Overview
- The 28-page federal complaint, filed Nov. 2 in the Central District of California, seeks damages, restitution, injunctive relief, and a jury trial on behalf of artists, songwriters, producers, and other rightsholders.
- RBX alleges that from January 2022 to September 2025 bots and VPN-masked accounts generated billions of inauthentic plays benefiting Drake’s catalog, citing patterns like round-the-clock listening and nonresidential geographies.
- One example in the filing claims at least 250,000 plays of Drake’s track “No Face” over four days in 2024 originated in Turkey but were routed to appear as U.K. streams, with concentrated user clusters allegedly driving a disproportionate share of totals.
- The suit argues Spotify’s pro‑rata royalty model lets inflated streams divert money from other creators, estimating losses to legitimate rightsholders in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Spotify denies benefiting from artificial streaming and highlights anti‑fraud measures including removing fake plays, withholding royalties, and penalties, noting a 2024 case where just $60,000 of a $10 million fraud touched its platform.