Spotify is being accused of allowing bots to fraudulently stream songs by superstar Drake.
Rapper RBX filed a federal class action lawsuit against the streaming platform Sunday, alleging they’ve ignored “billions of fradulent streams” created by fake users and bots on Drake’s songs from January 2022 through September 2025.
Spotify pays artists out of a pool based on their share of total monthly streams, so artificially boosting streams would unfairly increase one artist’s payout at the expense of others.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claims Spotify failed to prevent the bots from boosting streams for the Canadian rapper. Drake is one of the most popular artists on the music streaming platform, with over 80 million monthly listeners.
Drake, full name Aubrey Drake Graham, is not accused of wrongdoing in the suit, and Spotify is named as the only plaintiff.
“Every month, under Spotify’s watchful eye, billions of fraudulent streams are generated from fake, illegitimate, and/or illegal methods,” the suit, obtained by NBC News, alleges. It continues to say the alleged fraud “causes massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers, and other rightsholders.”
RBX, real name Eric Dwayne Collins, and his lawyers say Spotify allegedly turns a blind eye to the inflated numbers so the streaming giant can make more ad money.
“The more users (including fake users) Spotify has, the more advertisements it can sell, the more profits the company can report, all of which serves to increase the purported value delivered to shareholders,” the suit says.
The lawsuit goes on to claim that individual Spotify accounts listen to Drake’s music for “23 hours a day” and that some streams came from places with “zero residential addresses.” However, the filing reportedly did not include any specific places or numbers, and there was no explanation for how the data was collected.
While the suit suggests that bots are widely used on Spotify, Drake is the only example listed as benefiting from the alleged fake listeners.
“We cannot comment on pending litigation,” a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement.
“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.”
RBX alleges the fake streams have taken “hundreds of millions of dollars” from him and other artists, but the lawsuit does not say how much the plaintiffs are seeking in damages.
The rapper, 57, has over a million monthly listeners on Spotify, with his most popular songs being collaborations with his cousin, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre. RBX rose to fame decades ago and performed for rap label Death Row Records.
The lawsuit comes weeks after a judge tossed Drake’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group over its release of Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us.”
