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Spotify has responded after West Coast Hip-Hop veteran RBX<\/a> accused the platform of enabling billions of artificial Drake<\/a> streams in a class-action lawsuit that claims smaller artists lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to manipulated numbers.<\/p>\n RBX filed the 28-page complaint<\/a> in Los Angeles federal court on November 2, alleging that Spotify knowingly allowed fraudulent streaming activity to inflate the numbers of superstar artists, including Drake, while harming independent musicians.<\/p>\n The suit claims that \u201ca substantial, non-trivial percentage\u201d of Drake\u2019s streams were fake, including more than 250,000 plays of one track traced to Turkey and rerouted through VPNs in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n Spotify responded on Monday (November 3) with a statement denying any benefit from artificial streaming.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot comment on pending litigation. However, Spotify in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming,\u201d a company spokesperson said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit does not name Drake, Universal Music Group or any third-party marketing firms as defendants. Instead, it focuses solely on Spotify\u2019s alleged role in facilitating a system that inflates stream counts to attract advertisers and boost platform engagement.<\/p>\n According to the filing, some Spotify accounts streamed Drake\u2019s music nearly \u201c23 hours a day,\u201d with less than 2% of listeners accounting for 15% of his total streams.<\/p>\n The suit claims these patterns point to bot activity, which RBX argues distorts the royalty pool and leads to unfair payouts.<\/p>\n Spotify defended its anti-fraud efforts by citing a 2022 case involving producer Michael Smith, who was indicted for stealing $10 million from various streaming platforms.<\/p>\n \u201cOur systems are working,\u201d the company said. \u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n RBX, known for his early work with Death Row Records and collaborations<\/a> with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, filed the lawsuit on behalf of all artists who may have been shortchanged due to alleged streaming manipulation.<\/p>\n