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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.
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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.
The world’s biggest broadcast company, iHeartMedia, has laid off another round of employees in recent days, as the debt-plagued radio industry continues to contract during the music-streaming era. “Right now, it seems like the business model they’ve had the last few years, of making one person do 40 people’s jobs, is where it’s going,” says Nick Jordan, an assistant program director of Raleigh, N.C., country station WNCB until he lost his iHeart job Monday (Nov. 4). “But we did a good job, for as long as we could, keeping everything local and community-oriented.”
A rep for iHeart, which owns 860 stations in 160 U.S. markets and advertises “there’s a local iHeartRadio station virtually everywhere,” would not specify the number of recent layoffs, which follows a wave of job cuts in March and others since the pandemic. Radio-news outlets such as Radio and Music Pros and Barrett Media have listed more than a dozen laid-off names this week, including morning-show hosts, promotion and programming execs and big-city regional directors. Jordan said he was watching a video Monday morning of Bill Squire, an iHeart colleague who lost his job in Cleveland, when “one of the big bosses” walked into his own station to deliver the news.
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“S— happens,” says Jordan, 31, a nine-year industry veteran. “It’s part of the radio business.”
Although radio listenership has declined, according to some studies, the business remains resilient, drawing 82% of adult Americans as of 2022. And while major labels such as Universal and Atlantic have correspondingly laid off radio-promotion employees over the past year, the medium is still important for breaking hits, especially in country and other genres.
According to Wendy Goldberg, an iHeart spokesperson, “very few jobs” have been affected in the 10,000-employee company. She rebuts data that suggests a decline in audience consumption.
“Our broadcast radio audience has more listeners than it did 10 years ago,” she says, citing a Nielsen study that shows that younger listeners increased slightly in the third quarter of this year. She adds that iHeart remains “the No. 1 podcast publisher, bigger than the next two combined, and we’re five times the size of the next largest digital-radio service.”
“We’ve been able to achieve this by modernizing the company and increasing our use of technology,” Goldberg says in a statement. “These changes are another step in that journey.”
Squire, a stand-up comedian who has co-hosted the Alan Cox Show on Cleveland rock station WMMR since 2013, received the news of his layoff by phone Monday a.m. “They assured me it’s not performance-based: ‘There are big cuts across the company and there’s nothing they can do,’” he recalls.
Squire, who plans to return to the road as a touring comic, promoting his album We’re Getting Famous, says the radio business is “cutting costs wherever they can.” While Jordan is hopeful the “pendulum will swing back a little bit,” Squire says of media cuts: “You see it in radio, you see it in TV, a lot of Hollywood is out of business right now. The entertainment field has changed so quickly with the Internet and YouTube and podcasts that legacy media is just trying to catch up and figure out how to adapt to it.”
Universal Music Group (UMG), ABKCO and Concord Music Group have filed a lawsuit against Believe and its distribution company TuneCore, accusing them of “massive ongoing infringements” of their sound recordings, including tracks by Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Rihanna, ABBA, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, DJ Snake, Aqua and more. The companies are seeking “at least $500,000,000” in damages.
In a complaint filed Monday evening (Nov. 4) in Manhattan federal court by Andrew Bart and Gianni Servodidio at Jenner & Block, UMG, ABKCO and Concord Music Group accuse Believe of being “overrun with fraudulent ‘artists’ and pirate record labels” and distributing copies of those fraudulent recordings to various streaming services and social media sites.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs claim that “Believe makes little effort to hide its illegal actions” and that the allegedly infringing recordings are “often minor variants on the names of… famous recording artists and titles of their most successful works.” The complaint says the alleged fraudsters attempt to avoid detection of the allegedly infringing recordings — some of which, they claim, are “sped up” or “remixed” versions of popular songs — by using misspellings of popular artist names, including “Kendrik Laamar,” “Arriana Gramde,” “Jutin Biber” and “Llady Gaga.”
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“Believe is fully aware that its business model is fueled by rampant piracy” in “pursuit of rapid growth,” the lawsuit claims, adding that the company has “turned a blind eye” to the infringing content that makes its way to social media and streaming services through its platform.
Additionally, lawyers for UMG and the other plaintiffs say that “Believe has taken advantage of the content management claiming system” on YouTube “to divert” and “delay… payment of royalties” that belong to the record labels. It is “telling,” they add, that after YouTube resolves these conflicts regarding the rightful ownership of these sound recordings, “Believe continue[s] to distribute the exact same track to other digital music service providers and to seek royalties for use of that track from those providers.”
This is not the first time bad actors have been accused of using YouTube’s content management system to claim royalties that are not rightfully theirs. In 2022, two men in Phoenix, Arizona pled guilty to claiming $23 million worth of YouTube royalties from unknowing Latin musicians like Julio Iglesias, Anuel AA, and Daddy Yankee despite having no actual ties to those artists. To facilitate claiming those royalties, the two men, operating under the company name MediaMuv, used AdRev, a rights management firm owned by Downtown.
“Believe is a company built on industrial-scale copyright infringement,” said a spokesperson for UMG in a statement. “Their illegal practices are not limited to cheating artists on major labels but artists on independent labels as well — including artists on the independent labels within the trade bodies of which Believe is itself a member. It’s no wonder that Believe has been outspoken against the streaming reform principles for which so many major and independent labels have been advocating. Why? Because such reforms would undermine and expose their system of building scale and market presence by distributing music for which they have no rights and illegally collecting royalties to enrich themselves and their co-conspirators.”
The complaint specifically charges Believe with direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, direct infringement of pre-1972 sound recordings, contributory infringement of pre-1972 sound recordings and vicarious infringement of pre-1972 sound recordings.
Representatives for Believe and TuneCore did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
It’s been a busy year for TuneCore’s parent company Believe. On March 1, the French music giant, which was publicly traded on the Euronext Paris stock exchange, announced that its board of directors had approved the move to take it private and that there was an “interested party” looking to acquire it. First, however, the bidder was requesting due diligence information and financial data ahead of making a formal bid. Later that month, the name of the bidder was revealed when it was announced that Warner Music Group (WMG) had issued a formal notice to disclose its interest in acquiring Believe, which also owns publishing administrator Sentric as well as labels like Naïve, Nuclear Blast and Groove Attack.
In early April, however, WMG called off its plans to submit a formal offer. The label did not elaborate on its decision, stating only that it was made “after careful consideration.” On April 19, Believe’s board of directors announced it was supporting an offer to take the company private at 15 euros ($15.98) per share from a consortium of funds managed by TCV, EQT X and Believe chairman/CEO Denis Ladegaillerie. The board’s three independent members unanimously voted in favor of an opinion that the bid was in the interest of minority shareholders.
Fraud and copyright infringement have been hot-button issues in the music business as the industry becomes more and more democratized, offering anyone the opportunity to release music in hours — sometimes minutes — at the click of a button. In response, TuneCore, along with CD Baby, Distrokid and other competitors, set up “Music Fights Fraud,” a coalition designed to stop bad actors from hopping from service-to-service to release songs they don’t own the rights to. A number of initiatives, including Credits Due, have since launched to try to fix metadata problems in the music business that can leave artists susceptible to royalty stealing and fraud, particularly on sites like YouTube.
Still, despite these efforts, TuneCore and other DIY distributors have been accused of allowing bad actors to use their sites to upload infringing or fraudulent content. In August 2020, Round Hill Music’s publishing arm sued TuneCore for “willful and unauthorized use” of 219 of their sound recordings. And in 2022, Billboard reported that some music executives believe Create Music Group games the system on YouTube to claim royalties, with one label source claiming the company was doing so “egregiously.”
Just last month, TikTok also rang the alarm bell about fraudulent content when it backed out of licensing negotiations with Merlin, a coalition of indie labels and distributors, to allegedly curb users uploading works they don’t own the rights to on the platform. TikTok said it would instead pursue individual licensing deals with labels and distributors that it considered to be safe.
The Recording Academy has let its members know, via email, of some changes, one of which will likely be unwelcome news to many: It will no longer provide complimentary tickets to its official Grammy afterparty to all current year nominees. This year’s Grammy Celebration, the afterparty’s official name, will be hosted by the Grammy Museum […]
Greg Phillinganes, a keyboardist from Detroit, was in Stevie Wonder‘s Wonderlove band in the early ’70s when prolific producer and composer Quincy Jones invited him to play on a session with jazzman Billy Eckstine. The collaboration led to a nearly 50-year relationship, in which Phillinganes appeared on “Q”-produced classics such as Michael Jackson‘s Off the Wall and Thriller, plus albums by Patti Austin, George Benson, James Ingram and Jones himself. By phone from New York, where he is working with Pink Floyd‘s David Gilmour on his Luck and Strange tour, Phillinganes remembers Jones, his friend and mentor, who died Sunday at 91.
The first time I met him, I was still in high school. I was 18, living in Detroit. Quincy was in town for a signing of his new album You’ve Got It Bad Girl [in 1973]. I left school early and I went downtown to Hudson’s [department store] to meet him. I bought an album and stood in line. I remember shaking hands with him, we talked for a couple minutes and I told him I was a musician. I remember him asking me what I play, and I said keyboards, and he asked me if I had a Fender Rhodes. I told him, “No, but I get to use one in the band I play in.” He was supportive and wonderful and encouraging.
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It led to another meeting, which happened after I joined Stevie’s band. He had me come down to A&M Studios to play on a little ditty that he was producing on Herb Alpert. The name of the song was “The Best Thing,” which was a single for this little artist named Billy Eckstine [the great jazz singer]. Not too long after that, I ended up on most everything [Jones] did. The thing about Quincy is, if he invites you in, it’s assumed you are worthy of being there.
He has a gentle way. If he’s sweating, he never lets you see it. He’s always able to bring out not only the best in you, but qualities in you that you didn’t even know you had. It’s only after the fact that you realize you’re a better musician than before you went in.
That was a wonderful surprise, to be called to participate in Michael Jackson’s first solo record [Off the Wall]. [Jones] asked me to arrange the song “I Can’t Help It” that was written by Stevie. We got the demo, we’re in the studio, we heard it. It was an up-tempo Latin feeling. Quincy gave me the responsibility of handling it. I thought, “Great, I’m going to do the same kind of thing Stevie did, and really amp it up and make it jazzy.” I did a demo. I had Sheila E. playing on it and Michael sang on it. I played it for Quincy and he said, “No.” Quincy said, “No, we have to slow it down and make it sexy.” Quincy was trying to establish Michael as an adult. When I understood that assignment, I jumped all over it and put a beautiful Rhodes on it and sexy synth bass and these gorgeous lush synths and overdubs. That is the version that’s on the record.
I had a nickname that was not from Quincy. It originated from junior high school in Detroit. This guy started doling out nicknames to people, and I happened to be there. He got to me and said, “We’re going to call you Mouse.” From that day on, everybody called me that. When I got older, it got less cute to me. “Hang on, I’m an adult, and I’m already small in stature, I don’t need to be reminded of it.” I grew in popularity quite heavily in Detroit, and I was playing in bands around town, everybody knew me by that name and it just stuck. I moved to L.A. in June ’75 and I felt this sense of freedom: “I’m starting a new life and nobody knows who I am — and more importantly, no one knows me by that dreaded nickname.” But guess what? There was a buddy of mine, another musician who also played keyboards, who started working with Quincy before I did. He told Quincy about me, but he told him that name. So the second time I met Quincy, the first thing he said to me was, “How you doin’, Mouse?” I went, “AAAAIEEEE! AAAAAGGGGHH!” Not just him. He would introduce me to friends of his, like Arthur Ashe, Colin Powell — he would say the nickname. It’s like, really, Quincy? Really?
When he developed the talk show Vibe [in 1997], he called me in his office and said, “I want you to be the musical director of this show.” I said, “This is incredible, I’ve always wanted to have a band on a TV talk show.” He paused and said, “There’s this one thing. I want you to use that name.” I said, “Aw, come on, man, you’ve got to give me a break on that. People are going to spot me in the mall and go, “Hey, that’s Mouse.” He looked at me and said, “That’s the idea.” Well, you couldn’t fight that. It got to the point where I accepted it from him, because his tone of voice, the way he called me that, it was just so endearing.
The last time I saw him was June 17. It took months of planning. I’d been desperately trying to contact him and it was so tough because the family were really keeping things tightly monitored, and understandably so. It was finally arranged and we talked and reminisced. He said things like, “Life is amazing, isn’t it, Mouse?” He was sitting in a chair and I stood behind him and he held my hand and kissed it. Just so beautiful and intimate, and I will never forget it.
It goes back to the directive that his mentor [French composition and orchestration teacher] Nadia Boulanger told him, and he has since told me, and I have since told every kid I meet: “You are never more of a musician than you are a human being.” Quincy was one rare, loving, passionate, soulful, funny and generous human being.
— As told to Steve Knopper
Mexican music hitmaker Geovani Cabrera has signed an exclusive global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), Billboard has learned. Born in Sinaloa, Mexico, the 15-year music veteran has penned a number of hit songs, including “JGL” recorded by Luis R. Conriquez, Christian Nodal‘s “Se Me Olvidó” and “A Través Del Vaso” by Los Sebastianes, to name […]
Billboard’s peer-voted Power 100 Players’ Choice Award is back for 2025 and asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the music industry in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member per […]
Billboard’s peer-voted Power 100 Players’ Choice Award is back for 2025 and asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the music industry in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member per […]
Alana Dolgin has joined Atlantic Music Group as the label’s first president of digital marketing, a position created to drive digital strategies across the labels within the company, including Atlantic Records, 300 Entertainment and 10K Projects. Dolgin, who is based in AMG’s Los Angeles office, reports to chief operating officer Zach Friedman and general manager […]
Tributes from industry luminaries and executives are pouring in for legendary producer, arranger and composer Quincy Jones, who died Sunday (Nov. 3) at the age of 91. A jazz sideman who evolved into a bandleader, label executive, film composer, TV and movie producer and, of course, popular music savant as studio maestro to Michael Jackson, Jones’ considerable artistic wingspan during his seven-decade career — his picture should be in the dictionary under “multi-hyphenate” — will rightly be lauded by every nook of the entertainment world.
“Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’ heart will beat for eternity,” his family said following his passing.
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Here is a list of reactions, which we’ll update as they come in:
Guy Moot and Carianne Marshall (CEO and COO, Warner Chappell Music): “We join billions of music fans around the world, as we mourn the loss of the great Quincy Jones, and celebrate his immeasurable contributions to culture. Words like titan, genius, GOAT, will be used today and he deserves it all. Quincy was a producer, artist, composer, and activist, but above all, he was a songwriter. He leaves behind an extraordinarily powerful, diverse body of work that will light the way for future generations. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends.”
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (he was inducted in 2013): “Quincy Jones excelled at every role he took on. Producer, arranger, trumpeter, executive, and more, Jones won 28 Grammy Awards and guided historic sessions with such giants as Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, and Michael Jackson in addition to his groundbreaking work in film and television. Jones established the standard for innovation; accomplished and successful in every facet of the music industry, he set the model for the modern music mogul.”
Michael Huppe (president and CEO, SoundExchange): “Huge loss yesterday to the music world. A seminal force. From Michael Jackson to Count Basie to Frank Sinatra.”
Nile Rodgers (guitarist, producer and co-founder of Hipgnosis Songs Fund):
TIDAL (the streaming service): “Rest in peace to Quincy Jones, who, as a producer, film scorer and solo artist, quite simply did it all. He has been sampled by Mobb Deep and the Pharcyde; composed the music for ‘The Color Purple’; and produced both “We Are the World” and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ the latter being the best-selling album of all time.”
Danyel Smith (former editor of VIBE, which Jones co-founded): “In addition to being one of the best producers in the history of American music, [Quincy Jones] is the founder of VIBE magazine. [He] launched VIBE because it was the change he wanted to see. He wanted glorious and rigorous storytelling. He wanted depth of design and imagery. He wanted hip hop and the history of American Blackness that informed it to receive the credit it is due. Always surrounded by genius teams, and predecessors, and successors, I was music editor, cover story warrior, and the first Black person and first woman to serve as VIBE’s editor-in-chief — so I am blessed to have known Quincy Jones. As an artist yes, but also as a negotiator, a conversationalist, a charmer. Quincy Jones is a person I often reported to, a person who encouraged me (without sentiment). He was a networker, a knower of his worth, and a valiant enforcer of the true value of Black music and culture. I’m lost this morning. And at a loss. Rest in everlasting peace, Quincy Jones — from me and your grateful VIBE family.” (Smith’s full post on X can be found here.)