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 March 25, 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 “Plaintiffs' Motion for Reconsideration Regarding 2011 and 2012 Data Files, or in the Alternative, for a Supplemental Order Barring Spotify From Introducing Compulsory License Evidence From 2011 and 2012, and Request for Emergency Hearing.” Docket No. 232. Plaintiffs have also filed a Supporting Memorandum of Law. Docket No. 233. Spotify has filed a Response in Opposition. Docket No. 248. Plaintiffs have filed a Reply. Docket No. 252. The Court finds that oral argument is not necessary to dispose of Plaintiffs' Motion, and addresses it as follows. 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. By Order entered on February 22, 2019, the Court denied Plaintiffs' motion seeking to compel Spotify to produce Request Files, Response Files, and Usage Reports from 2011 and 2012, and to supplement its production of monthly profit and loss statements. Docket No. 227. The Court found that potential streaming evidence from 2011 and 2012 would be irrelevant, as it would be beyond the period covered by the relevant statute of limitations. Id. at 5. The Court cited the proportionality factors enumerated in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Id. at 3. The Court also noted that the Parties' Stipulated E-Discovery Protocol contains a paragraph entitled “Time Constraints” that envisions that ESI searches will not exceed a time period of five years prior to the filing of the original complaint, unless it is determined to be necessary to search beyond such period. Id. at 4-5, citing Docket No. 93-1, p. 8. On March 3, 2019, Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Reconsideration, characterizing the Court's Order as “grossly unfair and based on a factual mistake by the Court regarding the applicability of the parties [sic] Stipulated E-Discovery Protocol.” Docket No. 233, p. 2. Plaintiffs also contend that the Court “ignores the fundamental importance of this information to these cases.” Id. In addition (or in the alternative) to asking the Court to reverse its prior decision regarding the 2011 and 2012 Request Files, Response Files, and Usage Reports, Plaintiffs ask “that the Court hold that Spotify is prohibited from offering any evidence that a compulsory license was in place or a NOI was sent for any composition prior to January 1, 2013, the date from which Spotify has produced the Data Files.” Id. at 3. For the reasons discussed below, Plaintiffs' Motion is DENIED. II. LAW AND ANALYSIS Because there is no federal procedural rule permitting a “motion for reconsideration,” the Court will construe Plaintiffs' Motion as a motion to alter or amend judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e).[1] This Court has recently explained the standards for a Rule 59(e) motion: *2 Motions to alter or amend judgment may be granted if there is a clear error of law, newly discovered evidence, an intervening change in controlling law, or to prevent manifest injustice. GenCorp. Inc. v. Am. Int'l Underwriters, 178 F.3d 804, 834 (6th Cir. 1999). The movant may not use Rule 59 to re-argue the case or to present evidence that should have been before the court at the time judgment entered. See Roger Miller Music. Inc., v. Sony/ATV Publ'g, LLC, 477 F.3d 383, 395(6th Cir. 2007) (collecting cases). Botello v. Tenn. Dep't of Corr., No. 3:18-cv-00549, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135352 at *2, (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 10, 2018). Moreover, “[a] motion under Rule 59(e) is not an opportunity to reargue a case.” Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians v. Engler, 146 F.3d 367, 374 (6th Cir. 1998). Rule 59 motions are not to be used to raise or make arguments “which could, and should, have been made before judgment issues.” Id.; see also FDIC v. World University, Inc., 978 F.2d 10, 16 (1st Cir. 1992) (“Rule 59(e) motions are aimed at reconsideration, not initial consideration.”) (emphasis in original) (internal quotations omitted). Due to the narrow purposes of the motion, the judicial system's interest in the finality of judgments, and the conservation of judicial resources, Rule 59(e) motions “typically are denied.” Miller v. Bell, 655 F. Supp. 2d 838, 844 (E.D. Tenn 2009), citing Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure: Civil 2d § 2810.1 at 128 (internal quotations omitted). Motions under Rule 59 must be filed no later than 28 days after the entry of judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Plaintiffs filed their Motion within 28 days after entry of judgment; thus, the Motion is timely under Rule 59. The Court has considered Plaintiffs' arguments and has reviewed all relevant material in the record. Plaintiffs do not articulate the Rule 59(e) standard or attempt to tie their arguments to it. See Docket Nos. 232, 233, 252. They do not contend that the Court made a clear error of law, that there has been a change in controlling law, or that there is newly discovered evidence.[2] Id. Instead, Plaintiffs insist that 1) the Court misunderstands the Parties' E-Discovery Protocol; and 2) the Court is wrong in its determination that 2011 and 2012 Request Files, Response Files, and Usage Reports are not relevant discovery that would be proportional to the needs of this case. Id. The Court will construe Plaintiffs' characterization of its Order as “grossly unfair” as an argument that the judgment should be altered or amended to prevent manifest injustice. Docket No. 233, p. 2. In response to Plaintiffs' first assertion, the Court understands the paragraph of the Stipulated E-Discovery Protocol titled “Time Constraints” to refer to time constraints governing the Parties' e-discovery. Docket No. 93-1, p. 5. Despite discussing “each custodian's ESI,” clearly the purpose of the paragraph is to impose some temporal limitations on the universe of searchable and producible documents, without which ESI-intensive cases tend to spiral well beyond the bounds of proportionality. It is exactly this type of spiraling that the revisions to Rule 26 were intended to address.[3] See 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) (“[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 ....”). The Court laid out the Rule 26 proportionality factors in its previous Order. Docket No. 227, p. 3. The Court's statement at the Parties' October 24, 2018 hearing that responsive documents should be produced, whether custodial or noncustodial, in no way addressed the time constraints placed on ESI searches by the Parties' Protocol. Indeed, this statement is better understood as the Court asserting a lack of distinction between custodial and noncustodial documents in the context of urging the Parties to both comply with the Protocol and cooperate in discovery. *3 Even if the Protocol's time constraints could be understood to refer only to custodial documents, it would not change the outcome of the Court's prior ruling, which is that Plaintiffs have not demonstrated, for the specific documents sought from 2011 and 2012, relevance in light of the applicable proportionality factors. Docket No. 227, p. 2-6. Plaintiffs' second argument is that “the 2011 and 2012 data files are fundamental information necessary to rebut any alleged compulsory license Spotify argues it obtained in 2011 or 2012.” Docket No. 233, p. 6 (capitalization modified). While Plaintiffs contend that the Court “ignores the fundamental importance of this information to these cases,” the Court did indeed consider Plaintiffs' original arguments, and credits Plaintiffs' assertion that they believe this information to be fundamentally important. Nevertheless, after considering all of Plaintiffs' arguments, the Court found that Plaintiffs did not make the requisite showing of relevance with regard to these documents. Docket No. 227, p. 5. As previously explained in the Court's Order, “Plaintiffs have not articulated why evidence (if it existed) that Spotify streamed the works-in-suit prior to the period covered by the applicable statute of limitations would be relevant.”[4] Id. In their Motion to Compel, Plaintiffs argued that: Spotify did not object to the time frame of Plaintiffs' applicable Requests for Production; that their Requests should not be limited by the statute of limitations; that Plaintiffs never agreed to limit discovery of data files to 2013-2017; and that the documents sought are relevant because “they will provide threshold information to Plaintiffs' claims as defenses such as ‘when Spotify first reproduced, distributed, and/or made available for streaming and/or limited download on Spotify.’ ” Docket No. 179, p. 2-6; Docket No. 202, p. 3-6. The Court considered these arguments and reached the conclusion that Plaintiffs had not made the requisite showing of relevance in light of proportionality factors. Docket No. 227, p. 2-5. Plaintiffs have not pointed to any clear error of law, change in controlling law, or newly discovered evidence that would prompt the Court to reconsider its conclusion. The remainder of Plaintiffs' arguments in the Motion for Reconsideration were not included in their Motion to compel, and therefore do not provide a proper basis for altering or amending the Court's Order. Engler, 146 F.3d at 374; Al-Sadoon v. FISI*Madison Fin. Corp., 188 F. Supp. 2d 899, 902-03 (M.D. Tenn. 2002). Finally, Plaintiffs make an implied argument that the Court's order must be altered or amended to prevent a manifest injustice. Docket No. 233, p. 2. Regarding the meaning of the term “manifest injustice,” it has been noted that: There is no judicial consensus ... but several courts have applied the Black's Law Dictionary definition, which states that “manifest injustice” is an error in the trial court that is direct, obvious, and observable ... A party may only be granted reconsideration based on manifest injustice if the error is apparent to the point of being indisputable. In order for a court to reconsider a decision due to “manifest injustice,” the record presented must be so patently unfair and tainted that the error is manifestly clear to all who view it. Block v. Meharry Med. Coll., Case No. 3:15-cv-00204, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58289 at *2-3, quoting In re Roemmele, 466 B.R. 706, 712 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. Mar. 14 2012) (internal quotations omitted). Although Plaintiffs do not discuss the manifest injustice standard, they do assert that “[w]ithout modification, the Order [Docket No. 227] may result in Spotify being able to attempt to produce evidence from 2011 and 2012 purporting to show it had a compulsory license while preventing Plaintiffs with [sic] the ability to show that any such alleged compulsory license was ineffective because it was generated after the applicable composition began streaming on Spotify.” Docket No. 233, p. 2-3 (footnote omitted). This concern appears to be the root of Plaintiffs' request that, if the Court does not alter or amend its previous Order, it should issue an order prohibiting Spotify from offering evidence in an attempt to establish that it had a compulsory license or issued a Notice of Intention (“NOI”) in 2011 or 2012. Id. at 9-10. Plaintiffs argue that allowing Spotify to offer such evidence “would be absolutely unjust.” Id. at 10. *4 Plaintiffs' concerns about this potential unfairness are thus not directed to the Court's prior Order, which simply found that a certain category of documents fail to meet the standards of relevancy and proportionality required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Docket No. 227, p. 2-5. Instead, Plaintiffs argue that it would be unfair to allow Spotify to offer certain evidence from 2011 and 2012 when they themselves do not have access to other documents from that time period. Docket No. 233, p. 9-10; Docket No. 252, p. 2. Plaintiffs make their position clear by asking for the supplemental order as an alternative to a modification of the Court's prior Order; they believe the one would obviate the perceived harm of the other. Docket No. 233, p. 9-10. The Court's prior Order, however, is not the source of this perceived harm or unfairness; rather Plaintiffs fear a future harm that might occur at trial or at the dispositive motion stage if Spotify is allowed to offer such evidence. A motion to alter or amend this Court's prior discovery order is not the proper vehicle to address such concerns, nor does this Court have the authority to address these issues. Instead, the matter can be raised, if necessary, with the District Court in the context of dispositive motions or trial. III. CONCLUSION For the reasons discussed above, the Court finds no clear error of law, no newly discovered evidence, and no intervening change in controlling law that would justify the granting of Plaintiffs' motion to alter or amend judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Nor do the concerns raised by Plaintiffs require the Court to alter or amend its previous decision to prevent manifest injustice. This Motion is not the appropriate vehicle to seek an order barring Spotify from offering a category of evidence in dispositive motions or at trial. Plaintiffs' “Motion for Reconsideration Regarding 2011 and 2012 Data Files, or in the Alternative, for a Supplemental Order Barring Spotify From Introducing Compulsory License Evidence From 2011 and 2012, and Request for Emergency Hearing” is therefore DENIED. IT IS SO ORDERED. Footnotes [1] Despite titling their Motion as a “Motion for Reconsideration,” Plaintiffs state that they are proceeding “pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54, 59, and/or 60 ....” Docket No. 233, p. 2. [2] Plaintiffs do assert that on the day that the Court's Order issued, Spotify attempted to “use 2011/2012 evidence to show that it may have a license for compositions at issue in this case” in the context of a deposition. Docket No. 252, p. 3. This does not constitute newly discovered evidence bearing on the issues that the Court considered in issuing its Order. [3] In addressing the ESI Protocol in their Motion to Compel, Plaintiffs quoted the paragraph as follows: ‘ “Time Constraints. ‘if the search or other discovery reveals the need to conduct a search prior to five (5) years before the filing of the original Complaint, the parties shall negotiate in good faith to agree upon a proper time period for any necessary searches for ESI prior to the filing of the original Complaint.’ ” Docket No. 202, p. 4, n.2. Plaintiffs omitted language referring to custodial or noncustodial documents, raising the issue for the first time in their Motion for Reconsideration. [4] Plaintiffs assert that “[t]here is no dispute that the 2011 and 2012 Data Files exist and can be easily produced by Spotify.” Docket No. 233, p. 6, n.4. The Court does not suggest that 2011 and 2012 Data Files do or do not exist, but rather, that such files may or may not constitute evidence that Spotify streamed the works-in-suit during those years.