A federal judge has ruled in favor of Spotify by dismissing a lawsuit that accused Spotify of turning a “blind eye” to “billions” of botted streams of major artists, including Drake.
As detailed in legal documents reviewed by Complex, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton dismissed the lawsuit on Monday (June 22), ruling that rapper RBX, whose legal name is Eric Collins, was not specific enough with his accusations in his initial filing.
"Plaintiff has failed to plausibly allege that the harm he has suffered outweighs any justification Spotify may have for maintaining its current policies regarding artificial streaming," Judge Staton wrote.
RBX filed the class action in 2025 on behalf of independent artists. The complaint alleged that Spotify's anti-fraud measures were "inadequate at best.”
The lawsuit also argued that fake users actually serve Spotify's financial interests, because royalties are paid from a percentage of Spotify’s revenue pool, and the company can serve advertisements to fake users.
"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 lawsuit alleged.
RBX's lawyers alleged 37 billion fraudulent streams of Drake's music, citing him as merely one of the artists who benefited the most from fake activity on the platform, although Drake wasn’t directly accused of facilitating such behavior and wasn’t named as a defendant.
Spotify’s motion to have the lawsuit dismissed was granted, citing a lack of evidence to show that the alleged bot activity is ongoing and impacts RBX’s potential income.
“Although plaintiff alleges that Spotify should be doing more, plaintiff does not identify the degree of financial impact artificial streaming has on artists like plaintiff,” Judge Staton wrote in the documents. “Plaintiff’s complaint focuses almost exclusively on the artificial streams of only one artist’s music, so the extent to which plaintiff is injured by artificial streaming as a whole is unclear.” The judge also said that Spotify hadn’t violated California’s Unfair Competition Law by preventing fake streams.
The case never reached the discovery phase. Spotify previously stated that it "in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming" and pointed to a 2024 North Carolina indictment involving a $10 million AI-powered fraud scheme, noting only $60,000 of those stolen funds came through Spotify. The company also said it has invested in systems to detect and remove fake streams on its platform.
RBX now has 21 days to file an amended complaint.
