The claim was 37 billion streams, and a federal judge just decided there wasn’t enough behind it. U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton has dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit accusing Spotify of “turning a blind eye” to allegedly illicit Drake streams.
The case was led by RBX, the Long Beach rapper born Eric Dwayne Collins. Hip hop heads know him as Snoop Dogg’s cousin and as one of the voices on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, which makes him a pretty unexpected name to see on a streaming fraud complaint.
This wasn’t the first round. An earlier version of the suit was tossed in June, and Collins’ team came back with an amended complaint just over two weeks later, in mid July.
That second attempt didn’t fare any better. In a 16 page decision obtained by Complex, Staton walked through every one of RBX’s claims individually and shut each of them down.
Her main problem with the case was evidence, or really the lack of it. Other than conclusory statements about Spotify turning a ‘blind eye’ to artificial streaming of tracks from popular artists like Drake, the [amended lawsuit] contains no other allegations about how Spotify selectively enforces its policies against artificial streaming,” she wrote.
Put simply, the court found Collins couldn’t back up the idea that Drake and Spotify inflated streams or misled people using the platform. Saying it happened wasn’t the same as showing how it happened.
The original class action complaint, filed last November, accused Spotify of a “failure to prevent streaming fraud.”
Collins also said he believed the accounts pushing Drake’s numbers were listening for as long as 23 hours a day. That detail grabbed plenty of attention online, but it didn’t carry the case in court.
RBX’s legal team isn’t walking away, though. Mark Pifko, one of the lead attorneys for Collins, told Rolling Stone that an appeal will be pursued.
The dismissal with prejudice does close one door for good. The same accusations can’t be refiled in federal court, so the appeals process is now the only real path left for Collins.
The ruling lands while streaming manipulation is a live issue across the industry.
Spotify says it has pulled over 50 million AI slop and spam tracks out of its recommendations in 2026, a clear sign the platform wants to be seen cracking down on fake activity.
Bot accusations have followed Drake’s name from more than one direction lately. The rapper himself previously made claims in a legal filing that bots were used to boost Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” which put him on the opposite side of the very same argument.
That’s part of what made the RBX suit such a strange twist for fans following the fallout from that feud.
Spotify walks away with a clean win in federal court for now, but with Pifko promising an appeal, the fight over those 37 billion streams isn’t settled yet.
