Legal News
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Sony Music has reached a settlement to end a lawsuit that claimed the name of Future’s chart-topping album High Off Life infringed the trademark rights of a creative agency that uses that exact same name.
High Off Life LLC sued Sony in 2020, alleging the label had “destroyed” the smaller company’s brand by using the name for the title of Future’s eight studio album. Though Sony argued an album name was protected by the First Amendment, a federal judge refused to dismiss the case last year.
But in a motion filed Tuesday, both sides agreed to end the case. The terms of the settlement, like whether any money exchanged hands or any names would be changed, were not publicly disclosed. Attorneys for both sides did not return requests for comment.
High Off Life reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 in May 2020. It was originally set to be titled “Life Is Good” – the name of the album’s third single – but the name was switched at the last minute as the COVID-19 pandemic swept made life somewhat less than good.
That was a problem for High Off Life LLC, which filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in October 2020 against Sony and Future’s Freebandz Productions. The company claimed it had been selling “High Off Life” apparel since 2009, had launched a creative agency under the name in 2017, and operates a hip-hop YouTube channel called “High Off Life TV.”
The case claimed that Sony’s promotion of Future’s album had buried the smaller company in search results: “Overnight, Defendants destroyed HOL’s investment of many years and many thousands of dollars into building consumer recognition.”
To beat the lawsuit, Sony and Freebandz cited something called the Rogers test — a legal doctrine that makes it very difficult to win lawsuits over the use of brand names in “expressive works” music. The rule says that authors have a First Amendment right to use trademarks in their work unless it explicitly misleads consumers, or is completely irrelevant to the artwork.
That argument might have prevailed eventually, but U.S. District Judge Scott Hardy ruled in April that it was too early to make that call. The decision allowed the case to proceed into discovery, where both sides to gather evidence and build their cases.
A prominent ’90s hip-hop duo is suing Universal Music Group for withholding royalties tied to what they’re alleging is a “sweetheart” deal the label reached with Spotify in the late 2000s.
Filed Wednesday (Jan. 4) in U.S. district court in New York by attorneys representing Andres Titus (Dres) and William McLean (Mista Lawnge), members of the hip-hop duo Black Sheep, the lawsuit claims UMG owes its artists approximately $750 million in royalties deriving from the company’s stock in Spotify. Under a licensing deal they claim UMG and the streaming giant reached in 2008, the label agreed to receive lower royalty payments in exchange for equity in the then-nascent streaming company. But Titus and McLean say the label breached their contract with Black Sheep and other artists by withholding what they argue is the artists’ rightful 50% share of UMG’s now-lucrative Spotify stock — and otherwise failing to compensate them for the lower royalty payments they received as a result of the alleged deal.
“Rather than distribute to artists their 50% of Spotify stock or pay artists their true and accurate royalty payments, for years Universal shortchanged artists and deprived Plaintiffs and Class Members of the full royalty payments they were owed under Universal’s contract,” the complaint reads. Titus and McLean further claim that Universal deliberately omitted from royalty statements both the company’s ownership of Spotify stock and the lower streaming royalty payments that resulted from its alleged deal with the streaming service.
“Over time, the value of the Spotify stock that Universal improperly withheld from artists has ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars,” the complaint continues. “These and the other wrongful conduct detailed herein resulted in the Company’s breaching its contracts with artists, violating the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is implicit in those contracts, and unjust enrichment at the expense of its artists.”
In a statement sent to Billboard, a UMG spokesperson denied Titus and McLean’s claims: “Universal Music Group’s innovative leadership has led to the renewed growth of the music ecosystem to the benefit of recording artists, songwriters and creators around the world. UMG has a well-established track record of fighting for artist compensation and the claim that it would take equity at the expense of artist compensation is patently false and absurd. Given that this is pending litigation, we cannot comment on all aspects of the complaint.”
According to the lawsuit, Titus and McLean signed a record contract with Polygram in July 1990 (later amended and revised in July 1991) as Black Sheep — the duo best known for the hit rap single “The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)” from their RIAA Gold-selling 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Black Sheep’s record contract was then assumed by UMG after the company merged with Polygram in 1998.
UMG acquired just over 5% of Spotify shares “in or around the summer of 2008” in a licensing agreement in exchange for lower royalty payments, the complaint adds, citing a 2018 Music Business Worldwide report. It claims that Universal acquired additional Spotify shares through its 2011 purchase of EMI, which had acquired shares in the streaming company around the same time, the suit alleges. It then cites UMG’s own prospectus, released in September 2021, revealing that the label held roughly 6.49 million, or roughly 3.35%, of Spotify shares as of June 30, 2021, valued at 1.475 billion euros ($1.79 billion).
It’s worth noting that UMG’s stake in Spotify has become significantly less lucrative since June 30, 2021, however. As of Wednesday’s closing price, UMG’s stake in Spotify is now worth just $560 million — the result of Spotify shares falling 70.5% over the past 18 months. Notably, Spotify isn’t the only streaming service UMG has equity in; according to the same prospectus, it also owns 0.73% of Tencent Music Entertainment shares, a stake that’s currently worth $112.5 million.
Included as an exhibit in the complaint is Black Sheep’s amended July 1991 contract with Polygram, which states that royalties paid to Titus and McLean “‘shall be a sum equal to fifty percent (50%) of [Universal’s] net receipts with respect to’ the ‘exploitation’ for any ‘use or exploitation’ of ‘Master Recordings’ created by Plaintiffs.” The plaintiffs claim they and other UMG artists are thereby entitled to 50% of the labels’ Spotify stock but that UMG has failed to pay it. This demand stems from a couple of broad assumptions: that all artists in the class signed similar contracts and that they were similarly not compensated with a portion of UMG’s stock holdings in Spotify.
The plaintiffs are asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages and an injunction “or other appropriate equitable relief” requiring UMG “to refrain from engaging in deceptive practices” as outlined in the lawsuit.
UMG isn’t alone among the major labels in acquiring Spotify stock — both Sony and Warner Music, as well as indie Merlin, also have or had stakes in the company. In May 2018, Sony sold half of its 5.707% stake in Spotify for an estimated $761 million, while that same month Merlin announced it sold its entire stake for an unknown amount and had shared the proceeds with its members. Warner followed suit in August 2018 when it sold its entire 2% stake in the streamer for $504 million, with the company announcing that around $126 million of the proceeds would be paid out to the company’s artists.
UMG has yet to sell any of its stock in the streaming giant.
-Additional reporting by Glenn Peoples
You can read the full lawsuit below.
A federal judge has tossed out a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against Marilyn Manson by model Ashley Morgan Smithline, citing the fact that she failed to retain a new lawyer after splitting with her old legal team last fall.
Smithline’s lawsuit, one of many claims of sexual abuse filed against Manson (real name Brian Warner) over the past two years, alleged that the rocker raped and abused her multiple times between 2010 and 2013. But in an order issued Tuesday (Jan. 3), Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha dismissed the case.
The reason? After Smithline split with her attorney Jay D. Ellwanger in October, the judge gave her until Dec. 5 to find a new lawyer — or to explain how she’d handle the case on her own as a so-called pro se litigant. She never did either, leading to Tuesday’s decision.
“Plaintiff has not filed a response as of the date of this order,” the judge wrote. “The court, therefore, dismisses this action … for plaintiffs failure to prosecute the action.”
The case was dismissed “without prejudice” — meaning Smithline could still refile the same claims at some point in the future. She could not immediately be located for comment; Ellwanger did not return a request for comment.
In a statement to Billboard, Manson’s attorney Howard King praised the outcome: “We thank and commend Ashley Smithline for dismissing her claims against Brian Warner without seeking or receiving anything in return. Ms. Smithline has refused to be manipulated by others who are trying to pursue their own agendas against Mr. Warner. We wish her well and will continue to work to assure that a significant price will be paid by those who have tried to abuse our legal system.”
Manson has faced multiple accusations of wrongdoing over the past two years.
Evan Rachel Wood, who began publicly dating Manson in 2007 when she was 19 and he was 39, accused him in a February 2021 Instagram post of “grooming me when I was a teenager” before he “horrifically abused me for years.” Those allegations were followed by separate lawsuits from Smithline, former assistant Ashley Walters, Game of Thrones actress Esme Bianco and a Jane Doe accuser.
In her lawsuit, Smithline made graphic and disturbing allegations of sexual assault against Manson. She alleged that she and Manson began a consensual relationship in 2010, but that it “quickly became apparent that consensual sex was not enough for Mr. Warner.”
“Ms. Smithline awoke from unconsciousness with her ankles and wrists tied together behind her back and Mr. Warner sexually penetrating her,” Smithline’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. “Ms. Smithline told Mr. Warner to stop and said no multiple times, and Mr. Warner told her to ‘shut the fuck up’ and ‘be quiet.’”
Manson has denied all of the allegations against him and even filed his own defamation lawsuit accusing Wood and another woman of orchestrating the many legal attacks against him. In the March 2022 complaint, he said Wood’s own “malicious falsehood” was part of an “organized attack” aimed at derailing his career, in which she had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously.” Wood denies those allegations.
Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi is facing a new lawsuit over a decades-old claim of sexual assault against two minors.
In a civil complaint filed in Los Angeles on Friday (Dec. 30), two Jane Does allege the singer-songwriter and her ex-producer, Sergio Andrade, “groomed” and “exploited” them when they were between the ages of 13 and 15 back in the early 1990s.
The lawsuit, independently obtained by Billboard and first reported on Wednesday by Rolling Stone, does not specifically name Trevi or Andrade — listing them only as anonymous Doe defendants — but based on the timeline of events and the details of the albums included in the suit, it’s clear that Trevi and Andrade are the defendants.
According to the plaintiffs, Trevi and Andrade used their “role, status, and power as a well-known and successful Mexican pop star and a famous producer” to coerce sexual contact with them over a course of years, much of it occurring in California. As a result of the sexual harassment, abuse and assault, the Plaintiffs have “suffered severe emotional, physical and psychological distress, including humiliation, shame, and guilt.”
The 30-page lawsuit, which includes claims of childhood sexual abuse, harassment and/or assault, was filed just days before the expiration of California’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits. After a three-year window of availability, the deadline to file such long-delayed lawsuits was Dec. 31, 2022.
The new allegations against the “Todos Me Miran” singer come nearly 20 years after she was acquitted by a judge and found not guilty on charges of rape, kidnapping and corruption of minors. This resulted in the immediate release of Trevi, who was being held at a prison in Chihuahua, Mexico and faced up to 25 years behind bars.
The previous trial occurred after Trevi, Andrade and backup singer María Raquenel Portillo, also known as Mary Boquitas, were arrested in January 2000 in Rio de Janeiro for allegedly luring young girls into a cult-like pornographic ring. Former vocalist Karina Yapor, who filed criminal charges against the so-called Trevi clan, alleged that backup recruits wanting to join the band were forced to have sexual relations with Andrade.
A representative for Trevi declined a request for comment.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
The final two installments of Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly docuseries series ended with a pair of bombshell revelations about the imprisoned singer’s controversial marriage to a then-underage Aaliyah. The two episodes that debuted on Monday and Tuesday, focused in on Kelly’s 2022 federal trial, which included allegations that the singer and his team allegedly forced Aaliyah’s family to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the wake of the annulment of the performers’ brief marriage.
Kelly and Aaliyah were married in secret in August 1994 when the “Rock the Boat” singer was just 15, even though their marriage certificate listed her age as 18; the marriage was reportedly annulled by Aaliyah’s parents in Feb. 1995. Interviews with some of Kelly’s and Aaliyah’s entourages revealed some of the details of the NDA, which reportedly came after Aaliyah’s father was incensed by the marriage.
Longtime friend and former bodyguard Gem Pratt told the Surviving team that Aaliyah’s family signed a contract with Kelly that promised they would not press charges against him for the illegal marriage after the annulment if Kelly promised to sell them the rights to his first three albums. During last year’s federal trial a jury found Kelly guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity; Aaliyah was referred to as Jane Doe #1 at that trial.
“Her dad [Michael Haughton] didn’t want her anywhere near him,” Pratt said in the series about wanting to put distance between Kelly, who was 27 at at the time of the marriage, and Aaliyah, whose debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number — released when she was 14 — was produced and mostly written by Kelly. The stories of Kelly and Aaliyah’s secret marriage were rumored at the time, but the final episodes of the Lifetimes series put the details of the aftermath into sharper focus.
They include allegations about members of Kelly’s inner circle allegedly looking the other way at Kelly’s abuse of women girls and young men over decades, with Pratt saying that “He [Kelly] couldn’t do this by himself… it’s clear as day there were enablers.” Variety noted that the Aaliyah NDA came up during Kelly’s 2022 New York trial, though it did not receive widespread media coverage at the time; Chicago reporter Jim DeRogatis originally broke the news of the NDA, telling the New York Times Popcast podcast in 2018 that the agreement was a “harrowing document… A non-disclosure agreement on both her part and Kelly’s, vowing not to pursue further legal claims for physical abuse. So, it wasn’t just an underage sexual relationship, he hit her, allegedly, according to that court document.”
A lawyer for Kelly had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment about the NDA at press time and Kelly has maintained his innocence and is appealing the convictions.
In Sept. 2021, Kelly was found guilty in a New York trial of nine counts, including racketeering and 14 underlying acts including sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and sex trafficking charges, as well as eight counts of violating the sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act. In June 2022, Kelly, 55, was sentenced to 30 years in prison; the singer is still facing additional sentencing in Chicago as well as pending felony sex crime charges in Minnesota.
The final chapters of producer/director Dream Hampton’s Surviving series also included new allegations of Kelly’s sexual abuse from a survivor named Ebonié Doyle, who claimed she was raped by Kelly just days after his marriage to Aaliyah. Doyle said she was 16 when Kelly’s limo pulled up on her after one of his shows, setting off a relationship that resulted in her mother kicking Doyle out of the house when she discovered it.
After moving in with Kelly, Doyle said she became subject to Kelly’s “controlling” ways, which included forcing her to sit in a specific sexual position for hours until her posture was to his liking. At the time there were whispers about the singer’s relationship with the underage Aaliyah — Doyle noticed she and the singer were similar in stature and appearance — and said at one point she found a sex tape featuring Kelly and Aaliyah. When Kelly found out that she’d seen the tape, Doyle said he pushed her down a flight of stairs.
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: A special New Year’s newsletter, looking back at the biggest legal stories from 2022, the top stories from over the holidays, and what to watch in 2023.A quick programming note: Starting immediately, the email version of the Legal Beat newsletter is now free. All current readers will continue to get the newsletter directly into their inbox every Tuesday, but now anyone else can also sign up HERE to receive a weekly recap of every big story from the world of music law.
Year In Review: 2022’s Top Legal Stories
Some of the most important music industry stories of 2022 were legal stories, so we put together a handy year-end guideto catch you up on all the big developments.As always, copyright cases dominated the list. Taylor Swift finally escaped a case over “Shake It Off,” Ed Sheeran won a big trial over “Shape of You (but faces another one soon over “Thinking Out Loud”) and Katy Perry made important case law when she defeated a case over “Dark Horse.”Cardi B had a big year all by herself. She won a $4 million defamation verdict against a bomb-throwing YouTuber, then beat back a multimillion lawsuit claiming she Photoshopped a random guy onto the “raunchy” cover of a mixtape. Oh, and she also resolved a long-standing criminal case in New York by taking a misdemeanor plea deal.But arguably the most important story of the year was the use of rap lyrics in criminal trials.Billboard did a deep-dive in March, detailing how the practice had persisted for years despite longstanding criticism that it unfairly sways juries and threatens artistic expression — and that was before we knew what the year had in store. In May, hip-hop superstars Young Thug and Gunna were hit with a sweeping indictment that quoted heavily from their lyrics and then left to sit in jail for months, bringing unprecedented new attention to the issue. Atlanta prosecutors offered no apologies for the music-heavy charges, but in September, lawmakers in California enacted landmark legislation that would sharply restrict the practice in that state, creating a blueprint that other jurisdictions might follow.
Top stories to watch in 2023…
RAP ON TRIAL – A big issue from 2022 figures to take center stage again in 2023. Jury selection in the case against Young Thug and other YSL members (though not Gunna, who pleaded out in December) will kick off next week in Atlanta, setting the stage for a blockbuster trial that could last many months. And after coming up just short in 2022, lawmakers in New York will again try to pass legislation that could limit how prosecutors in that state use rap music to win convictions.COPYRIGHT CONTINUUM – After a year full of big copyright cases, 2023 could be even more jam-packed. Dua Lipa will try to evade two separate infringement lawsuits over her smash hit “Levitating,” while Ed Sheeran will face a jury trial over whether his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye‘s iconic “Let’s Get It On.” And don’t forget the big class actions against the labels over termination rights, the looming Supreme Court ruling over Andy Warhol’s image of Prince or the upcoming trial in a case against Post Malone.DR. LUKE V. KESHA – After nearly nine years of litigation, a trial is finally set for July in Dr. Luke’s defamation lawsuit against Kesha over her bombshell rape accusations against the producer. A trial had previously been scheduled to start in February, but it cannot take place until New York’s highest court decides two pending appeals dealing with big issues — big for both the case and for media law generally.
What you missed over the holiday week…
CARDI WINS AGAIN – A federal judge refused to overturn Cardi B’s courtroom victory in a lawsuit filed by Kevin Brophy, a man who was unwittingly Photoshopped to look like he was performing oral sex on the superstar on the cover of her debut mixtape. Two months after jurors cleared Cardi of any wrongdoing, the judge ruled that he would not “second-guess” the verdict.MEGAN HEADED TO TRIAL – A judge sided with Megan Thee Stallion in an early skirmish in her legal war with record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, refusing to grant the company a quick victory and ordering the case to instead be decided by a jury. 1501 had argued that the judge himself could decide whether her 2021 release Something for Thee Hotties counted as an “album” under her record deal, but her lawyers said she must be “allowed her day in court.” STEVEN TYLER ABUSE CASE – Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler was hit with a lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a minor in the 1970s, claiming he convinced her parents to sign over custody and forced her to get an abortion. The case was filed by Julia Holcomb, who says she was the underage girl that Tyler repeatedly referenced in his racy 2011 memoir, in which he said he was “so in love I almost took a teen bride.”
A woman who alleges Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1986 sued the comedian-actor, NBCUniversal and other companies Friday (Dec. 30) in New York, where five other women filed a similar lawsuit earlier this month.
Stacey Pinkerton says she was a 21-year-old flight attendant and model that year when she claims Cosby drugged her at a restaurant in Illinois and took her back to a hotel room in Chicago. The lawsuit alleges Cosby “engaged in forced sexual intercourse” with her while she was incapacitated from the drugs.
The lawsuit comes more than a year after Cosby left prison after his 2018 sexual assault conviction in Pennsylvania was overturned. Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion when she was a teenager in 1975.
Pinkerton says the alleged assault came after she had met Cosby in New York and he promised to help her career. She says she had a role in an episode of The Cosby Show on NBC, but did not appear in the final edit.
Months after the alleged assault, Pinkerton said Cosby invited her to his show at a Chicago theater, where she claims he forcefully kissed and touched her.
“Cosby engaged in the same or similar pattern of conduct with his victims,” Pinkerton’s lawsuit says, “including expressing interest in advancing their careers, giving them roles on The Cosby Show, using The Cosby Show and its filming locations as a means to access, isolate, sexually harass, and sexually assault women, using drugs to incapacitate his victims, and forcibly engaging in sexual acts with them without their consent.”
The lawsuit alleges that NBC, Kaufman Astoria Studios and Carsey-Werner Television should have known Cosby was a danger to women and failed to protect Pinkerton from him.
Cosby spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said Friday night that Cosby “continues to vehemently deny all allegations waged against him and looks forward to defending himself in court.”
“As we have always stated, and now America can see, this isn’t about justice for victims of alleged sexual assault, it’s ALL ABOUT MONEY,” Wyatt wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “We believe that the courts, as well as the court of public opinion, will follow the rules of law and relieve Mr. Cosby of these alleged accusations.”
Representatives of NBCUniversal, Kaufman Astoria Studios and Carsey-Werner Television did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday night. All three companies were involved in the production of The Cosby Show,” Pinkerton’s lawsuit said.
The lawsuits by Pinkerton and the five other women were filed under New York’s one-year window for adults to file sexual abuse complaints for allegations that had fallen outside the statute of limitations to sue.
Cosby served nearly three years in prison before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction, finding that he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition about the encounter only after believing he had immunity from prosecution. The trial judge and an intermediate appeals court had found no evidence of such immunity.
Seven other accusers received a settlement from Cosby’s insurers in the wake of the Pennsylvania conviction over a defamation lawsuit they had filed in Massachusetts. Their lawsuit said that Cosby and his agents disparaged them in denying their allegations of abuse.
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler is facing a new lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting a minor in the 1970s, filed by a woman who claims she was referenced in the singer’s memoir as almost his “teen bride.”
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Julia Holcomb says Tyler used his “power as a well-known musician and rock star” in order to “gain access to, groom, manipulate, exploit” and sexually assault her for three years starting in 1973, when she was just 16 years old.
The lawsuit does not name Tyler, listing only an anonymous John Doe defendant. But Holcomb’s lawyers repeatedly quote from Tyler’s memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? when referring to the alleged perpetrator, who they identify as a “leading member of a world-famous rock band.” Tyler’s book itself, reviewed by Billboard, also lists a “Julia Halcomb” in the acknowledgments.
“She was 16, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it,” Tyler wrote in the book passage that’s quoted in the lawsuit. “I was so in love I almost took a teen bride.”
The lawsuit alleges that Tyler convinced Holcomb’s parents to grant him guardianship over her — an accusation that also came with quotes from his memoir: “I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights and her parents fell in love with me, signed paper over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state.”
The lawsuit also claims Tyler impregnated Holcomb but later “pressured and coerced” her into eventually aborting the pregnancy.
Billboard independently obtained a copy of the lawsuit, which was first reported Thursday by Rolling Stone. A representative for Tyler did not immediately return a request for comment.
The allegations against Tyler are not new. Holcomb made similar accusations in a 2011 article published by the anti-abortion website LifesiteNews, and she made the same claims in 2020 during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s television show on Fox News.
The new lawsuit, which included claims for sexual battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotion distress, was filed just days before the expiration of California’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits. After a three-year window of availability, the deadline to file such long-delayed lawsuits is Dec. 31.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
Rapper Tory Lanez has been found guilty on all three counts in the closely-watched trial over whether he shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot, ending a nearly two-week trial over the July 2020 incident and setting the stage for a potentially lengthy prison sentence.The verdict was handed down by a jury in Los Angeles court on Friday (Dec. 23). Lanez was convicted on all counts: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. He faces up to 22 years in prison.
Upon the reading of the verdict, Lanez’s father, who was present in the gallery, began screaming. “This wicked system. Shame of all of you!” he cried out.
In the course of the trial, Lanez’s defense team made their best effort to sow doubt over pulled the trigger, painting a scenario in which Megan’s ex-friend and assistant Harris was the shooter. To make their case, they leaned on inconsistent statements made by Megan in the more than two years since the incident as well as an account from alleged eyewitness Sean Kelly. However, Kelly undercut the defense team’s theory by offering confusing and contradictory testimony from the stand on Tuesday — stating he saw a muzzle flash near where Megan and Harris were scuffling in the street near his home but also that he saw a man matching Lanez’s description holding a gun and, at another point, that he never saw a gun at all.
On the other side, prosecutors have continuously highlighted Megan’s emotional testimony last week, when the Grammy winner held back sobs as she recounted the ordeal and said that she’s received severe public blowback in the wake of the incident, at one point stating, “I wish he had just shot and killed me if I would have known I was going to go through this torture.” In addition to Megan’s direct claims that Lanez was the one who pulled the trigger, prosecutors also poked holes in the defense team’s theory that Harris was the one responsible. In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott strongly suggested that Harris — who in a prior interview with prosecutors said that Lanez shot Megan and also assaulted her when she tried to intervene — contradicted her prior statements only after being threatened or paid off.
The blockbuster trial arrived nearly two and a half years after Megan was shot at least once in the foot in the early morning hours of July 12, 2020, while on the way home from a small party thrown by Kylie Jenner. According to Megan, after a fight erupted between Lanez, Harris and herself in an SUV driven by Lanez’s security guard Jaquan Smith, she exited the car only to be shot at multiple times by Lanez, who she claimed at one point shouted, “Dance, b—-” while firing out the window. That is clearly the version of the story that jurors, who took less than two days to reach their unanimous verdict, chose to believe.
The trial could well have dragged on beyond Christmas had either Lanez or Smith taken the stand, but on Wednesday, the rapper said he would not be testifying and defense lawyers opted against placing Smith on the stand, citing procedural wrangling and the possibility of a delay that could have forced jurors to return after the holiday.
Megan was not present for the reading of the verdict on Thursday.
Whether it was Taylor Swift or Prince or Cardi B, 2022 saw major legal battles involving some of the music industry’s biggest stars, ranging from never-ending copyright fights to sprawling criminal cases centered on rap lyrics. Some stars, like Katy Perry, won big; others, like Young Thug and Gunna, faced repeated setbacks; still others, like Megan Thee Stallion and Ed Sheeran, just got exhausted. To catch up, here are 10 big music law stories that you need to remember from 2022.
Taylor Swift Finally Shakes It Off
There was no bigger music copyright lawsuit than the long-running case accusing Taylor Swift of stealing the lyrics to “Shake It Off.” Since 2017, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler had argued that Swift’s song (an all-time smash hit that spent 50 weeks on Hot 100) stole some of its core lyrics from “Playas Gon’ Play,” a 2001 song they wrote for the R&B group 3LW. And despite arguments from Swift’s white-shoe lawyers that lyrics about “playas” and “haters” were too commonplace to be monopolized under copyright law, federal courts repeatedly refused to dismiss the case. Following in the wake of earlier battles over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse,” the lawsuit raised big questions about the where copyright protection ends and the public domain begins. Those questions were set to be answered at a blockbuster trial in January – until Swift and her accusers reached a sudden settlement earlier this month.
Rap On Trial: A Year of Highs and Lows
Despite widespread criticism of the practice, prosecutors continued to cite rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases in 2022, most prominently when Young Thug and Gunna were indicted in May as part of a sweeping gang case against dozens of members of the Atlanta rap crew YSL. The charges included numerous references to Young Thug and Gunna’s music, claiming lyrics were the kind of “predicate acts” that contributed to the overall criminal enterprise. And Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who bought the case, offered no apologies for doing so: “If you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m gonna use it,” Willis said. “I’m going to continue to do that, people can continue to be angry about it.” And yet, 2022 also saw the enactment of landmark legislation in California that would sharply restrict the practice, and efforts to pass similar laws in New York state and at the federal level – hopeful signs for critics who say it unfairly targets black men and violates their First Amendment rights.
Prince Estate Case Closed – Finally
The long legal battle over Prince’s $156 million estate was finally resolved in 2022, more than six years after the iconic rocker died suddenly from a fentanyl overdose without a will. The estate had been stuck in probate court for years, under the control of a court-appointed bank as rival groups of legal heirs wrangled over the rocker’s legacy. Over time, those proceedings came to be dominated in part by Primary Wave, the music industry giant that slowly bought out various Prince heirs to amass a 50 percent stake in the estate. The biggest hurdle was cleared in January, when the heirs reached a deal with the Internal Revenue Service to set a final tax valuation of $156 million, followed by a ruling February on the basic structure for how the assets would be split into two groups, and then a final judicial approval in August. Prince’s legacy is now a music story and a business story, not a legal story.
Ed Sheeran’s Copyright Nightmare
Ed Sheeran says he’s tired of all the copyright lawsuits, but 2022 was something of an up-and-down year on that front. In April, he won a dramatic victory in UK court over his chart-topping 2017 hit “Shape of You,” when a judge ruled that he didn’t copy the song from a little-known track called “Oh Why.” Following an 11-day London trial – in which an opposing attorney called Sheeran a “magpie,” the singer repeatedly took the stand to defend himself, and he once even sang in open court – the judge ruled there was no evidence Sheeran had intentionally or even “subconsciously” copied any of the earlier material. But the respite was short-lived: In October, a federal judge in New York ruled that Sheeran must face a jury trial in a separate case claiming he borrowed key elements of his “Thinking Out Loud” from Marvin Gaye‘s iconic “Let’s Get It On. Barring a reversal (and Sheeran’s lawyers are asking for one) the decision set the stage for a blockbuster trial at some point in 2023, but a date has not yet been set.
Cardi B v. The World
Cardi B started the year with a bang, winning a $4 million defamation verdict in January against Tasha K, a gossip blogger who made salacious false claims on YouTube about drug use, STDs and prostitution. (Cardi’s lawyers are still trying to collect that money, btw.) And in October, she won at trial again, avoiding millions in damages by beating back a bizarre lawsuit filed by a California man whose back tattoos were unwittingly photoshopped onto the “raunchy” cover of Cardi’s 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1. The star herself took the witness stand in both trials, testifying about the pain of being defamed and sparring with an opposing lawyer over whether he had “receipts.” Oh, and Cardi also resolved a long-standing criminal case by pleading guilty in September to misdemeanor charges stemming from a 2018 bottle-throwing incident at a Queens strip club. All in all, a quiet year.
Dua Lipa’s Double-Whammy
One could argue you’re not truly a pop star until you’ve been sued for copyright infringement a few times; just ask Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. That means Dua Lipa must have truly arrived this year, when she was hit with not one but two separate lawsuits claiming she copied earlier songs when she wrote “Levitating”– the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the Hot 100. One case was filed by a Florida reggae band named Artikal Sound System, which claimed Lipa lifted the core hook for her song from their 2015 “Live Your Life.” The other case, filed a few days later in March, accused her of copying both a 1979 song called “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and a 1980 song called “Don Diablo.” Armed with a top-flight legal team, Lipa has already struck back in both cases – but both remain pending.
Taylor Swift … Trust Buster?
Ticketmaster’s disastrous November presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour – which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried (and many failed) to buy tickets – resurfaced some uncomfortable legal questions for the all-powerful concert giant and its parent company Live Nation. Those questions have never fully gone away since the two companies merged in 2010, but in the days after the fiasco, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for new antitrust investigations – and that was before news broke that the U.S. Department of Justice had already launched such a probe. If violations are found, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, urged regulators to consider “breaking up the company.” Meanwhile, state attorneys general across the country are also probing the debacle, and at least one class action lawsuit has already been filed accusing the company of fraud and “anticompetitive conduct.” Hell hath no fury like Swifties scorned…
Megan Thee Stallion’s Exhausting Year
Following an October appearance on Saturday Night Live promoting the release of her album Traumazine, Megan Thee Stallion said she needed to take a break because she was “so tired, physically and emotionally.” After her 2022 legal battles, it’s hard to blame her. In February, Megan’s long fight with her former record label, 1501 Certified Entertainment, escalated significantly when she accused the company of purposefully mislabeling an album to keep her locked into the deal. 1501 quickly countersued, then Megan upped the stakes again in August with new allegations and demands for damages. And all of that had nothing to do with the even bigger Megan story: A criminal case against Tory Lanez over charges that he shot her in the foot during a July 2020 altercation in Los Angeles. When a trial in that case kicked off earlier this month, Megan took the witness stand to recount the shooting and the toll it had taken on her. “I wish he had just shot and killed me,” she tearfully recounted.
R. Kelly Gets 30 Years – And Gets Convicted Again
Things went from bad to worse for R. Kelly in 2022. After being convicted last year in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, the disgraced R&B singer was sentenced to 30 years in prison on those charges in June. Then in August, he was convicted in Chicago on separate child pornography charges stemming from an infamous video tape involving him and minor, meaning he faces decades more in prison time. His attorneys plan to appeal both convictions.
Katy Perry Wins Case and Makes Law
When Katy Perry won a copyright ruling at a federal appeals court in March, declaring that her 2013 chart-topper “Dark Horse” hadn’t infringed an earlier song, it was a bigger deal than just one case. Sure, it was important to Perry herself, who avoided $2.8 million verdict by defeating the accusations. And the star was obviously pleased, telling a Las Vegas concert crowd in a viral clip: “So just be sure…before you take me to court, ‘cause I’m a Scorpio, bitch!” But the ruling was also a clear rejection of similar infringement cases over songs, stressing that simple musical “building blocks,” like the short “ostinato” in Perry’s song, cannot be locked up by any particular songwriter because it would chill future songwriting creativity. Much like a 2020 ruling on “Stairway To Heaven,” the decision for Perry could be seen as part of a pendulum swing away from earlier decisions over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which were criticized by some for expanding music copyrights to more basic elements.