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Update:
- A New York federal judge rejected a class certification bid May 2 in a lawsuit against Peloton that accused the stationary bike giant of falsely advertising an “ever-growing” library of online fitness classes that were removed because of music copyright concerns.
- In a 74-page order, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman denied a motion by Peloton buyers Eric Passman and Ishmael Alvarado to certify a class of people who bought Peloton hardware or a corresponding membership subscription from April 9, 2018, through March 25, 2019.
- Judge Liman said class members bought Peloton products in different ways and that Passman and Alvarado failed to offer evidence that Peloton’s statement at issue caused increased costs and a so-called “price premium.”
Peloton class action lawsuit overview:
- Who: Eric Fishon and Alicia Pearlman filed a class action lawsuit against Peloton Interactive Inc.
- Why: The plaintiffs allege the company removed many classes from its on-demand library because the company was accused of copyright infringement by members of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA).
- Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in New York federal court.
(Oct. 20, 2021)
Peloton Interactive Inc. has opposed a class action lawsuit allegin it removed classes from its library because it says a proposed lead plaintiff impersonated a lawyer and lied during his deposition.
“Fishon has no credibility, as evidenced by the fact that he sent emails to Peloton impersonating a lawyer, lied about it during his deposition and gave conflicting testimony as to how many times he has served as a plaintiff,” Peloton stated in a court memorandum.
Additionally, Pearlman has been wholly uninvolved in the lawsuit, lacks a basic understanding of her claims and is unique given that both she and another plaintiff applied for jobs at the company and were rejected.
The company states the plaintiffs supplied, at most, 22 documents describing the on-demand library as “ever-growing” or “growing.”
“It is therefore unsurprising that most Class Members did not see ads using ‘ever-growing’ or ‘growing’ (likely including named plaintiffs, who could not specifically recall any ads with those terms), were not influenced by such ads and did not share a common understanding of what the terms meant,” Peloton said.
While the company acknowledges it removed classes following the accusation from the NMPA, it said, “Peloton members were, or should have been, well aware that Peloton might remove classes. The terms of service, to which every member agreed, clearly stated Peloton might do so.”
Class action lawsuit claims Peloton removed thousands of classes, affecting user experience
The class action lawsuit states 5,739 classes were taken off the platform, which substantially reduced the on-demand options that would have been available to users.
The removal of copyrighted music also decreased the quality and quantity of popular music that is available on the defendant’s workout playlists, which reduced the users’ experience with the subscription service, the plaintiffs allege.
“In addition to losing more than 50% of their on-demand classes, users have lamented that the workouts in the new classes (those without the removed songs) don’t ‘flow like they used to’ and have struggled to ‘find a playlist with 50 percent decent songs’ since Peloton’s removal of the infringing works,” the plaintiffs stated in the complaint.
The plaintiffs also allege the company’s CEO, John Foley, stated the removal of classes would not affect the users’ experience with the service.
“That representation, however, is demonstrably false and Peloton never disclosed to its subscribers, including plaintiffs and the other class members, that it would be removing over half of the classes from its on-demand library,” the class action lawsuit argues.
Do you use Peloton’s online fitness services? Leave a message in the comments section below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Gregg G. Gutzler, Adam Levitt and Adam Prom of DiCello Levitt Gutzler LLC and Ashley C. Keller and J. Dominick Larry of Keller Lenkner LLC.
The Peloton class removal class action lawsuit is Fishon, et al. v. Peloton Interactive, Inc., Case No. 1:19-cv-11711-LJL, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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