Grand opening. Grand closing. Spotify has secured a legal win after a federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit that accused the streaming giant of allowing massive amounts of artificial streaming activity on its platform.
The case, originally filed in November 2025 by rapper Eric Collins, better known as RBX, alleged that Spotify benefited from fraudulent streaming practices involving some of the platform’s biggest artists. Central to the complaint was the claim that Drake’s catalog had received an enormous volume of illegitimate plays generated by bots.
Although Drake was frequently referenced throughout the lawsuit, the Toronto superstar was never named as a defendant in the case. Instead, the allegations focused on Spotify and its handling of streaming activity across the platform.
Read that again. Drake was not named as a defendant.
In court filings, RBX’s legal team pointed directly to Drake while outlining their claims, writing, “Billions of fraudulent streams have been generated with respect to songs of ‘the most streamed artist of all time,’ Aubrey Drake Graham, professionally known as Drake.”
The lawsuit alleged that as many as 37 billion streams tied to Drake’s music were artificially generated. However, the case never advanced to the discovery phase, and no exhibits were submitted to substantiate the allegations made in the complaint.
With the judge dismissing the lawsuit, Spotify emerges with a significant courtroom victory. The ruling ends the current version of the case, though it may not be the final chapter. RBX has been granted 21 days to submit an amended complaint if he chooses to pursue the matter further.
The dismissal arrives as streaming platforms continue to face scrutiny from artists, executives, and industry observers over issues ranging from royalty payments to stream manipulation. Questions about artificial streaming have become a recurring topic throughout the music business as platforms work to identify and remove fraudulent activity.
For now, though, the court’s decision represents a favorable outcome for Spotify. The claims regarding billions of botted Drake streams remain unproven in court, and the company leaves this round of litigation with the case dismissed before any evidence was formally presented.
