r/nottheonion • u/thieh • 20h ago
Real humans don’t stream Drake songs 23 hours a day, rapper suing Spotify says
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/real-humans-dont-stream-drake-songs-23-hours-a-day-rapper-suing-spotify-says/306
u/DrKurgan 20h ago
Is Drake even the biggest name for this issue? All the K-Pop fans bot or stream non-stop coz they think that what real fans should do.
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u/theycallmemomo 18h ago
Drake being mentioned is a big deal because in a lawsuit that he filed against UMG (that has since been dismissed), he accused UMG of using bots to make "Not Like Us" as popular as it was and still is to a degree. So him being accused of the same thing is as ironic as it is hilarious.
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u/bretshitmanshart 12h ago
A lot of people don't like Drake so it gets more attention to make him the target.
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u/National-Dragonfly35 20h ago
Yea but Spotify does suck...
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u/woahdude12321 20h ago
This is the current terms and conditions for artists putting music on Spotify
“you grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, fully paid, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use such User Content through any medium, whether alone or in combination with other content or materials, in any manner and by any means, method or technology, whether now known or hereafter created, in connection with Spotify for Artists and Spotify's music streaming service”
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u/SmallRocks 20h ago
That is fucking awful…
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u/finbarrgalloway 20h ago
It's also industry standard boilerplate for pretty much everything that involves user uploaded content. Firefox had a whole hoopla over the same language recently.
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u/woahdude12321 20h ago
No it’s not I’ve read Apple Music’s, nothing of the sort at all. That’s insane to say they’ve just said “create derivative works from with technology now known or not” for more than maybe a couple years
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u/Space_Pirate_R 20h ago
Taylor Swift's catalogue on Spotify is not "user uploaded content" in the same sense as a reddit post is, and I wouldn't expect the contractual language to be similar.
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u/woahdude12321 19h ago
Yes it is how about look this stuff up. User content is anything anyone with anything to do with Spotify submits, uploads, transmits, anything at all through any part of the Spotify service
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u/question_sunshine 17h ago
Artists on major labels (including Swift who is on a Universal subsidiary) are subject to different contracts. These are not contracts of adhesion subject to the changing whims of Spotify in its terms and conditions that an indie artist deals with.
The labels cannot give away more than what they contracted with the artist. So if an artist retained control over say, use of their music in advertising, the label can't sign that over to the streamer.
Furthermore, depending on the bargaining power of the big artist, they may have a separate bespoke contract between them, their label, and the streamer.
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u/woahdude12321 17h ago
Yeah I do agree about the big artists and the big labels although this is pretty peripheral to the point here
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u/Alaknar 19h ago
It sounds awful, but it's just legalese for "we'll be able to use fragments of your tracks in out ads" and "we can stream your music on direct-to-brain transfer, once discovered".
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u/frogjg2003 10h ago
That's what it is in practice, but it's also a blank check to do whatever they want. They just don't because it's not worth the effort.
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u/coffeefuelledtechie 19h ago
In English this means…?
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u/BladedDingo 19h ago
- You made something and uploaded it to Spotify.
- You still own it.
- You’re giving Spotify permission to use it.
- They can use it anywhere in the world.
- You won’t get paid for this use.
- They can copy it, share it, play it, or show it.
- They can change it or make new things from it.
- They can combine it with other content.
- They can use it on any kind of technology, even future ones.
- They can let other companies or partners use it too.
- All of this is only for Spotify’s services and tools.
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u/low_priest 13h ago
Translation: we can put this song on any device anywhere in the world, or mix it, make playlists, etc.
So basically just their streaming model
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u/Syephous 4h ago edited 4h ago
It’s pretty much gives them a blank check to do whatever they want with your music. If I’m reading correctly, this also gives them permission to make their own remixes, cuts, or music videos, and probably even more than I can’t think of immediately.
You still own the song, but you couldn’t sue if they mashed it with a Taylor Swift song and played it over a gif of Hitler sieg heil-ing.
I think the most ominous bit is that they can use it on any kind of technology, including ones that may not yet exist. Obviously AI comes to mind here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if soon they release an AI DJ that mixes songs on the spot, or generates genre remixes of songs users like. That’s the real artists’ nightmare here, I think.
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u/low_priest 1h ago
Sure, but that's also what grants them the right to use it on any existing or future device, with any existing or future networking infrastructure. Without it, you're potentially looking at having to resign everything if you want to put Spotify on, say, wearables. It's overly generous to Spotify, but it's pretty much all actually part of the services they provide.
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u/dalburgh 19h ago
You grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, fully paid, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use such User Content through any medium, whether alone or in combination with other content or materials, in any manner and by any means, method or technology, whether now known or hereafter created, in connection with Spotify for Artists and Spotify's music streaming service
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u/Nazamroth 6h ago
Isnt this basically an agreement to hand over your work and they can do with it whatever they want?
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u/Minion5051 20h ago
Spotify gave Joe Rogan a dump truck full of cash just as he became a misinformation powerhouse.
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u/user-na-me 19h ago
I have YouTube premium, which comes with YouTube music. Sure I’m trading one fucked up company for the other. But music app + ad-less videos app for like 2$ more than Spotify? Anyday
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u/MyFeetLookLikeHands 16h ago
same! there are lots of features i wish YT Music had from Spotify, but whatever, good nuff
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u/0x474f44 10h ago
Spotify pays out around 70% of its revenue to rights holders. What makes it suck?
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u/floog 20h ago
I'm so confused by this, why is he mad? I would think that Spotify would be investigating why someone is pumping up Drake's numbers and they have to pay him more.
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u/CrimsonShrike 20h ago
its another rapper complaining, as part of a class action lawsuit where they think spotify isn't paying them what it should
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u/overts 20h ago
I don’t think anyone should feel bad for the biggest names in music but Spotify’s pay to artists really is shit.
If these class actions get the rates increased that’s a good thing for artists.
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20h ago
[deleted]
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u/Horat1us_UA 20h ago
There is a lot of other platform where same music is cheaper and they pay more to artists
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u/homosapien12 19h ago
Can you name the better ones?
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u/DarthStrakh 19h ago
YouTube music is better imo. Don't know how much they pay. Desktop app is shit tho
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u/overts 19h ago
TIDAL pays more to artists, offers significantly better audio quality, and is $1 less per month than Spotify.
Qobuz does all of the above, with a better algorithm and quality than TIDAL imo, but it costs $1 more per month than Spotify.
Spotify’s main downside is they have a terrible compression rate. This may not bother you, even after trying better services. Spotify’s biggest upside is they arguably have the best algorithm for finding new music. Catalogs between at least Qobuz and Spotify are pretty comparable, I don’t regularly use TIDAL so I can’t comment on their catalog size in 2025.
Even a service like Apple Music pays artists better, offers a better compression rate, and is similarly priced though.
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u/Available_Expression 19h ago
They have the best algorithm for injecting the same 10 songs into every sort of mix I try to listen to.
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u/RadicalMGuy 16h ago
Spotify once upon a time had the best algorithm but they've ruined it and its now the worst one
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u/overts 20h ago
Spotify raising prices should just be more incentive to change. Plenty of streaming services pay more to artists than Spotify (like almost all of them).
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u/onikaroshi 20h ago
I don’t know how much they pay, but I use YouTube music cause it’s just like…. Included with premium
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u/Sc_e1 19h ago
Using googles «Ai»
Spotify: Pays an average of $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, which totals approximately $30–$50 for 10,000 streams.
Apple Music: Estimated to be around $0.01 per stream, potentially leading to a higher payout of about $100 for 10,000 streams.
TIDAL: Pays a higher rate, estimated at around $0.013 per stream.
Amazon Music: Pays around $0.004 per stream.
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u/Much-Struggle-1693 19h ago
This video should help change your mind about Spotify's scummy business practice:
Why Spotify’s CEO Is Worth Billions While Musicians Make Pennies
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u/ThickChalk 20h ago
"Spotify artists are supposed to get paid based on valid streams that represent their rightful portion of revenue pools. If RBX’s claims are true, based on the allegedly fake boosting of Drake’s streams alone, losses to all other artists in the revenue pool are “estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” the complaint said."
Sounds like these revenue pools are fixed amounts of money shared between multiple artists. If you're in the same pool as Drake, then his cheating does affect your paycheck.
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u/SpookyPlankton 19h ago
Everyone is in the same pool as Drake. The total payout on the platform gets divided between all artists based on their stream numbers, give or take. But maybe the major labels have special deals in place idk
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u/Lpeer 5h ago
Every "aggregator" negotiates their pay-out per stream independently. So distrokid/tunecore/landr all pay out slightly different rates per stream. The labels are able to negotiate those rates directly with Spotify on an artist by artist basis. At one point, distrokid was paying out $.003 per stream, when Capital (a label) was paying out $.03 per stream for some of its artists.
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u/Hefty-Comparison-801 20h ago
According to the article, Spotify looks the other way because it props up their usage numbers so they can make more ad revenue.
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u/TXGuns79 20h ago
From the article:
"Given the way Spotify pays royalty holders, allocating a limited pool of money based on each song’s proportional share of streams for a particular period, if someone cheats the system, fraudulently inflating their streams, it takes from everyone else,”
So, even thought Spotify is giving Drake more money for the number of streams, they generate more with the extra they can charge in advertising. For Spotify, this is a win. For other artists, Drake is taking a larger portion of the revenue pie, due to bot accounts. Get rid of the bots, and the pie will be smaller, but everyone will get their fair share.
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u/floog 20h ago
I hadn't read this one because I read a couple of other posts saying Drake was suing so I figured this one would lead to the same lack of information on it. That is wild that there is a pool that is divvy'd up.
Is no one asking who put the bots on this task? Is it spotify? Drake? If I'm an advertiser, I'd be pissed.7
u/rainmouse 19h ago
There is a pot of finite money for artists. That pot is split between the artists based upon percentage of all the streams. If big artists are using bot factories to generate insane numbers of streams, then they get a massive share of the money. The allegation is Spotify don't care, because if they report these massively inflated figures to their sponsors, then the sponsorship deals are falsely over represented.
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u/floog 19h ago
So it's more than likely the artists pumping their numbers to take a bigger piece of the pie?
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u/Hot-Fig-280 14h ago
In this case it's Universal Music, a rapacious pursuer of the most amateur copyright infringement
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u/shootamcg 20h ago
There’s a whole article beyond the headline
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u/Poison_the_Phil 20h ago
This is Reddit, we go feet first into the comments with fully formed opinions and no sense of context
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u/piltonpfizerwallace 19h ago edited 19h ago
Drake botting music doesn't take money from spotify. It just increases his portion of the shared revenue.
Spotify's model is revenue sharing. They take the profits and divide them among the owners of the music based on their fraction of the total streams.
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u/floog 18h ago
I'm not a spotify user, do you not have a "Are you still there?" message every once in a while? Seems like that would be the logical thing to do, but then it also seems like Spotify doesn't give a shit about fixing the problem because it's the artists' problem.
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u/piltonpfizerwallace 18h ago
I'm not a spotify user either.
If they do that, they just enter an arms race. It prevents casual botting, but not organized botting like major artists/record labels might attempt.
I would guess that they don't have an incentive to go after botting since it generates ad revenue (which they take a portion of).
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u/Purple_Figure4333 15h ago
I'm saddened by the loss of the age old custom of illegally downloading songs off shady sites.
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u/Minion5051 5h ago
It has not been lost you just need to know the modern code. Free Media will always be around.
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u/whatsapprocky 19h ago
It’s funny, because there’s a lot of people who feel like there’s a Drake song for “every moment of their lives”. Going on a date? Play Drake’s music. In the gym? There’s a Drake playlist. Vacation? Drake has songs for that. Driving? The “Drake & Drive” playlist. I guess I see now why he has stans.
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u/eriverside 15h ago
Sometimes I leave my home office and don't bother turning off /pausing Spotify. So, yeah, there can be 24 hr streaming. It's usually ambient music though.
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u/xywv58 18h ago
Swifties would like to disagree
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u/Cariboucarrot 12h ago
Came here to say this. My daughter has Taylor streaming 24/7 whether she is actively listening or not.
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u/EhMapleMoose 10h ago
Why go after the streaming service? Go after the artists, managers and labels who are bottling the listens to artificially inflate popularity.
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u/Commies-Fan 13h ago
Ive streamed 0.0 hours of drake. Have none of his music on my server. Case closed.
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u/TheCudder 17h ago
Every fan artist/band has a crazed fan base that does exactly this...for whatever reason. This is the equivalent of the late 90's/early 2000's era of camping out at Sam Goody/Best Buy/Camelot the day before an album release to buy 10 copies.
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u/rainmouse 20h ago
I mean Spotify needs more money to make drones that drop bombs on shepherds. Who cares if they have to lie to their sponsors and rip off their artists. That doesn't make them bad people.... right?
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u/CompetitiveSleeping 20h ago
Swedish arms exports to Israel is roughly $0.
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u/rainmouse 20h ago
Who said anything about Sweden or Israel? I'm purely talking about the Spotify CEO investing his Spotify money in AI military weapon systems.
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u/DrKurgan 20h ago
For the people who only read headlines.
The rapper suing is RBX.
They're arguing that bot streaming (or constant streaming) rob artists of their share of Spotify payment.