A judge dismissed a lawsuit against Spotify from artist RBX due to his claims of botting on the platform resting too hard on one musician to prove harm. That musician was Drake, although he was never an actual defendant in this case. But according to an exclusive AllHipHop report from Nolan Strong, RBX has now launched an amended class action suit against the streaming platform this month, alleging they are flimsily policing streaming fraud and harming smaller artists in the process.
What's more is that Drizzy is still reportedly a focus of the case, but he's not an actual defendant. As such, the accusations of botting have nothing to do with him or his alleged practices, but rather the platform's allegedly flippant mode of policing streaming fraud.
The amended suit claims Spotify subjects smaller artists to per-track botting penalties and minimum stream thresholds while eschewing this scrutiny for larger acts. Also, the suit reportedly references how the streaming service allegedly used those rules to countersue an independent artist years ago in an unrelated case.
The lawsuit claims the platform did not subject the 6ix God to these penalties despite his streaming patterns allegedly suggesting bot activity. In an example unrelated to the Toronto superstar, the suit reportedly pointed to the Malcolm Todd track "Earrings." Spotify allegedly pulled hundreds of the allegedly thousands of fake streams the song garnered, arguing this is proof the platform is able to identify fraud and equitably act on it regardless of an artist's size.
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RBX Spotify Lawsuit
In addition, the suit alleges the OVO mogul's average ticket sales per night on his tours are actually lower than comparable rap acts with lower streaming numbers. The new filing alleges a $600 million royalty divergence over four years, representing money lost by smaller artists as a result of alleged botting. It also claims Spotify can control bot accounts directly. The amended lawsuit wants to institute CAPTCHA and phone verification to sign up to the platform, which would make the process of creating bot accounts more difficult.
Drake has faced similar allegations in other lawsuits, although never as an outright defendant. But he has his own legal pursuit concerning alleged botting activity, as that was one of his arguments in his in-appeal "Not Like Us" lawsuit against UMG. But none of the botting claims from Drizzy or indirectly targeting him have been upheld by a court at press time, if they even avoided an outright dismissal to begin with.
As for this new filing, we will see if the court dismisses it on similar grounds or if RBX made a wider case concerning multiple artists that may push through.
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