handful of communications between Audiam and HFA, Plaintiffs have failed to produce any Audiam documents beyond communications involving Mr. Price and Spotify and the related attachments.” Docket No. 218, p. 24. Specifically, Spotify asserts that Audiam and Mr. Price have not produced any internal documents or communications or communications between Mr. Price and outside parties other than Spotify and HFA. Id. Spotify argues that “[g]iven the nature of Spotify's requests to Mr. Price and Audiam and Plaintiffs' own assertions about the information in the possession of these third parties, Plaintiffs' exceedingly narrow production of documents from Mr. Price is plainly deficient.” Id. at 25. *6 Plaintiffs respond that they have already produced “all relevant, non-privileged documents that are responsive to Spotify's Requests for Production,” and that “[i]f Spotify believes there are documents that Audiam and Mr. Price have not produced it should state what type of documents it claims to have not received.” Docket No. 231, p. 13. The Court is not inclined to reject Plaintiffs' assertion that they have produced all relevant, nonprivileged documents that are responsive to Spotify's Requests with regard to Audiam and Mr. Price, absent clear evidence that documents are being improperly withheld. Although Spotify questions the sufficiency of that production, specifically with regard to internal communications and communications between Mr. Price and some Plaintiffs, Spotify has not offered any such evidence. Thus, the Court will credit Plaintiffs' statement that no other such documents exist. III. CONCLUSION For the reasons discussed above, Spotify's “Motion to Compel Plaintiffs to Rectify Deficiencies in Their Document Productions and Comply with Basic Discovery Obligations” (Docket No. 217) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. IT IS SO ORDERED.