Lawsuits
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It seems Kanye is going to Kanye wherever and wherever. He did the absolute most during a virtual lawsuit deposition.
As reported by TMZ, the rapper was recently featured on A&E’s Interrogation Raw: Celebrity Under Oath. The news series shows high-profile stars participating in legal proceedings. To promote the premiere the network released a promotional trailer, which captures Kanye being questioned regarding a lawsuit MyChannel. Inc. filed against the “Stronger” rapper for allegedly stealing their technology.
As soon as Kanye joins the virtual call he makes it clear he sees this very important matter as beneath him by wearing a cap and keeping his head down while using his phone. Naturally, the lawyers request he put away the device to which Yeezy responds defiantly. “Due to my mental geniuses-ness, in order to focus on this bullish*t I need to be on a phone.” Shortly after, his counsel asks about the device. Kanye volunteers to get off the phone but then proceeds to put on a mask. When asked why he put on the facial covering he said, “because you don’t have the right to see my face.”
In a second clip, Kanye is asked where he is located during interrogation and tells the plaintiff’s lawyer “I’m not going to tell you! You’re never going to see me again.” When prompted further on who else is he with and what other items he has in the room besides the phone he yells “Are you stupid? You are talking to the richest Black person in the history of America.”
You can watch the trailer for Interrogation Raw: Celebrity Under Oath below.
Less than a week after he was indicted on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing yet another civil sexual abuse case, this time claiming that he and another man “viciously raped” a woman at his New York City studio in 2001.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, attorneys for Thalia Graves say that Combs and his head of security, Joseph Sherman, isolated her, drugged her and sexually assaulted her at his studio. The lawsuit says the rapper also filmed the attack and later showed it to others.
“For decades, she remained silent and did not report the crime out of fear that defendants would use their power to ruin her life, as they had repeatedly, explicitly threatened to do,” writes Graves’ lawyers, who include well-known attorney Gloria Allred. “To this day, plaintiff suffers from severe depression, anxiety, and panic attacks, and still lives in fear of defendants.”
The case is the latest of at least nine similar civil suits filed against Combs over the past year, each of which accuses him of sexual abuse and other wrongdoing. And it comes just a week after he was arrested and indicted by federal prosecutors on sweeping accusations of sex trafficking and racketeering – charges that, if proven, could see him sent to prison for life.
In the new case, Graves claims she was 25 years old at the time of the attack. She says she was dating one of Combs’ employees, and that he exploited the relationship to “lure” her into meeting him and Sherman alone at the studio.
Once alone, Graves alleges they gave her a drink that was “likely laced with a drug that eventually caused her briefly to lose consciousness.” She says she later “awoke to find herself bound and restrained,” at which time the pair “proceeded to brutally sexually abuse” her. Her attorneys say that “both men were undeterred by plaintiff’s cries for help throughout the attack.”
A representative for Combs did not immediately return a request for comment. Sherman could not immediately be located for comment.
Following the attack, Graves says she “never recovered,” suffering suicidal thoughts and other severe emotional damage. And she says any progress in healing was “dramatically reversed” when she learned last year that Combs had filmed the alleged attack and had “shown the video to multiple men.”
“Plaintiff could not believe that Defendants would record themselves committing such a gruesome crime and then proceed proudly and widely to disseminate the recording of it,” her attorneys write. “This action seeks redress for defendants’ brutalizing, misogynistic, and violent attacks.”
Ice Spice has reached an agreement to end a copyright lawsuit over allegations that her recent hit “In Ha Mood” was copied from a Brooklyn rapper’s earlier track.
The case, filed earlier this year by a rapper named D.Chamberz (Duval Chamberlain), claimed that Ice Spice’s song – which spent 16 weeks on the Hot 100 in 2023 – was “strikingly similar” to his own 2021 track “In That Mood.”
But in a motion filed in federal court Friday, attorneys for both sides said they had agreed to resolve the lawsuit. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed in court filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
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Released early last year following Ice Spice’s 2022 breakout, “In Ha Mood” reached No. 58 on the Hot 100 and No. 18 on the US Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. It was later included on her debut EP Like..?, and she performed the song during her October appearance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.
In a lawsuit filed in January, D.Chamberz claimed that the two songs share so many similarities that the overlaps “cannot be purely coincidental.” He said the similar elements “go [to] the core of each work,” and are so obvious that they’ve already been spotted by listeners.
“By every method of analysis, ‘In Ha Mood’ is a forgery,” D.Chamberz’s attorneys wrote at the time. “Any proper comparative analysis of the beat, lyrics, hook, rhythmic structure, metrical placement, and narrative context will demonstrate that ‘In Ha Mood’ was copied.”
The lawsuit claimed the earlier song received “significant airplay” on New York City radio stations, including Hot 97 and Power 105.1, giving Ice Spice and others behind her track a chance to hear it.
In addition to naming Ice Spice (Isis Naija Gaston) as a defendant, the lawsuit also names her frequent producer, RiotUSA (Ephrem Lopez, Jr.), as well as Universal Music Group, Capitol Records and 10K Projects.
In April, the defendants formally denied the lawsuit’s allegations, but the case remained in the earliest stages when Friday’s agreement was reached.
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: The world’s biggest music companies file lawsuits against AI music firms accusing them of stealing copyrighted music at “an “unimaginable scale”; a federal judge rules that Megan Thee Stallion didn’t copy her chart-topping “Savage” from an earlier song; the artist formerly known as Kanye West settles a copyright lawsuit filed by Donna Summer’s estate; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Major Labels Sue AI Music Cos. Over Training
In the latest battle between the music industry and artificial intelligence firms, the three major music companies filed lawsuits against AI startups Suno and Udio over allegations that they copyrighted music to train their models on an “unimaginable scale.” Like numerous other copyright cases already filed by book authors, visual artists, newspaper publishers and other creative industries, the new lawsuits ask what could ultimately wind up being a trillion-dollar legal question: Is it copyright infringement to use vast troves of proprietary works to build an AI model that spits out new creations? Or is it just a form of legal fair use, transforming all those old works into something entirely new? The music business already picked that fight once, when major publishers sued AI giant Anthropic last year over its use of written lyrics to train AI models. (That case remains pending). But the new case, spearheaded by the Recording Industry Association of America, is the first to deal with sound and music itself, targeting two companies that are offering models that spit out full songs at the push of a button. Suno and Udio have quickly become two of the most important players in the emerging field of AI-generated music. Udio has already produced what could be considered an AI-generated hit song with “BBL Drizzy,” a parody track popularized with a remix by super-producer Metro Boomin and later sampled by Drake himself. And as of May, Suno had raised a total of $125 million in funding to create what Rolling Stone called a “ChatGPT for music.” In the new lawsuit, the record labels alleged that that success had been built on the backs of real human artists: “Since the day it launched, Udio has flouted the rights of copyright owners in the music industry as part of a mad dash to become the dominant AI music generation service. Neither Udio, nor any other generative AI company, can be allowed to advance toward this goal by trampling the rights of copyright owners.” For more, go read Kristin Robinson’s full story on the new lawsuits, complete with access to the actual complaints filed against Suno and Udio. And stay tuned to Billboard for more updates as the two cases unfold in the federal courts…
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Other top stories this week…
MEGAN WINS COPYRIGHT CASE – A federal judge ruled that Megan Thee Stallion didn’t copy her chart-topping song “Savage” from an earlier song, saying the songs were “qualitatively different” and that there was no evidence the superstar has ever even heard the little-known instrumental track. SUMMER SAMPLE SETTLEMENT – Ye (formerly Kanye West) finalized a settlement with the estate of Donna Summer to resolve a copyright lawsuit that accused him of “shamelessly” using her 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission in his song “Good (Don’t Die).” An attorney for the Summer estate confirmed to Billboard that the settlement did not include a license for West to legally re-release the offending track: “We got what we wanted.” YSL TRIAL DRAMA CONTINUES – Yak Gotti, one of Young Thug’s co-defendants in the YSL gang case in Atlanta, asked the Georgia Supreme Court to force Judge Ural Glanville to recuse himself from the ongoing trial, citing recent revelations about a secret meeting between the judge, prosecutors and a key witness. Gotti’s lawyers warned that the judge’s actions “offend public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary.” ALBUM HACKING SUIT RESOLVED – Kelsea Ballerini reached a settlement to end her lawsuit against Bo Ewing, a superfan she had accused of hacking her and then leaking her unreleased album. Ballerini agreed to drop the case after Ewing promised to never again share or access the offending materials. MADONNA CASE CLOSED – Two Madonna fans dropped their lawsuit complaining about delayed starts to her concerts, but the star’s lawyers quickly clarified that the move was “not the result of any settlement.” Reiterating earlier claims that the lawsuit had been a “strike suit” aimed at extorting a settlement, Madonna’s attorneys say they might still seek legal sanctions against the lawyers who filed the “frivolous” case. PETTY DOC SPARKS LAWSUIT – A filmmaker named Martyn Atkins filed a lawsuitagainst Warner Music over the 2021 Tom Petty documentary Somewhere You Feel Free, claiming the movie featured 45 minutes of his copyrighted film footage of the late rock legend without permission or payment. Atkins claimed he had been “conned” into sharing the footage with the producers after they promised him the chance to direct the documentary.
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We think it’s become pretty clear that when Nike sues you for copyright infringement, you’re going to lose as they’ve been shutting down any and everyone banking off of their classic silhouettes and now Kool Kyi has become the latest person to fall to the might swoosh brand and their team of high-powered attorneys.
Almost a year after Nike and Kool Kyi reached a settlement in their original copyright infringement lawsuit, as reported by Kari aka @sneakerphetish, a judge ordered Kool Kyi to cough up a cool million dollars in damages while shutting down their By Kyi sneaker line as it bares a striking resemblance to the classic Air Jordan 1 silhouette.
While some may feel that the Kool Kyi sneakers were just knockoffs of the Air Jordan 1’s, the sneakers did gain popularity over the years and it got to the point that Nike did take notice and decided to put an end to their run ASAP.
Now that Kool Kyi has been ordered to cease production of their sneakers and pay Nike $1 million for their troubles, we wonder if they’ll just return with a new and original silhouette of their own or give up on the sneaker game altogether.
What do y’all think Kool Kyi should do? Sound off in the comments section below.
Drake is pushing to be dismissed from the sprawling litigation over the 2021 disaster at Travis Scott‘s Astroworld festival, arguing that he had nothing to do with planning the deadly event and can’t be sued for simply showing up for a brief guest appearance.
More than 2,500 people have sued over the 2021 Astroworld event during which a crowd of fans rushed toward the stage during Scott’s Nov. 5 performance, leaving 10 dead and hundreds injured. Though the lawsuits mainly target Scott, Live Nation and other organizers, Drake was also named as a defendant in some cases because he appeared on stage during Scott’s deadly performance.
But in a motion filed Friday (Mar. 8) in Houston court, attorneys for Drake (real name Aubrey Drake Graham) argued that the star should not be involved in the case at all. They said he had no involvement in Astroworld beyond being asked to take the stage — and that festival organizers had “confirmed under oath that Mr. Graham was not involved in any planning.”
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They also say that Drake was unaware of any safety problems before he took the stage. “Mr. Graham did not receive any security briefings, was not informed of any crowd control issues, injuries or deaths in the crowd, or any stop show orders at any time either before or during his 14-minute performance.”
Instead, they say that Drake merely “arrived at the venue at approximately 7:30 PM and remained largely secluded backstage in a trailer until approximately 9:54 PM,” at which time he was “informed to take the stage.” The star then “immediately took the stage as requested, performed for approximately 14 minutes, and then exited the stage at 10:08 PM.”
The lawsuits over Astroworld claim that organizers were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event, including by failing to provide adequate security and emergency support. The cases, combined into one single large action in Houston, are seeking billions in potential damages. Much of the last two years has been spent in discovery, as the two sides exchange information and take depositions of key figures.
In Friday’s motion, Drake’s lawyers argued that the discovery process had resulted in “hundreds of hours” of depositions and “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents,” but that none of it had established that Drake could be held liable for negligence.
“Plaintiffs produce no evidence that Mr. Graham actually knew of any risk in the Festival site design and layout, competence or adequacy of Festival staffing and personnel, or emergency procedures such as show stop authority,” his lawyers wrote.
The alleged victims, represented by an array of plaintiffs law firms, will have a chance to respond to Drake’s motion in the weeks ahead.
A Los Angeles judge is pressing pause on a bombshell sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Lizzo by three of her former backup dancers, halting all proceedings while the star appeals a recent ruling that allowed the case to move forward.
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In a decision Thursday, Judge Mark H. Epstein ordered the case “stayed” while Lizzo challenges his January ruling, which largely rejected her efforts to dismiss the lawsuit under California’s anti-SLAPP statute — a special law that makes it easier to quickly end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech.
It’s unclear how long that process will take, but it will be at least several months before the case resumes.
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Lizzo (real name Melissa Jefferson) was sued in August by dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, who claim she and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. created a hostile work environment through a wide range of legal wrongdoing, including sexual harassment and religious and racial discrimination.
In one particularly vivid allegation, Lizzo’s accusers claimed she pushed them to attend a live sex show at a venue in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District called Bananenbar, and then pressured them to engage with the performers, including “eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas.” After Lizzo herself allegedly led a chant “goading” Davis to touch one performer’s breasts, the lawsuit says, Davis eventually did so.
Repped by Hollywood defense attorney Martin D. Singer, Lizzo fired back in October, arguing that Davis, Williams and Rodriguez filed the case seeking “a quick payday with minimal effort.” He said they had “an axe to grind” against the star because they had been reprimanded over “a pattern of gross misconduct and failure to perform their job up to par.”
Lizzo’s motion to dismiss the case cited the anti-SLAPP statute, which stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” Her lawyers called the harassment lawsuit “a brazen attempt to silence defendants’ creative voices and weaponize their creative expression against them.”
But in his ruling in January, Judge Epstein ruled that the anti-SLAPP law didn’t quite fit all of the lawsuit’s allegations. He tossed out some claims – including a particularly loaded charge that Lizzo fat-shamed one of her dancers – but ruled that remainder of the case could go forward.
Figuring out the proper balance – between protected speech and illegal discrimination – was “no easy task,” Judge Epstein wrote, but he said he had “tried to thread this needle.”
“It is dangerous for the court to weigh in, ham-fisted, into constitutionally protected activity,” the judge wrote. “But it is equally dangerous to turn a blind eye to allegations of discrimination or other forms of misconduct merely because they take place in a speech-related environment.”
It’s that ruling that Lizzo is now appealing. The coming appellate fight will aim to answer tricky questions about the anti-SLAPP statute – a provision that is often used to fight back against defamation lawsuits, not against discrimination lawsuit filed by former employees against their employer.
In statement Friday, the accusers’ attorney Ron Zambrano said: “This case now hinges on appeals. They’ll file, then we’ll cross-file, so the judge has stayed the case for the time being pending those appeals.” An attorney for Lizzo did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Aaron Hall’s alleged past is catching up with him something awful. The former Guy singer is getting dragged for filth after revelations that he may be a sexual assaulter, as well as his past antics, are getting resurrected and indicted on social media.
A new lawsuit claims that Sean Diddy Combs and Aaron Hall took turns raping a woman. The Daily Beast reports that Diddy was recently hit with a third lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. In a New York Supreme Court filing, the Jane Doe alleges that Diddy and Hall took turns rapping her 30 years ago.
Reports the Daily Beast:
According to the lawsuit, “Combs and Hall were very flirtatious and handsy with Jane Doe and her friend, offering them drinks throughout the night,” before the foursome retreated to Hall’s apartment, where “Jane Doe was offered more drinks and was coerced into having sex with Combs.”
After the alleged assault, the lawsuit continues, “Jane Doe laid in bed, shocked and traumatized. As she was in the process of getting dressed, Hall barged into the room, pinned her down and forced Jane Doe to have sex with him.” Hall is a member of R&B group Guy, which was credited as pioneering the “new jack swing” sound in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
The Jane Doe also added that few days later Combs allegedly tracked her down and assaulted her, choking her until she passed out. Supposedly, Combs feared the other woman, who also allegedly had sex with Hall and Combs, would reveal what occurred to another woman he was involved with.
This is the third lawsuit Diddy has been hit with that accuses him of sexual assault. The first was by ex-Bad Boy artist Cassie, but it was settled about a day after it was fined. A second is by Joi Dickerson-Neal, who has filed a lawsuit that claims Diddy drugged and raped her in 1991 when she was a college student.
As for Hall, his infamous interview with Vlad TV, where he bragged about getting down in front of Diddy, lyrics that haven’t aged well and his toxic relationship with OG Hip-Hop vixen Gloria Velez (which reportedly started when she as just 16 years old) has led to him catching social media’s wrath, along with Diddy.
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Friendships come and go, but some fallouts particularly hurt, even for strangers on the outside looking in. Case in point, Daryl Hall is suing his long-time musical partner John Oates, and social media is in shambles over it.
Is Hall & Oates, the Philadelphia natives are responsible for some all-time great, Blue-Eyed Soul grooves including “Private Eyes,” “Man Eater” and “I Can’t Go For That.” Their songs have also been sampled extensively by Hip-Hop artists through the decades.
But unfortunately, the duo is clearly no longer on good terms as reportedly Hall is suing Oates for reasons that aren’t particularly clear. Philadelphia Magazine reported on November 20 that Oates sued Hall in Nashville Chancery Court on November 16. However, the details of the lawsuit are under seal.
Adding further duress to fans of the duo that has eight platinum albums under their belt is the news that Hall has filed, and been granted, a restraining order against Oates which is scheduled to begin on November 30.
While Hall & Oates have toured and performed together for years—and have broken up and reunited before—the litigation has social media declaring this is end times. Sure it’s hyperbole, but this is Hall & Oates we’re talking about here.
See some of the more dramatic reactions in the gallery.
6. Kurt knows.
Hall & Oates are locked in a mysterious lawsuit against each other, with Daryl Hall already winning a restraining order against musical partner John Oates.
The case, filed by Hall on Nov. 16 in Nashville court, concerns either a “contract” or “debt,” but little else is known about the case because it was filed under seal — a maneuver used when court documents contain sensitive information.
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The day after Hall headed to court, the judge overseeing the case issued a temporary restraining order against Oates, but there are no details about what the injunction bans the singer from doing. The lawsuit also names Oates’ wife, Aimee, in her role as a trustee of her husband’s investment trust.
The case was first reported Monday (Nov. 20) by Philadelphia magazine. Billboard confirmed its existence by reviewing court records in the Davidson County Chancery Court. An attorney for Hall, and reps for both singers, did not return requests for comment on Wednesday.
Since teaming up as a pair of Philadelphia singers in 1972, Hall & Oates have hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 a whopping six times, first with “Rich Girl” in 1977 and then with “Kiss On My List,” “Private Eyes,” “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” “Maneater” and “Out of Touch.” The pair have 10 more top 10 hits on the chart, as well as four albums that reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200.
As explained by Philadelphia, the duo have already broken up and reunited several times, sometimes going years without playing together. But they recently founded the HoagieNation Festival in Philadelphia and headlined the event in 2017, 2018 and 2021.
With details of the recent lawsuit under seal, speculation about the dispute swirled on Wednesday. TMZ pointed to a quote from Hall on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast last year in which he said: “You think John Oates is my partner? … He’s my business partner. He’s not my creative partner.” Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that the pair had “played only a handful of dates in 2022” and none in 2023.
Last year, Hall told the Los Angeles Times that it can be “very annoying” to operate as a musical duo. “Everything you do is juxtaposed against another person. Try doing that sometime. I don’t want to use the word ‘emasculating,’ because that’s male, but it takes away your individuality.”