Spotify has formally rejected Drake’s recent accusations that the streaming giant helped Universal Music Group illegally inflate streams of Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” Billboard reports and Pitchfork can confirm. In court documents viewed by Pitchfork, Spotify refers to Drake’s petitions as “legally deficient” and writes that they “should be denied.”
In filings issued Friday (December 20) in New York Supreme Court, Spotify refuted Drake’s allegations that the streamer used bots to log 30,000 streams of “Not Like Us” around the song’s initial release, and that the company accepted undisclosed payments and biased recommendations as part of a scheme to boost Lamar’s track.
“Contrary to the allegations in the Petition,” the filing reads, “UMG and Spotify have never had any arrangement in which UMG ‘charged Spotify licensing rates 30 percent lower than its usual licensing rates for ‘Not Like Us’ in exchange for Spotify affirmatively recommending [“Not Like Us”]”, including ‘to users who are searching for other songs and artists.’”
An accompanying affirmation 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 identify attempted stream manipulation, we take action that may include removing streaming numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty fees. Confirmed and suspected artificial streams are also removed from our chart calculations. This helps us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists.”
Spotify also criticized the form of Drake’s legal action, which exists as “pre-action” petitions (one filed in New York, one in Texas) instead of lawsuits. “What petitioner is seeking to do here,” the filing states, “is to bypass the normal pleading requirements … and obtain by way of pre-action discovery that which it would only be entitled to seek were it to survive a motion to dismiss.” Spotify’s legal team referred to the method as a “subversion of the normal judicial process.”
In a statement to Pitchfork, a Spotify spokesperson wrote: “Spotify has no economic 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: “It is not surprising that Spotify is trying to distance themselves from UMG’s allegedly manipulative practices to artificially inflate streaming numbers on behalf of one of its other artists. If Spotify and UMG have nothing to hide then they should be perfectly fine complying with this basic discovery request.”
UMG has yet to make an official filing on the matter, but issued a statement following Drake’s second petition last month. “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” a spokesperson for the company wrote. “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.”
