Copyright
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When musician Tyler Armes first heard Post Malone’s “Circles” in 2019, he claims he immediately texted Dre London, Malone’s manager. In the texts, Armes claimed he had been in the studio on the August 2018 night the song had come together – and that he believed he had played a key role in creating it.
“I was not just someone hanging out in the room,” Armes texted, according to later legal documents. “I was part of the writing process. The entire song (minus the lyrics other than ‘circles’) was laid down that night with the 3 of us in the room together, working together.” A few days later, London allegedly responded: “Just showed Posty the message. He said he remembers. U played a tune on the bass then he played more of it after.”
“Circles” later became a smash hit. The song, “backed by sunny acoustic guitars, swirling percussion and infectious melodies,” reached the top spot on the Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks in November 2019 before ultimately spending 61 weeks on the chart.
But now, four years after those texts, Armes and Malone are headed to a Los Angeles federal courthouse this week for a closely-watched jury trial over that fateful night. Expected to feature testimony from the star himself, the trial will pose tricky questions to jurors – about who’s technically in charge during a studio jam session, and who exactly gets the resulting songwriting credits.
Lawyers for Armes say he clearly did enough to own part of the copyright to “Circles,” and that Malone’s “bad faith refusal” to grant him credit has severely harmed his music career. Malone’s lawyers, meanwhile, say the allegations are “utterly baseless” – and that Armes is just the latest plaintiff to “come out of the woodwork” seeking an “unearned windfall” from a hit song.
“Significant Contributions”
Armes, best known as a member of the Canadian rap rock band Down With Webster, filed his lawsuit in April 2020, seeking a ruling that he was the rightful co-creator of “Circles.” In addition to naming Malone (Austin Richard Post) as a defendant, the lawsuit also named “Circles” collaborator Frank Dukes and Universal Music Group.
In his complaint, Armes claimed he had gone to the studio that night at the urging of Malone’s people, and that Malone at one point had said explicitly: “Let’s write a tune!”
“From approximately 2:00 a.m. on August 8, 2018 until 9:00 a.m. that morning, Armes, Post and Dukes worked together in the studio,” his lawyers wrote in their complaint. “Armes and Dukes co-wrote the chords for the song on the keyboard, and Armes co-wrote and had significant input in the bassline for the song. Armes also had input on the guitar parts in the song, including co-writing the guitar melody which is played in the introduction to the song and which repeats throughout the song.”
After the song was released and Armes reached out, he says Malone offered to give him a 5 percent share of the publishing royalties. But when he tried to negotiate for a better deal, he says the star’s people revoked the offer and refused to give him anything.
“Defendants’ refusal to credit Armes … has resulted in significant harm to Armes’ reputation, career and cost him a host of opportunities,” his lawyer wrote. “Songwriters and composers work their entire lives to create a commercially successful and critically acclaimed song like [‘Circles’].”
Read Armes’ entire complaint here.
“Unearned Windfall”
On the same day that Armes filed his lawsuit, Malone sued him right back – asking a federal judge for a ruling that Armes “did not write or author any portion of the ‘Circles’ composition, and he is not entitled to any of the revenue from the ‘Circles’ composition.”
Malone’s lawyers admitted that Armes had been in the room that night, but said he had not made any serious contributions to the song. And they pointed out that the star and other writers then held subsequent sessions in which they continued to work on the song without Armes present.
“It is an age-old story in the music business that when a song earns the type of runaway success that ‘Circles’ has garnered, an individual will come out of the woodwork falsely claim to take credit for the song, and demand unwarranted and unearned windfall profits from the song,” Malone’s lawyers wrote. “This lawsuit arises from such a story.”
In later motions seeking to end the case without a trial, Malone’s attorneys argued more specifically about the “fatal flaws” in Armes’ allegations. They said his contributions to the song were merely commonplace musical building blocks like chord progressions, meaning they were not sufficiently “original” to be protected by copyright law. And they said that he had not exercised enough “control” over the studio session to count as a co-author.
“Armes admitted he had no control over whether any of his creative suggestions would be incorporated by Post and Dukes into the ‘Circles’ composition,” Malone’s lawyers wrote. “Armes’s contention that because he was present for one early session while Dukes and Post were creating the ‘Circles’ composition … and because he played some instruments there and offered some verbal musical suggestions, he is entitled to joint authorship, is simply incorrect under governing law.”
Read Malone’s entire argument here.
“Shared Equal Control”
Those arguments didn’t sway the judge. In April 2022, U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright declined to end the case and instead sent it to trial, ruling that Armes might ultimately be able to persuade a jury that he deserved to own a piece of “Circles.”
As for the originality of Armes’s creative contributions, the judge said a jury might look beyond simple individual elements and instead analyze the song more broadly: “A reasonable juror could conclude that all three collaborators took part in these decisions and that the combination of these decisions created something that is not stock or commonplace, despite the fact that it may contain stock or otherwise uncopyrightable building blocks.”
And, just as importantly, the judge said it was unclear whether Malone and Dukes had sole control over what had been included in the song.
“While Dukes may have controlled the laptop, nothing suggests that he or Post possessed any special veto or decision-making power that Armes did not,” Judge Wright wrote in his ruling. “Armes’s evidence, if credited, supports the finding that the three musicians shared equal control in the session, making nonhierarchical contributions to a unitary whole.”
Read Judge Wright’s entire decision here.
“Make Swiss Cheese of Copyrights”
Ahead of the upcoming trial, Malone’s attorneys have sharply disputed one unusual aspect of Judge Wright’s ruling last year.
In the decision, the judge said the upcoming trial would technically only deal with the ownership of an unfinished “session” song created that August night, and not with the final “commercial” version of “Circles.” But he stressed that a verdict for Armes would still entitle him to substantial royalties from the hit song, since the final version was based on that earlier jam session tune.
A month later, Malone’s lawyers argued that Judge Wright’s approach was simply not how the creation of a copyrighted work is supposed to be analyzed. A final song is a final song, they said, and any earlier versions are merely part of the artistic process – not their own copyrighted creations.
“Splintering a single, final integrated work into many different ‘works’ at its various stages of creation would impermissibly make Swiss cheese of copyrights,” Malone’s lawyers wrote, quoting from a legal precedent that used that analogy. “Characterizing a single musical composition as derivative of its successive writing sessions preceding its final form raises the specter of an endless series of derivative works within one song.”
Lawyers for Armes argued back that the judge’s approach was just fine, and Judge Wright later brushed aside such critiques. But the “Swiss cheese” issue could very well arise again in the courthouse during this week’s trial – and, if Malone loses, will almost certainly serve as a key avenue for him to challenge the verdict at a federal appeals court.
The Courtroom Fight Ahead
The trial, taking place at the U.S. federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, will kick off with jury selection on Tuesday morning. It’s expected to run for four days, meaning we could expect a verdict on Friday or early next week.
Though a witness list hasn’t been published, it will likely include Armes, London, Dukes and various others involved in the events of the case, who will testify about what they recall about the session and the days surrounding it. Both sides will also call expert witnesses to testify about complicated technical questions about music and industry practices.
Malone himself will also be there. Back in August, during back-and-forth over potential trial dates, his lawyers confirmed that star will take the witness stand to help defeat Armes’ allegations: “He fully intends to appear to refute plaintiff’s claims.”
The star will be represented by David A. Steinberg, Gabriella N. Ismaj, Christine Lepera and Jeffrey M. Movit of the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, an elite music litigation team whose members have defended Katy Perry, Dua Lipa, Jay-Z and other stars in similar cases.
Armes will be repped by Allison S. Hart and Kelsey J. Leeker from the law firm Lavely & Singer, a well-known Hollywood litigation boutique that has represented a slew of A-listers in defamation cases, contract disputes and other legal battles.
Two musicians who sued The Weeknd for allegedly stealing key elements of his “Call Out My Name” say they’ve reached a settlement with the superstar to end the lawsuit.
The case, filed by Suniel Fox and Henry Strange (real names Neil Fox Parakh and Shyhi Henry Hsaio), claimed that The Weeknd’s 2018 hit copied the lead guitar and vocal hooks from their 2017 song called “Vibeking.”
But in a filing Friday (March 17) in Los Angeles federal court, lawyers for Fox and Strange said they had “reached a settlement in principle of this action.” Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, and the notice said the two camps were “still in the process of formalizing, executing, and consummating” the deal.
Representatives and an attorney for The Weeknd (real name Abel Tesfaye) did not immediately return a request for comment on the purported deal.
“Call Out My Name,” off The Weeknd’s the 2018 EP My Dear Melancholy, debuted at No. 4 on the Hot 100. The track, featuring the “menacing themes fans came accustomed to earlier in his career,” eventually spent 18 weeks on the chart.
Fox and Strange, who claim to have worked previously with Drake, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, filed their copyright infringement lawsuit in September 2021, claiming that The Weeknd and co-writer Frank Dukes had stolen the “atmospheric and melancholic sound” of their earlier song.
“’Vibeking’ and ‘Call Out My Name’ contain quantitatively and qualitatively similar material in their respective lead guitar and vocal hooks, including melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements distinctive to ‘Vibeking’,” attorneys for the two producers wrote.
Unlike many copyright accusers, Fox and Strange claimed to have solid evidence that The Weeknd actually listened to their song — an important factor in any copyright lawsuit. They cited alleged emails in which they sent the track to The Weeknd’s playback engineer, who allegedly replied: “I sent [The Weeknd] that track u made a while ago. He listened and liked it. But nothing ever happened.”
In a later email cited by the accusers, the same engineer then told them: “Just gonna tell [The Weeknd] that our production team wrote the track. Cool? Or u have another idea? Just don’t wanna say ‘hey, [Strange] wrote this’ when he doesn’t know u.”
The Weeknd denied all of the allegations, but the litigation never progressed to the point that he had a chance to make in-depth arguments about the merits of the case.
More than a year after Cher sued Sonny Bono’s widow Mary Bono over royalties from “I Got You Babe” and other hits, a federal judge has issued an initial ruling refusing to dismiss the case.
Cher claims that her 1978 divorce deal with Sonny gave her a permanent 50% cut from songs written before they split, but that Mary recently stopped paying after she invoked copyright’s termination right. Mary’s attorneys say she was entitled to do so, and that the case should be dismissed.
In a split decision on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt trimmed part of the case, saying any royalties from recording rights regained by Mary should stop going to Cher. But when it comes to the bigger question of the underlying musical compositions, the judge said the divorce agreement might entitle Cher to keep receiving those payments.
“The composition royalties appear to arise solely from the [divorce settlement],” the judge wrote. “On this record, it has not presently been established that [Cher]’s rights to the composition royalties have been terminated.”
In a statement to Billboard following the ruling, Mary’s attorney Daniel Schacht said: “We are happy that the court recognized some of the flaws in Cher’s case at this preliminary stage, and we look forward to resolving the remainder of the case.”
Cher’s attorney declined to comment on the decision.
Sonny and Cher started performing together in 1964 and married in 1967, rising to fame with major hits like “I Got You Babe,” “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” But the pair split up in 1974, finalizing their divorce with a settlement agreement in 1978. Under that deal, Sonny retained ownership of their music rights, but Cher was granted a half-share of all royalties.
Bono died in 1998 as the result of skiing accident, leaving Mary in control of those copyrights. And in 2016, she invoked the termination right — a provision of the federal Copyright Act that allows creators or their heirs to win back control of rights they signed away decades prior. Mary sent such notices to Sonny and Cher’s publishers, taking back full control of those copyrights.
Five years later, Cher filed her lawsuit — seeking a ruling the divorce agreement was still in effect and that she was still owed her 50% cut of royalties, regardless of who owns the copyrights now. Mary then fired back a few months later, arguing that the case should be dismissed. Her lawyers said that termination rights were designed to trump all pre-existing agreements, including a divorce agreement.
“Cher’s position would subvert Congress’ intent in enacting the copyright termination provisions: to ensure that authors and authors’ heirs, not grantees or ex-spouses, would benefit from the extended term of copyright,” Bono’s attorneys wrote in December 2021.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Kronstadt denied that motion when it comes to the copyrights for Sonny’s underlying musical compositions, citing language in the divorce agreement that such royalties would be owed “from all sources perpetually.” Based on that language, the judge said the issue “cannot be resolved” until both sides have the chance to offer more evidence and arguments.
The judge did dismiss Cher’s lawsuit to the extent that it deals with royalties from any recording rights that had been terminated by Mary, since Judge Kronstadt said those provisions of the divorce agreement were tied to specific record deals that were no longer in existence. But the extent to which Mary’s termination notices actually went to record companies is unclear; earlier filings in the case only indicated that such notices has gone to publishers.
Read the entire decision here:
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a copyright lawsuit claiming Nickelback ripped off its 2006 hit “Rockstar” from an earlier song called “Rock Star.”
Adopting recommendations from a lower judge, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled that there was zero evidence that Chad Kroeger and the other members of the 2000s rock band ever heard Kirk Johnston’s earlier song – and that the two songs also just didn’t share much overlap.
“Stated simply, they do not sound alike,” the judge wrote in the order adopted Thursday. “Where both songs evoke similar themes, they are rendered dissimilar through the vivid detail of the original expression in Nickelback’s lyrics.”
Johnston, the lead singer of a Texas band called Snowblind Revival, claimed the two songs shared many closely-related lyrics, about rock star lifestyles, making huge amounts of money, and having famous friends. But Thursday’s ruling said that after a review of the lyrics, that accusation at times “borders on the absurd.”
“This includes, for example, any suggestion that the two baseball analogies in Nickelback’s work are evidence that the band copied Johnston’s lyric ‘might buy the Cowboys’ professional football team simply because both are ‘references to sports’,” Judge Pitman wrote.
The only real similarities between the two songs, the judge wrote, were basic cliches — “outlandish stereotypes and images associated with being a huge, famous, rock star” – that cannot be monopolized by any one songwriter.
The judge specifically pointed to a study that reported 17 other popular songs that had shared similar themes about rock stars, ranging from “So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star” by The Byrds in 1966 to “Rockstar” by Poison in 2001.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on the decision.
Released on Nickelback’s 2005 album All the Right Reasons, “Rockstar” has not aged well with critics. In 2008, the Guardian said the song “makes literally no sense and is the worst thing of all time.” In 2012, Buzzfeed listed it as the second-worst song ever written, citing it as an example of “why everyone hates Nickelback so much.” But the song was a commercial hit, eventually reaching No. 6 on the Hot 100 in September 2007 and ultimately spending nearly a year on the chart.
Johnston sued in May 2020, claiming the hit song had stolen “substantial portions” of his own “Rock Star,” including the “tempo, song form, melodic structure, harmonic structures, and lyrical themes.”
But in Thursday’s ruling, Judge Pitman said Johnson had failed to show that Nickelback had “access” to his song in order to copy it – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit. He argued that his band Snowblind Revival had performed at the same venue as Nickelback, but the judge said that was not enough.
“Johnston has presented no probative evidence that defendants had a reasonable opportunity to hear plaintiff’s work.
Without proof that Kroeger or anyone else heard the song, Johnston would have needed to prove that the songs were almost identical – “strikingly similar” in copyright law parlance. And Judge Pitman said he fell very far short of that.
“The Court has conducted a side-by-side examination of the works, carefully listening to and considering all versions of the songs of record,” the judge wrote. “As an ‘ordinary listener,’ the court concludes that a layman would not consider the songs or even their ‘hooks’ to be strikingly similar.”
A new policy report from the U.S. Copyright Office says that songs and other artistic works created with the assistance of artificial intelligence can sometimes be eligible for copyright registration, but only if the ultimate author remains a human being.
The report, released by the federal agency on Wednesday (March 15), comes amid growing interest in the future role that could be played in the creation of music by so-called generative AI tools — similar to the much-discussed ChatGPT.
Copyright protection is strictly limited to content created by humans, leading to heated debate over the status of AI-generated works. In a closely-watched case last month, the Copyright Office decided that a graphic novel featuring AI-generated images was eligible for protection, but that the individual images couldn’t be protected.
In Wednesday’s report, the agency said that the use of AI tools was not an automatic ban on copyright registration, but that it would be closely scrutinized and could not play a dominant role in the creative process.
“If a work’s traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it,” the agency wrote. “For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the traditional elements of authorship are determined and executed by the technology — not the human user.”
The report listed examples of AI-aided works that might still be worthy of protection, like one that creatively combined AI-generated elements into something new, or a work that was AI-generated that an artist then heavily modified after the fact. And it stressed that other technological tools were still fair game.
“A visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image, and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording,” the report said. “In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression and ‘actually formed’ the traditional elements of authorship.”
Under the rules laid out in the report, the Copyright Office said that anyone submitting such works must disclose which elements were created by AI and which were created by a human. The agency said that any AI-inclusive work that was previously registered without such a disclosure must be updated — and that failure to do so could result in the cancellation of the copyright registration.
Though aimed at providing guidance, Wednesday’s report avoided hard-and-fast rules. It stressed that analyzing copyright protection for AI-assisted works would be “necessarily a case-by-case inquiry,” and that the final outcome would always depend on individual circumstances, including “how the AI tool operates” and “how it was used to create the final work.”
And the report didn’t even touch on a potentially thornier legal question: whether the creators of AI platforms infringe the copyrights of the vast number of earlier works that are used to “train” the platforms to spit out new works. In October, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned that such providers were violating copyrights en masse by using existing music to train their machines.
“To the extent these services, or their partners, are training their AI models using our members’ music, that use is unauthorized and infringes our members’ rights by making unauthorized copies of our members works,” the RIAA said at the time.
Though Wednesday’s report did not offer guidance on that question, the Copyright Office said it had plans to weigh in soon.
“[The Office] has launched an agency-wide initiative to delve into a wide range of these issues,” the agency wrote. “Among other things, the Office intends to publish a notice of inquiry later this year seeking public input on additional legal and policy topics, including how the law should apply to the use of copyrighted works in AI training and the resulting treatment of outputs.”
Read the entire report here:
Bad Bunny‘s label and management company, Rimas Entertainment, is responding to accusations the super star artist “illegally used” an Afro-pop act’s song. Bunny’s team responded by saying they paid to use the material in question and, hence, its use in the track “Enséñame a Bailar” was not infringement.
Earlier on Thursday (Feb. 9), emPawa Africa founder Mr Eazi — himself a popular Nigerian singer — issued a press release claiming Bad Bunny used his artist Joeboy‘s song “Empty My Pocket” without consent in the track “Enséñame a Bailar” off Bad Bunny’s blockbuster 2022 album, Un Verano Sin Ti. Mr Eazi claimed he had been trying to settle the case privately since the record’s release nine months ago.
Listen to the first few seconds of two songs and the case could seem obvious. The jubilant rhythms of the Dëra-produced Joeboy track “Empty My Pocket” appear prominently as an interpolation and at the 2:30 minute mark on “Enséñame a Bailar,” where one can even faintly hear Joeboy’s vocals.
“We will not accept Bad Bunny and Rimas denying Joeboy and Dëra credits and a share in the ownership of a song they wrote, composed and, in Joeboy’s case, even performed on,” said Ikenna Nwagboso, co-founder and head of label services, distribution, and publishing with emPawa Africa, in a statement. “Give Joeboy his credit, publishing and royalties on the song, and give Dëra a producer credit alongside those already given to Bad Bunny’s Producers.”
emPawa Africa is demanding that Bad Bunny and Rimas Music grant Joeboy publishing, songwriting and feature credits on “Enséñame a Bailar,” and credit Dëra as the track’s co-producer. Though the statement seemed to threaten legal action, no lawsuit has yet been filed.
Not so fast, says Rimas Entertainment, which is denying any wrongdoing.
“We are deeply concerned by the copyright infringement accusations made by Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade (Mr Eazi), the founder of emPawa Africa, on the track ‘Enséñame a Bailar,’” a company spokesperson told Billboard Español in a statement. “We want to make it clear that at all times, Rimas Entertainment has acted properly and has followed standard industry protocols.”
The Rimas statement continues, “Before releasing [‘Enséñame a Bailar’], Rimas purchased the master track from record producer Lakizo Entertainment, listed as the track’s creator and owner in numerous public sources [editor’s note: including Spotify as of Thursday]. After the [‘Enséñame a Bailar’] release last year, emPawa contacted us, claiming ownership over the master. Our lawyers have had many communications with emPawa in an effort to resolve the ownership dispute between emPawa and Lakizo, but emPawa has so far failed to provide proof of ownership. Instead, emPawa has chosen only to send us a heavily redacted contract that did not confirm their claims and only served to raise more questions about the validity of their claims. Our numerous efforts to obtain the unredacted version of the agreement from emPawa have not been successful. It is entirely untrue that we have been unresponsive.”
For an artist to sample another act’s track, they must typically clear master and publishing rights for the recording and underlying composition, respectively. At time of publishing, a Rimas could not confirm whether the company had secured rights use the “Empty My Pocket” composition, but in the company’s statement noted, “Regarding the song’s composition, emPawa has also failed to forward documents to prove that they are authorized to act on the writer’s behalf.”
The Rimas statement concluded, “We look forward to resolving this matter cordially and are waiting for emPawa to provide us with the necessary documents that validate their claims.”
In 2019, Mr Eazi and Bad Bunny actually collaborated on the outro track “Como Un Bebé” — produced by Nigerian duo Legendury Beatz — off Bunny and J Balvin’s joint album Oasis.
Un Verano Sin Ti was released on May 6, 2022, becoming just the second Spanish-language album to reach No. 1 on the 66-year old chart Billboard 200. (the first was Bunny’s previous album, 2020’s El Último Tour del Mundo). It also became Spotify and Apple Music’s most-streamed album in the U.S. and globally.
In an upcoming courtroom showdown, is a YouTube video of Ed Sheeran switching between his “Thinking Out Loud” and Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On” a smoking gun? Or just smoke and mirrors?
Facing a trial in April over whether his smash hit infringed Gaye‘s iconic song, Sheeran’s lawyers asked a federal judge Tuesday (Feb. 7) to block his accusers from citing that clip, which captures the star at a 2014 concert entertaining the crowd by seamlessly toggling between the two songs.
The problem? Sheeran’s lawyers say the mash-up video is falsely incriminating. It could look to jurors like damning evidence that Sheeran copied “Let’s Get It On,” they say, but only actually shows that both songs contain a common chord progression — one that isn’t covered by copyrights and was “freely available to all songwriters.”
“There are dozens if not hundreds of songs that predate and postdate LGO utilizing the same or similar chord progression,” Sheeran’s lawyers wrote. “These medleys are irrelevant to any issue in the case and would be misleading [and] confuse the jury.”
The case against Sheeran was filed way back in 2017 by heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On.” Gaye’s heirs, who once famously sued Robin Thicke over accusations that his “Blurred Lines” was stolen from the legendary singer, are not involved in the case.
Sheeran’s lawyers have long argued that the star did nothing wrong, since “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” share only “unprotectable and commonplace elements” that are not covered by copyright law. But Judge Louis D. Stanton has repeatedly refused to decide the case in their favor, ruling that the dispute is close enough that it must be decided by a jury.
In the lead-up to the trial, attorneys for the Townsend heirs filed a formal notice that they planned to play the YouTube clip for jurors. In the video — a 6-minute snippet of a November 2014 concert in Zurich that’s been viewed nearly 300,000 times — Sheeran abruptly switches from “Thinking” to “Lets” and back again, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.
It’s not surprising that Sheeran’s accusers want to use the medley video. In a 2019 ruling in which he sent the case to trial, Judge Stanton specifically highlighted the clip as potential evidence that might resonate with jurors, saying they “may be impressed by footage of a Sheeran performance which shows him seamlessly transitioning between LGO and TOL.”
But in Tuesday’s objections, Sheeran’s lawyers argued that the jury would be impressed for all the wrong reasons.
“The admission of this evidence will mislead the jury and cause unjustified prejudice – suggesting to the jury, inaccurately, that segueing from singing the lyrics of TOL over the TOL chord progression to singing a snippet of the lyrics of LGO over the TOL chord progression is ‘evidence’ that Sheeran copied LGO,” they wrote.
Sheeran’s lawyers also argued that letting such evidence play a key role in the upcoming trial would have a broader “chilling effect” on the music industry and on medleys, which they called an “important, enduring aspect of live concerts.”
“Such ‘mash-ups’ underscore the fact … that music has been, and always will be, built on commonplace and unprotectable musical building blocks freely available to all composers to use,” Sheeran’s lawyers wrote, but allowing it to serve as evidence would deter artists “for fear of creating a suggestion of infringement and encouraging unfounded claims.”
In a statement to Billboard, the Townsend heirs attorney Patrick R. Frank strongly disagreed with Sheeran’s attorneys, pointing directly to Judge Stanton’s previous ruling about the medley clip’s potential value to jurors.
“The passage of time has not diminished the acknowledged evidentiary significance of the medley,” Frank said. “I suspect that if there was, in fact, a legally-cognizable basis for [Sheeran’s motion], we would have seen the motion quite some time ago, as opposed to on the proverbial ‘eve’ an imminent trial.”
Frank will file his own formal response to Sheeran’s motion in court in the coming weeks.
When does a soundalike song sound a little too much alike?
Rick Astley is suing Yung Gravy over the rapper’s breakout 2022 hit that heavily borrowed from the singer’s iconic “Never Gonna Give You Up,” alleging that the new track — an interpolation that sounded a whole lot like an outright sample — broke the law by impersonating Astley’s voice.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday (Jan. 26) in Los Angeles court, Astley claims that Gravy’s “Betty (Get Money),” which reached No. 30 on the Hot 100 last year, violated the singer’s so-called right of publicity because it closely mimicked the distinctive voice Astley used in the chart-topping 1987 hit.
“In an effort to capitalize off of the immense popularity and goodwill of Mr. Astley, defendants … conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song,” Astley’s lawyers wrote. “The public could not tell the difference. The imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice was so successful the public believed it was actually Mr. Astley singing.”
Pulling heavily from a song that boomed in recent years thanks to “Rickroll” internet memes, “Betty” was a major hit for Yung Gravy. But it often drew attention largely for its connections to Astley; the New York Times called it “a real-life rickroll that functioned as a comedy song, a TikTok trend and a nostalgia trip all at once.”
In their new lawsuit, Astley’s lawyers said the singer was “extremely protective over his name, image, and likeness,” meaning the unauthorized use of the soundalike voice had caused him “immense damage.”
Representatives for Gravy (real name Matthew Hauri) and Universal Music Group’s Republic Records (also named in the lawsuit as the label that released “Betty”) did not immediately return a request for comment.
Thursday’s new lawsuit raises big questions about the methods used in the music industry to legally borrow from older songs, an ever more popular tactic in a nostalgia-heavy age.
When they created “Betty,” Gravy and his team allegedly cleared the underlying musical composition to “Give You Up.” That gave them the legal right to recreate music and lyrics from the original in their new track — a process known as “interpolating.”
But the lawsuit says Gravy and his team weren’t able to secure a license to use the actual sound recording of the famous track — the better-known process of “sampling.” That would mean they didn’t have any right to directly copy the exact sounds, including Astley’s voice.
Instead, Astley says they hired Popnick (real name Nick Seeley) to imitate Astley’s “signature voice” on the track. At one point, the lawsuit quotes from an Instagram video in which Popnick said he wanted the song to “sound identical” to Astley voice.
By doing so without permission, the lawsuit claims that Gravy and Popnick violated Astley’s right of publicity — the legal right to control how your name, image or likeness is commercially exploited by others.
“A license to use the original underlying musical composition does not authorize the stealing of the artist’s voice in the original recording,” Astley’s lawyers wrote. “So, instead, they resorted to theft of Mr. Astley’s voice without a license and without agreement.”
Astley’s allegations rely heavily on a 1988 federal court ruling, in which Bette Midler successfully sued the Ford Motor Co. for violating her right of publicity by running a series of commercials featuring a Midler impersonator. In that case, the court sided with Midler even though Ford had obtained a license to the underlying song.
The new lawsuit was filed by Richard Busch, a prominent music litigator best known for winning the blockbuster copyright case over “Blurred Lines.” In a statement to Billboard, Busch said: “Mr. Astley owns his voice. California law is clear since the Bette Midler case more than 30 years ago that nobody has the right to imitate or use it without his permission.”
In addition to violating Astley’s right of publicity, the lawsuit also accuses Gravy of violating federal trademark law by making false statements that made it appear that the singer had endorsed the new song. In an interview with Billboard, Gravy said he had spoken with Astley and that the singer had approved of the new song — that he “fucks with the song.”
“These statements were all false,” Astley wrote in his lawsuit.
With all the many fan theories bouncing around the internet in the weeks since Miley Cyrus released her Billboard Hot 100-topping new single “Flowers,” a particular amount of attention has been paid to its relationship to Bruno Mars‘ own No. 1 hit from a decade earlier, the torch song ballad “When I Was Your Man.”
Countless fans have pointed out the lyrical similarities between the two songs — particularly their respective choruses — with “Flowers” echoing many of Mars’ regretful sentiments from an opposing, unmoved perspective. (For example, Mars laments on “Your Man,” “I should’ve bought you flowers… take you to every party, ’cause all you wanted to dance,” while Cyrus protests on “Flowers,” “I can buy myself flowers… I can take myself dancing.”) Speculation behind the extended reference has centered around the song being a favorite of Liam Hemsworth’s, furthering the idea of the song as a kiss-off to Cyrus’ real-life ex. The buzz over the two songs was even enough to give “Your Man” a nearly 20% bump in weekly streams in the frame following the release of Cyrus’ new single.
With the relationship between the two songs appearing obvious to fans, many have wondered over social media whether Mars or “Your Man” co-writers Andrew Wyatt, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine deserve writing credits on “Flowers.” To a degree, this sort of thing — offering writing credits to obvious sources of musical inspiration — has become common practice in new songs by popular artists, even if a direct sample is not present and the use of an interpolation is an arguable matter of interpretation. Well-publicized cases of that phenomenon include Olivia Rodrigo adding Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Josh Farro to the credits of her “Good 4 U” due to the song’s musical similarities to their “Misery Business,” and Beyoncé including “Show Me Love” scribes Fred McFarlane and Allen George in the credits to her “Break My Soul” due to some overlapping sonic elements with the Robin S. smash.
The case of “Flowers” and “When I Was Your Man” is a little different, though. Those previously mentioned examples were mostly based around sonic similarities — melodic, rhythmic and textural — which were close enough in nature that a case could have been made that the original’s copyright was infringed upon. However, not only are there no direct samples or obvious interpolations between “Flowers” and “Your Man,” there are no major sonic overlaps either — no obvious shared melodies or rhythms, no major similarities in production textures. When Cyrus sings “I can buy myself flowers,” for instance, she does so in a cadence and melody of her own, without any significant similarity to how Mars sang “I should’ve bought you flowers.”
The only obvious similarities, then, are in the songs’ lyrics — which are not identical, but do share elements and ideas — and merely using some of the same words as an older song is not considered grounds for infringement.
“This is great fodder for fan theories, but lawyers should have nothing to do with it,” says Joseph Fishman, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville and an expert in music law. “There are no songwriter credits for the ‘When I Was Your Man’ writers because no license should be necessary.”
Cyrus’ arguable use of Mars’ lyrics as a reference point for her own expression is certainly not without precedent, with the “answer song” serving as a longtime staple of popular music. Famous examples include any number of responses (The Miracles’ “I Got a Job,” The Heartbeats’ “I Found a Job”) to The Silhouettes’ ’50s doo-wop staple “Get a Job,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s rejoinder to Neil Young’s “Southern Man” in their ’70s southern rock classic “Sweet Home Alabama” (“I hope Neil Young will remember/ Southern man don’t need him around anyhow”) and countless rap diss records dating back to the ongoing “Roxanne Wars” of the mid-’80s, when male rap group U.T.F.O. and female rappers Roxanne Shanté and The Real Roxanne (among others) all traded barbs with new singles. While many of these singles included lyrical references to their predecessors, most did not include additional writing credits for those songs’ performers.
“Lyrically, sure, there’s enough similarity to make listeners think that ‘Flowers’ is deliberately responding to the earlier song,” Fishman offers. “But even if we assume that’s true, so what? Using one song to issue a retort to an earlier song is not, by itself, infringement. John Mayer and Taylor Swift don’t need to cross-license anything when they write songs at each other.”
Does all this mean that there’s no chance of Mars and his co-writers eventually being added as co-writers to the “Flowers” credits? Not necessarily: Whether or not Cyrus is protected legally from legal recourse from the “Your Man” writers, she may ultimately decide to add them anyway as an act of goodwill and out of a desire to avoid further conflict, particularly with all the media attention the similarity between the songs has received. It’s not uncommon for additional songwriting credits to be added to a song after its initial release — as was the case with “Good 4 U” in 2021 — often following a period of negotiations between the concerned parties. But if the names of Mars and his co-writers stay absent in the credits, Cyrus is not likely to have any legal responsibility to give them their “Flowers” there.
Taylor Swift has reached an agreement with two songwriters to end a five-year long copyright lawsuit claiming she stole the lyrics to “Shake It Off” from an earlier song about “playas” and “haters,” resolving one of the music industry’s biggest legal battles without a climactic trial or ruling.
In a joint filing made on Monday in California federal court, attorneys for both Swift and her accusers – songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler – asked a judge for an order “dismissing this action in its entirety.” Before the deal, a trial had been scheduled to kick off in January.
The public filings did not include any specific terms of the apparent settlement, like whether any money exchanged or songwriting credits would be changed. Attorneys for both sides and a rep for Swift did not immediately return requests for comment.
The agreement means a sudden end for a blockbuster case that seemed headed toward the next landmark ruling on music copyrights. Following legal battles over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” the case against Swift posed fundamental questions about the limits of copyright protection, with her lawyers arguing that the accusers were trying to “cheat the public domain” by monopolizing basic lyrical phrases.
Hall and Butler first sued way back in 2017, claiming Swift stole her lyrics to “Shake It Off” from their “Playas Gon’ Play,” a song released by R&B group 3LW in 2001. That was no small accusation, given the song in question: “Shake It Off” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2014 and ultimately spent 50 weeks on the chart, a mega-hit even for one of music’s biggest stars.
In Hall and Butler’s song, the line was “playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate”; in Swift’s track, she sings, “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” In their complaint, the duo said Swift’s lyric was clearly copied from their song.
In the years since, Swift’s attorneys repeatedly pushed to dismiss the case, arguing that a short snippet of lyrics about “players” and “haters” was not creative or unique enough to be covered by copyrights. They cited more than a dozen earlier songs that had used similar phrases, including 1997’s “Playa Hater” by Notorious B.I.G and 1999’s “Don’t Hate the Player” by Ice-T.
Swift initially won a decision in 2018 dismissing the case on those grounds, with a federal judge ruling that Hall and Butler’s lyrics were not protected because popular culture in 2001 had had been “heavily steeped in the concepts of players, haters, and player haters.” But an appeals court later overruled that decision, and a judge ruled last year that the case would need to be decided by a jury trial.
“Even though there are some noticeable differences between the works, there are also significant similarities in word usage and sequence/structure,” the judge wrote at the time.
More recently, Swift’s team again asked the judge to dismiss the case, this time making a new argument: That documents turned over during the case had revealed that Hall and Butler voluntarily signed away their right to file the lawsuit in the first place.
In an August filing, Swift’s lawyers said the documents proved that Hall and Butler had granted their music publishers the exclusive rights to bring an infringement lawsuit over the song, meaning they lacked the legal standing to do so. Her lawyers said the pair had even emailed their publishers – Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group, respectively – asking for permission to sue, but that both companies had refused the request.
“After their music publishers refused to assign to plaintiffs the claim they assert in this action, their manager unsuccessfully lobbied a United States Congressman to get a House sub-committee to intervene,” Swift’s lawyers alleged in the filing.
That motion was still pending when Monday’s settlement was filed.