Drake’s legal team responds to Spotify’s denial of bot claims over streaming manipulation

Drake's legal team has hit back at Spotify following the streaming giant's criticism of the rapper’s legal claims. 

On Friday, Spotify filed court documents in New York Supreme Court denying allegations made by Drake in his lawsuit against both the platform and its major label partner, Universal Music Group (UMG). 

In his complaint, the Toronto rapper accused Spotify of using bots to inflate streams for his chart-topping single by 30,000 in the period surrounding its release. He also alleged that the company had accepted undisclosed payments tied to this activity.

Spotify rejected these accusations, calling the legal action a "subversion of the normal judicial process." In response, Drake’s legal counsel challenged Spotify, suggesting the company was trying to distance itself from UMG’s alleged manipulative practices. “If Spotify and UMG have nothing to hide, they should have no issue complying with basic discovery requests,” the statement from Drake’s team read.

Before this response, indie artist Russ also weighed in, hinting that Drake’s claims about fake streams might have merit. He suggested that Spotify might be hesitant to expose the illegal practices of major labels, fearing retaliation that could impact the platform’s value. “Major labels could pull their top artists' music from Spotify, which would hurt the platform's attractiveness,” Russ wrote on X, formerly Twitter. He concluded that Spotify, in this case, might actually be "held hostage" by the power of the major labels.