{"id":50690,"date":"2025-11-03T05:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T05:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/03\/lawsuit-against-spotify-calls-billions-of-drake-streams-fraudulent\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T05:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T05:41:14","slug":"lawsuit-against-spotify-calls-billions-of-drake-streams-fraudulent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/03\/lawsuit-against-spotify-calls-billions-of-drake-streams-fraudulent\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Against Spotify Calls \u2018Billions\u2019 of Drake Streams \u2018Fraudulent\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tA new class action lawsuit against Spotify<\/a> alleges the company has \u201cturned a blind eye\u201d to \u201cmass-scale fraudulent streaming\u201d on its platform and that one musician in particular has been the beneficiary of \u201cbillions\u201d of fake streams: Drake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe suit was filed in California District Court on Sunday night with rapper (and cousin of Snoop Dogg<\/a>) RBX named as the lead plaintiff. While the most eye-popping allegations in the suit relate to Drake\u2019s streaming numbers, there are no specific accusations of wrongdoing against the \u201cNokia\u201d rapper. Only Spotify is named as a defendant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery month, under Spotify\u2019s watchful eye, billions of fraudulent streams are generated from fake, illegitimate, and\/or illegal methods,\u201d like bots, the lawsuit states. Such \u201cmass scale\u201d streaming fraud, it continues, \u201ccauses massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers, and other rightsholders.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tStreaming royalties are paid out through a \u201cstreamshare\u201d model, where subscription and ad dollars are put into a giant pool, with the money divvied up based on each artist\u2019s share of the total streams. Most of that money already flows upstream to the most successful artists and biggest rights holders. In this type of shared-pool model, fake streams hurt other artists whose shares aren\u2019t inflated. (Spotify and representatives for Drake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the lawsuit suggests that use of bots is widespread on Spotify, the only example it cites pertains to Drake. It claims \u201cvoluminous information\u201d which Spotify \u201cknows or should know\u201d proves that a \u201csubstantial, non-trivial percentage\u201d of Drake\u2019s approximately 37 billion streams were \u201cinauthentic and appeared to be the work of a sprawling network of Bot Accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis allegedly fraudulent activity took place between January 2022 and September 2025, according to the complaint. It claims an examination of Drake\u2019s streams revealed \u201cabnormal VPN usage\u201d had obscured the location of the bot accounts streaming Drake\u2019s songs. For instance, the lawsuit claims that over a four-day period in 2024, at least 250,000 streams of his song \u201cNo Face\u201d originated in Turkey \u201cbut were falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in [an] attempt to obscure their origins.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit also alleges that \u201ca large percentage\u201d of accounts streaming Drake\u2019s music were \u201cgeographically concentrated around areas whose population could not support\u201d such a high volume of streams. No exact places or numbers were given, though the suit claimed that some streams reportedly originated in areas with \u201czero residential addresses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit also cites \u201csignificant and irregular uptick months\u201d for Drake\u2019s songs long after they\u2019ve been released, as well as \u201cslower and less dramatic\u201d decay rates for Drake\u2019s music compared to his contemporaries. (Decay rate refers to a typical streaming pattern where plays of an album or song naturally dwindle in the weeks and months after release.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit further claims that \u201cthe number of streams of Drake\u2019s music attributable to individual accounts is staggering and irregular,\u201d with a \u201cmassive amount of accounts listening to Drake\u2019s music\u201d doing so \u201c23 hours a day.\u201d Less than two percent of these users, the lawsuit goes on to claim, account for \u201croughly 15 percent\u201d of Drake\u2019s streams; and about about nine percent of Drake\u2019s streams \u201care attributable to less than one percent\u201d of these users.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a result,\u201d the complaint claims, \u201cDrake\u2019s music accumulated far higher total streams compared to other highly streamed artists, even though those artists had far more \u2018users\u2019 than Drake.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit does not state how the plaintiffs, or their lawyers, obtained this data, nor does it shed any light on how the analysis of Drake\u2019s streaming numbers was conducted.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese allegedly fraudulent streams \u201cgenerated significant revenues\u201d for Drake and his company Frozen Moments, at the expense of other artists, the lawsuit claims. But it also states that Spotify \u201cdeliberately turns a blind eye to fraudulent streaming\u201d for its own benefit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Spotify has taken steps in recent years to combat and tamp down streaming fraud, the lawsuit casts doubt on the efficacy of these measures and Spotify\u2019s own incentives to stop fraud. It suggests that Spotify is particularly vulnerable to bots on the platform\u2019s ad-supported free tier because myriad accounts can be generated without handing over a credit card number. By allegedly allowing bots to run rampant, Spotify can present high stream and user activity numbers to potential advertisers, the lawsuit alleges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor Spotify, more users and music streams means more advertising dollars, so long as the true origin of the streams remains hidden,\u201d the lawsuit states. (Spotify also loses money in the form of royalty payouts whenever fraudulent streaming occurs.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cArtists across the streaming industry need accurate reporting of streams and effective fraud detection to ensure fair compensation. When streams are artificially inflated on a large scale \u2013 as my client\u2019s lawsuit alleges has happened with respect to streams of Drake\u2019s music\u00a0\u2013 it affects the income of countless songwriters, performers, and producers,\u201d Mark Pifko, one of the lawyers with Baron and Budd, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of RBX, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cThe lawsuit seeks to address these broader issues, recoup losses for affected musicians, and make the streaming ecosystem as fair and transparent as possible for everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new lawsuit \u2014 and the claims regarding Drake\u2019s music \u2014 notably come just weeks after a judge tossed Drake\u2019s lawsuit <\/a>against Universal Music Group, which contained its own allegations of streaming fraud. Though technically a defamation case, Drake accused his own record label UMG of artificially inflating the popularity of Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d marking arguably the most high-profile allegation of streaming fraud to date. UMG denied all of Drake\u2019s allegations and the streaming fraud claims specifically, writing in a March legal filing, \u201cThere is no evidence of any such stream manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStreaming fraud has been a topic of discussion in the industry for years. While pinpointing just how rampant it is \u2014 and calculating corresponding losses \u2014 is difficult, most estimates hover in the range of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. A 2019 Rolling Stone <\/em>report<\/a> noted that fake streams could be costing artists $300 million a year. A 2023 study<\/a> in France found that between one and three percent of all streams in the country were fake. If those numbers held true globally, that would mean royalty losses up to $510 million. Last year, Beatdapp, a streaming fraud detection program, estimated<\/a> that at least 10 percent of all streams are fraudulent, leading to annual losses of $2 to $3 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEfforts to crack down on streaming fraud have ramped up around the world. A Danish man was convicted<\/a> last year, while another individual was arrested<\/a> in Brazil back in March. Over the summer, officials in Turkey \u2014 where the lawsuit says some of the allegedly fraudulent Drake streams originated \u2014 started investigating<\/a> Spotify over several allegations, including bribes for playlist placement and bot streams distorting domestic charts. (A rep for Spotify told Music Business Worldwide<\/em><\/a> <\/em>at the time that they are \u201ccooperating with the investigation, are actively seeking to understand it, and will work toward a swift, constructive resolution with the Turkish Competition Authority.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd in the U.S., federal prosecutors brought an unprecedented streaming fraud indictment<\/a> last September against a North Carolina musician named Michael Smith. Smith is accused of using artificial intelligence to generate hundreds of thousands of songs, which he then allegedly streamed with bots. The feds claim that, at one point, Smith had as many as 10,000 active bot accounts streaming his music, and allegedly made over $10 million from this scheme. (Smith has denied the charges.)<\/p>\n

\n\tDrake filed his first legal claims over \u201cNot Like Us\u201d just two months after Smith was arrested and indicted, and the official defamation suit was brought in January of this year. The streaming fraud allegations against UMG were based on statements from a purported anonymous whistleblower, who appeared on a show by DJ Akademiks, the popular streamer and longtime Drake associate. As stated in Drake\u2019s lawsuit, the whistleblower claimed that Lamar\u2019s label, Insterscope (a UMG subsidiary), paid him $2,500 \u201cvia third parties\u201d to \u201cuse \u2018bots\u2019 to achieve 30 million streams on Spotify in the initial days following\u201d the release of \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d Per the suit, the whistleblower said the goal was \u201cjumpstarting\u201d the song\u2019s spread and making it \u201ca crazy hit\u201d on the platform.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG, in a motion to dismiss, noted the whistleblower \u201cdirectly refuted\u201d his own claim when he said that he was hired by Lamar\u2019s manager, Anthony Saleh. In a revised complaint filed in April, Drake pared down his allegation, claiming \u201cUMG was aware that third parties were using bots to stream the Recording and turned a blind eye, despite having the power to stop such behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe original suit also alleged that UMG \u201cconferred financial benefits\u201d to Apple so that Siri would \u201cpurposely misdirect users to\u201d \u201cNot Like Us\u201d when they asked it to play Drake\u2019s album, Certified Lover Boy<\/em>. This claim was sourced<\/a> partly to a viral video posted by HipHopDX<\/em>\u2019s Jeremy Hecht, who later clarified<\/a> that Siri appeared capable of pulling up songs based on just lyrics it recognized. Thus, asking Siri to play Certified Lover Boy<\/em> \u2014 without specifying \u201cby Drake\u201d \u2014 could conceivably trigger \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d because of Lamar\u2019s line, \u201cCertified loverboy? Certified pedophiles.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEven before Drake filed his defamation lawsuit, many legal experts and industry figures were skeptical of his allegations and their viability in court. Speaking with Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a> <\/em>last year about the petition, Brian Zisook, co-founder of the streaming service Audiomack, even suggested Drake might regret asking Universal to provide documentation of artificial streaming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s likely that a lot of artists, Drake included, have benefited [from streaming bots] without their knowledge,\u201d he said. Zisook also noted that many top artists have labels and distribution partners who have \u201copted into above-board programs like Discovery Mode and have artificially manipulated streams, and the artist has no idea. And they don\u2019t ask questions because it looks good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Drake\u2019s suit faltered. A judge summarily dismissed the suit\u2019s defamation accusations, ruling that \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d as a diss track, qualified as \u201cnonactionable opinion.\u201d And while the judge\u2019s decision largely centered on the validity of Drake\u2019s defamation claims \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 she also briefly addressed his streaming fraud allegations. She said Drake\u2019s evidence essentially amounts to \u201cTweets by individual users and reporting from fans,\u201d and called his \u201creliance on online comments and reporting insufficient to meet the plausibility standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe proposed class action filed Sunday claims damages in excess of $5 million. It\u2019s asking that a federal judge certify the lawsuit as a class action, order Spotify to identify alleged victims, and oversee a jury trial seeking compensatory and punitive damages.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tRBX, born Eric Dwayne Collins, helped author Dr. Dre<\/a>\u2019s West Coast anthem \u201cLet Me Ride\u201d and was featured on several tracks for Dre\u2019s seminal album The Chronic<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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