Drake, Kendrick Lamar Feud Spurred On As Both Drop Copyright Restrictions For Reaction Videos
from the where's-the-beef? dept
Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, you’ve likely caught wind of a rap beef that has taken the internet by storm. I won’t pretend to be enough of a pop culture expert to have any idea why both Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been lobbing frequent shots at each other in the form of diss tracks over the past couple of months, but it’s been fascinating to see how, and why, some have called this particular verbal battle “made for the internet.”
A great deal of that has to do with just how many Drake and Lamar memes already exist out there, such that they can be repurposed to make references to the current beef. Indeed, both artists themselves have gotten into that game somewhat, sharing memes of their own on the internet.
But that’s not the only way both are leaning into the internet culture side of this whole thing. It has been reported that both artists lifted copyright restrictions on the diss tracks that are flying back and forth specifically so that streamer personalities can post reaction videos to the tracks and keep this whole thing trending.
Kendrick Lamar and Drake have allegedly removed copyright stipulations from the diss tracks aimed at each other as the rap rivals’ war of words continues to grip social media.
This is fascinating for a couple of reasons. If you’re cynical like me, you may be wondering if all of this is a coordinated and manufactured situation designed to raise the profile of both artists. I would probably argue that neither of these artists really need that much lifting, but it’s also true that musicians like this definitely want and benefit from the public talking about them. If this is all some purposefully memefied “conflict,” it’s worked brilliantly.
And regardless of whether that’s the case or not, it’s equally interesting to watch two artists leave their copyrights to one side with the understanding that doing so will get the tracks, that they want people to hear, distributed more widely and trending with the internet crowd. All of that leads to the most obvious of questions: if it works for beef tracks, why doesn’t it likewise work for their music writ large?
In other words, why wouldn’t these two want to lift their copyright restrictions for reaction videos to their music entirely? It would serve the same purpose: to make the music more top of mind, relevant, and distributed thanks to the internet doing its thing. That would likewise lead to more interest in the music, in their concerts, and all the merch and other revenue streams that come along with it. Why is this plan fit for only diss tracks?
One hopes both artists, and maybe their respective labels, are paying attention to just how good this entire episode is for the exposure both artists are getting, regardless of whether the whole thing is as real as they are portraying it to be.
Filed Under: copyright, diss tracks, drake, kendrick lamar, sharing
Comments on “Drake, Kendrick Lamar Feud Spurred On As Both Drop Copyright Restrictions For Reaction Videos”
Free advertising
Giving those tracks away for free is advertising for the artists. And if a rare someone who hasn’t heard of them yet decides to but a few tracks after hearing one of the free tracks, that’s pure profit.
On the other hand, this also shows that copyrights are often over-hyped: old newspapers still have some value in the cat’s litter box.
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As a rare someone who has heard of them but has less than zero interest in their work, I find all of this to be a contrived PR campaign that’s designed to enlist fans in promoting their stuff for free.
They’re scamming their own fans. They could have chosen to be honest about it, announced what they were doing, and invited fans to participate…but they didn’t.
Pretty sleazy behavior IMNSHO.
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removing © restrictions is a helluva way to scam fans…
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I mean sure, the cynicism isn’t completely unwarranted, but let’s be real – fans of either musician were going to like, share, and react video to that artist’s content anyway. Most artists don’t go full copyright-madman on these fan activities, even for those who typically don’t approve of such unpaid acts by fans.
It’s fair to argue that these guys aren’t removing the copyrights out of pure goodwill, but at that point you’d might as well go full Arianity and argue that we shouldn’t be allowing Drake and Kendrick Lamar to remove the copyright…
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Man, never go full Arianity. If Mark Zuckerberg put out a post saying that breathing oxygen is good for you, Arianity would be screaming at everyone for not holding their breath.
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Actually, the artists aren’t removing their copyrights on these tracks, they’re simply not going overboard on enforcing them because that’s good business.
Celebrity feuds are just the latest evidence of how petty and childish American “culture” has become. We should learn to reserve our respect for those who warrant it, and let clowns like these two find another circus for their tired nonsense.
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You know Drake is Canadian, right?
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Also, Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer.
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Celebrity feuds have existed as long as there have been celebrities.
If you want to pull an “Old man yells at cloud”-routine, your dismay should be directed towards the medium that makes the feuds omnipresent: the Internet.
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Latest? In the mid-1990s, rappers were feuding to the extent that they were literally murdering each other, apparently to prove that their coast was better than the other coast.
I think Timothy’s “living under a rock” comment vastly over-states how much attention people pay to such feuds. People who don’t listen to much rap music have probably never heard of this one; I hadn’t (although, technically, my apartment’s ceiling is concrete, which is made from rock).
So did Frederick Birchall. Popularity has little to do with quality or integrity.
I’m just going to leave this 🧵 here:
https://bsky.app/profile/adamserwer.bsky.social/post/3ks2vay6kya2w
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“I would probably argue that neither of these artists really need that much lifting, but it’s also true that musicians like this definitely want and benefit from the public talking about them.”
I believe this is why Dems are persecuting Trump. They can now see what their policies really create and this is the only way out to save face without completely reversing their stance and looking like hypocrites.
Put Trump in the spotlight, he gets elected and can MAGA.
It’ll be nice to live in a more peaceful world again.
How dense are you?
Do you really think that if everyone did this it would make everyone really successful? They’ve allowed people to monetise the tracks they want promoted. Can you work out why they haven’t do that for all their tracks?