EXCLUSIVE: RBX Loses Spotify Bot Lawsuit Again After Judge Rejects Latest Attempt

RBX lost his Spotify bot lawsuit after a federal judge rejected his revised claims and wouldn’t let him refile.

U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton dismissed the West Coast rapper’s negligence and California Unfair Competition Law claims with prejudice in an order AllHipHop reviewed.

That closed the door to another amended complaint in this case.

The dispute centered on who loses money when fake plays inflate an artist’s share of Spotify streams. RBX, whose legal name is Eric Dwayne Collins, claimed bots boosted major acts, including Drake, while shrinking the royalty shares of other music rights holders. Drake was not a defendant.

RBX filed suit on November 2, 2025. Judge Staton dismissed his first complaint on June 22 but let him try again.

As AllHipHop previously reported, his revised suit accused Spotify of using stricter fraud controls against smaller artists while letting bigger names escape the same scrutiny.

That new argument did not save the case. The order said RBX failed to identify a specific fraud-control rule that Spotify enforced against some artists but ignored for others. Instead, he pointed to minimum stream and listener requirements that could hurt smaller acts more than stars.

The negligence claim failed because the court found no special duty requiring Spotify to protect RBX from third-party bots. Spotify’s greater power in the music business did not turn their commercial ties into that kind of protective relationship.

On Spotify’s role, Judge Staton wrote: “That streaming activity on Spotify’s platform may impact [RBX’s] career and status does not transform Spotify’s role into one of a protector.”

The court also rejected an argument that Spotify took on that duty through its anti-fraud efforts. That legal theory required physical harm, which RBX had not claimed.

Spotify’s published anti-fraud policy said detected fake plays did not earn royalties or count toward public stream totals. The court also said the presence of bots did not show that Spotify had failed to carry out its stated daily cleanups.

Judge Staton also found that RBX had claimed losses as a music rights holder without showing harm to Spotify’s consumers or competitors, another problem for his unfair-business claim.

As for another rewrite, Judge Staton wrote: “The Court finds that further leave to amend would be futile.”

Spotify’s separate request to strike the class allegations was denied as moot. The court ordered the company to submit a proposed judgment within five days of the order.