Lawsuit
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In a video on social media, Russell Simmons blasted those “attacking” his celebrity friends who’ve made visits to his home in Bali.
The entertainment mogul Russell Simmons voiced his frustration with those questioning the celebrities that have come to visit him at his home in Bali, Indonesia where he moved to amid multiple accusations of rape and sexual abuse. “Black people, did you forget that I got 10,000 black men out of jail? … And that I registered more of you to vote than probably anybody you know?”, he said in an Instagram Live video which was shared by another account named Live Bitez on Tuesday (August 20). Simmons was seated in a basic yoga pose as he looked into the camera.
“And I worked for Black Lives Matter and every movement that’s helped our people — all the women’s rights and even gay rights movements that I did so much work for,” Simmons continued, “To let them demonize me in such a way that my friends cannot visit me without you attacking them — but yet you stand next to Donald Trump, knock it off.”
He paused before stating that he’ll be in New York City next week. “I call the paparazzi on myself every time I’m there. I have an office. … I’m there all the time. I work out of New York sometimes, but I live here. This is my last chapter. I live here to heal people … and to give them spiritual and mental rejuvenation.”
The 66-year-old then addressed the accusations directly, saying: “From what I can tell, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, President Trump, all have more credible claims against them than I do if you ask Oprah [Winfrey]. I’ve never been charged with — who took nine lie detector tests? … Did Bill Clinton do that? Did Joe Biden do that? Did President Trump do that? Knock it off. I love you. I just don’t want my friends attacked … just leave my friends alone. Don’t attack them for visiting me. Attack friends for visiting Trump; he’s been convicted.”
Simmons has been living in Bali since 2017, and has recently been dealing with a few lawsuits accusing him of rape with the most recent being in February when a former music video producer sued him for allegedly attacking her in the 1990s. Several celebrities, including Taraji P. Henson, Usher, and MC Lyte have been pictured hanging out with the mogul in the past few months.
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: Taylor Swift’s legal options after Donald Trump falsely claims she endorsed him; a guilty plea for YoungBoy Never Broke Again on a federal gun charge; Mariah Carey’s arguments to dismiss a copyright case over “All I Want For Christmas”; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Will Taylor Protect Her … Reputation?
When Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump posted AI-generated images to social media that falsely suggested Taylor Swift had endorsed him, many Swifties and Democrats asked the same question all at once: Can she sue him? After all, Taylor is no MAGA fan. In 2020, she urged her legions of fans to vote Trump out of office, blasting him for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” and endorsing then-candidate Joe Biden. The superstar hasn’t endorsed anybody yet in 2024, but you can be pretty certain that it’s not going to be Trump. But there it was: an AI-generated image of Swift herself, dressed up as Uncle Sam in the style of a World War II-era recruiting poster, bearing a clear message: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” At the top of the post, Trump himself responded to the apparent endorsement: “I accept!” Can Taylor file a lawsuit? On what grounds? And should she do so? Go read our full story here to find out.
Other top stories this week…
YOUNGBOY GUILTY PLEA – YoungBoy Never Broke Again (aka NBA YoungBoy) notified a judge that he would plead guilty to a federal gun charge that has seen him held under house arrest for more than two years while awaiting trial. But the deal won’t resolve dozens of newer charges in Utah over claims that he ran a “large scale prescription fraud ring” while living under house arrest. CLASS DISMISSED – Adidas AG won a ruling tossing out a class action that claimed the company violated U.S. securities laws by failing to warn shareholders about internal offensive behavior from Ye (formerly Kanye West) before the company split with him in 2022. Though the judge said she did not condone his “erratic, inappropriate, and antisemitic” behavior and said it was “troubling” that it had happened at Adidas, she ruled that the company’s actions didn’t rise to securities fraud: “The question before this court is not whether to admonish Ye or hold Adidas morally accountable for Ye’s conduct.” SAMPLE SETTLEMENT – Elsewhere in Kanye-world, the rapper reached a settlement in a copyright lawsuit that accused him of using an uncleared sample from the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions in his song “Life of the Party.” The case was one of more than a dozen such cases he’s faced during his career, including a high-profile battle with the estate of Donna Summer that settled earlier this year. GRACELAND SCAM – A Missouri woman named Lisa Jeanine Findley was arrested and charged with attempting to defraud the family of Elvis Presley and steal their ownership interest in Graceland. The alleged scheme is what led to the bizarre, largely unexplained incident that saw the famed Memphis mansion seemingly put up for auction earlier this summer. NO MORE YSL TRIAL? As Young Thug’s gang trial drags on in Atlanta, a Republican challenger to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis now says she will end the case if she’s elected. In a statement, Courtney Kramer said the trial against Thug’s YSL was designed to “bring fame” to Willis rather than “bring justice to the community,” and that it’s resulted in “endless amounts of taxpayer dollars” being spent “on a prosecution that is based almost entirely on witnesses with little to no credibility.” HIPGNOSIS SUES MANILOW – Hipgnosis Song Fund filed a lawsuit against Barry Manilow in U.K. court over bonus payments relating to its acquisition of the singer’s catalog four years ago, accusing the singer of breach of contract and other wrongdoing over a deal that saw the company buy the rights to 917 songs including “Mandy,” “Looks Like We Made It” and many others. CHRISTMAS CLASH – Mariah Carey asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit claiming she stole her perennial holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” from an earlier song of the same name by songwriter Vince Vance. The star’s lawyers argued that the two songs share only “an unprotectable jumble of elements,” including “a title and hook phrase used by many earlier Christmas songs,” a series of “Christmas tropes” and other rudimental elements “scattered throughout these completely different songs.” RONDO DRUG PLEA – Rapper Quando Rondo pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to possess and distribute marijuana, resolving an indictment issued in December that saddled him with more extensive charges involving conspiracy to sell methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine. State gang and drug charges are still pending against him.
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The U.S. Department of Justice has refiled its historic anti-trust lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation, with 10 additional states joining the effort to break up the company more than a decade after its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster.
The Attorneys General for Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont were added to an amended complaint filed in New York’s Southern District on Monday (Aug. 19), bringing the total number of states participating in the lawsuit to 40 total, along with the District of Columbia.
“There is nothing new in the Amended Complaint,” a statement from Live Nation reads. “The lawsuit still won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows. We look forward to sharing more facts as the case progresses.”
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The amended lawsuit re-alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster acted like a monopoly and violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by using illegal tactics to expand its concert promotion business and management of amphitheaters. The new complaint also includes new details about how Live Nation allegedly expanded its ticketing business after it merged with Ticketmaster in 2009, including information about the company’s controversial relationship with arena developer and operator Oak View Group (OVG). Founded in 2015 by Tim Leiweke and music manager Irving Azoff, Oak View Group manages nearly 200 venues and relies on Live Nation to bring major tours to its concert facilities, which includes such top U.S. venues as Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, the Moody Center in Austin and UBS Arena in Belmont, N.Y.
As the building manager’s main representative, OVG is supposed to manage the competitive process for selecting a venue’s ticketing contract, but the complaint alleges that OVG is obligated to “advocate for exclusive agreements with Ticketmaster for more than 100 venues Oak View Group manages” — which the lawsuit claims essentially “locks those venues into long-term exclusive Ticketmaster agreements.” The agreement, the government argues, unfairly prevents third-party competitors from entering the ticketing space while compensating OVG with a substantial “incentive payment” from Live Nation plus significant annual payments.
In fairness, OVG’s competitor AEG — which also competes with Live Nation for concert promotion and ticketing — also accepted payments for the buildings it managed under ASM Global, the building management firm it owned with Canadian private equity firm Onex and recently sold to Legends Hospitality.
The revised complaint does not include additional damaging exchanges between Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and potential competitors, or new damaging information that shows the company employing heavy-handed tactics. Instead, it contains more analysis of the concert market following the merger of Live Nation-Ticketmaster. On that front, according to the complaint, “Live Nation’s conduct has harmed fans because they have been left with fewer concerts, have had more limited choices among touring artists, have paid higher ticketing fees, and have experienced a lower-quality ticketing experience than they otherwise would have but for Live Nation’s anticompetitive conduct.”
Adidas AG has won a court order dismissing a class-action lawsuit that claims the German sneaker giant violated securities laws by failing to warn its shareholders about Ye’s offensive behavior.
The case claimed that Adidas knew about serious problems with Ye (formerly Kanye West) as far back as 2018 but failed to disclose them, leaving investors facing losses when the company finally ended the partnership in 2022 over Ye’s antisemitic tirades and erratic behavior.
In a ruling Friday (Aug. 16), Judge Karin Immergut said she did not condone Ye’s conduct “erratic, inappropriate, and antisemitic” behavior and said it was “troubling” that it had happened at Adidas, but that it did not rise to the level of securities fraud.
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“The question before this court is not whether to admonish Ye or hold Adidas morally accountable for Ye’s conduct,” Immergut wrote. “Rather, this Court is faced with a precise legal question: has Plaintiff sufficiently pleaded facts showing that Adidas misled investors and thereby committed federal securities fraud? On the current record before this Court, the answer is no.”
Adidas ran a lucrative collaboration with Ye and his Yeezy apparel brand for nearly a decade. But the party ended in 2022, when the sneaker company (and many others) cut ties with the embattled rapper amid a wave of offensive statements he made about Jewish people. In an October 2022 statement announcing the split, Adidas said the rapper’s statements were “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.”
It’s been a messy breakup for Adidas. The split contributed to a loss of $655 million in sales for the last three months of 2022 and left Adidas holding $1.3 billion worth of unsold Yeezys and facing tricky questions about how to dispose of them responsibly. Adidas also battled Ye in court over millions in company funds and disclosed that it was litigating other aspects of the divorce in private arbitration.
In May 2023, a group of investors took Adidas to court over the breakup, arguing that Adidas executives had been aware for years of the potential harm that could come from the Ye partnership but had failed to publicly share such concerns with shareholders, as required by U.S. securities law.
In particular, the lawsuit cited a November 2022 Wall Street Journal article reporting that Adidas executives feared for years that the Yeezy relationship could “blow up at any moment.” The article reported that West had made antisemitic comments in front of Adidas staffers, including suggesting that an album be named after Adolf Hitler. The Journal story also highlighted a 2018 presentation to then-CEO Kasper Rørsted that detailed the risks of the arrangement and contemplated cutting ties with him.
But in Friday’s ruling, Judge Immergut sided with arguments from Adidas that the company’s disclosure statements had not misled investors about the risk posed by Ye. In one passage, she reminded the plaintiffs that Ye had shown signs of erratic behavior well before the split with Adidas — quoting statements in which he said that “racism is a dated concept” and that slavery was a “choice.”
“This court would be remiss not to note the very public nature of Ye’s behavior before Fall 2022,” the judge wrote. “After all, courts are not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free.”
The judge gave the investors one final chance to refile an updated version of their case against Adidas, but she cast doubt on whether they could overcome the problems she had identified in her ruling.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return a request for comment.
More than nine months after Mariah Carey was again sued for allegedly stealing her perennial holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” from an earlier song, her attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that the songs share nothing but commonplace musical building blocks.
In November, songwriter Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone) filed a second lawsuit against Carey accusing her of copyright infringement, arguing that her 1994 smash “was a greater than 50% clone…in both lyric choice and chord expressions” of his 1989 song of the same name, which was performed by his group Vince Vance and the Valiants (a similar lawsuit Vance filed in 2022 was subsequently dropped without prejudice, meaning he was allowed to refile). He was joined in the November action by Troy Plaintiff, who claims to have co-written the song with Vance.
But in documents filed in Los Angeles federal court on Monday (Aug. 12), attorneys for Carey and her co-defendants, including “All I Want” co-writer Walter Afanasieff, contend that Vance’s claims fail the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s “extrinsic test for substantial similarity in protectable expression” — essentially arguing that any similarities between the two songs are coincidental.
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“Plaintiffs’ claimed similarities between Vance and Carey are unprotectable…because they are, among other things, fragmentary and commonplace building blocks of expression that Vance and Carey use differently in their overall different lyrics and music,” the filing reads.
In the November lawsuit, Vance and Powers argued that the two songs share a “unique linguistic structure” and musical elements that Carey allegedly copied for her mega-hit, which has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the holiday season for five years running. They also claimed that despite how common it is today, the phrase “all I want for Christmas is you” was a “distinctive” one back when Vance and Powers’ song was released.
But Carey and her co-defendants argue that the plaintiffs “lack competent evidence that the songs share any protectable expression.” They add that reports produced by two musicologists Vance and Powers retained to bolster their case “list isolated, fragmentary similarities in Vance and Carey, while omitting differences and the context in which the claimed similarities occur,” making their conclusions “inherently subjective” and “irrelevant to the objective extrinsic test.”
“The claimed similarities are an unprotectable jumble of elements: a title and hook phrase used by many earlier Christmas songs, other commonplace words, phrases, and Christmas tropes like ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘mistletoe,’ and a few unprotectable pitches and chords randomly scattered throughout these completely different songs,” the lawyers write.
A representative for Vance and Powers did not immediately respond to Billboard’s request for comment.
A lawsuit against Beyoncé and Sony Music over samples featured in her chart-topping hit “Break My Soul” has been dropped, less than three months after the case was filed. The voluntary dismissal will end an unusual case in which members of Da Showstoppaz, a little-known New Orleans group, claimed that Beyoncé had used their music […]
With claims of uncleared samples back in the news, Billboard dug up every case that’s been filed against the controversial rapper. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot.
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Elon Musk & X have filed a lawsuit against advertisers he claimed colluded to boycott the social media platform.
According to reports, tech billionaire Elon Musk and the parent company of the social media platform X, formerly Twitter filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court against the World Federation of Advertisers claiming these companies colluded to boycott the platform. The suit also names other companies such as Mars, Unilever, CVS, and Dutch clean energy firm Orsted. “This is an antitrust action relating to a group boycott by competing advertisers of one of the most popular social media platforms in the United States,” the suit reads.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino informed subscribers of the lawsuit in a video and letter posted to X, formerly Twitter, stating that the advertisers were harming “the marketplace of ideas” with their actions. The suit also named the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, or GARM as a defendant claiming they were “discontinuing entirely or substantially reducing their previously substantial advertising purchases.” The company seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages, alleging the boycott is still ongoing. “By sharply curtailing its revenues, the boycott has reduced X’s ability to invest in new or improved functionality, thus harming the consumers who use X’s platform.”
The lawsuit comes after an investigation was initiated by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee last month, which heard testimony from those companies involved. “The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms,” its report read. Musk infamously told advertisers at the DealBook Summit last November who had begun to withdraw after his acquisition of X in 2022 to leave, saying: “Somebody’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising?! Blackmail me with money? Go f–k yourself. Go. F–k. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.” Companies cited the rise of racist and anti-Semitic content on the platform as a major reason for their exit.
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Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is mostly known these days for his work as a leading power player in the entertainment industry, but he hasn’t lost his sharp sense of humor. After a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against him by a former drug lord alleging that his story was lifted, 50 Cent taunted the man in his typical sarcastic fashion.
As exclusively reported by AllHipHop, Cory “Ghost” Holland launched a lawsuit back in 2021 against 50 Cent, Courtney Kemp, Starz, and Lionsgate for allegedly stealing his life story for the Power series.
Holland asserted in his lawsuit that the character of Ghost on Power modeled his own life, and retold his time on the street on a 2007 musical release. Holland claims he sent a CD of the album, titled Blasphemy, to the father of Kemp in order to find his way out of the drug game. Holland accused 50 Cent and the show’s co-creators of stealing his life story for the show.
New York District Judge Hon. Analisa Torres dismissed Holland’s claims within the three-count lawsuit. Judge Torres ruled in the first matter that the character of Ghost in the Power series never directly referenced Holland so the defamation claim was tossed.
In a second lawsuit, Holland claimed that 50 Cent sent people to harass and threaten him while showing up in his neighborhood. On the third matter, Holland said that people connected to 50 played a song that suggested a threat near his home.
Holland left behind a paper trail towards 50 and his camp, clearly illustrated in a letter obtained by AllHipHop with Holland explicitly stating there would be violent consequences.
50 Cent, never one to let a moment pass, took to Instagram and shared an image of a report regarding the tossed lawsuit and wrote in the caption, “Fool thought he was GHOST [laughing emoji] da fvck wrong wit these [Ninja emoji]’s man LOL @bransoncognac @lecheminduroi.”
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The Justice Department sued TikTok on Friday, accusing the company of violating children’s online privacy law and running afoul of a settlement it had reached with another federal agency.
The complaint, filed together with the Federal Trade Commission in a California federal court, comes as the U.S. and the prominent social media company are embroiled in yet another legal battle that will determine if – or how – TikTok will continue to operate in the country.
The latest lawsuit focuses on allegations that TikTok, a trend-setting platform popular among young users, and its China-based parent company ByteDance violated a federal law that requires kid-oriented apps and websites to get parental consent before collecting personal information of children under 13. It also says the companies failed to honor requests from parents who wanted their children’s accounts deleted, and chose not to delete accounts even when the firms knew they belonged to kids under 13.
“This action is necessary to prevent the defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate on a massive scale, from collecting and using young children’s private information without any parental consent or control,” Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement.
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TikTok said it disagreed with the allegations, “many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.”
“We offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors,” the company said in a statement.
The U.S. decided to file the lawsuit following an investigation by the FTC that looked into whether the companies were complying with a previous settlement involving TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly.
In 2019, the federal government sued Musical.ly, alleging it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, by failing to notify parents about its collection and use of personal information for kids under 13.
That same year, Musical.ly — acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and merged with TikTok — agreed to pay $5.7 million to resolve those allegations. The two companies were also subject to a court order requiring them to comply with COPPA, which the government says hasn’t happened.
In the complaint, the Justice Department and the FTC allege TikTok has knowingly allowed children to create accounts and retained their personal information without notifying their parents. This practice extends to accounts created in “Kids Mode,” a version of TikTok for children under 13. The feature allows users to view videos but bars them from uploading content.
The two agencies allege the information collected included activities on the app and other identifiers used to build user profiles. They also accuse TikTok of sharing the data with other companies – such as Meta’s Facebook and an analytics company called AppsFlyer – to persuade “Kids Mode” users to be on the platform more, a practice TikTok called “re-targeting less active users.”
The complaint says TikTok also allowed children to create accounts without having to provide their age, or obtain parental approval, by using credentials from third-party services. It classified these as “age unknown” accounts, which the agencies say have grown into millions.
After parents discovered some of their children’s accounts and asked for them to be deleted, federal officials said TikTok asked them to go through a convoluted process to deactivate them and frequently did not honor their requests.
Overall, the government said TikTok employed deficient policies that were unable to prevent children’s accounts from proliferating on its app and suggested the company was not taking the issue seriously. In at least some periods since 2019, the complaint said TikTok’s human moderators spent an average of five to seven seconds reviewing accounts flagged as potentially belonging to a child. It also said TikTok and ByteDance have technology they can use to identify and remove children’s accounts, but do not use them for that reason.
The alleged violations have resulted in millions of children under 13 using the regular TikTok app, allowing them to interact with adults and access adult content, the complaint said.
In March, a person with the matter had told the AP the FTC’s investigation was also looking into whether TikTok violated a portion of federal law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business practices by denying that individuals in China had access to U.S. user data.
Those allegations were not included in the complaint, which is asking the court to fine the companies and enter a preliminary injunction to prevent future violations.
Other social media companies have also come under fire for how they’ve handled children’s data.
In 2019, Google and YouTube agreed to pay a $170 million fine to settle allegations that the popular video site had illegally collected personal information on children without their parents’ consent.
And last fall, dozens of U.S. states sued Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram, for harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. A lawsuit filed by 33 states claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of COPPA. Nine attorneys general are also filing lawsuits in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 41 plus Washington, D.C.
This story was originally published by the Associated Press.