Legal News
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Convicted pharma executive Martin Shkreli is firing back in a lawsuit over Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, arguing he had a legal right to retain copies of the one-of-a-kind album even after he handed it over to federal prosecutors.
The filing came a month after Shkreli was sued by PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case. The company is seeking an injunction barring him from leaking the album and forcing him to turn over any copies.
But in an opposition filing on Wednesday (July 24), Shkreli’s attorneys argued that he had been well within his rights when he made copies of the album before the forfeiture — and that he had not been required to turn those copies over to prosecutors.
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“Defendant continues to have the right to use them to this day,” Shkreli’s attorneys write.
PleasrDAO has argued a leak of the famously secret album would “irreparably harm” its value. But Shkreli’s attorneys say the feds made no promises to Pleasr that they were buying the only copy in existence.
“Plaintiff was well aware that its purchase of assets from did not include any promise or expectation of ‘exclusivity’ or ‘uniqueness,’” Shkreli’s lawyers write. “It bought a copy of a musical work that it knew was not unique, and cannot now claim to be irreparably harmed by the existence of its non-uniqueness.”
PleasrDAO sued Shkreli last month over the potential leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
Wu-Tang’s legendary album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction for $2 million.
When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. But Shkreli’s lawyers say the deal granted him the right to “duplicate or replicate the work for private use.”
After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.
In Wednesday’s filing, Shkreli’s lawyers argued that when the government sold the album, it expressly told Pleasr that it would not “assume” any of the promises or guarantees that had been made in Shkreli’s original deal with Wu-Tang — including the claims about the album’s one-of-a-kind status.
“It would be fundamentally unfair for this court to restrict Shkreli from his permitted use of the work after the [government] explicitly disclaimed any warranties, described the assets as being sold “As-Is, Where-Is,” and listed only physical objects to be delivered on the sale of the assets,” his lawyers write.
A hearing on the potential injunction is set for next month. A rep for PleasrDAO’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.
Chris Brown and Live Nation are facing a second lawsuit over an alleged melee that took place backstage at a concert in Fort Worth last week, filed by a security guard who says he was “brutally and severely” beaten when he tried to break up the fight.
In a civil complaint filed Tuesday in Houston court, Frederick Overpeck accuses the singer of assault and battery over the alleged incident, in which Brown and members of his entourage allegedly brawled with four fans in the VIP area of the July 19 concert.
The lawsuit, which comes a day after the four alleged victims filed their own separate lawsuit, cites Brown’s “checkered past,” including a high-profile 2009 attack on his then-girlfriend Rihanna that led to a felony conviction.
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“The plaintiff herein is just the latest in a long line of individuals who have suffered at Brown’s hands,” Overpeck’s attorneys write. “This R&B performer lacks civility and boldly disregards life and health of anyone who he targets.”
According to the lawsuit, Overpeck says he witnessed Brown and his entourage attack the four men after the singer was reminded that he had “beef” with one of the alleged victims. “I don’t forget shit,” Brown allegedly said to the four men, before instructing his entourage to “fuck em up.”
Working as a security guard, Overpeck says he attempted to “de-escalate” the situation and “intervene to stop the violence,” but was “thrown out of the way” as “chairs and punches started flying.” During the fight, Overpeck says he was repeatedly kicked and that one of Brown’s men jumped on top of him.
The “brutal assault” left Overpeck with “crippling neck injuries,” the lawsuit claims, including a fractured neck that has left him unable to work and needing “extensive medical treatment.”
The lawsuit also names three members of his entourage — Conway, Hood Boss (a.k.a. Omololu Omari Akinlolu) and Sinko Ceej — as defendants. It also names tour promoter Live Nation as a defendant, accusing the company of negligence for failing to protect him despite Brown’s history of violent behavior.
The lawsuit is seeking “no less” than $15 million in damages, but such demands have little bearing on how much money is eventually awarded if a lawsuit is ultimately successful.
The case largely echoes claims made a day earlier in a separate by the four fans allegedly attacked by Brown — Larry Parker, Joseph Lewis, Charles Bush and Damarcus Powell. In that case, a Houston judge has already issued a temporary restraining order barring Brown and others from destroying any videos of the alleged incident and requiring them to hand over such evidence.
In Wednesday’s new lawsuit, attorneys for Overpeck referenced that court order – and said that they believe a video of the fight exists: “The initial assault, wherein Brown is clearly shown throwing the first punch, is captured on video. A temporary restraining order has now been entered to preserve such video.”
The new judge in Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial has been greeted by a flood of new motions, including a renewed demand to release the rapper from the “torturous conditions” he’s faced while sitting in jail for more than two years.
A week after Judge Paige Reese Whitaker took the reins in the massive racketeering case, Thug’s attorney Brian Steel asked her on Tuesday (July 23) to release the rapper on bond and allow him to live under house arrest with strict monitoring until a verdict is reached.
Judge Ural Glanville, who was removed from the case earlier this month after revelations of a secret meeting with prosecutors and a key witness, has repeatedly denied such requests. In his new motion, Steel told Whitaker that those rulings had forced Thug to “languish” in jail for years without ever being convicted of a crime.
“The most fundamental premise of our criminal justice system is that the criminally accused cannot be punished for an offense until the prosecution proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Steel told the new judge in his filing. “In our society, liberty is the norm.”
Thug (Jeffery Williams) and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that their YSL was not really a record label called Young Stoner Life but rather a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, prosecutors claim the group operated a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
The trial kicked off in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and disruptions, including an unprecedented 10-month jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant and now the removal of the presiding judge. Prosecutors have only presented part of their vast list of potential witnesses, and the case is expected to run well into 2025.
Since being arrested on the day the indictment was released, Thug has sat in jail. Steel has repeatedly asked for pre-trial release, but Glanville rejected those requests after Fulton County prosecutors warned that the rapper might intimidate witnesses if granted bond. At a hearing last year, the judge ruled that Thug posed “a significant risk to the community.”
In Tuesday’s motion, Steel urged Whitaker to reject those concerns, repeating his previous promises that Thug would submit to strict conditions under house arrest. Steel said those conditions include the use of electronic monitoring, the hiring of off-duty police officers to guard him, subjecting all communications to monitoring and requiring searches of all people entering the home.
“This will prevent any possibility to intimidate a witness or otherwise obstruct the administration of justice,” Steel wrote. “With these parameters in mind, it cannot be said that Mr. Williams would be a threat or a danger to the community or any person or property in the community.”
Thug’s conditions while “languishing in the county jail” have been “tortuous,” Steel wrote — including 22 hours of daily isolation, “inedible food” and an “ant infested room” from which he cannot see out the windows.
“Ordering Mr. Williams to wear an ankle monitor and to be in ‘total lockdown’ in his home is the equivalent to custody and confinement and has been deemed lawful confinement without the punishment imposed by the current county jail conditions wrongly imposed on Mr. Williams,” Steel wrote.
In addition to Thug’s renewed motion for bond, Whitaker is also facing a flood of other motions as she takes over the case, including multiple requests to declare a mistrial.
Echoing a similar motion already filed by Thug’s legal team earlier this month, attorneys for Yak Gotti (Deamonte Kendrick) argued in a Tuesday filing that Glanville’s secret meeting with prosecutors was an “egregious violation” and grounds for an immediate mistrial: “Kendrick’s Constitutional rights were violated when neither he nor his attorneys were present at a critical stage of the proceedings,” attorney Doug Weinstein wrote.
Attorneys for Quamarvious Nichols, another YSL defendant, made a different argument for a mistrial: that a brand new judge could not possibly “make informed rulings” after missing the first 19 months of trial in which over 100 witnesses had already testified.
“Trials evolve and decisions are made by the court based in part on the way the trial and evidence play out over time,” attorney Bruce Harvey wrote. “This Court has missed crucial proceedings necessary to make fair and well-founded rulings and to properly instruct the jury both during and at the conclusion of trial.”
Whitaker is facing new filings from prosecutors, too. In a motion filed Tuesday, the Fulton County District Attorney’s office asked the judge to order defense attorneys to stop making “extrajudicial statements to the media” about the case, arguing that it could have a “prejudicial effect” on jurors. Prosecutors cited specific statements allegedly made by Steel, Weinstein and other defense lawyers to media outlets.
Whitaker has set a hearing date for next week to hear and potentially decide the various new motions.
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: Michael Jackson’s estate scores a victory in litigation over a $600 million catalog sale; Snoop Dogg is hit with a copyright lawsuit that cites Tracy Chapman; Melissa Etheridge faces a legal battle from her partners in her failed cannabis business; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Jackson Estate Scores Legal Victory
Michael Jackson’s estate won a key ruling last week in a legal battle with the late singer’s mother — and though it’s only a “tentative” win, the stakes are enormous. More than 15 years after Jackson’s death, his estate is still tied up in probate court, reportedly over unresolved tax issues. So when the King of Pop’s executors wanted to sell part of his catalog to Sony Music for more than $600 million, it asked a California judge for approval to do so. Katherine Jackson objected, arguing that the sale “violated Michael’s wishes” and that the catalog would likely continue to gain value over time if retained, among other arguments. Last week, a California appeals court tentatively rejected Katherine’s objections — ruling that it would likely rule for the estate both procedurally (that she had failed to preserve arguments on appeal) and substantively (that the estate’s executors had the power to make the Sony deal.)Go read our full story on the decision — and stay tuned for whether the court decides to finalize its ruling.
Other top stories this week…
LEGAL LEGEND – While we’re on the subject of the Jackson estate, go read Frank DiGiacomo’s excellent profile of estate co-executor John Branca, a music attorney who at various points in his career has represented Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Paul McCartney, the Elvis Presley estate and The Rolling Stones. SNOOP LIABILITY – Snoop Dogg was sued for copyright infringement over allegations that the legendary rapper has refused to pay a veteran studio musician after using two of his backing tracks. The case offers a glimpse at industry practices surrounding the use of uncleared samples to privately “experiment” in the recording studio — and cites an earlier battle between Tracy Chapman and Nicki Minaj over that same issue. WEED WAR – Melissa Etheridge is facing a legal battle over her brief foray into the cannabis business, filed by two business partners in Northern California (Josephine and D’Angelo Roberto) who say they “invested their life’s work into the businesses” but claim the singer “abandoned them” and left them in “financial ruin.” AN “ABHORRENT SCHEME”– Attorneys for Priscilla Presley filed a lawsuit against four of her former business partners over allegations of elder abuse and fraud, accusing them of a “meticulously planned” scheme to drain Elvis Presley’s ex-wife of “every last penny she had” — including nearly $1 million to date and 80% of her future income.ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER JUDGE – Just two days after Judge Ural Glanville was ordered removed from Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial, his replacement on the trial bench (Judge Shukura L. Ingram) said that she would also recuse herself. Later the same day, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker assumed control of the massive racketeering case and now appears to be settling in to run it for the long haul. KANYE SUED AGAIN – Ye (formerly Kanye West) was sued yet again over claims of illegal sampling, this time over allegations that he used an instrumental track called “MSD PT2” in two songs from the album Donda even after he was explicitly denied permission. The case closely echoes a lawsuit filed against him by the estate of Donna Summer, which similarly claimed that he had used one of her songs even after being directly refused a license. That case settled last month. GOSSIP OR DEFAMATION? Soulja Boy launched a defamation lawsuit against social media personalities Tasha K and William The Baddest, claiming that they made false statements on a podcast about the rapper having a sexual encounter with a man — or, in the words of his lawyers, “redefining his character as a man who is not straight.” If Tasha K’s name sounds familiar, it should: She’s the gossip host who Cardi B sued for defamation over claims about STDs, drug use and prostitution, eventually winning a $4 million judgment. NBA MUSIC LAWSUITS – More than a dozen NBA teams were sued for copyright infringement by Kobalt and other music companies over allegations that the basketball teams used songs in social media videos without permission. The cases came with city-specific flair: The New York Knicks were accused of using songs by “New York legends” Jay-Z and Cardi B; the Philadelphia 76ers allegedly used music from Philly native Meek Mill; and the Atlanta Hawks took songs by “Atlanta’s own” Migos and OutKast. MUSIC AI BATTLES – How are the copyright lawsuits against AI music firms Suno and Udio going to shake out? Billboard’s Robert Levine breaks down the fair use doctrine and how it might be applied to the new frontier of training artificial intelligence models, particularly in the wake of high-profile cases involving Google Books, the Android operating system and an Andy Warhol print of Prince. ROYALTY ROW – SoundExchange sued a free streaming service called AccuRadio over allegations that the company has failed to pay royalties for music for years, claiming the streamer has “directly harmed creators.” The small streamer denied the allegations, saying it had reliably paid $12.5 million in royalties over the years but was struggling with high rates imposed on online radio. BACKSTAGE MELEE – Chris Brown, Live Nation and several members of his entourage were hit with a lawsuit over an alleged assault that took place following Brown’s concert last week in Fort Worth, Texas. The case claims that Brown and others “brutally and severely beat” four men backstage in an unprovoked attack following the show. CHIPPING AWAY – Attorneys for Live Nation asked a federal judge to dismiss part of the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit — specifically, that the concert promoter uses illegal tying arrangements to operate its amphitheaters. The company argued that this practice, described as a “refusal to deal,” is common in the concert business and protected by Supreme Court precedent.
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Chris Brown and several members of his entourage, along with Brown’s 11:11 Tour promoter Live Nation, are facing a lawsuit over an alleged assault that took place following Brown’s concert in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday night.
Filed Monday (July 22) in Harris County district court by attorneys Tony Buzbee and Caroline Adams, the lawsuit claims that Brown and several accomplices “brutally and severely beat” four men — Larry Parker, Joseph Lewis, Charles Bush and Damarcus Powell — backstage at Dickies Arena in an unprovoked attack following the show.
“The violence included Brown and his entourage surrounding the Plaintiffs, throwing chairs at them, and repeatedly kicking, stomping, and beating them,” the complaint reads. “The unprovoked violence included multiple strikes to the Plaintiffs’ heads and chests, and ultimately involved stomping them while they were down. The brutal, violent assault participated in and directed by Brown, severely injured all Plaintiffs.”
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According to the complaint, the attack occurred after the four men were invited to the backstage VIP area following the show, where they allegedly waited 30 minutes for Brown to arrive. “Having grown tired of waiting,” the complaint reads, the men began making their way to the exit, at which point Bush says he approached Brown to shake his hand and congratulate him on the concert. After exchanging pleasantries, a member of Brown’s crew then allegedly shouted to Brown, “Man, you don’t remember you two were beefing?” The lawsuit claims that Brown then replied, “Oh yeah, we were…I don’t forget sh–” before instructing his entourage to “f—” Bush up.
At that point, the plaintiffs claim that Brown, along with “seven to ten members” of his crew, followed them into a hallway as they were attempting to leave and attacked them. “One of Brown’s entourage, known by the alias Sinko, ran to the left side of the crowd and punched Bush in the chest,” the complaint reads. “Simultaneously, another of Brown’s entourage, stage alias Hood Boss, picked up a chair and threw it at Bush’s head.”
The complaint says that Parker was also badly beaten after Brown allegedly instructed another member of his entourage, Markies Deandre Conway (a.k.a. Yella Beezy), and several others to “f—” him up. After fleeing into a stairwell, the lawsuit claims Parker became trapped by a locked door at the bottom of the stairs, where he was subsequently attacked by Brown and several other men.
“Upon instruction by Brown, Parker was then punched in the face and chest, kicked in the head for over ten minutes, and stomped on by Defendant Brown and his associates,” the complaint alleges. “Brown encouraged his companions to join in the assault simultaneously. Brown and his entourage then continued to beat Plaintiff Parker closed fisted for almost minutes, repeatedly stomping on Defendant Parker’s head, kicking his face and ribs, and causing severe bodily injury.”
Brown and his crew are also accused of punching Powell in the shoulder and punching Lewis in the shoulder and chest.
The complaint claims that all four men required medical treatment and that Parker was hospitalized and “will need to undergo extensive medical treatment for the damages he suffered in the attack, including head injuries.”
In addition to Brown, the lawsuit names three members of his entourage — Conway, Hood Boss (a.k.a. Omololu Omari Akinlolu) and Sinko Ceej — as defendants. As for Live Nation, the complaint alleges that the concert promoter continued working with Brown despite his history of “bad conduct and violent conduct.” According to the lawsuit, the company “shamelessly profits and promotes Brown’s The 11:11 Tour and brought Brown to Texas for financial gain. Live Nation failed to insure that the [participants] of the concert who may be around Brown, and his associates, were safe.”
The plaintiffs are asking for compensatory and punitive damages “in excess [of] $50 million,” along with actual damages for “pecuniary losses, pain and suffering, disfigurement, mental anguish, and past, present, and future medical expenses,” among other relief.
In making its case, the plaintiffs’ attorneys make note of several of the defendants’ criminal histories, alleging that Ceej was a member of “the blood gang” and spent “at least eight years in prison” and that Conway, “a former Crip gang member,” has been arrested multiple times for firearm possession and sexual assault.
The lawsuit additionally recounts Brown’s well-publicized brushes with the law, including the singer’s guilty plea for beating his then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009, for which he was sentenced to five years’ probation and community service and forced to undergo domestic violence counseling. Brown has been arrested and/or sued multiple times for various instances of alleged physical and sexual assault, including by multiple women and his former manager, Michael Guirguis. In 2014, Brown pleaded guilty to simple assault for punching a man in the face the previous year.
Representatives for Brown, Live Nation and Conway did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment. Representatives for Akinlolu and Ceej could not be located for comment.
SoundExchange is suing a free streaming service called AccuRadio over allegations that the company failed to pay royalties for music, claiming the streamer has “directly harmed creators.”
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Washington D.C. federal court, SoundExchange accused AccuRadio of violating the federal law that governs how radio-like services pay royalties to record labels and artists for the right to publicly perform copyrighted sound recordings.
SoundExchange – the non-profit that collects and distributes such “statutory royalties” – says AccuRadio had always paid its full bill until 2016, when its payments “slowed” and then finally stopped in 2018.
“AccuRadio has directly harmed creators over the years by refusing to pay royalties for the use of protected recordings,” said Michael Huppe, SoundExchange’s president and CEO said in a statement on Monday. “Today, SoundExchange is standing up for creators through this lawsuit to protect the value of music and ensure creators are compensated fairly for their work. We hope AccuRadio will immediately reverse course and pay what they owe for the use of the music that sits at the foundation of its service.”
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Founded in 2000, AccuRadio boasts that it is “the only online music streaming service curated by human beings, not algorithms.” The company offers hundreds of ad-supported free music channels that users can further customize, including skipping songs they don’t like.
According to SoundExchange, after AccuRadio stopped paying its royalty bill, the two sides have attempted to negotiate a solution for years, including a so-called forbearance agreement last year in which the streamer agreed to make a set down payment and then regular additional payments. But after three months, SoundExchance claims AccuRadio defaulted on that agreement, too.
“The cumulative amount of defendant’s underpayment – which harms SoundExchange, as well as the performing artists and copyright owners on whose behalf it collects and distributes royalties – continues to grow with each passing month,” SoundExchange’s lawyers write in their complaint.
In addition to demanding payment, the lawsuit is seeking a preliminary injunction that would immediately force AccuRadio to either pay up or stop offering copyrighted music to its listenership.
“While defendant has defaulted on the payments due pursuant to the forbearance agreement, it continues to operate its multichannel internet radio service, providing access to over a thousand pre-developed music channels and access to millions of sound recordings,” the lawsuit reads. “Injunctive relief is reasonably necessary to stop defendant from abusing the statutory license and incurring further damages throughout the pendency of this litigation.”
AccuRadio did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
More than a dozen NBA teams are facing copyright lawsuits from Kobalt and other music companies over allegations that the basketball teams used songs in social media videos without permission.
In 14 separate actions filed in federal court Friday, Kobalt and others accused each club of using copyrighted music in promotional videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) to “increase viewership” and “engage its fanbase.”
In the case against the New York Knicks, the music companies accused the team of using songs by “New York legends” Jay-Z and Cardi B. The case against the Philadelphia 76ers cited use of songs by Philly native Meek Mill. In the action against Atlanta Hawks, the complaint said the club had used music by “Atlanta’s own” Migos and OutKast.
But in each case, the overarching allegation was the same – that a sophisticated corporate entity had stolen music that it knew it was supposed to pay for.
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“Defendants are acutely aware of the protections that the copyright laws of the United States afford,” lawyers for the music companies wrote in language that appeared in each lawsuit. “[The team] utilizes the full extent of legal protections available for its own intellectual property while simultaneously knowingly and willfully infringing on the intellectual property rights of the plaintiffs.”
In addition to the Knicks, 76ers and Hawks, the lawsuits targeted the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the Miami Heat, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Orlando Magic, the Phoenix Suns, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Sacramento Kings and the San Antonio Spurs.
A spokesman for the NBA did not immediately return a request for comment.
The other music companies who signed onto the lawsuits include Artist Publishing Group, Notting Hill Music and Prescription Songs.
Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok provide huge libraries of licensed music for users to add to their videos. But there’s a key exception: The songs can’t be used for commercial or promotional videos posted by brands. That kind of content requires a separate synch license, just like a conventional ad on television.
In recent years, music owners have cracked down on brands that blur those lines on social media. All three major labels sued drink maker Bang Energy for using hundreds of copyrighted songs in TikTok videos, with Universal and Sony eventually winning judgments. The owner of the “Space Jam” song has filed several lawsuits over the past year, including suing a minor league baseball team that used the famed 1990s track in a Facebook video. And earlier this month, the Beastie Boys sued the owner of Chili’s for using the trio’s “Sabotage” in social media clips that spoofed the song’s famous music video.
Attorneys for Priscilla Presley are suing four of her former business partners over allegations of elder abuse and fraud, accusing them of a “meticulously planned” scheme to drain Elvis Presley’s ex-wife of “every last penny she had.”
In a complaint filed Thursday (July 18) in Los Angeles court, lawyers for Presley, 79, accuse Brigitte Kruse, Kevin Fialko, Vahe Sislyan and Lynn Walker Wright of fraudulently convincing her to give them power over nearly every aspect of her life — and then abusing that control to steal her money.
“This action arises out of a meticulously planned and abhorrent scheme by the defendants in this action to prey on an older woman by gaining her trust, isolating her from the most important people in her life, and duping her into believing that they would take care of her (personally and financially), while their real goal was to drain her of every last penny she had,” writes high-profile attorney Martin Singer, who now represents Presley.
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Calling Kruse a “con-artist and pathological liar,” Singer says the defendants took more than $1 million from Presley and convinced her to sign a deal that would give them 80% of her future income.
“The fact that the plaintiff in this case is internationally recognized actress, author, and cultural icon … demonstrates both how effective the defendants’ plan was (and needed to be), and how anyone can be a victim of elder abuse and fraud,” Singer writes.
The new case comes eight months after Kruse’s company, Priscilla Presley Partners, filed its own lawsuit against Priscilla in Florida. That case claimed that Presley illegally turned her back on Kruse and Fialko after they had helped her “dig herself out of impending financial ruin,” including negotiating the deal that led to last year’s Priscilla biopic.
But in Thursday’s new lawsuit, Singer argues that the earlier case was merely a cover for Kruse and Fialko’s alleged misdeeds.
“When it became clear to the defendants that their scheme had been uncovered, they attempted to falsely portray themselves as the victims by filing a lawsuit against Presley in Florida in the name of several of the sham companies they established, alleging that Presley breached the fraudulently-induced operating agreements,” her legal team writes.
According to the complaint, Sislyan is Kruse’s husband and participated in the scheme; and Walker-Wright is an Orlando-area attorney who allegedly helped the others carry it out.
Singer and Priscilla’s other attorneys say that Kruse and the others “established a personal relationship” with her and then used it to “isolate her from her long-time business and financial advisors,” whom they argued were “deceitful or incompetent” and causing her to lose money. Once they had isolated her, the lawsuit says, Kruse and the others took steps to “fraudulently induce” Presley into signing over power of attorney, giving them control over her trusts and bank accounts, and signing deals with “sham” companies like Priscilla Presley Partners.
One of those deals, the lawsuit says, gave the defendants “an exclusive license to exploit and profit off of her name, image, and likeness, and to control and receive virtually all of her income from any of her professional ventures.”
“Dissatisfied with what existing resources they could siphon from her, the defendants’ plan involved usurping control over her ability to control her finances going forward and forcing her into a form of indentured servitude, where plaintiff was forced to work so that they could receive the lion’s share of any revenue that she was able to earn in the future,” Singer writes.
An attorney for Kruse and Priscilla Presley Partners did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations. Walker-Wright also did not return a request for comment.
Melissa Etheridge is facing a legal battle over her brief foray into the cannabis business, filed by two business partners in Northern California who claim that the singer “abandoned them” and left them in “financial ruin.”
The Grammy-winning songwriter, who rose to stardom in the 1990s with hits like “Come to My Window” and “I’m The Only One,” announced in 2019 that she would launch Etheridge Farms, which aimed to bring the benefits of cannabis to middle-aged women. “They’re looking to cannabis, and I want Etheridge Farms to be right there to answer what they’re looking for,” the singer said at the time.
But five years later, her former business partners now claim that Etheridge and her wife effectively torpedoed the company by refusing to support it. In a legal petition filed July 9 and obtained by Billboard, Josephine and D’Angelo Roberto say they’ve been “left with nothing.”
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“The Robertos trusted the Etheridges and invested their life’s work into the businesses,” writes attorney Christopher Frost of the law firm Frost LLP, representing the Robertos. “Unfortunately, their hard work did not end in a success story, but rather betrayal and abandonment.”
The filing is a demand for arbitration, which initiates a litigation-like case that will play out similar to a lawsuit. But such cases, often required under corporate operating agreements, are decided by an arbitrator behind closed doors rather than by a judge in an open courtroom.
Representatives for the Etheridges, including their attorney who received the arbitration demand, did not return repeated requests for comment on the dispute. Attorneys for the Robertos declined to comment.
A Budding Partnership
The Robertos (nicknamed Jozee and Cricket) say they met Etheridge and her wife Linda Wallem-Etheridge via mutual friends in Northern California in 2017, and that the foursome then hatched a plan to launch a series of cannabis businesses, including Etheridge Farms and Etheridge Botanicals. In a 2019 article in San Jose’s Mercury News, the singer said she had been inspired in part by using cannabis amid a battle with breast cancer in the 2000s.
“I came out of chemotherapy saying, I want to be an advocate for this, I believe in this as medicine so deeply,” she told the Mercury News. “I started looking around California going, OK, what do I need to do — I want to be part of this — I actually turned to my friends and said, I want to be the face of cannabis.” In that same article, Jozee was quoted as saying that the Etheridges “genuinely share the same values that Cricket and I share about health and wellbeing.”
According to legal filings, the group secured a rental lease in 2018 on a large facility in Soquel, Calif. to manufacture and distribute their products, and also locked down important regulatory licenses for that property.
The plan, according to the Robertos, was for the couple to contribute their extensive cannabis industry expertise and work on product development, while the Etheridges would use their celebrity status to promote the business, seek outside investors, and continue to support the business financially.
Left High and Dry?
But while the Robertos say they “devoted every ounce of their money, time and attention” to the businesses, they claim the Etheridges failed to do the same. They say she failed to promote the business, and then stopped supporting the business financially. According to legal filings, by 2020 that allegedly included failing to pay the rent at the Soquel facility as promised; when the landlord finally booted them, the Robertos say it cost the business crucial regulatory licenses that had been tied to that property.
“Despite their persistent efforts, following the Etheridges’ complete lack of engagement and financial support to the Etheridge entities, the LLC sales and performance eventually withered away,” attorneys for the couple write in the demand for arbitration.
The alleged breakdown in the business came amid great personal tragedy for Etheridge. In May 2020, the singer announced that Beckett Cypher, her son with former partner Julie Cypher, had died from causes related to opioid addiction. Months later, the singer launched the Etheridge Foundation to advocate for and support research into new treatments for opioid addiction.
Those tragic events are not directly mentioned in the new legal filings, but attorneys for the Robertos allude to them in making their case.
“The Etheridges suffered personal losses for which the Robertos have much empathy,” the couple’s lawyers write in their filing earlier this month. “However, notwithstanding these personal losses and given the challenges faced by the parties, the Etheridges ultimately decided to let all of the joint ventures ‘die on the vine,’ stopped covering expenses that they promised to pay, and left the Robertos in a much worse situation.”
In technical terms, the demand for arbitration accuses the Etheridges of breaching their fiduciary duty to the companies; breaching their contract with the Robertos; violating legal promises they made to the couple; and making fraudulent and negligent misrepresentations.
The pair are seeking an undetermined amount of damages, but say they’re entitled to at least $3 million: “The Robertos have not pursued this action and are not proceeding to arbitration for fame or fortune or as a vendetta,” their lawyers write. “Rather, they simply seek compensation for the suffering they have had to endure and the financial ruin they have experienced due to the Etheridges abandoning them.”
The lawsuits filed by the major labels against the AI companies Suno and Udio could be the most important cases to the music business since the Supreme Court Grokster decision, as I explained in last week’s Follow the Money column. The outcomes are hard to predict, however, because the central issue will be “fair use,” a U.S. legal doctrine shaped by judicial decisions that involves famously — sometimes notoriously — nuanced determinations about art and appropriation. And although most creators focus more on issues around generative AI “outputs” — music they’ll have to compete with or songs that might sound similar to theirs — these cases involve the legality of copying music for the purposes of training AI.
Neither Suno nor Udio has said how they’re trained their AI programs, but both have essentially said that copying music in order to do so would qualify as fair use. Determining that could touch on the development of Google Books, the compatibility of the Android operating system, and even a Supreme Court case that involves Prince, Andy Warhol and Vanity Fair. It’s the kind of fair use case that once inspired a judge to call copyright “the metaphysics of the law.” So let’s get metaphysical!
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Fair use essentially provides exceptions to copyright, usually for the purpose of free expression, allowing for quotation (as in book or film reviews) and parody (to comment on art), among other things. (The iconic example in music is the Supreme Court case over 2 Live Crew’s parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.”) These determinations involve a four-factor test that weighs “the purpose and character of the use”; “the nature of the copyrighted work”; how much and how important a part of the work is used; and the effect of the use upon the potential market value of the copyrighted work. Over the last decade or so, though, the concept of “transformative use,” derived from the first factor, expanded in a way that allowed the development of Google Books (the copying of books to create a database and excerpts) and the use of some Oracle API code in Google’s Android system — which could arguably be said to go beyond the origins of the concept.
Could copying music for the purposes of machine learning qualify as well?
In a paper on the topic, “Fair Use in the U.S. Redux: Reformed or Still Deformed,” the influential Columbia Law School professor Jane Ginsburg suggests that the influence of the transformative use argument might have reached its peak. (I am oversimplifying a very smart paper, and if you are interested in this topic, you should read it.)
The Supreme Court decision on the Google-Oracle case involved part of a computer program, far from the creative “core” of copyright, and music recordings would presumably be judged differently. The Supreme Court also made a very different decision last year in a case that pitted the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts against prominent rock photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The case involved an Andy Warhol silkscreen of Prince, based on a Goldsmith photograph that the magazine Vanity Fair had licensed for Warhol to use. Warhol used the photo for an entire series — which Goldsmith only found out about when the magazine used the silkscreen image again for a commemorative issue after Prince died.
On the surface, this seemed to cast the Supreme Court Justices as modern art critics, in a position to judge all appropriation art as infringing. But the case wasn’t about whether Warhol’s silkscreen inherently infringed Goldsmith’s copyright but about whether it infringed it for licensed use by a magazine, in a way where it could compete with the original photo. There was a limit to transformative use, after all. “The same copying,” the court decided, “may be fair when used for one purpose but not another.”
So it might constitute fair use for Google to copy entire books for the purpose of creating a searchable database about those books with excerpts from them, as it did for Google Books — but not necessarily for Suno or Udio to copy terabytes of recordings to spur the creation of new works to compete with them, especially if it results in similar works. In the first case, it’s hard to find real economic harm — there will never be much of a market for licensing book databases — but there’s already a nascent market for licensing music to train AI programs. And, unlike Google Books, the AI programs are designed to make music to compete with the recordings used to train them. Obviously, licensing music to train an AI program is what we might call a secondary use — but so is turning a book into a film, and no one doubts they need permission for that.
All of this might seem like I think the major labels will win their cases, but that’s a tough call — the truth is that I just don’t think they’ll lose. And there’s a lot of space between victory and defeat here. If one of these cases ends up going to the Supreme Court — and if one of these doesn’t, another case about AI training surely will within the next few years — the decision might be more limited than either side is looking for, since the court has tended to step lightly around technology issues.
It’s also possible that the decision could depend on whether the outputs that result from all of this training are similar enough to copyrighted works to qualify, or plausibly qualify, as infringing. Both label lawsuits are full of such examples, presumably because that could make a difference. These cases are about the legality of AI inputs, but a fair use determination on that issue could easily involve whether those inputs lead to infringing output.
In the end, Ginsburg suggests, “system designers may need to disable features that would allow users to create recognizable copies.” Except that — let’s face it — isn’t that really part of the fun? Sure, AI music creation might eventually grow to maturity as some kind of art form — it already has enormous practical value for songwriters — but for ordinary consumers it’s still hard to beat Frank Sinatra singing Lil Jon’s “Get Low.” Of course, that could put a significant burden on AI companies — with severe consequences for crossing a line that won’t always be obvious. It might be easier to just license the content they need. The next questions, which will be the subject of future columns, involve exactly what they need to license and how they might do that, since it won’t be easy to get all the rights they need — or in some cases even agree on who controls them.