Earlier today, streaming giant Spotify officially commented on Drake's current legal battle with them and Universal Music Group, where they're currently being accused of illegally amplifying UMG client Kendrick Lamar's streaming numbers for his popular diss track "Not Like Us." Spotify filed a motion to dismiss this case altogether, according to Hollywood Reporter.

The company stated, “The predicate of Petitioner’s entire request for discovery from Spotify is false,” and that “Spotify and UMG have never had any such arrangement.” Spotify's statement to the Manhattan courts also repeatedly criticizes the Canadian rapper for pursuing legal action in the first place, calling his complaint "far-fetched" and "speculative," as reported by Billboard.

Drake initially filed a "pre-action" petition for a lawsuit against UMG and Spotify on November 25. His firm, Frozen Moments LLC, claimed that the streaming platform and music label used illegal tactics—allegedly employing bots and pay-for-play schemes—to amplify streaming numbers and airplay for Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" diss track. UMG quickly denied any involvement in boosting the song's stream count, saying the claims were "contrived and absurd," according to a spokesperson's statement to Billboard.

Today, Spotify doubled down on UMG's original comments, adding in their filed statement, "Spotify has no economic incentive for users to stream ‘Not Like Us” over any of Drake’s tracks." As mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter, the streaming giant clarified that Marquee—a campaign program that allows artists to pay to promote their new music via full-screen pop-up ads—was purchased only once for €500 to promote the song in France. Other than that, there was allegedly no evidence to suggest that Lamar's song was illegally being promoted more than any of Drake's music.

According to Spotify's official statement,

"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.’”

Spotify was also quick to deny any claims of bots operating on the platform to boost Lamar's numbers. Using bots to drive streaming numbers, a form of serious data fraud, is a current problem plaguing the music streaming industry, and Spotify regularly deals with these cases despite designing tools to prevent that. Spotify's VP of Music David Kaefer attached an affidavit to the file, claiming the company "invests heavily" to "mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform," according to Billboard. If and when Spotify detects artificial inflation of numbers, he said, the company would step in and remove those suspected and/or confirmed numbers from chart calculations.

“What petitioner is seeking to do here," Spotify's legal team wrote, "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,” as reported by Billboard today. “This subversion of the normal judicial process should be rejected.”

Drake's team has yet to respond to Spotify's statement.

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