Key Highlights
- A new class action lawsuit against Spotify accuses the platform of allowing “mass-scale fraudulent streaming” and benefiting from it.
- The lawsuit specifically mentions that billions of streams by Drake may be inauthentic, citing irregularities such as abnormal usage of virtual private networks (VPNs).
- Spotify disputes the allegations, stating they have robust systems to combat artificial streaming but does not deny turning a blind eye to some fraudulent activities.
- The case comes weeks after Drake’s own defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group was dismissed by a judge.
A New Wave of Allegations Against Spotify: A Class Action Suit Involving Drake and Billions in Fake Streams
On November 3, 2025, a new class action lawsuit was filed against Spotify in California District Court. The suit accuses the streaming platform of “turning a blind eye” to mass-scale fraudulent streaming on its platform. One artist, particularly Drake (cousin of Snoop Dogg), is highlighted as having benefited from billions of fake streams.
Drake’s Alleged Inauthentic Streams
The lawsuit claims that “voluminous information” known to Spotify indicates a “substantial, non-trivial percentage” of Drake’s approximately 37 billion streams are inauthentic and generated by bot accounts. For instance, it cites an incident where at least 250,000 streams of his song “No Face” originated in Turkey but were falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to the United Kingdom in an attempt to obscure their origins.
The lawsuit also alleges that a significant percentage of accounts streaming Drake’s music are geographically concentrated around areas whose populations could not support such high volumes of streams. Some streams reportedly originated from areas with “zero residential addresses.”
Spotify’s Response and Broader Implications
A spokesperson for Spotify stated, “We cannot comment on pending litigation. However, Spotify in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming.” The company asserts that they heavily invest in systems to combat fraud, including removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties.
Spotify further claims, “Our systems are working: In a case from last year, one bad actor was indicted for stealing $10 million 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 company also noted that they are cooperating with Turkish officials in an investigation into allegations of bot streams distorting domestic charts.
The lawsuit suggests that Spotify may be particularly vulnerable to bots on its ad-supported free tier because it can generate high stream and user activity numbers without requiring credit card information from users. By allowing this, Spotify can present these inflated figures to potential advertisers.
Broader Industry Context
This case comes weeks after Drake filed his own lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), which contained its own allegations of streaming fraud. The original suit claimed that UMG was aware that third parties were using bots to stream Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us” and turned a blind eye, despite having the power to stop such behavior.
According to Mark Pifko, one of the lawyers with Baron and Budd who filed the lawsuit on behalf of RBX (Eric Dwayne Collins), “Artists across the streaming industry need accurate reporting of streams and effective fraud detection to ensure fair compensation. When streams are artificially inflated on a large scale – as my client’s lawsuit alleges has happened with respect to streams of Drake’s music – it affects the income of countless songwriters, performers, and producers.”
The issue of streaming fraud has been discussed in the industry for years. While pinpointing just how rampant it is — and calculating corresponding losses — remains difficult, most estimates hover in the range of hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.
