Drake Botted Billions Of Streams? Breaking Down RBX’s Lawsuit Against Spotify Over Fraudulent Streams
The tables have seemingly turned on Drake and the Owl Gang after a brand new lawsuit alleged that Kendrick may not have been the one rapper within the Large 3 who used fraudulent streams. In what seems like fast karmic motion, Rolling Stone reported a brand new lawsuit in opposition to Spotify emerged this week, alleging that they’ve allowed “mass-scale fraudulent streaming” that artificially inflated Drake’s streams. And whereas Drake isn’t really a defendant, it comes on the heels of his lawsuit in opposition to UMG, which alleged that they had been instantly concerned with botting streams for Kendrick within the wake of their feud.
The lawsuit’s much more important as a result of it got here from West Coast pioneer, former Loss of life Row, and Snoop Dogg’s cousin, RBX, who appeared on each Doggystyle and The Continual throughout his time with the enduring West Coast label. And but, he’s managed to build up over 1,000,000 month-to-month Spotify listeners. It looks as if that determine largely is determined by his contributions to The Continual together with “Fuck With Dre Day” and “Let Me Trip.” Under is a breakdown of RBX’s lawsuit and why Drake’s identify is closely centered on this case.
Breaking Down The Lawsuit
The swimsuit accuses Spotify of negligently permitting “mass-scale fraudulent streaming” that has artificially inflated Drake’s streams, harming RBX and different unbiased artists, songwriters, and rightsholders. RBX, who boasts over 1,000,000 month-to-month Spotify listeners, seeks damages for misplaced royalties estimated within the a whole lot of tens of millions. He positioned the case as a struggle for {industry} fairness fairly than concentrating on Drake instantly–he has not commented, per Billboard. The criticism spans 45 pages and particulars how Spotify’s pro-rata royalty system distributes a set pool of funds based mostly on whole streams, that means pretend performs for one artist dilute payouts for all.
What Does Drake Have To Do With This: Core Allegations Of Fraud & Platform Negligence
Dec 1, 2021; Oklahoma Metropolis, Oklahoma, USA; Rapper, singer and actor Drake shakes palms with a fan in the course of the second half of an Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder recreation at Paycom Middle. Necessary Credit score: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports activities
The lawsuit facilities on claims that Spotify has “turned a blind eye” to billions of synthetic streams for Drake’s catalog from January 2022 to September 2025, throughout which he accrued about 37 billion performs, solidifying his spot as Spotify’s most-streamed artist with practically 81 million month-to-month listeners. RBX alleges these fakes—generated by way of bots, VPNs, and illicit accounts—account for a “substantial proportion” of the full, with fraudsters exploiting the platform’s lax detection to imitate natural engagement. “Each month, below Spotify’s watchful eye, billions of fraudulent streams are generated from pretend, illegitimate, and/or unlawful strategies,” the criticism states, arguing this boosts Spotify’s advert income and inventory worth by inflating person metrics with out aggressive intervention. The swimsuit additional claims Spotify income from the chaos: Faux streams create the looks of explosive progress, permitting extra advert gross sales, whereas the corporate allegedly underinvests in anti-fraud tech to maintain prices low.
Proof and Information Patterns Cited
RBX’s workforce submitted “voluminous data” together with stream analytics exhibiting pink flags, Rolling Stone reports. Key examples embrace over 250,000 streams of Drake’s 2024 single “No Face” rerouted by way of VPN from Turkey to the UK in a single day to dodge geographic filters. Different anomalies: Streams clustered in “geographic useless zones” with no residential addresses, and a tiny fraction—lower than 2%—of Drake’s listeners producing about 15% of his performs, which they declare is indicative of bot farms operating tracks for 23 hours every day. The criticism highlights how Drake’s numbers eclipse these of friends with comparable audiences, and that alone suggests orchestration, based on the swimsuit. This information, sourced from third-party analytics (although not publicly named), underscores Spotify’s alleged information, even when they prohibits fraud in its phrases. It must be famous that the lawsuit doesn’t declare that Drake or his workforce had been instantly concerned or contributed to those fraudulent practices, simply that he was allegedly a beneficiary of them.
Spotify’s Official Response and Counterarguments
Spotify responded swiftly on November 3, 2025, by way of a assertion: “We can not touch upon pending litigation. Nonetheless, Spotify under no circumstances advantages from the industry-wide problem of synthetic streaming.” The corporate touted its “best-in-class techniques” for fraud detection, together with stream elimination, royalty withholding, and penalties like account bans. To bolster its case, Spotify referenced a 2024 U.S. Division of Justice indictment of a $10 million streaming fraud ring, noting the perpetrators netted solely $60,000 from Spotify as proof of superior safeguards–far lower than its opponents. Critics within the swimsuit counter that bots evolve quickly with AI, outpacing Spotify’s instruments, and that the platform’s progress incentives prioritize quantity over verification.
Botting & Streaming Transparency
The music {industry}’s escalating alarm over botting has thrust transparency into the highlight, with estimates from fraud detection agency Beatdapp pegging as much as 10% of all streams as pretend, and because of this, siphoning billions in royalties from real creators yearly. This disaster peaked amid Drake’s November 2024 lawsuit in opposition to Common Music Group (UMG), the place he accused the label of defamation and misleading practices by aggressively selling Kendrick Lamar‘s diss observe “Not Like Us”—which branded Drake a pedophile—by way of alleged bots, paid influencers, and pay-for-play schemes to govern charts and streams. Although a New York federal court docket dismissed the swimsuit in October 2025, ruling the claims speculative and guarded as creative expression, it ignited a fierce broader dialogue on fraudulent practices, exposing the hypocrisy when a latest class-action in opposition to Spotify alleges billions of Drake’s personal streams had been bot-boosted. Artists and advocates now demand rigorous audits, user-centric royalties, and platform accountability to safeguard authenticity in a $28 billion streaming ecosystem.
