“UMG would never try to harm its artists in any way. Saying otherwise is both wrong and hurtful,” the company said.
Drake, a UMG artist, has accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of working with Spotify to unfairly boost Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us.” UMG addressed these claims in a major legal filing on Monday, November 25.
In a statement to Billboard, UMG said,
Advertisement The claim that we would ever harm our own artists is both false and insulting. We follow strict ethical standards in all our marketing and promotions. No amount of made-up and ridiculous legal arguments in this pre-action filing can change the simple truth: fans decide what music they want to listen to.
In the filing, Drake’s company, Frozen Moments LLC, claimed that UMG, the label he’s signed to under Republic Records, carried out an illegal plan to make Kendrick Lamar’s song more popular. The song, “Not Like Us,” was released during the feud between the two artists. Lamar’s company, pgLang, works with UMG’s Interscope Records, which distributed the track.
Among other claims, Drake’s lawyers claimed that UMG made deals with Spotify to promote Kendrick Lamar’s song “Not Like Us.” They said Spotify showed the song to people searching for completely different artists or songs. The lawyers also accused UMG of paying influencers to talk about the song on social media and using bots to fake higher play counts. Additionally, Drake said UMG paid Apple to make Siri redirect people to the song on purpose. However, Apple wasn’t mentioned as part of the legal case.
Drake’s lawyers said in the petition that he tried to talk to UMG about the issue before taking legal action, but the company didn’t want to admit any wrongdoing. Instead, they claimed UMG tried to hide what happened by firing employees who supported Drake. The petition also said that when Drake complained, UMG told him to sue Kendrick Lamar instead of going after the label.
The filing on Monday also accused Spotify of doing something wrong, but it isn’t a lawsuit yet. It’s called a “pre-action” petition, which is a legal step in New York to gather information before deciding whether to file a lawsuit. Just because someone is named in the petition doesn’t mean they will be included in a future lawsuit.
Source: Billboard