This is kind of big, for team Drake in his ongoing battle against UMG. In case you missed it, Drizzy recently petitioned the courts for a closer look at documents tied to Kendrick Lamar’s recording deal and has now been granted that request.
See, the heavily redacted version of the contract was handed over by UMG to the court.
UMG motioned to not unredact the contract for various reasons citing confidentiality as one of them.
But according to filings in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Jeanette Vargas APPROVED Drake’s team to review an unredacted version of the contract.
Wow.
In their motion, his lawyers argued that the 22 page agreement, in its edited state, was essentially unusable.
As they wrote, UMG’s redactions left the paperwork “unreadable and incomprehensible.”
Judge Vargas confirmed that “Plaintiff and UMG’s request… for permission to file under seal a contract between UMG Recordings, Inc. and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, as produced by UMG in redacted form with the designation Attorney’s Eyes Only, is GRANTED.”
GRANTED. Had to read that again.
She further noted that “UMG has made a sufficient showing that the information that he seeks to seal qualifies as confidential, ‘sensitive business information.’”
That makes sense.
While the ruling allows Drake’s lawyers to examine the unedited documents, the public will not see the full contract. As the judge explained, the agreement will remain sealed because “in this instance, the ‘interest in protecting confidential business information outweighs the qualified First Amendment presumption of public access.’”
Reasonable presumption and all of discovery is under a protective order, so that it was never going to be released anyway.
This is a big milestone for Drake’s legal efforts, like way big, but his lawsuit is far from won.