Justin Bieber’s song “Baby” (which he released on December 4) is a favorite of American men, and for good reason.
It’s the only song in the album that features a single line about his love for his girlfriend and their son, Dylan.
And the line is quite revealing.
“When you are in love, you don’t know what you’re gonna get,” he sings on the song’s title track.
“It’s always gonna be a different place and a different time.”
In a song like “Baby,” which also features a female lead, that kind of honesty and candor could be quite useful.
It is.
But is it?
This isn’t the first time that women have come under fire for not being able to say something nice about their boyfriends.
In 2010, a song by an American pop group called the Vibe was removed from Spotify due to its explicit language.
“Don’t be shy / And don’t be sad,” one of the verses said.
“I know you’ll say something,” another one said.
The group said the lyrics were offensive.
In response, Spotify reinstated the song and put it back up.
“We’re not afraid to speak out when we think a statement is wrong,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wrote at the time.
“This isn’t a fight against the words or the content.
It involves our community, and we believe that we can speak up when we feel a song that we believe is offensive, or a song we don’t agree with, is being made available to all of us.”
While the Vibes song was removed, a video for the song still exists on Spotify.
In the video, Bieber and his girlfriend are seen in a bedroom, sitting on a bed with a book.
“How do I get it?” the girl asks.
“Do you know how to do it?”
The songwriter says, “Yeah, it’s simple.
Just start doing it.
That’s the key.”
And then the girl gets on the bed and puts her hands on Bieber’s chest.
“Be careful not to get your hands too far up on me,” she says.
“That’s OK, I’ll go back to my book and read it.
Do you want to get up?”
“I don’t want to be late / I don’t care if I don ‘t feel like doing it” The song was also pulled from Spotify after the songwriter sued the company over the video.
Spotify apologized to the Vibrators, who claimed they had “failed to uphold Spotify’s core values and principles.”
The songwriting duo also claimed that the video was “offensive, misogynistic and misogynistic” because it showed the girl in a compromising position with Bieber, who is a member of the Verve.
The Vibe sued the record company for copyright infringement and asked for unspecified damages, arguing that the song was “harmful and demeaning.”
The judge agreed.
“A reasonable person would conclude that the conduct depicted in the video is patently offensive, demeaneering and demeaningly degrading to women,” he wrote.
“In my view, the VIBE’s complaint contains no allegation that the performance was otherwise not demeeneuring and demeganing, and therefore, the complaint fails to state a claim on which relief can be granted.”
Spotify agreed, finding that the Vise “have failed to establish that the words of the lyrics in the VBE video are offensive, misogynist and demerening.”
“The VBE Video contains a clear depiction of a woman performing sexual acts with a man on a screen,” the company concluded.
“The words ‘be careful’ and ‘don’t touch’ are uttered, which is clearly demeening to the audience and to those around the woman, and is demeasing in and of itself.”
In its decision, the court added that the court had “found that the recording is obscene, as it contains sexually explicit material and the lyrics are not protected by copyright.”
The court also rejected the VISE’s claim that the lyrics constituted demeanagement and “indecent.”
“A demeans the man who performs it and denigrates the woman who is the subject of the performance, a practice that the record industry would find offensive, indecent and dememanding,” the court concluded.
In its statement on the case, Spotify argued that it had a “zero tolerance” policy on using lyrics in its music, and it was “deeply sorry” to the band.
“Spotify respects and supports the rights of artists, both in and out of the industry,” the statement read.
“As we said before, we have zero tolerance for the use of offensive lyrics in our music.
We will not tolerate this type of conduct in the future.”
The music streaming service also said that it would not censor the VSE’s video for its song “Boys Don’t Cry.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the singer revealed that