Rapper RBX has sued Spotify, alleging that the Swedish audio company has failed to stop the artificial inflation of music streams for artists like Drake and is hurting the revenue other rights holders receive through the platform.

RBX, whose real name is Eric Dwayne Collins, is seeking a class-action status and damages and restitution from Spotify. RBX, along with other rights holders, receive payment based on how often their music is streamed on Spotify, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in L.A. on Sunday.

Spotify pays rights holders a percentage of revenue based on the total streams attributed to them compared with total volume of streams for all songs, the lawsuit said.

The Long Beach-based rapper said that rights holders are losing money on Spotify because streams of some artists are being artificially inflated through bots powered by automated software, even though the use of such bots is prohibited on the platform, according to the lawsuit.

For example, the lawsuit notes that over a four-day period in 2024 there were at least 250,000 streams of Drake’s “No Face” song that appeared to originate in Turkey, but “were falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in attempt to obscure their origins.”

Spotify knew or should have known “with reasonable diligence, that fraudulent activities were occurring on its platform,” states the lawsuit, describing the streamer’s policies to root out fraud as “window dressing.”

Spotify declined to comment on the pending litigation but said it “in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming.”

“We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties,” Spotify said in a statement.

Last year, a U.S. producer was accused of stealing $10 million from streaming services and Spotify said it was able to limit the theft on its platform to $60,000, touting it as evidence that its systems are working.

The platform is also making efforts to push back against AI-generated music that is made without artists’ permission. In September, Spotify announced it had removed more than 75 million AI-generated “spammy” music tracks from its platform over the last 12 months.

A representative for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment.

RBX is known for his work on Dr. Dre’s 1992 album “The Chronic” and Snoop Dogg’s 1993 album “Doggystyle.” He has multiple solo albums and has collaborated with artists including on Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP” and Kris Kross’ “Da Bomb.” RBX is Snoop Dogg’s cousin.

Artificial intelligence continues to change the way that the entertainment industry operates, affecting everything from film and TV production to music. In the music industry, companies have sued AI startups, accusing the businesses of taking copyrighted music to train AI models.

At the same time, some music artists have embraced AI, using the technology to test bold ideas in music videos and in their songs.

Women have made significant gains in the workplace over the past two decades, but one segment of female workers has been left behind: those without a college degree. 

New research shows a growing divide in progress in the workforce between women who have earned at least a bachelor’s degree and those without any higher education. 

The share of college-educated women in the workforce increased by nine percentage points between 2004 and 2024, research from Third Way, a think tank advocating for moderate policy, shows. Meanwhile, women without a college degree barely notched gains: The share of noncollege women in the workforce increased by less than a percentage point over the same period, according to the report.

“This divergence in the labor force experience of women with and without college degrees speaks to changes in recent years in the workplace, and around the culture of work,” Curran McSwigan, Third Way’s deputy director of economics and author of the report told CBS MoneyWatch. “And those changes are weighted toward women with degrees.” 

Flex work

For example, flexible work arrangements are now more common across corporations, allowing some workers to do their jobs from home, at least part of the time, and better balance work with caregiving duties. 

“Remote work has inherently baked in a lot more flexibility, so working mothers may be able to pop out to take their kids to doctors appointments, instead of taking time off,” McSwigan said.  

White-collar firms have also improved benefits related to caregiving, with some even offering workers child care subsidies, allowing mothers to stay in the labor force, according to McSwigan. But women without a college degree are more likely to work in service-sector jobs that aren’t as well paid and don’t offer the same child care benefits. 

“White collar workplaces are more likely to provide workers with access to paid leave policies, even child care subsidies, and those are not traditionally the same types of benefits you see in more service-sector work that noncollege women are in,” McSwigan said. 

Women in the service-sector may also work variable shifts, and require child care at hours during which day care centers don’t typically operate.

“A lot of day care centers are only open 9 to 5, so they are coming up to other barriers as well, that are inherent to the types of jobs they are working,” McSwigan said. 

Mothers without college sidelined

Working mothers with college degrees notched even greater gains in the work place over the past two decades, with their participation rising by 11 percentage points, from 57% to 68%, according to the report. By contrast, the percentage of noncollege-educated mothers working full-time increased just 0.1% in the last 20 years. 

“We have heard from policymakers that there has been strong labor force bounce back for women and that we are overcoming the ‘she-cession’ and making progress when it comes to women in workplace,” McSwigan said. “But what the data and analysis is showing is these gains can be attributed to college women, and noncollege women are still on workforce sidelines, and it’s hard to say we are making progress for working women if only those with college degrees are benefitting.”

For this reason, McSwigan emphasizes the need for broad-based policy efforts that support “the different needs that families are facing” to ensure that all working women receive the same benefits that college-degree holders have. 

“It’s not one-size-fits-all approach,” McSwigan said.