A US federal judge has permanently dismissed RBX’s lawsuit alleging that Spotify failed to address fraudulent streams, potentially reducing royalties for other music rightsholders. The judge found that the revised complaint did not establish a valid legal claim.
RBX, whose real name is Eric Dwayne Collins, filed the proposed class action in November 2025 on behalf of US rightsholders with music on Spotify. Drake was the central example in the allegations, but he was not named as a defendant.
Spotify pools subscription and advertising revenue each month in each market and distributes it according to tracks’ shares of streams. RBX argued that artificially increasing one artist’s streams reduces other rightsholders’ shares of royalties.
Judge Josephine Staton dismissed the original complaint on June 22, finding that RBX had not established that Spotify owed artists a legal duty to protect them from third-party bots or had violated California’s Unfair Competition Law.
In an amended complaint filed July 13, RBX alleged that a “substantial, non-trivial percentage” of Drake’s approximately 37 billion Spotify streams over 48 months came from bots. The complaint estimated that the alleged fraud diverted at least $600 million in royalties from music rightsholders. It also alleged that Spotify penalized smaller artists under its anti-fraud policies while allowing alleged artificial streaming involving major artists to continue.
On October 23, Staton dismissed the amended case with prejudice. She found insufficient evidence that Spotify’s statements about its anti-fraud measures were deceptive and ruled that another amendment would be futile. The ruling did not determine whether Drake’s streams were fraudulent.
