State Champ Radio Legal News
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A California judge says Metallica’s insurance company doesn’t need to pay for six South American concerts that were canceled when COVID-19 struck, thanks to an exclusion in the policy for “communicable diseases.”
The band earlier sued a unit of Lloyd’s of London after it refused to cover their losses stemming from a South American tour, which had been set to kick off on April 15, 2020, but was postponed when the governments of Argentina, Chile and Brazil imposed strict restrictions amid the worsening pandemic.
Though Metallica’s insurance policy expressly excluded any coverage for events canceled by “communicable diseases,” Metallica’s lawyers argued that COVID-19 itself wasn’t clearly the most direct cause of the tour cancellation.
But in a decision on Nov. 30 obtained by Billboard, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie said she didn’t buy it.
“The travel restrictions which caused the concert cancellations were a direct response to the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic,” the judge wrote. “The evidence … demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the travel restrictions to South America and restrictions on public gatherings. The COVID-19 pandemic was therefore the efficient proximate cause of the concerts’ cancellations.”
Metallica’s lawyers had also argued that the “diseases” exclusion didn’t apply at all, since the exact wording of the policy said Lloyd’s wouldn’t pay coverage stemming from a disease “or fear or threat thereof.” Citing that language, the band said “none of its bandmembers felt threatened or fearful.”
But Judge Fujie was similarly unswayed, ruling that the Metallica policy’s language “does not require that the policyholders [themselves] feel fearful or threatened.”
The ruling granted Lloyd’s so-called summary judgment, meaning the case is dismissed. Metallica’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on the decision. The ruling was first reported by Law360.
Metallica’s case is one of many that have been filed by music venues, bars and other businesses seeking insurance coverage for harm caused by COVID-19. Like Metallica’s case, the majority of those lawsuits have thus far been won by insurers. Many policies include express carveouts for problems caused by diseases, like the one in the band’s contract; other policies for brick-and-mortar businesses often require “physical damage” that’s tricky to show with a pandemic shutdown.
The biggest such case in the music industry is a sweeping lawsuit filed by Live Nation, seeking coverage from Factory Mutual Insurance Co. for more than 10,000 shows (encompassing a whopping 15 million tickets) that were canceled or postponed during the pandemic.
Factory Mutual tried to end the case by arguing that virus shutdowns are not the kind of “physical loss or damage” that would be covered under the wording of Live Nation’s policy, but a federal judge ruled in February that Live Nation might have a valid case: “The complaint sufficiently alleges that infectious respiratory droplets, which transmit COVID-19, are physical objects that may alter the property on which they land and remain.”
The lawsuit remains pending.
Megan Thee Stallion‘s former friend and assistant Kelsey Harris took the stand Wednesday (Dec. 14) on the third day of the highly publicized trial over whether Tory Lanez shot Megan in the foot on July 12, 2020.
During Harris’ testimony — which saw her become increasingly hesitant about answering Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta‘s questions about what happened on the night in question — a recording from an interview she gave to Ta, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott and an investigator in September 2022 was played in court to try to jog her memory. During a portion of that earlier interview, Harris could be heard claiming that Lanez had also threatened to shoot her on the car ride back from Kylie Jenner‘s house prior to the shooting. But in a surprising turn, Harris recanted that earlier testimony from the stand.
Earlier in the day, Harris arrived in court with her attorney Daniel A. Nardoni wearing a black blouse and slacks and carrying a black bejeweled Christian Louboutin bag. Before the jury arrived, Nardoni said his client planned to assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, leading Judge David Herriford to address her concern as “legitimate.” Prosecutors then offered her “use immunity” — meaning nothing derived from her testimony may be used against her in a criminal proceeding — before she was sworn in and took the stand.
Harris is a key witness because she was one of only two people present with Megan and the defendant at the time of the alleged shooting, aside from Lanez’s security guard Jauquan Smith. During opening statements earlier this week, Lanez’s lead attorney George Mgdesyan pushed the theory that Harris may have been the one who pulled the trigger instead of his client. The defense’s argument heavily relied on an account from another witness, Sean Kelly, whom the police interviewed shortly after the shooting because the SUV carrying Megan, Lanez, Harris and Smith had stopped near his house. Mgdesyan said Kelly saw Harris exit from the back seat of the car and open Megan’s front passenger door before witnessing “a fist fight between the girls” and seeing one of the women point a gun at the other.
During her time on the stand Tuesday, Megan explained to prosecutors that Harris was her “best friend since freshman year of college” who later became her assistant at the end of 2019. During cross-examination, the Grammy-winning rapper (real name Megan Pete) denied Harris was the shooter and told the defense it was their client Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) who yelled, “Dance, bi—!” before allegedly pointing the gun and shooting her. Megan, 27, also revealed that she and Harris have not seen each other since the incident.
On Wednesday, Harris was initially composed but became increasingly reticent after Ta began interrogating her about her side of the story.
“I don’t want to be here today. It’s a triggering situation. I just don’t want to be here,” Harris told Ta at one point, echoing Megan’s own statements during her testimony the day prior. She also denounced the defense’s argument that she shot Megan, calling the accusation “ridiculous.”
For the duration of the hearing, Harris appeared distracted, consistently asking Ta to repeat her questions and “refresh [her] memory” by playing specific audio clips taken from the September 2022 interview. When asked again how she felt about being in court, Harris blamed “anxiety, post-partum, a death in the family…[and a] sick baby” as reasons why she was not mentally present in the courtroom. However, she told Ta that being in the same room as Lanez, who was wearing a light brown suit and black turtleneck with black velvet loafers, did not affect her ability to testify.
While describing the relationship between herself, Megan and Lanez — which she said started after the two women met Lanez at a Roc Nation brunch in 2020 — Harris claimed the “Luv” singer “was someone that Megan wanted me to pursue beyond a friendship” and that “there were a few nights we had been engaged,” confirming she had an intimate relationship with the singer. After returning from a trip to her hometown of Houston for a few months that year due to COVID, she said she realized that Megan and Lanez had grown closer during her time away.
Harris then began recounting what happened at Jenner’s house, insisting that it wasn’t a “party” but rather a small “gathering” with about six people. “A lot of alcohol had been involved,” said Harris, who said she had drunkenly passed out at Jenner’s home for a few hours before returning to the gathering, at which point only herself, Megan, Lanez, Jenner and Megan’s stylist EJ King — who had driven Megan and Harris to the party that night — remained. Harris described Megan as “drunk” and that “her behavior was a little off” and later said that Lanez was “just being Tory” and “flirting with Kylie” — an admission that caused the defendant to smirk from his seat.
According to Harris, after King convinced Megan to leave the house because her wig was falling off, the rapper argued that she wanted to leave with Lanez and had King move her and Harris’ bags from his car to Lanez’s car. She claimed that Lanez then told Smith to “just take them home” in an “adamant way” because he didn’t want to leave. Shortly after Smith, Lanez’s security guard, began driving the two women home, Megan insisted they all return to the house because she “had left a slipper.” Harris then recalled seeing Megan rush out the house with Lanez, saying, “Bi—, Kylie said we gotta get the f— out!” before the two hopped in the car with Harris and Smith.
Once Ta began interrogating Harris about what happened in the car, the witness became noticeably flustered. “Do I have to answer that?” she asked Judge Herriford, who nodded his head, prompting her to describe the arguments that ensued. “There was a lot of back and forth in the car,” she testified, later explaining how “upset” and “confused” she had felt when Lanez eventually told Harris that he and Megan were “having a relationship.” When prosecutors questioned whether Lanez called the two women “bi—es and h–s” — which the “Savage” MC claimed in court the day before — Harris couldn’t provide a direct response. It was then that Bott started playing bits of the September 2022 recording, which Judge Herriford informed the jury could not be considered as evidence.
After the portion of the recording was played where Harris claimed Lanez had threatened to shoot her, Ta pressed Harris about the validity of her claim. Harris then attempted to assert her Fifth Amendment right, only for Judge Herriford to tell her she first needed to discuss that with her attorney. After returning from an hour-and-a-half lunch recess, Harris went on to recant her prior statement that Lanez had threatened to shoot her, admitting parts of her September 2022 interview “weren’t accurate. There were some things I wasn’t truthful about to protect myself,” she testified. Over the course of her testimony, Harris never explained what she was protecting herself from, nor which parts of the interview were less than “100% truthful.”
Prosecutors went on to play more of the recorded interview, which revealed Harris stating that Lanez verbally threatened her by saying, “My n—a, I’ll shoot you” and then “reached” for something in the “center console” of the vehicle but “never opened it.”
In the midst of Harris’ testimony, Ta grew noticeably irritated with the witness, raising her voice as she questioned why she’d admitted to sending Justin Edison, Megan’s security guard, three texts that read “Help. Tory shot meg. 911” if she didn’t — as Harris testified — see Lanez shoot the rapper. “I was in a panic,” Harris responded. Ta then showed Harris a photo of herself, taken at the police station on the night of the shooting, that showed her with blood on her leg. Harris replied, “I don’t know whose blood that was.” She then testified that Megan had been bleeding — and had put her leg on Harris’ in the car following the shooting — but that she hadn’t known where the blood was coming from and remained uncertain of Megan’s injuries up to the point when she arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where Megan was being treated. Ta then asked incredulously, “This is your best friend, right?”
Lanez, 30, currently faces three felony charges: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, the latter of which was added to the list of charges ahead of the trial last week. If convicted on all three counts, he faces 22 years in prison.
Harris is due back in court Thursday (Dec. 15) to complete her testimony.
Nearly a year after Ultra Records founder Patrick Moxey sold his 50% share of the lauded dance imprint to Sony Music, the executive is being sued by the major label over his continued use of the “Ultra” trademark.
When Moxey sold his remaining stake in Ultra Records this past January, it marked a turning point in dance music history — giving Sony full control of the label it had previously held a 50% stake in. While Moxey parted ways with the imprint he founded in 1995, he held on to his other company, Ultra International Music Publishing, LLC. But in a complaint filed last month in New York, Sony Music argues he has no legal rights to use the “Ultra” name following the sale.
“Notwithstanding that Moxey received a substantial payment as part of the buyout, after which he ceased to have any involvement in the business of Ultra Records, he has sought to perpetuate the falsehood that he remains involved with Ultra Records by wrongfully continuing to use Ultra Records’ ULTRA trademark as part of his music publishing business,” reads the complaint, which was filed Nov. 11.
The complaint continues that under the terms of a 2012 agreement that marked Sony’s acquisition of 50% of Ultra Records, “Ultra International Music Publishing and its affiliates were only permitted to use the word ‘Ultra; under license from Ultra Records. That license was terminated by Ultra Records following the buyout, effective March 29, 2022.”
The complaint goes on to state that Ultra Publishing’s continued use of the name is in violation of the Ultra Records trademark, noting that “No written license agreement was ever executed between Ultra Records and Ultra International Music Publishing concerning the latter’s use of the ULTRA trademark.”
In a statement provided to Billboard, Sony Music states that “Patrick Moxey sold Ultra Records and the Ultra brand to Sony Music Entertainment in exchange for a substantial buyout payment, and now is perpetuating the falsehood that he remains affiliated with his former company by continuing to use the Ultra name in connection with the publishing operations he controls. These actions knowingly misrepresent his involvement with Ultra and are in clear violation of the trademark rights SME acquired in a mutually agreed upon transaction.”
While a representative for Moxey did not immediately return a request for comment, in a statement given to Music Business Worldwide, he claimed that Sony has “done nothing but bully me from the day I sold them my record company. Ultra International Music Publishing has been an independent standalone business for over 20 years, which publishes songs co-written with Drake, Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, 21 Savage, Rihanna, Future, Kygo and many more.
“The vast majority of our songs are not on Ultra Records or Sony [Music],” Moxey continued. “I have made it abundantly clear on numerous occasions in media interviews that Ultra International Music Publishing is completely separate from Ultra Records, and always has been. I have every right to use the name ‘Ultra’ in connection with Ultra International Music Publishing, and won’t be intimidated by a massive global corporation.”
After leaving Ultra Records, Moxey announced a new dance label venture, Helix Records, which has since released music from Snakehips, Willy William and Two Friends. The imprint is a division of Moxey’s longstanding hip-hop label, Payday Records. Both labels are distributed by Warner Recorded Music’s indie services arm ADA Worldwide.
Nearly two years after Marc Anthony was forced to cancel his highly-anticipated “Una Noche” livestream concert at the last minute, the event’s promoter is now suing the streaming platform for causing the “complete and total failure.”
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles court, attorneys for Loud and Live Entertainment claimed that Maestro had assured the promoter that the platform’s technology could “automatically scale to accommodate the number of ticketholders” – more than 100,000 people worldwide.
But when the night of the April 17, 2021, concert came, Loud and Live says those same fans “stared at blank or frozen computer screens” as Maestro experienced what it later described as a “complete collapse of the streaming platform.”
“As a result of Maestro’s complete and total failure, Loud And Live — which paid Anthony a substantial guaranteed artist fee, promoted and backed the concert financially, and contracted with sponsors and vendors around the world — suffered significant economic losses, all of which were foreseeable to Maestro.”
“Una Noche” was supposed to be one of the biggest livestreamed shows of the pandemic era, headlined by Anthony — who fills soccer stadiums in Latin America — and joined by superstar Daddy Yankee as a guest performer. By showtime, more than 100,000 tickets had been sold.
As a streaming partner, Maestro was no novice. Prior to the Anthony concert, the platform had handled major shows like Billie Eilish’s October 2020 livestream and Melissa Etheridge’s successful EtheridgeTV series. But at 8 p.m. EST on April 17, as global fans logged on to watch Anthony perform, Maestro’s system failed. Despite frantic attempts to revive the stream, the concert never happened, and fans were left waiting for hours until learning the show was officially canceled.
“Una Noche” may have been the most high-profile concert livestream to fail, but it’s hardly the only one to experience problems. For instance, Justin Bieber’s 2021 New Year’s Eve livestream with T-Mobile was seriously delayed — almost missing East Coast celebrations — due to unexpected demand from more than 1.2 million T-Mobile customers.
Avoiding such debacles is more complicated than it looks. Unlike physical shows, which have seat selection and could sell out, livestreams offer little incentive to buy a ticket early or arrive ahead of time. This can lead to a surge in activity at the start of the event — the size of which is difficult, if not impossible, to predict and prepare for.
But in its new lawsuit, Loud and Live says those were concerns were well-known to Maestro — and that the company had promised to have the technology and the experience to deal with them.
“Although Maestro had represented to Plaintiff … that it had handled events much larger than Anthony’s, and expressly warrantied that its platform would ‘automatically scale’ to meet Loud And Live’s needs (whether it had 500 viewers or millions), Maestro failed to stream even one minute of the show,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “Maestro’s misrepresentations regarding its technological capabilities induced Loud and Live to engage and rely on Maestro.”
In legal terms, Loud and Live says that Maestro’s failures breached the contract the two companies signed. It also says the streamer violated the promises that the streaming platform had made about the capabilities of its technology — meaning it breached its “express warranty” and made a “negligent misrepresentation” to Loud and Live.
Read the entire complaint here:
Gunna pleaded guilty Wednesday (Dec. 14) in the closely-watched criminal case against Young Thug and other alleged members of an Atlanta gang, ending his involvement in the sprawling case and securing his release from jail — though the rapper stressed that he was not cooperating with prosecutors.
In a statement released by his lawyers, Gunna (real name Sergio Kitchens) said he had taken a so-called Alford plea — a maneuver that allows a defendant to enter a formal admission of guilt while still maintaining their innocence — “to end my personal ordeal.”
In technical terms, the rapper pleaded guilty to a single charge against him and was sentenced Wednesday to a time-served, suspended sentence. His lawyers confirmed that he would be “released from jail in the next few hours.”
Despite the plea deal, Gunna stressed that he had not agreed to work with prosecutors in any way to convict Young Thug or any of the other defendants.
“While I have agreed to always be truthful, I want to make it perfectly clear that I have NOT made any statements, have NOT been interviewed, have NOT cooperated, have NOT agreed to testify or be a witness for or against any party in the case and have absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way,” the rapper wrote.
A spokesman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Both Young Thug (Jeffery Williams) and Gunna were indicted in May, along with dozens of others, on accusations that their group YSL was not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta street gang called “Young Slime Life.” The charges include allegations of murder, carjacking, armed robbery, drug dealing and illegal firearm possession over the past decade.
Young Thug and many others are set to stand trial on those charges in January.
In Wednesday’s statement, Gunna said he was “acknowledging my association with YSL,” but that he had not seen the group as a criminal enterprise.
“When I became affiliated with YSL in 2016, I did not consider it a “gang”; more like a group of people from metro Atlanta who had common interests and artistic aspirations,” Gunna wrote. My focus of YSL was entertainment – rap artists who wrote and performed music that exaggerated and ‘glorified’ urban life in the Black community.”
“I love and cherish my association with YSL music, and always will,” he wrote. “I look at this as an opportunity to give back to my community and educate young men and women that ‘gangs’ and violence only lead to destruction.”
Megan Thee Stallion appeared in Los Angeles court Tuesday (Dec. 13) on the second day of the closely-watched trial over whether Tory Lanez shot her in the foot on July 12, 2020.
The rapper was met with a legion of her supporters at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, several of whom held a big, black “WE STAND WITH MEGAN” banner during a rally that was organized by non-profit The Gathering of Justice in conjunction with multiple women’s and violence prevention organizations. The Grammy winner arrived at the courthouse wearing a blunt shoulder bob and bold purple suit — a fitting color choice that symbolizes awareness of domestic violence, especially against women.
Once on the stand, Stallion’s voice cracked after L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Kathy Ta, one of the prosecutors on the case, asked her if she knew the defendant Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson). “Yes…. We used to hang out all the time,” said Stallion (real name Megan Pete), before admitting the two had an “intimate” but not exclusive relationship.
Lanez, wearing a cream patterned suit and white turtleneck, listened intently throughout Stallion’s testimony. He faces three felony charges: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, the latter of which was added to the list of charges ahead of the trial last week. If convicted on all three counts, Lanez faces 22 years in prison.
Ta went on to ask Stallion about her relationship with Kelsey Harris — whom the rapper identified as her “best friend since freshman year of college” who later became her assistant at the end of 2019 — before asking what transpired the night of July 11, 2020, when the two women, along with Stallion’s stylist EJ King, attended a pool party at Kylie Jenner‘s house. Stallion recalled the evening’s events in front of the packed gallery, where Desiree Perez, CEO of Stallion’s management company Roc Nation, sat next to activist Tamika Mallory. Lanez’s family was also present in the room.
“I just don’t feel good,” said Stallion, 27, when asked by prosecutors if she was “nervous” to testify. “I can’t believe I have to come up here and do this.”
During her time on the stand, the Traumazine MC shared her side of the story as prompted by prosecutors, recalling that she had texted Lanez to come to the “small” gathering at Jenner’s home, where the makeup mogul was joined by friends and her mother Kris Jenner’s boyfriend, Corey Gamble. By the time Lanez arrived at the residence, Stallion said she, Harris, Jenner and Lanez were the only people remaining, and the foursome hung out in the pool together. “My hair [wig] was starting to come off and I wanted to go,” said Stallion, noting that Lanez “had an attitude because he wasn’t ready to leave the party.” Ultimately, Stallion, Harris, Lanez and his security guard Jauquan Smith, who had driven him to Jenner’s house, left the party together.
Stallion said tension initially rose in the car when Lanez, 30, allegedly told her, “You need to stop lying to your friend” regarding their sexual relationship. Stallion, who said she knew Harris had a crush on the R&B singer, “didn’t want her to know I had dealt with him in any kind of way.” While she said Harris was angry after learning about the relationship, Lanez provoked the ire of both women when he called them “bi—es and h–s,” Stallion claimed. Growing frustrated, Stallion says she asked to be let out of the car on Sunset Boulevard but quickly realized she was “literally at the peak” of her career and only wearing a “thong [bikini]” in the middle of the “most famous” street in L.A. To presumably avoid drawing any unwanted attention, Stallion says she got back inside the car, only to ask to be let out again on a side street not too far from the first stop because she was “over it.”
“I started walking away and I hear Tory yell, ‘Dance, bi—!’” she tearfully recounted in front of the jury, adding that she saw Lanez pointing a gun at her. “I froze. I just felt shock. I felt hurt. I looked down at my feet and I see all of this blood,” she said before explaining that she fell to the ground and crawled to a nearby driveway. “Everything feels blurry,” she continued, before recalling that Harris and Lanez bumped into each other on their way over to her. “Tory was basically telling me I wasn’t sh–, and I said, ‘Actually, you ain’t sh–. This is where you at in your career. This is where you at with your music.’ And I feel like that really rubbed him the wrong way,” she claimed.
The magnitude of both rappers’ careers was a point of contention in the hearing. At one point, Ta asked if Stallion’s career at the time was “bigger” than Lanez’s and she answered “yes.” “I had just done a song with Beyoncé,” she told the jury excitedly, referring to the remix of “Savage,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 upon its arrival in April 2020, just two months shy of the shooting. Lanez visibly furrowed his eyebrows when she added, “He was just Tory Lanez,” but that the highly publicized incident “has gained him a lot of popularity.”
Between sobs, Stallion argued that “every man that’s in a position of power that’s in the music industry” didn’t want to believe her side of the story. “I’m a villain and he’s the victim,” she claimed. According to Stallion, that’s one of the reasons why, immediately after the incident, she told police officers that she cut her foot stepping on broken glass. It was only four days after the shooting, during a phone interview with Detective Ryan Stogner, that she alleged she had suffered a gunshot wound, she said. “This was the height of police brutality and George Floyd,” she testified, adding that she feared everyone would wind up dead if she told officers Lanez had shot her. “I didn’t want to see anybody die. I didn’t want to die.”
Stallion also tearfully admitted to initially not being honest about her intimate relationship with Lanez because “it’s disgusting at this point. How could I share my body with somebody who could shoot me?” She added that her current partner, fellow rapper Pardison Fontaine, is “embarrassed” over the continual coverage of Stallion and her previous entanglements. “I can’t even be happy….I wish he had just shot and killed me,” she continued.
The courtroom noticeably stiffened once Lanez’s lead attorney, George Mgdesyan, began interviewing Stallion as part of the cross-examination. After bringing up Stallion’s CBS Mornings interview with Gayle King from April 2022, during which the rapper claimed she did not have an intimate relationship with Lanez, Stallion admitted to the jury that she had lied on national television about the nature of their relationship. The defense also presented her with the police report from her initial interview with Detective Stogner on July 16, 2020, in an effort to refresh her memory that she had told the police “this wasn’t the first time” she had “backdoored” Harris.
“I’ve never been with anyone Kelsey’s been with,” she told Mgdesyan, contradicting the attorney’s opening statement from Monday when he argued Stallion had also been romantically involved with fellow rapper DaBaby and NBA player Ben Simmons right after Harris had dated both men.
While attempting to build a timeline of the July 12, 2020, incident, Stallion and Mgdesyan engaged in a heated exchange about what she remembered, including what time she and her group arrived and left Jenner’s house, the geographical location of where the shooting occurred and Lanez’s whereabouts in relation to the SUV when he shot her. When the defense asked if she didn’t remember what Lanez was wearing that night because she was intoxicated, Stallion shot back by saying she didn’t remember because the incident was now two years old.
Stallion and Mgdesyan talked over each other when the defense showed different photos of the bloody luggage and Louis Vuitton bag from the back seat of the SUV, where Stallion and Harris were allegedly sitting right after the shooting took place. When Mgdesyan asked Stallion if the black Louis Vuitton bag was hers or if she owned one similar to it, she simply replied, “I have a lot of bags,” leading the jury and gallery to chuckle amongst themselves in a brief moment of levity.
The mood quickly tensed again when Mgdesyan again asked Stallion why she didn’t tell the officers at the hospital that she had been shot. “Snitching is frowned upon in the hip-hop community,” Stallion replied. That led the defense to swiftly quote a snippet of her Instagram Live video from Aug. 20, 2020, when the “WAP” rapper named Lanez as her alleged shooter publicly for the first time. The Houston-bred artist looked visibly shocked when Mgdesyan said aloud, “But I’m not finna let y’all keep playing in my face, and I’m not finna let this n—a keep playing in my face, either.” Mgdesyan is not Black and recited the uncensored version of the N-word, leading Stallion to request that he repeat the full line. Upon doing so, Mgdesyan again used the uncensored version of the word.
Lanez straightened his suit jacket and seemed pressed when the majority of Stallion’s seven-minute IG Live was played from this YouTube video, in which Stallion is seen telling nearly 90,000 live viewers, “Yes, this n—a Tory shot me. You shot me! And you got your publicists and your people going to these blogs, lying and sh–. Stop lying! Why lie? I don’t understand. I tried to keep the situation off the internet, but you dragging it! You really f—ing dragging it!”
Stallion grew upset again during the redirect examination, wiping her nose and unable to hold back tears when describing how the alleged shooting has impacted her life and career in the two years since. “People don’t even want to touch me,” she wept, adding that her peers in the music industry viewed Stallion — a moniker suggesting a robust horse — like a “sick bird.” Her desolation grew more apparent while identifying various social media posts that she’s seen in the aftermath of the incident, including one that read, “Megan Needs To Be Shot and Killed.”
Coming forward with who allegedly shot her, Stallion testified, has ultimately caused her to “lose my confidence, lose my friends, lose myself. Damn, maybe I should be dead,” she cried.
The trial will resume Wednesday (Dec. 14).
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Taylor Swift ends a long-running copyright case over the lyrics to “Shake It Off,” Tory Lanez heads to trial over accusations that he shot Megan Thee Stallion, Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter is accused of sexually assault, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift’s Accusers Drop “Shake It Off” Case
It was the next big music copyright case – until it wasn’t.After five long years of litigation, and with just a month to go until a scheduled trial, attorneys for Taylor Swift reached an agreement Monday with songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler to end their copyright infringement lawsuit claiming the superstar stole some of the core lyrics to “Shake It Off” from an earlier song.The terms of the agreement were not publicly released. Billboard was first to report the settlement.Hall and Butler sued Swift way back in 2017, claiming she’d lifted the lyrics from “Playas Gon’ Play,” a 2001 song they wrote for the R&B group 3LW. In that song, the line was “playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate”; in Swift’s track, she sings, “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” (The music itself was not in play.)The case was a big deal, if for no other reason than that “Shake It Off” was a big deal. Released in September 2014 off of Swift’s 1989, the song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and ultimately spent 50 weeks on the chart, making it a uniquely major hit even for one of music’s top stars.But it was also a big deal because of the legal issues at play. Like the earlier battles over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse,” the case posed fundamental questions about the limits of copyright law — about where protection ends and the public domain begins. That question was explored in regard to various musical elements in those earlier cases; the “Shake It Off” case might have offered answers in relation to lyrics.Put simply: The words in both songs were clearly similar — everyone can see that. But were they creative or unique enough in the first place to merit giving particular songwriters a decades-long legal monopoly over them? Experts who chatted with Billboard thought the answer was no.But we’ll never know for sure. Swift’s lawyers spent years trying to make that case, arguing that many earlier songs (1997’s “Playa Hater” by Notorious B.I.G. and 1999’s “Don’t Hate the Player” by Ice-T, among others) had used the same words. A judge initially agreed, ruling that the lyrics were not novel enough for copyright protection. But a federal appeals court later overturned that ruling, and the last substantive decision in the case was a ruling last year that the question was simply too close to call and would need to be decided by a jury.With the “Shake It Off” case now officially in the rearview, what’s the next big music copyright case? Maybe it’s the lawsuits against Ed Sheeran over allegations that his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Or the dueling cases against Dua Lipa over her own mega-smash “Levitating.” Or maybe it’s something that hasn’t even been filed yet…
THE OTHER BIG STORY: Megan Thee Stallion Shooting Trial Begins
Tory Lanez and Los Angeles prosecutors headed to court this week to kick off a closely-watched jury trial over whether he shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot, with a potential 22-year prison sentence looming for Lanez if convicted.The trial, set to last for at least a week, will center on the early morning of July 12, 2020, when Stallion, Lanez and Stallion’s friend Kelsey Harris were driving in an SUV following a party at Kylie Jenner’s house. According to prosecutors, after an argument broke out, Megan got out of the vehicle and began walking away, when Lanez shouted, “Dance, bitch!” and began shooting at her feet.Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) has pleaded not guilty to all three charges (assault with a firearm, gun possession and discharging a firearm with gross negligence) and has steadfastly maintained his innocence.The upcoming trial will feature testimony from a number of high-profile witnesses, including Stallion herself and Harris. Also potentially taking the stand are Jenner and Corey Gamble, Kris Jenner’s boyfriend who was allegedly at the party. Lanez might also testify, but putting a defendant on the stand is always a gamble for defense attorneys.Billboard’s Heran Mamo will be in the building covering the trial all week, and she was there Monday (Dec. 13) when the case kicked off with opening statements. Some highlights from Day One:-Prosecutors have assembled a formidable case. They told jurors that Harris plans to testify that “her close friend was shot by the defendant,” and that they have texts from Harris just minutes after the shooting: “Help. Tory shot meg. 911.”-Lanez’s attorneys will present the theory that Harris may have actually been the one who discharged the gun. Lead attorney George Mgdesyan told jurors that “this case is about jealousy,” involving a love triangle between the three celebrities, and that there would be witness testimony about “a fist fight between the girls” leading up to the shooting.Stallion herself is set to testify on Tuesday, so check back in with Billboard for Heran’s dispatch…
Other top stories this week…
NICK CARTER SUED FOR RAPE – Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter was hit with a lawsuit alleging that he raped a 17-year-old fan on his tour bus following a 2001 concert in Washington. Shannon “Shay” Ruth claims that Carter invited her onboard as she sought an autograph, gave her alcohol, and then repeatedly assaulted her — but that she didn’t report it because he told her she would “go to jail if she told anyone what happened between them.” In response to the lawsuit, Carter’s attorney called the allegations “legally meritless” and “entirely untrue,” filed by someone “manipulated into making false allegations about Nick.”50 CENT ‘INSINUATION’ SUIT MOVES AHEAD – A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 50 Cent that accuses a Miami medical spa of using an innocent photo he snapped to falsely suggest that he’d had penis enhancement surgery. In seeking to boot the case, Angela Kogan and her Perfection Plastic Surgery & MedSpa argued that 50 actually was a client and had consented to the use of the image as payment for the work he received. But the judge said such arguments were premature — and that some of the company’s other defenses were “simply wrong.”OFT-SAMPLED, NOW INFRINGED? Roddy Ricch was sued for copyright infringement by songwriter Greg Perry, who says elements of Ricch’s chart-topping 2019 song “The Box” were lifted from a 1975 soul song called “Come On Down.” Perry says his track has become something of a mainstay sample in the world of hip-hop, featured in both Young Jeezy’s 2008 song “Wordplay” and in Yo Gotti’s 2016 song “I Remember.” But he says those earlier songs were fully licensed, unlike Ricch’s: “Other [artists] in the rap world that have chosen to copy elements of ‘Come On Down’ have done so legally and correctly,” Perry’s lawyers wrote. “Defendants chose not to.”BORED APE LAWSUIT CLUB – Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, The Weeknd and dozens of other celebrities were hit with a class action alleging they were secretly paid to “misleadingly” promote NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, leaving investors with “staggering losses.” The case claims that Bored Ape parent company Yuga Labs Inc. perpetrated a “vast scheme” in which they “discreetly” paid “highly influential celebrities” to pump up the value of the NFTs (non-fungible tokens). In response to the lawsuit, Yuga called the allegations “opportunistic and parasitic” and “without merit.”GENIUS V. GOOGLE AT SCOTUS – The Supreme Court suggested this week that it might be interested in tackling a lawsuit filed by the music database Genius against Google. The case, which claims Google illegally copied the site’s lyrics and posted them in search results, was dismissed in March. But with Genius currently asking the high court to hear the case, the justices asked the U.S. Solicitor General to file briefs “expressing the views of the United States” on whether it should do so. Genius has warned that the ruling in favor of Google threatens “a vast swath of internet businesses”; Google says that’s just “alarmist hyperbole” and the case does not deserve the high court’s time.
The U.S. Supreme Court looks like it might be about to jump into a lawsuit filed by the music database Genius that accuses Google of illegally copying the site’s lyrics and posting them in search results.
After a lower court dismissed the case in March, Genius – a platform that lets users add and annotate lyrics – asked the high court to hear the case and overturn the ruling. Though it called the ruling “unjust” and “absurd,” such petitions are always a long shot; the Supreme Court takes less than 2% of the 7000 cases it receives each year.
But the odds for Genius just got better. In an order Monday, the justices asked the U.S. Solicitor General to file briefs in the case “expressing the views of the United States” on whether or not the court should hear the case against Google.
That kind of request (a “call for the view of the Solicitor General,” or CVSG, in SCOTUS parlance) indicates that the justices think the issues in the case might be significant enough for the court to tackle. Genius has warned that the ruling for Google threatens “a vast swath of internet businesses”; Google says that’s “alarmist hyperbole” and the case does not deserve the high court’s time.
Neither Genius nor Google immediately returned requests for comment on Tuesday.
Genius sued the tech giant in 2019, claiming Google had stolen the site’s carefully-transcribed content for its own “information boxes” in search results, essentially free-riding on the “time, labor, systems and resources” that goes into creating such a service. In a splashy twist, Genius said it had used a secret code buried within lyrics that spelled out REDHANDED to prove Google’s wrongdoing.
Though it sounds like a copyright case, Genius didn’t actually accuse Google of stealing any intellectual property. That’s because it doesn’t own any; songwriters and publishers own the rights to lyrics, and both Google and Genius pay for the same licenses to display them. Instead, Genius argued it had spent time and money transcribing and compiling “authoritative” versions of lyrics, and that Google had breached the site’s terms of service by “exploiting” them without permission.
But in March, that distinction proved fatal for Genius. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the case, ruling that only the actual copyright owners – songwriters or publishers – could have filed such a case, not a site that merely transcribed the lyrics. In technical terms, the court said the case was “preempted” by federal copyright law, meaning that the accusations from Genius were so similar to a copyright claim that they could only have been filed that way.
In taking the case to the Supreme Court in August, Genius argued the ruling would be a disaster for websites that spend time and money to aggregate user-generated content online. Such companies should be allowed to protect that effort against clear copycats, the company said, even if they don’t hold copyrights.
“It serves no public purpose … to bar these companies from enforcing their contracts so that behemoths like Google can vacuum up content and increase their internet dominance,” Genius wrote. “Big-tech companies like Google don’t need any assists from an overly broad view of copyright preemption; they already control vast swaths of the internet, to the public’s detriment.”
Google obviously disagrees. In a response to the Supreme Court, the company urged the justices to avoid the case and reject Genius’s “alarmist hyperbole,” arguing that the lower ruling was “plainly correct.” Google said Genius was trying to use an agreement “inconspicuously tucked behind a tiny link” to create “pseudo-copyright” control over songs written by other people.
“Genius does not own the copyrights to any of the lyrics. Genius nevertheless wants to prevent any website visitor from reproducing or publicly displaying the lyrics,” Google’s lawyers wrote. “Its solution? Ignore the true copyright owners and invent new rights through a purported contract.”
Opening statements kicked off the highly anticipated trial over whether Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot two years ago.
Los Angeles prosecutors hope to convict Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) of three felony charges over the July 12, 2020 incident, in which he allegedly shot Stallion in the foot during an argument after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills.
In October 2020, he was charged with one count of assault with a firearm and another gun possession charge. On Dec. 6, 2022, just one week before the trial began, the L.A. district attorney’s office added a new, third count of discharging a firearm with gross negligence. If convicted on all three charges, Lanez faces 22 years in prison. Yet Lanez, 30, has maintained his innocence and looked poised to fight for it while arriving at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center Monday morning (Dec. 12) in a cool mint suit and white turtleneck while holding his son’s hand as he entered the packed courtroom with the rest of his entourage.
Prosecutors argued that the shooting took place shortly after Stallion, Lanez and her former friend Kelsey Harris all attended a pool party at Kylie Jenner‘s house on the night of July 11, 2020. As they left in a black Cadillac Escalade driven by Lanez’s security guard Jauquan Smith, L.A. County District Defense Attorney Alexander Bott said an argument between Stallion and Lanez, whom he claimed had “been intimate” with one another, erupted after “Meg had insulted his skills as a musical artist.” She then exited the vehicle before Lanez allegedly grabbed and pointed a gun, yelled “Dance, bi—!” and fired five rounds, which Bott played the audio of twice during his statement. Prosecutors claim that “she was bleeding, she was injured” after Lanez struck both of Stallion’s feet.
And while arguing that Harris, who is expected to testify during the trial, “will tell you her close friend was shot by the defendant,” Bott also claimed the defendant “pulled her by the hair and “either punched her or slapped her.” He showed a screenshot of three consecutive text messages Harris sent to Stallion’s bodyguard, Justin Edison, at 4:27 a.m., just minutes after the shooting: “Help. Tory shot meg. 911.” After responding to 911 calls from neighbors, police officers — some of whom were called by prosecutors to take the stand today as witnesses — conducted a high-risk traffic stop on Hollywood Blvd., where they found a gun on the floorboard of the front passenger seat, where Lanez had been sitting.
Bott says while Stallion was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where a doctor extracted three major bullet fragments from her foot while performing surgery, Harris, Lanez and Smith went to the Hollywood police station and underwent testing for gunshot residue, which Lanez, Harris and two other people at the scene tested positive for. Other evidence the prosecutors brought in included a recording of a phone call Lanez made from jail to Harris at 9:05 a.m., approximately five hours after the shooting, where he profusely apologized and admitted he was “so drunk,” and a screenshot of his text to Stallion at 8:59 p.m., when he wrote, “Meg. I know you prolly never gone to talk to me again. But I genuinely want u to know I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. And I was just too drunk .”
Bott ultimately argued that Harris’ texts to Edison claiming the defendant shot Stallion, the gun being “warm to the touch” (meaning it was consistent with a recent firing, Officer Sandra Cabral claimed in her testimony later on), the doctor who performed surgery on Stallion’s foot and found bullet fragments, the call Lanez made to Harris in jail hours after the shooting, and his apology text to Stallion should all point to the defendant being guilty.
But Lanez’s lead attorney George Mgdesyan argued, “This case is about jealousy” before painting a different scene at Jenner’s pool party and diving into Lanez, Stallion and Harris’ tumultuous relationship. He suggested Stallion was triggered by seeing Lanez and Jenner hanging in the pool together, causing her to want to leave the party with Lanez. They eventually left with Harris and Smith, the latter of whom drove them in the black SUV, but Mgdesyan stated Stallion had left some of her belongings at Jenner’s house and made the foursome return. “She was so drunk, she was so jealous,” he claimed, that the billionaire makeup mogul told the “Savage” rapper to leave the party because she was causing a scene.
The defense claimed that Stallion then started an argument with Lanez during their car ride back for initially not wanting to leave with her and instead wanting to stay with Jenner. When Harris sided with her, the Alone at Prom singer questioned her allegiance and exposed that Stallion had a sexual relationship with him behind Harris’ back, since Harris and Lanez had been linked together first. Lanez seems to have corroborated his claim in a tweet from February 2022 when he wrote that the apology text he had sent Stallion mere hours after the shooting was due to “good d*ick had me f—ing 2 best friends …. and I got caught.”
According to the defense, Stallion had also been romantically involved with fellow rapper DaBaby and NBA player Ben Simmons right after Harris had dated both men. Mgdesyan zeroed in on the physical altercation that allegedly ensued between Harris and Stallion in the car and mentioned that a witness named Sean Kelly, whom he said police interviewed minutes after the shooting because their SUV was parked by his house, saw Harris get out from the back seat of the car, open Stallion’s front passenger door and “saw a fist fight between the girls” before one of them held a gun. The defense ultimately posed the theory that Harris may have been the one who discharged the gun and shot Stallion.
Mgdesyan also argued “[Stallion’s] lying about her story,” pointing to the numerous interviews she’s given with news outlets and police as well as Instagram Lives she’s held in the last two years. He questioned why the rapper initially told police officers she cut her foot stepping on broken glass before claiming she had suffered a gunshot wound days later. After media outlets reported that Lanez had fired the gun, Stallion directly accused him in an August 2020 Instagram video. The defense also suggested Stallion was not completely truthful during her CBS Mornings interview with Gayle King from April 2022, when she denied having an intimate relationship with his client. Mgdesyan also acknowledged the apology messages Lanez sent to both women, which prosecutors showed earlier, and argued that his client never mentioned a gun or shooting in his call to Harris or text to Stallion but apologized for “cheating on them, having a sexual relationship with both of them” and not disclosing that either of them.
Stallion, 27, is expected to testify in court Tuesday (Dec. 13). It still remains unclear if Lanez will testify. The Gathering for Justice, a non-profit founded in 2005 by Harry Belafonte, has partnered with multiple women’s and violence prevention organizations to organize a rally outside of the county criminal courthouse in support of the three-time Grammy-winning rapper before she takes the stand on Tuesday. “We are committed to spreading the message that violence is not the answer. We know the time is now to advocate for victims of violence, particularly violence against Black women,” said president/CEO Carmen Perez-Jordan in a press statement. Her sentiments align with Stallion’s “protect Black women” message that she’s been spreading in countless interviews and performances, including her October 2020 Saturday Night Live performance and New York Times op-ed, in which she she wrote “There’s not much room for passionate advocacy if you are a Black woman.”
A federal judge is refusing to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 50 Cent that accused a Miami medical spa of falsely suggesting that he’d had penis surgery, ruling the rapper might have a valid case.
The rapper’s lawsuit claims that Angela Kogan and her Perfection Plastic Surgery & MedSpa exploited an innocent photo he’d “graciously agreed” to take with her to imply that he was a client — and, more startlingly, that he had received penile enhancement surgery as part of his work.
Kogan strongly denies the allegations and immediately moved to dismiss the case, saying 50 actually was a client and had consented to the use of the image as payment for the work he received. But in a decision Monday, Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. denied that motion, saying the lawsuit’s allegations were strong enough to survive the earliest stages of the case.
Among other things, Kogan defended herself by arguing that her Instagram post featuring the image merely thanked 50 for visiting her medical office and didn’t directly suggest that he’d endorsed the practice. But in his ruling on Monday, Judge Scola said that argument was “simply wrong.”
“As the proverbial saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words,” Scola wrote. “This one in particular depicts a worldwide celebrity next to Kogan with MedSpa’s name repeated all throughout the background. The promotional value is evident.”
Based on the claims in the lawsuit, the judge said the photo did more than just “thank” the rapper, whose birth name is Curtis James Jackson III: “Read in the light most favorable to Jackson, the defendants’ ‘thanks’ serves as a humblebrag. It is self-promotion.” The judge then offered up the dictionary definition of a “humblebrag” in a footnote.
Such a ruling does not mean 50 Cent has won the lawsuit. It merely means the case will head into discovery — the process during which both sides exchange key evidence — and toward an eventual trial where 50 will try to prove such allegations. But it bodes well for any litigant for a judge to rule that, if proven true, your allegations are valid.
An attorney for Kogan declined to comment on the decision.
50 Cent sued Kogan in September, arguing that he took a photo with “someone he thought was a fan” and had “never consented” to the use of the image for commercial purposes in any form. He says Kogan not only posted the image to Instagram herself but also engineered an article on the website The Shade Room that used the post to make the “false insinuation” that she’d provided him with penile enhancement.
The article in question (“Penis Enhancements Are More Popular Than Ever & BBLs Are Dying Out: Cosmetic Surgery CEO Angela Kogan Speaks On It”) did not directly claim that Jackson had the surgery. But it allegedly said he was a “client” of the practice while repeatedly using the image of him with Kogan — and Jackson’s lawyers say the “implication was clear.”
“Defendants’ actions have exposed Jackson to ridicule, caused substantial damage to his professional and personal reputation, and violated his right to control his name and image,” the star’s lawyers wrote at the time. They included social media comments in which users mocked the rapper, including one that “crudely” said the rapper should be called “50 inch.”
Firing back with her motion to dismiss the case in October, Kogan’s attorneys argued the image was “an innocuous capture of plaintiff and defendant in defendants’ office,” not the kind of direct endorsement that would give rise to a lawsuit. And her lawyers argued that she had no direct role in the Shade Room using the Instagram post alongside the article about penile enhancements.
But in his ruling on Monday, Judge Scola said Kogan’s lawyers had glossed over the fact that she had not merely posted the image to Instagram, but also posted a screen-captured video of her scrolling through the Shade Room’s article.
“They weakly argue that Jackson consented to the photo’s being uploaded on to Instagram while making no mention of Jackson’s consent/non-consent as to the screen capture video and the promotional value it doubtlessly served,” the judge wrote.
“That omission is fatal,” Scola continued. “Because the defendants took it upon themselves to post the video onto their Instagram accounts, Jackson can plausibly argue that the defendants unauthorizedly used his likeness to promote their business regardless of whether the defendants had any role in TSR’s publication of either the Tweet or the article.”
Even if 50 Cent had traded his photo consent for free medical care, the judge also questioned whether such treatment could possibly be fair payment for the commercial scale at which Kogan allegedly used the image.
“The promotional value that the defendants have received from repeatedly sharing Kogan’s photo with Jackson is surely great,” Scola wrote. “Although the court has no reason to doubt the quality of the ‘free medspa services’ that the defendants provided Jackson, the record is not sufficiently established to substantiate the defendants’ suggestion that their services equitably compensated Jackson.”
