{"id":220600,"date":"2025-01-15T10:14:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T10:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=220600"},"modified":"2025-01-15T10:39:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T10:39:25","slug":"drake-drops-legal-action-against-universal-music-and-spotify-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/drake-drops-legal-action-against-universal-music-and-spotify-over-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us1\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake drops legal action against Universal Music and Spotify over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u2018Not Like Us\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drake has officially withdrawn his legal petition against Universal Music Group and Spotify, which accused the companies of a scheme to \u201cartificially inflate\u201d Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track, Not Like Us.<\/em><\/p>\n

The withdrawal notice, filed on Tuesday (January 14) via Drake’s<\/b> company Frozen Moments LLC<\/b>, discontinues all legal proceedings without financial penalties for any parties involved. Drake\u2019s legal team disclosed in the court filing that both sides met on Tuesday regarding the filing, with Spotify<\/b>, which had previously opposed<\/a> the petition, expressing no objection to the withdrawal, and Universal Music Group<\/b>, which hadn’t filed an opposition, reserving its position.<\/p>\n

The original petition, filed<\/a> in November 2024, and which you can\u00a0read in full here,<\/a> alleged that UMG \u201claunched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves with a song, Not Like Us<\/em>, in order to make that song go viral, including by using \u2018bots\u2019 and pay-to-play agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Both Drake and Lamar release their records via UMG and its\u00a0Republic Records\u00a0and Interscope, respectively.<\/p>\n

Not Like Us, <\/i>released via UMG\u2019s Interscope Records<\/b> in May 2024, was part of a bitter rap feud<\/a> between Lamar and Drake.<\/p>\n

The track reached No.1 on the Hot 100, marking Lamar\u2019s fourth-ever US No.1, and his second that year, following Like That<\/i>\u00a0by Future<\/b>, Metro Boomin<\/b> & Kendrick Lamar, which hit No.1 in April. The track also\u00a0marked the first<\/a>\u00a0US No.1 for\u00a0Not Like Us\u00a0<\/i>producer Mustard<\/b>.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere in the petition, Drake\u2019s lawyers claimed that, \u201cOn information and belief, UMG charged Spotify licensing rates 30 percent lower than its usual licensing rates for Not Like Us<\/em>\u00a0in exchange for Spotify affirmatively recommending the Song to users who are searching for other unrelated songs and artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Spotify contested<\/a> these claims in its December 2024 opposition filing, stating that it had \u201cno economic incentive for users to stream\u00a0Not Like Us<\/i>\u00a0over any of Drake\u2019s tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

SPOT\u2019s spokesperson added: \u201cOnly one of Spotify for Artists\u2019 tools,\u00a0Marquee<\/a>, was purchased on behalf of the song, for \u20ac500 <\/b>to promote the track in France. Marquee is a visual ad that is disclosed to users as a Sponsored Recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for UMG told MBW <\/i>in November: \u201cThe suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue. We employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Drake, via his company Frozen Moments LLC, has now decided to drop the legal petition.<\/p>\n

In a filing to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Drake\u2019s legal team wrote: \u201cPlease take notice that petitioner and movant Frozen Moments, LLC, by its attorneys Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP,<\/b> hereby withdraws its order to show cause seeking pre-action disclosure and preservation of certain documents and communications from respondent UMG Recordings, Inc. and pre-action disclosure of certain documents and communications from respondent Spotify USA Inc., with exhibits originally filed in New York Supreme Court On November 25, 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease take further notice that petitioner hereby voluntarily discontinues this special proceeding as to all respondents without costs to any party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drake has officially withdrawn his legal petition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":217632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2167,1161,108,269],"class_list":["post-220600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-drake","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-spotify","tag-universal-music-group"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}