This is turning into one heck of a dispute.
On Monday (November 25), Drake, via his company Frozen Moments LLC, accused Universal Music Group and Spotify of artificially inflating streaming numbers for Kendrick Lamar’s mega-hit Not Like Us – a diss track about Drake.
The allegations were made in a legal petition filed in New York, in which lawyers for Drake’s company claimed that UMG used “bots” and other methods to artificially boost numbers for Lamar’s Not Like Us.
Drake’s lawyers also filed a second legal petition against UMG on Monday, this time in Texas.
In the latest filing, obtained by MBW and which you can read in full here, lawyers on behalf of Drake claim that “UMG designed, financed and then executed a plan” to turn Not Like Us “into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues”.
The filing adds: “That plan succeeded, likely beyond UMG’s wildest expectations.”
Not Like Us has been streamed over 916 million times on Spotify. The music video (see below) has over 179 million views on YouTube and the track has been nominated for five Grammys. As Drake’s filing points out, Not Like Us is a viral mega-hit.
But Drake’s lawyers argue in the petition that “the record-shattering spread” of Not Like Us on “streaming, sales, and radio play was deliberate, and appears to have relied upon irregular and inappropriate business practices.”
“The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue.”
Universal Music Group spokesperson
Responding to the initial allegations in yesterday’s first filing, a Universal Music Group spokesperson issued the following statement to MBW: “The 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.
“No 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.”
As we noted in our coverage yesterday, both artists, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, release their records through Universal Music Group, via Republic Records and Interscope, respectively.
The petition expands on the first filing’s allegations that the major record company ran a “pay-to-play scheme” to boost the song on radio (in addition to allegedly artificially inflating streams).
Drake’s legal team alleges in the latest filing that this alleged “pay-to-play scheme” for radio involved UMG “funnel[ling] payments” to iHeartRadio, which is also named in the petition.
The filing continues: “According to one inside source known to Petitioner” – the Petitioner being Drake – “UMG made covert payments to a number of platforms, including radio stations, to play and promote” Not Like Us “without disclosing those payments to listeners”. Drake’s lawyers suggest that this alleged behavior is “known as payola,” which they add “is prohibited by the Communications Act of 1934”.
The petition also claims that Drake “learned of at least one UMG employee making payments to an independent radio promoter, who had agreed to transfer those payments to certain radio stations and/or radio station employees”.
It adds, however, that the “Petitioner [Drake] has been unable to confirm whether any iHeartRadio stations were among the stations paid as part of UMG’s pay-to-play scheme or whether there were any direct payments from UMG to iHeartRadio to promote” Not Like Us.
Drake’s legal team also address what they call “offending material” within the song’s lyrics, which you can read here.
They claim in the filing that Universal “could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed,” but that “UMG chose to do the opposite”.
Drake’s lawyers add: “Before it approved the release of the song, UMG knew that the song itself, as well as its accompanying album art and music video, attacked the character of another one of UMG’s most prominent artists, Drake, by falsely accusing him of being a sex offender, engaging in pedophilic acts, harboring sex offenders and committing other criminal sexual acts.”
The legal filing claims that “[Drake] has amassed sufficient facts to pursue certain tortious claims against UMG, including, but not limited to, a claim for defamation, but currently lacks factual support necessary to determine whether he may bring claims of civil fraud and racketeering against UMG and its many (as of yet) unidentified co-conspirators who violated payola laws and accepted illicit payments, and other things of value, from UMG without disclosure.”
Drake’s lawyers have asked the court to issue an order setting a date for a hearing on the Petition and then after that hearing, to issue an order requiring reps for iHeartMedia and UMG “to testify by oral deposition related to the matters described herein”.Music Business Worldwide