A new lawsuit has been filed alleging that the number of streams Drake has on Spotify has been artificially inflated.
The class action lawsuit against Spotify was filed over the weekend (Sunday November 2) at California’s District Court. In it, the streaming giant is accused of having “mass-scale fraudulent streaming” that it “turned a blind eye” to.
Details about the case were shared by Rolling Stone, and it is widely reported that the lawsuit was Snoop Dogg’s cousin RBX as the lead plaintiff.
In the filing, it is alleged that of Drake’s 37 billion streams, “a substantial, non-trivial percentage [are] inauthentic and appear to be the work of a sprawling network of Bot Accounts.”
“Every month, under Spotify’s watchful eye, billions of fraudulent streams are generated from fake, illegitimate, and/or illegal methods. [This is fraud that] causes massive financial harm to legitimate artists, songwriters, producers, and other rights holders.”
“For Spotify, more users and music streams means more advertising dollars, so long as the true origin of the streams remains hidden…” it adds, although it is worth highlighting that more streams would also mean more payouts required from the streaming platform.
It is worth noting that while Drake is the only artist named in regard to the alleged fake streams, he is not being sued.
Rather, the only defendant in the case is Spotify, and if the company were actively counting streams it knows to be fake, would be issuing larger payouts to some artists at the expense of others (as per Stereogum).
The class action suit is based on an examination of Drake’s streams between January 2022 and September 2025. The case alleges that the findings showed “abnormal VPN usage” – including 250,000 streams of Drake’s ‘No Face’ in 2024 that originated in Turkey but “were falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in attempt to obscure their origins.”
Speaking out in response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Spotify pointed out the company’s information page and it’s comments about artificial streaming.
They also told Rolling Stone: “We cannot comment on pending litigation. 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,” the spokesperson added. “Our systems are working: In a case from last year, one bad actor was indicted for stealing $10million 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.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that a representative for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment, and the Canadian rapper has still not spoken out publicly about the lawsuit against Spotify nor the claims about his streams.
In other Drake news, the rapper made history this summer by headlining all three nights of this year’s Wireless Festival in London, playing different sets each night. NME’s Kyann-Sian Williams gave the series of shows a three-star review and described it as “expertly curated, but [lacking] conviction”.
“For all the scale and all the stats – most Billboard Number Ones, most streamed rapper ever, the fastest-selling Wireless edition in history – this should’ve been Drake’s victory lap, reminding us why he earned all his success,” the review read. “Instead, it feels like a man floating above his own myth, still chasing the love he’s already received. The Boy became a man, sure – but Drake’s record-breaking Wireless residency feels like he’s yet to grow up.”
The post New lawsuit alleges that Spotify ignores billions of fraudulent streams of Drake’s music appeared first on NME.
