Young Thug Plea, UMG v. TuneCore, Ed Sheeran Ruling, Metro Boomin Case & More 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: Young Thug ends his years-long YSL RICO case with a guilty plea that results in no prison time; UMG accuses distributor TuneCore of “industrial-scale copyright infringement”; Ed Sheeran wins a case over “Let’s Get It On,”; Metro Boomin faces a sexual assault lawsuit; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: Young Thug Heads Home

And just like that, it was all over for Young Thug. More than two years after the Grammy-winning rapper was arrested as part of a sweeping Atlanta gang case, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve just 15 years probation with no prison time — a stunning end to a legal saga that rocked the music industry.

Pitting prosecutors in America’s rap capital against one of hip-hop’s biggest stars, the case against Thug and his alleged “YSL” gang raised big questions — about the fairness of the criminal justice system; about violent personas in modern hip-hop; and about prosecutors using rap lyrics as evidence.

Thug, a chart-topping rapper and producer who helped shape the sound of hip-hop in the 2010s, was accused of being the kingpin of a violent gang that had wrought “havoc” on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade. But the case was a mess from the start, featuring endless witness lists, procedural missteps, a jailhouse stabbing and a bizarre episode that saw a judge removed from the case.

How did Young Thug go from that mess — the trial had no end in sight and was set to run well into 2025 — to walking away a free man? Go read my deep dive on the YSL endgame to find out.

Other top stories this week…

“RAMPANT PIRACY” – Universal Music Group filed a lawsuit against TuneCore and parent company Believe over allegations of “massive” copyright infringement, accusing the digital distributor of serving as a “hub” for the widespread dissemination of illegal copies of songs on streaming platforms and social media services, including those by Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga and many others. Seeking a whopping $500 million in damages, UMG claims TuneCore pursued “rapid growth” of its DIY distribution services by turning a blind eye to “rampant piracy” among its users: “Believe is a company built on industrial-scale copyright infringement,” said the lawsuit. In a statement, Believe and TuneCore said they “strongly refute these claims” and would “fight them” in court.

“MUSICAL BUILDING BLOCKS” – Ed Sheeran won a ruling at a federal appeals court confirming that his “Thinking Out Loud” did not infringe the copyright to Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” effectively ending one of several cases over the sonic similarities between the two hits. The lawsuit argued that Sheeran copied a chord progression and rhythm from Gaye’s iconic track, but the appeals court said the two songs share only “fundamental musical building blocks” that are “ubiquitous in pop music” — and that granting a “monopoly” on them to any single songwriter would “threaten to stifle creativity.”

METRO ALLEGATIONS – Superstar producer Metro Boomin was hit with a civil lawsuit over allegations that he raped and impregnated a woman named Vanessa LeMaistre during a drug-and-booze-fueled incident at a recording studio in 2016. The lawsuit claimed that the alleged assault was referenced in a song he produced — a surprising accusation, given that Metro does not write lyrics or rap himself and the lyrics in question were by 21 Savage and Offset.

TEKASHI ARRESTED – Tekashi 6ix9ine (Daniel Hernandez) was arrested and charged over allegations that he violated a plea agreement struck with prosecutors when he infamously agreed to testify against his former Brooklyn gangmates back in 2018. The provocative rapper had just six months left on the five years of supervised release he secured under that deal, but prosecutors accused him of traveling to Las Vegas without permission and failing a drug test for meth. Tekashi denied the charges at an arraignment hearing, but the judge — the same one who signed off on the plea deal — cited a “full spectrum disregard for the law” and ordered him held until his next court date later this month.

MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – Megan Thee Stallion sued a YouTuber and social media personality named Milagro Gramz (Milagro Elizabeth Cooper), accusing her of “churning out falsehoods” about the criminal case stemming from the 2020 incident in which Tory Lanez shot Megan in the foot. Calling Gramz a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Lanez, the superstar seemed intent on using the case as a warning shot to other bloggers who allegedly share false information about the high-profile case: “Enough is enough.”

“OPAQUE AND UNFAIR” – A federal appeals court ruled that Live Nation and Ticketmaster must face a class action claiming they abuse their dominance to charge “extraordinarily high” prices to hundreds of thousands of ticket buyers. In doing so, the court rejected Live Nation’s argument that fans had signed agreements that required them to resolve disputes via private arbitration. The court not only called those agreements “unconscionable and unenforceable” but also “opaque and unfair”; “poorly drafted and riddled with typos”; and “so dense, convoluted and internally contradictory to be borderline unintelligible.”

CASSIE VIDEO CLASH – Prosecutors in the case against Sean “Diddy” Combs told a federal judge that they had not been behind the leaking of the infamous 2016 surveillance video showing the rapper assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, arguing that such accusations were merely gamesmanship by Diddy’s defense team with the goal of trying to “suppress a damning piece of evidence.”

DIDDY ACCUSER UNMASKED – A federal judge in one of the many civil cases against Combs ruled that one of his accusers cannot use a “Jane Doe” pseudonym, saying her right to avoid “public scrutiny” and “embarrassment” does not trump Diddy’s right to defend himself against such “heinous” allegations. The ruling is not binding on other judges, but it could influence how they handle the issue of numerous other cases that have been filed against Combs by Doe plaintiffs.

MADLIB v. EGON – Hip-hop producer Madlib filed a lawsuit against his former manager Eothen “Egon” Alapatt over allegations of “rank self-dealing,” claiming the exec abused his role to claim undue profits from Madlib’s music and commit other alleged misdeeds. The case claims that Egon believes he can “keep profiting from Madlib work and goodwill because there is nothing Madlib can do about it” and is demanding that the artist “buy him out” if he wants to end the relationship.

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