Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Claiming Spotify Allowed Billions of Fake Streams of Drake’s Music

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Courts and Crime

The lawsuit was filed by Snoop Dogg's cousin RBX as a class action

A lawsuit accusing streaming giant Spotify of “turning a blind eye” to billions of allegedly fraudulent streams of Drake’s music has been permanently dismissed.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, first reported by Rolling Stone last November, was rejected Friday after a judge found that rapper RBX, the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit, failed to establish that Spotify owed him a specific legal duty or that he suffered the type of harm necessary to support a negligence claim.

In a 16-page ruling obtained by Rolling Stone, U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton said that RBX, whose legal name is Eric Dwayne Collins, failed to allege sufficient facts to support his claims that Spotify unfairly enforced its rules, committed fraud, or harmed consumers or competitors.

“Although plaintiff may have less power in the music industry as compared to Spotify, that does not mean his relationship with Spotify is characterized by any protection Spotify gives to plaintiff,” Staton wrote. She said the allegations instead showed a “mutually beneficial economic” relationship, despite a power imbalance typical of dealings between corporations and individuals.

Collins, a cousin of Snoop Dogg, alleged in his complaint that a “substantial, non-trivial percentage” of Drake’s approximately 37 billion streams were “inauthentic and appeared to be the work of a sprawling network of bot accounts.” Collins claimed Spotify’s royalty system allows fake streams to siphon money away from legitimate artists. Under the platform’s “streamshare” model, subscription and advertising revenue forms a pool of money that’s later distributed to artists based on their share of total streams. Collins argued that artificially inflated streams allow some artists to claim a disproportionate slice of the pie, thereby reducing the amount available to artists whose streams are legitimate.

Drake was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. A representative for the “Nokia” rapper declined to comment Monday on the dismissal. Lawyers for Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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“We are reviewing the order, but an appeal is likely,” Mark Pifko, one of the lead attorneys for Collins, tells Rolling Stone.

Staton previously dismissed the lawsuit but gave Collins an opportunity to amend his complaint. This time, she dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning Collins cannot refile the same claims in federal court. “After granting leave to amend once, and considering the additional facts alleged in the [first amended complaint], the court has found no reason to depart from its prior conclusions,” Staton wrote.

The latest ruling comes three months after a federal judge in Virginia paused a separate lawsuit accusing Drake, whose legal name is Aubrey Graham, and streamer Adin Ross of using the online casino platform Stake.us to bankroll a “bot army” that allegedly inflated streams of Drake’s music. The judge stayed the case on July 30, saying it would remain on ice pending arbitration between Stake and the plaintiffs.