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A federal choose has thrown out Drake’s defamation lawsuit in opposition to Common Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s diss monitor “Not Like Us.”
Drake sued his personal label UMG earlier this yr, accusing it of getting “permitted, revealed, and launched a marketing campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap monitor” that was “supposed to convey the precise, unmistakable, and false factual allegation that Drake is a legal pedophile, and to counsel that the general public ought to resort to vigilante justice in response.” The lawsuit was filed on January fifteenth after Drake dropped a pre-file claim in opposition to Common and Spotify, alleging that the 2 corporations labored collectively to artificially increase the music’s streams.
“Not Like Us” was launched on Could 4th, 2024, by Kendrick’s personal PGLang and distributed by way of Common Music Group subsidiary Interscope Data. It was the penultimate music in a sequence of back-and-forth diss tracks between Kendrick and Drake. All through the music, Lamar describes Drake and a few of his associates as “licensed pedophiles” who must be “registered and positioned on neighborhood watch.”
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In her opinion issued Thursday, Choose Jeannette Vargas dominated {that a} “confrontation” throughout a “heated rap battle” didn’t violate the regulation. Vargas wrote that “even statements which are offensive or insulting usually are not defamatory when an affordable listener would perceive them as opinion, parody, or creative expression reasonably than truth.” She added that “inside the cultural context of a rap battle — particularly one in every of this magnitude — the common listener doesn’t moderately imagine the lyrics to be literal accusations of legal conduct.”
In doing so, Vargas agreed with Common’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed again in March, through which the label argued Drake turned to the courts after “[losing] a rap battle that he provoked.” UMG additionally contended that the “Not Like Us” lyrics are protected by the First Modification.
Drake’s legal professionals rejected UMG’s argument, alleging the music led “millions of people” to imagine their shopper is a pedophile. “UMG additionally ignores [the lawsuit’s claim] that the statements in query (and surrounding context) implied that the allegations had been primarily based on undisclosed proof and the viewers understood as a lot,” they added.
In an amended complaint filed in April, Drake additional claimed that Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance of “Not Like Us” was “orchestrated to assassinate” his character and “duped” thousands and thousands of recent listeners into believing the allegations.
Extra just lately, it was revealed in August that Drake sought documents associated to “allegations of home violence” in opposition to Kendrick. Drake’s staff additionally requested communications between the rapper and TDE label boss Dave Free relating to Lamar’s youngsters, to verify Drake’s personal allegations from the 2024 music “Household Issues.”
Following Choose Vargas’ ruling, Drake’s legal professionals introduced that they might be interesting.
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