The lawsuit that tried to put Drake’s Spotify numbers on trial is finished in district court, and the losing side already wants a second opinion.

“We are reviewing the order, but an appeal is likely,” Mark Pifko, one of the lead attorneys for RBX, told Rolling Stone in a story published Monday. Pifko is a shareholder at Baron & Budd, the firm that filed RBX’s amended complaint in July.

The recap: U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton dismissed RBX’s proposed class action against Spotify with prejudice in a 16-page order dated Friday, Oct. 23, and entered on the docket Monday. It was her second time tossing the complaint. The first came June 22 with permission to try again, and the amended version, filed July 13 and chasing roughly $600 million, met the same fate. Staton wrote that “other than conclusory statements about Spotify turning a ‘blind eye’ to artificial streaming of tracks from popular artists like Drake,” the amended complaint “contains no other allegations about how Spotify selectively enforces its policies against artificial streaming.” She also found that further leave to amend “would be futile.” We broke down the full ruling here.

Drake was never a defendant and was never accused of wrongdoing. His name carried the headlines, while Spotify USA was the only company left on the hook. A Drake representative declined to comment to Rolling Stone.

What an appeal would take

The appeal clock hasn’t started yet. Staton ordered Spotify to submit a proposed judgment within five days of the order. Once the court enters judgment, RBX has 30 days to file a notice of appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A). As of 9:15 p.m. ET Monday, the public docket showed no judgment and no notice of appeal.

If he files, a three-judge panel would review the dismissal de novo, a fresh look with no deference to Staton’s reading. Her refusal to allow another amendment gets the more deferential abuse-of-discretion standard, though because she called more amendment futile, the panel would also decide for itself whether any amendment could save the case. Either way, the panel works from the record that was in front of Staton. New facts generally don’t get added on appeal.

Then comes the wait. In the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2025, the median civil appeal decided on the merits in the Ninth Circuit, not counting prisoner petitions, took 13.8 months from notice of appeal to final decision, the slowest of the 12 regional circuits, according to federal judiciary statistics.

Drake has a calendar of his own. His separate appeal in his defamation case against UMG is set for oral argument before the Second Circuit on Dec. 4, per the court’s docket.

For now the count reads two dismissals, zero findings that Drake’s streams were fake, and one “likely” from the side that lost. A “likely” changes nothing on the docket. Until a Ninth Circuit panel rules otherwise, the dismissal stands.