A new Spotify lawsuit claims Drake has “billions” of fake streams

Fraudulent streaming that’s become prevalent on the platform is causing “massive harm” to legitimate artists, the new class-action lawsuit claims.

A new class-action lawsuit against Spotify has named Drake as an example of how bot-farming and fake streams have infiltrated the streaming platform causing “massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers, and other rightsholders,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit was filed in California District Court on Sunday evening (November 2), by rapper RBX, a cousin of Snoop Dogg, who listed himself as the lead plaintiff. Though Drake is mentioned in the lawsuit, only Spotify is named as the defendant.

The lawsuit alleges that between January 2022 and September 2025, “a substantial, non-trivial percentage of Drake’s ~37,000,000,000 streams on Spotify during that timeframe were inauthentic and appeared to be the work of a sprawling network of Bot Accounts,” the filing states. Spotify, the lawsuit continues, is “all too happy to turn a blind eye” to the massive amount of streaming fraud that’s now present on the platform that’s taking revenue away from smaller artists with legitimate streams and activity. A representative for Drake did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Spotify’s payout structure works more like a pooled system, where earnings are doled out to artists based off of the percentage they make up in the wider streaming marketplace. If an artist like Drake is having his or her streams being inflated by bots or other illegal means, they would get an inflated payout for their streams, money would have been allocated to other artists.

“We cannot comment on pending litigation. However, Spotify in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming. We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties. Our systems are working: In a case from last year, one bad actor was indicted for stealing $10,000,000 from streaming services, only $60,000 of which came from Spotify, proving how effective we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on our platform. For more information about artificial streaming, how artists can avoid it, and what Spotify is doing to tackle the issue, please visit https://artists.spotify.com/artificial-streaming.”

In response to the lawsuit, a Spotify representative said in a statement to The FADER that Spotify “in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming. We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties.”

The rep added that a 2024 case involving a “bad actor” that was “indicted for stealing $10,000,000 from streaming services” was only able to steal $60,000 from Spotify, “proving how effective we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.”

In a statement to The FADER, Mark Pifko of Baron & Budd, the legal team representing RBX against Spotify, writes that the lawsuit brings attention to the precarious way Spotify’s royalty payments are calculated: “If someone cheats the system, fraudulently inflating their streams, it takes from everyone else.”

“Not everyone who makes a living in the music business is a household name like Taylor Swift,” Pifko continues. “There are thousands of songwriters, performers, and producers who earn revenue from music streaming who you’ve never heard of. These people are the backbone of the music business and this case is about them.”