Legal
Young Thug’s attorneys fired back Thursday (April 3) at a push by Atlanta prosecutors to revoke his probation, strongly denying that he violated his release terms merely by posting to social media that a government investigator was the “biggest liar.”
Just a day after the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office told a Georgia judge that Thug should be imprisoned over the X post criticizing Marissa Viverito, the star’s attorneys said the government motion was filled with “baseless assertions” and ought to be denied.
“Mr. Williams did not violate any term of probation,” lawyer Brian Steel wrote in the filing. “There is no violation of Mr. Williams’ probation by reposting an image on social media and opining that Investigator Viverito is untruthful.”
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After sitting in jail for more than two years on felony gang accusations over his “YSL” group, Thug pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to serve only probation — a stunning end to a legal saga that could have seen him face a life sentence. While he avoided prison, Thug was hit with strict release terms from the judge, who warned him that “there better be no violations.”
The current dispute started on Tuesday (April 1), when Thug posted an image of Viverito to X (formerly Twitter) with the caption that read: “Marissa Viverito is the biggest liar in the DA’s office.” The post, apparently a reference to her testimony in an unrelated gang case, quickly spread across social media.
A day later, the DA’s office went to court, saying Thug had shown “a blatant disregard for the law, the safety of witnesses, and the integrity of judicial proceedings.” Prosecutors argued that the tweet had been part of “a calculated campaign of intimidation” and had led to subsequent posts by others revealing Viverito’s home address and making death threats against DA Fani Willis.
“The escalation from targeting a testifying witness to making a direct death threat against the elected District Attorney of Fulton County is a grave and unprecedented attack on the justice system,” prosecutors wrote in the Wednesday (April 2) filing.
But in Thursday’s response, Steel said Thug was legally entitled to voice his opinion about Viverito’s credibility even while living under the terms of his probation: “Mr. Williams can admit to all of the allegations alleged and still not have violated any term of his probationary sentence.”
Steel also argued that Thug himself was clearly not responsible for later posts by other users: “Mr. Williams, undersigned counsel and all moral persons do not condone threatening another without justification. However, these comments on social media by unknown persons cannot be attributed to Mr. Williams in order to support a violation of his probationary sentence.”
A judge will weigh the arguments from both sides and potentially order a hearing to decide whether to revoke probation. In Thursday’s response, Steel said that the judge could deny the request without a hearing — but that his client would be ready for one: “If a hearing is needed, Mr. Williams will be prepared.”
After beating a copyright lawsuit over her holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Mariah Carey and other defendants say the little-known songwriter who filed the case must now repay more than $180,000 they spent on lawyers defending his “frivolous” arguments.
When a federal judge dismissed Vince Vance’s lawsuit last month – ruling the two songs mostly just shared “Christmas song clichés” – she sharply criticized the songwriter and his lawyers for “egregious” conduct during the case and ordered him to repay some of Carey’s legal bill.
On Wednesday, that bill came due: Carey and the other defendants in the case told the judge they spent a combined $185,602.30 paying a team of high-priced lawyers to work a total of 295 hours to defeat the “frivolous” motions advanced by Vance’s attorneys.
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If that sounds like a lot, Carey’s lawyers say its because Vance was making radical demands.
“The court should consider that [Vance was] seeking, among other things, $20 million in damages, injunctive relief, and even the destruction of all copies of ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You,’” her attorneys say. “Considering such drastic requested relief, and the results obtained, defendants were perfectly justified in incurring the aforementioned attorney’s fees to successfully oppose plaintiffs’ motion.”
Vance (real name Andy Stone) first sued Carey in 2022, claiming “All I Want” infringed the copyrights to a 1989 song of the exact same name recorded by his Vince Vance and the Valiants. He claimed the earlier track received “extensive airplay” during the 1993 holiday season — a year before Carey released her now-better-known hit.
“Carey has … palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own,” Vance wrote in his latest complaint. “Her hubris knowing no bounds, even her co-credited songwriter doesn’t believe the story she has spun.”
Vance’s allegations were a big deal because Carey’s song is big business. The 1994 blockbuster, which became even more popular after it was featured in the 2003 holiday rom-com Love Actually, has re-taken the top spot on the Hot 100 for six straight years and earned a whopping $8.5 million in global revenue in 2022.
But in a ruling last month, Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani said Vance had failed to show that the songs were similar enough to violate copyright law. She cited analysis by a musicologist who said the two tracks were “very different songs” that shared only “commonplace Christmas song clichés” that had been used in many earlier tracks.
“Plaintiffs have not met their burden of showing that [the songs by] Carey and Vance are substantially similar under the extrinsic test,” Ramírez Almadani wrote at the time, using the legal term for how courts assess such allegations.
The judge not only tossed out Vance’s case, but also ruled that he and his lawyers should be punished for advancing meritless arguments that the judge said were aimed to “cause unnecessary delay and needlessly increase the costs of litigation.”
In Wednesday’s filing, the defendants told the judge how much Vance should pay under that order – saying they had been charged reasonable or even below-market rates from elite music litigators at top law firms.
Carey, repped by Peter Anderson and others from the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, asked for about $141,000; Walter Afanasieff, a co-writer on Carey’s track repped by Kenneth D. Freundlich, asked for $7,000; Sony Music, represented by Benjamin Akley, Donald Zakarin, Ilene Farkas and others from Pryor Cashman, asked for $32,000; and Kobalt, repped by Bert Deixler and others from Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP, asked for $5,000.
The judge will rule on the request at some point in the weeks or months ahead. Vance’s attorneys will be allowed to file a response disputing the calculation; they can also appeal the ruling dismissing their case, though such a challenge will likely face long odds.
A federal judge says President Donald Trump must face a copyright lawsuit filed by the estate of Isaac Hayes over the president’s alleged use of the 1966 song “Hold On, I’m Coming” on the campaign trail. In a ruling issued Wednesday (April 2), court records show that Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. denied a motion by […]
A federal judge says Drake can move forward with discovery in his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” allowing his attorneys to begin demanding documents like Lamar’s record deal.
UMG had asked Judge Jeannette A. Vargas to halt the discovery process last month, arguing that Drake’s case was so flawed that it would likely be quickly dismissed — and that the star was unfairly demanding “highly commercially sensitive documents” in the meantime.
But at a hearing Wednesday (April 2) in Manhattan federal court, the judge denied that motion in a ruling from the bench. The judge had hinted in earlier rulings that she does not typically delay discovery before deciding if a case will be dismissed, barring extraordinary circumstances.
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In response to the ruling, Drake’s lead attorney Michael Gottlieb said: “Now it’s time to see what UMG was so desperately trying to hide.” An attorney for UMG declined to comment, and a spokesman for the company did not immediately return a request for comment.
Lamar released “Not Like Us” last May amid a high-profile beef with Drake that saw the two stars release a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a “certified pedophile” over an infectious beat, eventually became a chart-topping hit in its own right and was the centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show.
In January, Drake took the unusual step of suing UMG over the song, claiming his label had defamed him by boosting the track’s popularity. The lawsuit, which doesn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.
UMG filed a scathing motion seeking to dismiss the case last month, arguing not only that it was “meritless” but also ridiculing Drake for suing in the first place. Days later, the company asked Judge Vargas to pause discovery until she ruled on that motion, warning that exchanging evidence would be a waste of time if the case was then immediately tossed out of court.
But in a quick response, Drake’s lawyers argued discovery must go on because the lawsuit was not going anywhere: “UMG completely ignores the complaint’s allegations that millions of people, all over the world, did understand the defamatory material as a factual assertion that plaintiff is a pedophile.”
Following Wednesday’s decision, Drake’s attorneys will now continue to push ahead with seeking key documents and demanding to depose witnesses. That process will continue unless the judge grants UMG’s motion in the months ahead and dismisses the lawsuit.
In the earlier filings in the case, UMG attached the actual discovery requests filed by Drake’s team, detailing the materials his attorneys are seeking.
Among many others, they want documents relating to decisions on “whether to omit or censor any lyrics” from “Not Like Us” during the Super Bowl halftime show; anything related to the promotion of the song on Spotify and Apple Music; and any communications with the Recording Academy ahead of Lamar’s string of award wins at the Grammy Awards in February; and “all contracts and agreements between you and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, his agents, or anyone working on his behalf.”
SiriusXM wants a federal judge to dismiss a class action claiming the company earns billions by foisting a deceptive “royalty fee” on subscribers, arguing there’s “nothing misleading” about its pricing.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court last year, claims that SiriusXM adds a huge “U.S. Music Royalty Fee” onto the advertised price — an “invented” charge with a deceptive name designed to falsely make consumers think that it’s mandated by the government to pay for music rights.
But in a Monday response, attorneys for the satcaster argue that the company “prominently and repeatedly” discloses all fees that consumers face before they purchase their subscription, including a base price and “taxes and fees.”
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“There is nothing misleading about Sirius XM’s practices,” the company’s attorneys say. “Every piece of information which plaintiffs say Sirius XM attempted to ‘conceal’ is and has always been out in the open. Plaintiffs were told what they had to pay if they wanted their music plans, and they received what they paid for—as contemplated by every statement exchanged between Sirius XM and its customers.”
The case, filed in June by four aggrieved SiriusXM customers who say they want to represent millions of other subscribers, claims that the Royalty Fee amounts to 21.4% of the original price – netting the company a whopping $1.36 billion in 2023 alone. The accusers say the fee itself is not illegal, but that it needs to be clearly advertised and explained to potential buyers.
“This action challenges a deceptive pricing scheme whereby SiriusXM falsely advertises its music plans at lower prices than it actually charges,” attorneys for plaintiffs wrote at the time. “SiriusXM intentionally does not disclose the fee to its subscribers. SiriusXM even goes so far as to not mention the words ‘U.S. Music Royalty Fee’ in any of its advertising, including in the fine print.”
The name of the fee aims to make it sound important and official, the lawsuit claimed, but it’s really just a “disguised double charge for the music plan itself” that no other competing music services imposes on their users as an additional fee on top of the actual price.
“Reasonable consumers would expect that the advertised price for SiriusXM’s music plans would include the fundamental costs of obtaining the permissions necessary to provide the music content that SiriusXM has promised is included in those plans,” lawyers for the subscribers wrote in their complaint.
But in Monday’s response, Sirius said there was nothing misleading about the name of the fee, which they say “offsets royalties payable to holders of copyrights in sound records and holders of copyrights in musical compositions.”
“Sirius XM has done exactly what it said it would do: charge a monthly price for music subscriptions, plus ‘fees and taxes,’ for a prominently and repeatedly disclosed total price that is the sum of the two,” the company wrote. “And the fee Sirius XM charges is exactly what its name suggests: one to cover the royalty expenses.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs will file a response in the weeks ahead, and then a judge will rule on SiriusXM’s motion at some point in the next few months. If denied, the case will proceed toward an eventual trial.
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: Dua Lipa shuts down a copyright lawsuit over her smash hit “Levitating”; Tony Bennett’s daughters sue their brother over the late singer’s estate; Latin music exec Angel Del Villar is convicted of working with a promoter with links to Mexican cartels; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Dua Lipa Levitates Out of Another Lawsuit
Back in March 2022, Dua Lipa was sued for copyright infringement twice in just four days over “Levitating,” her breakout hit that spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. But three years later, both cases are now dead and gone.
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In a decision issued last week, a federal judge granted Lipa summary judgment in a lawsuit filed by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who accused the superstar of ripping off their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and their 1980 song “Don Diablo.”
The complaint cheekily claimed that Lipa “levitated away plaintiffs’ intellectual property,” but Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that there was essentially no IP to steal — that the songs shared only the kind of basic musical building blocks that are not covered by federal copyright law.
“It is possible that a ‘layperson’ could listen to portions of plaintiffs’ and defendants’ songs and hear similarities,” the judge wrote in her decision. “But … the similarity between the works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the plaintiffs’ work.”
The other lawsuit against Lipa — filed by a Florida reggae band named Artikal Sound System over their 2015 track “Live Your Life” — was voluntarily dropped in 2023 after another judge ruled in her favor that there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” had had “access” to the earlier song — a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit.
As we wrote back in 2022, it seems you’re not truly a pop star until you’ve been sued for copyright infringement a few times; just ask Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran or Katy Perry. Now, Lipa can truly join that distinguished group — as someone who has not just faced such cases, but fought back and won.
Other top stories this week…
FAMILY FEUD – Tony Bennett’s daughters (Antonia and Johanna Bennett) expanded their legal battle against their older brother (D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett), claiming in a new lawsuit that he has “abused” his power over the late singer’s affairs to “enrich himself.” Echoing an earlier case, the sisters accused Danny of “improper and unlawful conduct” both before and after the legendary singer’s 2023 death, including “excessive and unearned commissions” and giving “gifts to himself and his children.” Danny’s lawyers have called such accusations “baseless” and argued he was “fully authorized to take the steps he took.”
GUILTY VERDICT – Latin music executive Angel Del Villar was convicted by a federal jury on felony charges of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels, setting the stage for a potential decades-long prison sentence for the Del Records CEO. Prosecutors alleged Del Villar had repeatedly arranged concerts with Jesus Pérez Alvear, a Guadalajara-based promoter subject to federal sanctions for helping cartels “exploit the Mexican music industry to launder drug proceeds and glorify their criminal activities.” Del Villar’s attorneys vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the jury “got it wrong.”
AI RULING – A federal judge issued a ruling denying Universal Music Group’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have immediately blocked artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC from using copyrighted lyrics to train future AI models. The judge said that it remained an “open question” whether using copyrighted materials to train AI is illegal — something of a trillion-dollar question for the booming industry — meaning UMG and other music companies could not show that they faced the kind of “irreparable harm” necessary to win such a drastic remedy.
SAMPLING SPAT – Ye (formerly Kanye West) was hit with a copyright lawsuit claiming he sampled a song by German singer-songwriter Alice Merton despite her express refusal to license it to him because of his history of antisemitic statements. Merton said she’s the direct descendant of Holocaust survivors and that being involuntarily associated with the controversial rapper left her “shocked and humiliated.” The case is the latest of at least a dozen lawsuits West has faced over his career over allegations of unlicensed sampling or interpolating.
Tony Bennett’s daughters have expanded their legal battle against their older brother, claiming in a new lawsuit that he has “abused” his power over the late singer’s affairs to “enrich himself.”
Echoing allegations from a separate case they filed last year, Antonia and Johanna Bennett accuse D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett of “improper and unlawful conduct” in his role as trustee of the family estate, both before and after the legendary singer’s 2023 death.
They say the legal action is necessary to “protect their father’s wishes,” which were that all four of his children “be treated equally.”
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“Since Tony’s death, Johanna and Antonia have discovered that Danny exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain,” attorneys for the Bennett sisters write in the Monday filing.
Among other allegations, Antonia and Johanna say Danny paid himself “excessive and unearned commissions” and gave “substantial loans and gifts to himself and his children” prior to the singer’s death: “Danny engaged in these improper transactions without accountability or oversight of any kind, freely using and controlling Tony’s assets and trust assets often as if they were Danny’s own.”
Antonia and Johanna first sued Danny in a petition filed last summer in the same New York court, but that case sought only to force Danny to open the books for the family trust. The new filing is more of an outright lawsuit, accusing him of various forms of wrongdoing and is seeking monetary damages.
An attorney for Danny did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations Tuesday.
In court filings in the earlier case, Danny’s lawyers have argued that he was “fully authorized to take the steps he took” and that Bennett had “specifically excluded his daughters from ever having any role in such matters after his death.” They also say he has been “fully transparent” about the details of the Iconoclast deal, including providing them with the full agreement and a detailed breakdown of income.
“The undisputed facts establish that Tony provided Danny with authority to manage his affairs and business opportunities, and that Danny did so honestly and in an appropriate manner,” his attorney wrote in a February filing seeking to dismiss the case. “Ironically, Petitioners, despite their baseless complaints, are the beneficiaries of Danny’s hard work and devotion to his father.”
Like the earlier case, Monday’s lawsuit repeatedly references last year’s sale of Bennett’s likeness rights and other intellectual property to the firm Iconoclast. Antonia and Johanna say Danny earned millions from that deal and had “clear conflicts of interest” when he executed it, but has refused to provide them with a clear accounting of the proceeds or other key information about the sale.
“Danny’s explanation for the timing and reasons for the Iconoclast transaction contradict the financial information Danny has provided and fail to establish in any way that the transaction was appropriate, properly valued, free of conflicts of interest and improper self-dealing, and in the best interest of the beneficiaries,” attorneys for the daughters write.
Iconoclast is not accused of any wrongdoing in the lawsuit. The company, which describes itself as “dedicated to preserving and growing the legacy of culturally significant artists,” did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The daughters also claim that Danny mishandled Bennett’s physical property after his death, doing so in a “malicious and retaliatory manner” simply because they had asked for more transparency into the financial affairs.
“Danny prohibited Johanna and Antonia from retaining certain items that are priceless to them, and he kept them from even entering Tony’s apartment to see these items for a prolonged period of time,” their lawyers write. “Danny also discarded items of tremendous sentimental value to Johanna and Antonia without notice.”
The main suspect in the Sauce Walka shooting that killed rapper Sayso P (real name Letorian Hunt) has been found dead, according to Memphis Police.
The Memphis Police Department announced Monday (March 31) that 21-year-old Jayden Dandridge was found deceased in Houston. However, a second suspect, 22-year-old Kevin Brown, remains at large, and an investigation is ongoing.
A warrant was issued for Brown, charging him with first-degree murder, attempted murder, employment of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony and theft of property. Dandridge’s warrant is no longer active.
Sauce Walka was the victim of a shooting outside the Westin Hotel near the FedEx Forum in Memphis on March 22. Walka was transported to a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound to his leg while his artist, Sayso P, was pronounced dead at the scene. He’s expected to make a full recovery.
TMZ obtained footage that appeared to show Dandridge in the stolen 2021 Dodge Challenger that was used in the drive-by shooting of Walka and Sayso P.
TMZ also reported that Dandridge was found executed with multiple gunshot wounds in an abandoned Houston warehouse on March 27. No arrests have been made.
Last week, Sauce Walka said he didn’t have any plans of avenging Sayso P’s murder.
“If I wanted to, I could have mother—-ing four or 500 different men — good men — down here from different cities and states, including mine, around here ready to do whatever by snapping my finger in retaliation to what happened to me and my little brother,” he told Wikid Films.
Walka continued: “But as much as it hurts my soul, and it really break me down — I’m damn near getting emotional about the sh– — I can’t retaliate because that’s not righteous. My brother had his own dealings as a man that a n—a got to respect and a mother—-er had an opportunity to make me 100 percent accountable for the same thing… and took my life for no reason.”
Sauce Walka posted a heartfelt tribute to Sayso P to social media in the days after his murder while reflecting on some of the good times they enjoyed together. “Words or tears can’t explain the loss I feel!” he began.
Sean Kingston and his mother were found guilty of federal wire fraud charges in a Florida courtroom on Friday (March 28). The “Beautiful Girls” singer, whose real name is Kisean Anderson, and his mother, Janice Turner, were convicted on all five charges following a five-day trial related to over $1 million in wire fraud. A […]
Rapper Yella Beezy was released on bond Friday morning (March 28). According to The Dallas Morning News, Beezy (born Markies Conway) posted a $750,000 bond to secure his release after being reduced by a judge from $2 million on Thursday. After being indicted by a Dallas County grand jury on March 18, Beezy was arrested […]