Drake’s streaming numbers were used as a case study, with the claim that they were inauthentic and generated by so-called bot farms used to trigger fraudulent Spotify royalty payments. Drake received 37 billion streams during the time period in focus — January 2022 to September 2025. All those streams are questioned in the lawsuit. A streaming bot farm in Turkey is cited as originating over 250,000 robotic streams.
Why would Drake’s stream numbers be cited in a lawsuit which did not accuse Drake of any wrongdoing? Because of Spotify’s payout calculations, which use a “streamshare” model. In that method all revenue is pooled, then paid out using a calculation of play percentages. So a fraudulent stream operation at scale could affect the incomes of many uninvolved artists.
Anyway, Spotify has denied all allegations of involvement, refuted the idea that it benefits from artificial streaming, and denied any responsibility in the matter. The federal judge in the case agreed and dismissed the lawsuit, satisfying Spotify’s dismissal motion. The plaintiff has been granted 21 days to try again with an amended case.