{"id":293583,"date":"2025-10-11T03:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T03:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293583\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T03:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T03:04:12","slug":"judge-throws-out-drakes-not-like-us-defamation-lawsuit-against-universal-music-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293583\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Throws Out Drake\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d Defamation Lawsuit Against Universal Music Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drake<\/a>\u2019s federal lawsuit<\/a> against his own record label, Universal Music Group (UMG)<\/a>, for their involvement promoting Kendrick Lamar<\/a>\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us<\/a>\u201d is officially over after a federal judge threw it out on Thursday (October 9), reports the Associated Press<\/a>. In her ruling, Judge Jeannette A. Vargas stated that the song is a series of opinions, not defamatory allegations, and listeners were aware of such.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the accusation that Plaintiff is a pedophile is certainly a serious one, the broader context of a heated rap battle, with incendiary language and offensive accusations hurled by both participants, would not incline the reasonable listener to believe that \u2018Not Like Us\u2019 imparts verifiable facts about Plaintiff,\u201d wrote Judge Vargas.<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, Drake also claimed the popularity of \u201cNot Like Us\u201d was to blame for attempted break-ins to his Toronto residence and a security guard getting shot. The single artwork depicts an aerial view of his mansion from Google Maps and overlaid with \u201cmore than a dozen sex offender markers,\u201d which Judge Vargas said were \u201cobviously exaggerated and doctored.\u201d She added, \u201cNo reasonable person would view the image and believe that in fact law enforcement had designated thirteen residents in Drake\u2019s home as sex offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the lawsuit was thrown out yesterday, Drake\u2019s legal team released a statement, saying, \u201cWe intend to appeal today\u2019s ruling, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

UMG shared their own update following the ruling, stating: \u201cFrom the outset, this suit was an affront to all artists and their creative expression and never should have seen the light of day. We\u2019re pleased with the court\u2019s dismissal and look forward to continuing our work successfully promoting Drake\u2019s music and investing in his career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drake\u2019s federal lawsuit against his own record label, Universal Music Group (UMG), for their involvement promoting Kendrick Lamar\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":293584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,4630,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-293583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-legal","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115353319226196979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}