A couple years ago, the Persona 3 Reload soundtrack was uploaded to Spotify. The issue? Developer Atlus hadn't released the album digitally. That album, and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey's soundtrack, were uploaded by a random guy and quickly removed—likely from a DMCA request—in 2024. Now, Sega is suing over it.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Florida, Sega said it discovered in March 2024 that a person with the username Ziodyne (a reference to a skill in Shin Megami Tensei) uploaded the two soundtracks to different music platforms, like Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon. That person used a music distribution service called DistroKid to get the soundtracks on the platforms, offering them for sale and streaming. Sega says the person "received significant revenue and profits from the unauthorized sales," and that the person used the Persona 3 Reload logo to "deceive or mislead consumers concerning the source of the sound recordings."
DistroKid is a distribution service that advertises itself as an easy way to get music on all different platforms—Instagram, Spotify, Amazon, Tidal, and more. It charges a yearly fee, collects payments from streaming and sales, then pays out the artist. The company has been sued at least nine times for how it handles DMCA takedown requests, failing to pay out artists, and other reasons. Many of these cases are pendings, but a few have been dismissed.
Sega wasn't offering these soundtracks digitally yet, but people were looking for them. People immediately noticed them, according to several different Reddit posts, which showed the Persona 3 Reload soundtrack as having more than 26,000 monthly listens on Spotify. On Reddit, another screenshot of Ziodyne's page showed more than 134,000 monthly listens, including the popular Burning Men's Soul from the Persona Trinity Soul anime. Sega says in its lawsuit that it subpoenaed Apple, Spotify, and DistroKid to determine Ziodyne’s identity.
Commenters on Reddit called Ziodyne an "unsung hero" for getting the music out there: "They reuploaded it like 3 times despite it getting taken down each time what a legend," one person wrote. Ziodyne appears to have been beloved by the Reddit community for his perseverance in uploading Atlus' music, which was often otherwise hard to find online.
"Defendant has taken advantage of a set of circumstances, including the anonymity and mass reach afforded by the Internet and social media, coupled with the cover afforded by international borders, to violate Sega’s intellectual property rights with impunity," Sega's lawyers wrote in the complaint.
Sega is looking for "at least $60,000" in monetary damages, according to the complaint. The counts listed in the complaint include copyright infringement, trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition.
Since the unauthorized version was removed, Sega and Atlus have uploaded their own digital version of the Persona 3 Reload soundtrack to music platforms. Strange Journey's soundtrack doesn't appear to be available digitally.
Aftermath has reached out to Sega of America and Ziodyne for comment.
