Spotify has officially denied Drake's recent p-and-spotify-of-illegally-boosting-kendrick-lamars-not-like-us-streams-in-new-legal-filing/ that the streaming giant illegally helped Universal Music Group (UMG) swell streams from Kendrick Lamar's diss track “Not Like Us”, Bulletin board reports, and Pitchfork can confirm. In the court documents, seen by Pitchfork, Spotify refers to Drake's requests as “legally deficient” and writes that they “should be dismissed.”
In filings in New York Supreme Court, Spotify disputed Drake's claims that the streamer used bots to record 30,000 streams of “Not Like Us” around the song's initial release and that the company accepted undisclosed payments and biased referrals as part of a plan boost Lamar's track.
“Contrary to the petition's allegations,” the filing states, “UMG and Spotify never had any agreement in which UMG “charged Spotify licensing rates 30 percent below the usual licensing rates for 'Not Like Us » in exchange for Spotify being positively recommended [‘Not Like Us’]”, including “to users searching for other songs and artists”.
An accompanying confirmation document filed by Spotify employee David Kaefer states that Spotify “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.” Kaefer continued: “When we detect attempted stream manipulation, we take action that may include removing stream numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty fees. Confirmed and suspected artificial flows are also removed from our graph calculations. This helps us protect royalty payments for honest, hardworking artists.”
Spotify also criticized the form of Drake's legal action, as the rapper filed an “appeal” against the company rather than a lawsuit. “What petitioner seeks to do here,” the filing states, “is to circumvent the usual pleading requirements … and to discover through the pretrial action what it would be entitled to seek only if it survived the motion to dismiss. Spotify's legal team referred to the method as a “subversion of the normal court process.”
In a statement to Pitchfork, a Spotify spokesperson wrote: “Spotify has no financial incentive for users to stream 'Not Like Us' over any of Drake's tracks.”
When reached by Pitchfork, Drake's legal team at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP shared the following statement: “Not surprisingly, Spotify is trying to distance itself from UMG's alleged manipulative practices to artificially inflate stream numbers on behalf of a from his other artists. If Spotify and UMG have nothing to hide, then they should fully comply with this basic discovery request.”
UMG has yet to make an official statement on the matter, but issued a statement following Drake's report last month. “The suggestion that UMG would go out of its way to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” a company spokesperson wrote. “We use the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can hide the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
