Josh Remsberg

Drake’s lawsuit against UMG for promoting Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” was dismissed. His lawyers sued saying the song’s lyrics were “false and defamatory” for insinuating Drake was a p*edo. The judge goes line-by-line (!!!) through each of their songs to establish that both sides were exchanging disses in a rap beef and that this context is crucial in determining if the lyrics were defamatory (“No reasonable listener could have perceived the defendant’s responses to ‘state or imply assertions of objective fact'.”) Drake’s lawyer wanted the judge to focus only on “Not Like Us” — thus stripping the context — because of how popular it became, which the judge found unconvincing: --> "Perhaps most fatally for Plaintiff’s argument, it would render protection for artistic expression dependent upon an impermissible retroactive analysis. At the time he released ‘Not Like Us’, Kendrick Lamar could not have been aware that it would break streaming records, win Record of the Year at the Grammys, or be featured at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Yet Plaintiff would have the Court divorce the Recording from the context in which it was created because of these subsequent events. Whether publications constitute actionable fact or protected opinion cannot vary based upon the popularity they achieve. Constitutional guarantees do not rest on such a flimsy foundation.” <--