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Canadian rapper Aubrey “Drake” Graham filed a series of lawsuits against Universal Music Group, owner of his label Republic Records, bringing to light major issues unfolding behind the scenes in the music industry. Getty Images Amid his highly publicized rap battle with Kendrick Lamar, Drake filed a series of lawsuits aimed at Universal Music Group, owner of his label Republic Records. Among other allegations, Drake accuses UMG of manipulating streams to favor Lamar’s tracks over his own, causing him financial harm. These are just allegations for now, but they open the door to broader conversations about how major labels leverage their relationships with streaming platforms. These aren’t niche issues: global paid streaming subscribers are projected to reach 827 million in 2025, according to research by Goldman Sachs. With that kind of scale, small shifts in visibility or recommendation algorithms can have enormous financial implications. Bots, Algorithms, and Playlist Visibility A significant issue at the heart of this lawsuit and the industry as a whole is the lack of regulation of “bots,” software accounts that are programmed to repeatedly stream a song or album and, in the process, inflate streams. A Financial Times article found that as much as 10 percent of all music streams are derived from bots or streaming farms. According to allegations in Drake’s lawsuit, “Kendrick Lamar’s ‘label’ (i.e., Interscope) paid him via third parties to use ‘bots’ to achieve 30,000,000 streams on Spotify in the initial days following the Recording’s release with the goal of ‘jumpstarting’ its spread and turning it into ‘a crazy hit’ on the platform.” The lawsuit further stresses Spotify’s failure to prevent the issue, as the platform itself acknowledged the presence of bots in response to Drake’s pre-litigation filing in New York State court. The issue goes far beyond play counts, exposing systemic…

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Filed under: News - @ August 19, 2025 11:28 pm