Spotify Sued Over Alleged Billions of Fraudulent Drake Streams

A class-action lawsuit filed in California District Court claims Spotify has "turned a blind eye" to "mass-scale fraudulent streaming," potentially involving billions of streams for artist Drake. Rapper RBX, a collaborator with Dr. Dre and cousin to Snoop Dogg, is leading the suit, alleging that Spotify's inaction has siphoned royalties from legitimate artists. The legal action underscores persistent concerns within the music industry regarding the integrity of streaming data.

The lawsuit, filed by Eric Collins (RBX), specifically contends that a "large percentage" of accounts streaming Drake’s music were geographically concentrated in areas that could not support such high volumes. It further alleges that some streams originated from locations with zero residential addresses, and that "abnormal VPN usage" was employed to obscure origins, citing an instance of 250,000 streams of Drake's "No Face" falsely geomapped to the UK from Turkey. While the claims highlight Drake’s streaming numbers, the lawsuit does not accuse Drake of wrongdoing, naming only Spotify as the defendant.

Spotify operates on a pro rata model, where royalties are distributed based on an artist's share of total platform streams. The lawsuit argues that fraudulent streams unfairly inflate certain artists' numbers, thereby reducing the royalty pool available for legitimate streams and impacting other artists' earnings. The complaint estimates that "the amount of streaming revenue that would otherwise have been distributed to legitimate Rights Holders but for the fraudulent boosting of Drake’s music is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars."

In response to similar industry-wide challenges, Spotify stated, "We cannot comment on pending litigation. However, Spotify in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming." A spokesperson added that the company "heavily invest[s] 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 company maintains its systems are effective in limiting the impact of artificial streaming.

This legal battle highlights the ongoing struggle to ensure fairness and transparency in the digital music economy. The outcome could set important precedents for how streaming services monitor and report metrics, potentially leading to stronger fraud detection measures and more equitable royalty distribution across the industry. The case is expected to draw significant attention from artists, labels, and other streaming platforms grappling with the complexities of digital stream authenticity.