Diddy RICO Indictment, Miley Cyrus ‘Flowers’ Case, Trump Copyright Loss & More Top Music Law News

This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.

This week: Diddy faces a sweeping criminal indictment that accuses him of decades of sexual abuse; Miley Cyrus gets hit with a copyright lawsuit over allegations that her chart-topping “Flowers” infringed a Bruno Mars track; Eddy Grant wins his case against Donald Trump over the use of “Electric Avenue” in a campaign video; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: Diddy’s Downfall

Less than a year after news broke about a civil lawsuit containing brutal accusations of sexual abuse against Sean “Diddy” Combs, the other shoe has finally dropped. 

The once-powerful rapper was arrested in New York City on Monday night on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges. When prosecutors unsealed the indictment on Tuesday, they detailed allegations of a sprawling criminal operation with a single aim: “fulfilling the personal desires of Combs, particularly those related to sexual gratification.” 

“For decades, Sean Combs … abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct,” the indictment reads. If convicted of the charges, Combs is facing a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life behind bars. 

Later on Tuesday, Combs was arraigned in federal court and denied bail, leaving him in jail until an eventual trial. The judge said Diddy posed a flight risk and was potentially a danger to others, swayed by arguments from prosecutors that he was a “serial abuser” who had a history of both violence and witness intimidation. 

In many ways, the charges against Diddy mirror those against R. Kelly, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2022 over a decades-long scheme to abuse underage women. 

Like Kelly, prosecutors are targeting Combs under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal statute that bans criminal enterprises composed of multiple people. While RICO is best known as a tool to fight mobsters and drug cartels, the Kelly case proved that it can be equally effective at targeting a superstar musician who used his fame and money to build what amounts to a criminal organization – only one aimed at facilitating sexual abuse. 

And like the Kelly case, the indictment of Combs has led to tough questions about why it took so long for law enforcement to act. When asked directly at Tuesday’s press conference, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams demurred: “I can’t tell you why it took so long. I think the better focus is on the fact that we are here today and we are committed to making sure that justice is done.” 

For more on the case, go read our full story on Combs’ indictment, including access to the charging documents and statements from prosecutors, as well as our coverage on the bail hearing. And stay tuned as the case unfolds, because Billboard will be keeping you updated with every development.

THE OTHER BIG STORY: I Can Write My Own Songs?

Nearly two years after fans speculated that Miley Cyrus’ chart-topping “Flowers” was making pointed references to Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man,” a company that owns part of the Mars song is suing her for copyright infringement. 

The complaint was filed not by Mars himself but by an entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought a share of the copyright to his song from one of its co-writers. In it, lawyers for that group claim the two songs have “striking similarities.” 

Whether or not they’re “striking,” the songs have clear connections. In the time-honored tradition of an “answer song,” Cyrus inverted Mars’ lyrics and seemed to repeatedly rebut them – in one instance telling fans “I can buy myself flowers” when Mars said “I should’ve bought you flowers.” The reason for the references? Mars’ song was apparently a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, and the theory goes that her repeated allusions were a reference to their split. 

At the time, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song. This week’s lawsuit says the similarities go well beyond the lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.”  

But experts remain skeptical. To understand why, go read our full story, including comments from copyright lawyers and access to the full complaint filed against Cyrus. 

Other top stories this week…

‘ELECTRIC’ INFRINGEMENT – A federal judge ruled that Donald Trump infringed copyrights by using Eddy Grant’s iconic “Electric Avenue” in a 2020 campaign video without permission. Trump claimed that he made legal fair use of the song by using it in a video attacking Joe Biden, but the judge called it something else: “wholesale copying of music to accompany a political campaign ad.” Up next: A ruling on how much Grant is owed in damages. 

MORE DIDDY -Tuesday’s indictment overshadowed everything else, but it wasn’t the only Diddy Law story from the past week. The rapper was hit with a new civil lawsuit from Dawn Richard, a winner of MTV’s Making the Band who says he subjected her to years of “abuse and exploitation.” He also moved to set aside a $100 million default judgment won by a Michigan inmate, arguing he was never served with the “frivolous” sexual assault allegations and would have easily defeated them if he had been. 

DOLAN DEPOSITION – A federal judge ruled that Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan must sit for a deposition over the infamous 2017 ejection of ex-NBA player Charles Oakley from the Manhattan arena, ruling that the CEO “had a courtside seat” for the incident. Defense lawyers argued that Dolan, who also controls the Las Vegas Sphere and Radio City Music Hall, shouldn’t be personally dragged into a deposition, but a judge said the exec “likely possesses relevant knowledge that cannot be obtained from other witnesses.”

RATE DEBATE – BMI filed a rate-setting case against SiriusXM in federal court after they failed to reach a deal during more than two years of negotiations, arguing the radio company is “no longer a startup” and must pay more to songwriters. Among other things, BMI pointed to SiriusXM’s increasing reliance on internet streaming rather than old-school satellite radio. “Digital music services pay higher rates to BMI than satellite radio, and the new SiriusXM rate should reflect this expansion of digital performances.”

TAYLOR ENDORSEMENT – When Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president, the singer said she was spurred to action by her fears about artificial intelligence — namely, an incident last month in which Donald Trump posted AI-generated images that falsely claimed the superstar’s support. Experts told Billboard at the time that Swift could have sued Trump, but they predicted (accurately, it turns out) that the star would probably just fight Trump’s fakery with a legitimate endorsement of her own.

PHARMA FIGHT – Johnson & Johnson was hit with a copyright lawsuit accusing the pharma giant of “rampant infringement” of instrumental music in YouTube and Facebook videos. Associated Production Music (APM) – a joint venture of Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing — claimed J&J released nearly 80 different internet videos featuring unlicensed music from its catalog.

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