Rapper RBX has sued Spotify, alleging that the Swedish audio company has failed to stop the artificial inflation of music streams for artists like Drake and is hurting the revenue other rights holders receive through the platform. <\/p>\n
RBX, whose real name is Eric Dwayne Collins, is seeking a class-action status and damages and restitution from Spotify. RBX, along with other rights holders, receive payment based on how often their music is streamed on Spotify, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in L.A. on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Spotify pays rights holders a percentage of revenue based on the total streams attributed to them compared with total volume of streams for all songs, the lawsuit said. <\/p>\n
The Long Beach-based rapper said that rights holders are losing money on Spotify because streams of some artists are being artificially inflated through bots powered by automated software, even though the use of such bots is prohibited on the platform, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
For example, the lawsuit notes that over a four-day period in 2024 there were at least 250,000 streams of Drake\u2019s \u201cNo Face\u201d song that appeared to originate in Turkey, but \u201cwere falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in attempt to obscure their origins.\u201d <\/p>\n
Spotify knew or should have known \u201cwith reasonable diligence, that fraudulent activities were occurring on its platform,\u201d states the lawsuit, describing the streamer\u2019s policies to root out fraud as \u201cwindow dressing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spotify declined to comment on the pending litigation but said it \u201cin no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming.\u201d <\/p>\n
\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 Spotify said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Last year, a U.S. producer was accused of stealing $10 million<\/a> from streaming services and Spotify said it was able to limit the theft on its platform to $60,000, touting it as evidence that its systems are working.<\/p>\n The platform is also making efforts to push back against AI-generated music that is made without artists\u2019 permission. In September, Spotify announced it had removed <\/a>more than 75 million AI-generated \u201cspammy\u201d music tracks from its platform over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n A representative for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment. <\/p>\n RBX is known for his work on Dr. Dre\u2019s 1992 album \u201cThe Chronic\u201d and Snoop Dogg\u2019s 1993 album \u201cDoggystyle.\u201d He has multiple solo albums and has collaborated with artists including on Eminem\u2019s \u201cThe Marshall Mathers LP\u201d and Kris Kross\u2019 \u201cDa Bomb.\u201d RBX is Snoop Dogg\u2019s cousin. <\/p>\n Artificial intelligence continues to change the way that the entertainment industry operates, affecting everything from film and TV production<\/a> to music. In the music industry, companies have sued<\/a> AI startups, accusing the businesses of taking copyrighted music to train AI models. <\/p>\n At the same time, some music artists have embraced AI, using the technology to test bold ideas in music videos<\/a> and in their songs<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rapper RBX has sued Spotify, alleging that the Swedish audio company has failed to stop the artificial inflation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[10235,12707,18890,1447,18,117,94748,19,17,10019,337,7227,94749,94746,94747,50561,35204,14353,55566],"class_list":{"0":"post-164081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ai-model","9":"tag-album","10":"tag-artist","11":"tag-drake","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-fraudulent-music-stream","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-lawsuit","18":"tag-music","19":"tag-platform","20":"tag-rapper-rbx-sue-spotify","21":"tag-rbx","22":"tag-revenue-other-right-holder","23":"tag-snoop-dogg","24":"tag-song","25":"tag-spotify","26":"tag-stream"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115496709526410178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}