What Artists Should know about Spotify's Two Lawsuits
- Shunya Carroll
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Spotify USA became the defendant of two separate class action lawsuits filed by Eric Collins aka RBX and Genevieve Capolongo in November. The complaints claim Spotify turns a blind eye to bots artificially inflate streaming numbers and for exhibiting illegal payola “pay-to-play” business practices.
Streaming Bots and click farms
Collins v. Spotify (filed Nov. 4, 2025)
Eric Collins aka RBX claims “Spotify deliberately turns a blind eye to fraudulent streaming because Spotify benefits from the increased number of overall music streams generated by Bot accounts and other fraudulent means.”
“This fraudulent, and often bot-supported streaming dramatically and improperly increases the revenue share for a select number of artists and publishers, while it diminishes the shares for other Rights Holders whose music is streamed by legitimate users.”
“Spotify accounts for roughly a quarter of global recorded music revenue” and paid out nearly $60 billion to the music industry at the end of 2024 according to Spotify’s 2024 financial report.
Spotify’s Monthly Active Users is a key performance indicator they use to attract investors and measure financial success. SEC filings show they had 696 million monthly active users as of this June. What would it mean if a significant portion of these are artificial?
Spotify claims heavy investments in “detecting, preventing and removing the royalties impact of artificial streaming. In 2024 they introduced a policy to charge labels and distributors caught using artificial streaming.
Spotify can detect bot activity through irregular user activity like streaming from multiple countries in a day or abnormal listening behavior.
Illegal Payola “Pay-for-Play”
Capolongo v. Spotify (filed Nov. 2, 2025)
Payola became illegal in 1960 after radio stations were being paid to play music without disclosing it was sponsored. The class action lawsuit cite industry insiders admitting songs can cost “between $2,000 for playlists with modest followings and $10,000 for the largest” editorial Spotify playlists.
Spotify’s Discovery mode is driven by algorithms and user listening behavior. The 2023 feature launched the streaming platform into its first profitable year ever according to their 2024 Q4 earnings report. Discovery mode at takes a 30% commission from the platform’s already lowest in the industry royalty rates.
The lawsuit claims “Listeners are never told when a track has been promoted through the program, creating the false impression of neutral, personalized recommendations when financial incentives are quietly driving the algorithm.”
Why Artists Should Know
Streaming metrics are used in award considerations, Billboard Hot 100 charts, record deal contracts and opportunities for emerging artists. The result of these lawsuits will inform music industry professionals of all levels the true value of the streaming era’s most important data points. If you’re part of the music industry, please share how streaming numbers affect your career.