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Beyoncé’s attorneys are once again asking federal regulators to register Blue Ivy Carter’s name as a trademark, more than 12 years after she and Jay-Z first sought to lock up the intellectual property rights to their daughter’s name.
In a motion filed last week at the federal trademark office, lawyers for Beyoncé’s company pushed back on a ruling earlier this year that consumers might confuse the name with another Blue Ivy: a single-store clothing boutique in Wisconsin that has used the name since before the young Carter was born.
The star’s lawyers say that ruling should be overturned, arguing that nobody is going to confuse Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s daughter — once dubbed the “most famous baby in the world” — with a small clothing shop.
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“No reasonable consumer would ever suffer any form of confusion when encountering the [store’s] logo, which is used with one small shop in Fish Creek, Wisconsin, an unincorporated community with a population of approximately 997 people,” Beyoncé’s attorneys write. “Nor would a reasonable consumer encounter the ‘Blue Ivy Carter’ mark and conclude that the famous Carter family had teamed up with a small shop in rural Wisconsin to launch a clothing line.”
An attorney for Beyoncé’s company did not immediately return a request for comment on the status of the trademark case.
Just weeks after Blue Ivy was born in January 2012, Beyoncé’s BGK Trademark Holdings LLC applied at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register her unusual name as a trademark. The move raised eyebrows at the time, as fans wondered if the couple was commercializing their daughter. But Jay-Z later told Vanity Fair that they merely wanted to prevent her name from being exploited by others.
“People wanted to make products based on our child’s name, and you don’t want anybody trying to benefit off your baby’s name,” he told the magazine in 2013. “It wasn’t for us to do anything; as you see, we haven’t done anything.”
More than 12 years later, however, Blue Ivy’s parents have yet to secure that trademark registration.
For years, the process was bogged down in legal disputes with a woman named Veronica Morales, who runs a lifestyle event planning company under the name “Blue Ivy” and secured her own trademark to it. In 2020, a tribunal at the USPTO rejected Morales’ complaints, ruling that the two sides’ respective offerings were “so dissimilar that confusion is unlikely.”
That ruling seemingly cleared the way for the “Blue Ivy Carter” trademark registration to finally be issued. But attorneys for BGK never moved that application forward, and eventually, the USPTO deemed the application abandoned last year.
In November 2023, Beyoncé’s attorneys applied yet again for the same trademark registration. Like previous efforts, however, the new application quickly hit a roadblock: In April, a trademark examiner issued a tentative ruling that the mark was “confusingly similar” to the name of the Wisconsin clothing store, which has owned a trademark registration on its “Blue Ivy” logo since 2011.
(The Wisconsin boutique itself is not actually involved in the case and has not filed an opposition to the Blue Ivy Carter trademark; instead, the USPTO simply cited the earlier trademark as a reason to deny Beyoncé’s application.)
It was this tentative denial that Beyoncé’s attorneys challenged last week, arguing that Americans know who Blue Ivy Carter is and would never think she was “somehow connected to a lovely boutique shop in a small town in rural Wisconsin.”
“Since the moment she was born, she has resided in the American public’s conscience and thus … the consuming public would associate her with a trademark bearing her name,” BGK’s lawyers write. “The parties each exist and thrive in their own separate worlds and can continue doing so into the future.”
Lil Durk ordered his OTF associates to murder rapper Quando Rondo in a failed 2022 shooting, according to criminal charges unsealed by federal prosecutors on Friday (Oct. 25) — and he was allegedly planning to take a private jet to Italy when he was arrested.
The Chicago rapper (real name Durk Devontay Banks) was arrested Thursday evening on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, hours after several of his Only the Family associates were indicted on similar charges over their alleged involvement in the attempted killing of Rondo (Tyquian Bowman).
In a new complaint unsealed on Friday, prosecutors laid out their case against Durk (referred to as BANKS in the complaint) — accusing OTF of being not just a rap collective, but also a “hybrid organization” that also functions as a criminal gang that has carried out violent acts “at the direction of BANKS.”
Prosecutors say one of those acts was the 2022 attempted killing of Rondo, allegedly carried out in retaliation for the 2020 killing of rapper King Von (Dayvon Bennett), a close friend of Durk’s.
“BANKS put a monetary bounty out for an individual with whom BANKS was feuding named T.B.,” referring to Rondo by his initials. “BANKS ordered T.B.’s murder and that the hitmen used BANKS and OTF-related finances to carry out the murder.”
An attorney for Lil Durk did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
The charges came a day after Los Angeles federal prosecutors unsealed murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire conspiracy charges against several alleged OTF members — Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson and Asa Houston – as well as two other alleged Chicago gang members named Keith Jones and David Brian Lindsey.
In both the new charges and the earlier indictment, prosecutors claim that the five men were behind the 2022 shooting. But in the new filings, they directly allege that Durk ordered the killing, saying it was retaliation for a 2020 Atlanta shooting in which a Rondo associate allegedly shot and killed Von.
“At the time of the murder, T.B. had a public feud with BANKS,” prosecutors write. “The feud stemmed from a Nov. 6, 2020, murder, where an associate of T.B. shot and killed an OTF rapper named Dayvon Bennett aka ‘King Von.’ Bennett was a member of OTF and BANKS’ close friend.”
The new filings also claim that Durk was planning to flee the country when he was arrested.
Prosecutors say that following the OTF arrests, they received notification that Durk had booked commercial flights to both Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and to Switzerland — flights that he never boarded. The FBI then allegedly learned that he had booked passage on a private jet to Italy, and Durk was arrested when he neared the departing airport for that flight.
King Von, a rising rapper in Chicago’s drill scene and a childhood friend of Durk, was shot and killed outside an Atlanta nightclub on Nov. 6, 2020, after an argument between two groups turned into a fight in the parking lot. A 22-year-old man named Timothy Leeks, reportedly an associate of Rondo, was arrested days later, but the case was eventually dropped.
Two years later, on Aug. 19, 2022, Rondo and associate Lul Pab (Saviay’a Robinson) were ambushed by gunmen while sitting in their car at a Los Angeles gas station. Rondo emerged unscathed, but Robinson later died at the hospital.
According to Thursday’s indictment, that killing was allegedly carried out by OTF members Grant, Wilson and Houston, as well as by Jones and Lindsey, who prosecutors say were “members of other gangs in Chicago.” They allege the group “used two vehicles to track, stalk and attempt to kill T.B. by gunfire — including with a fully automatic firearm — resulting in the death of S.R.”
In Friday’s complaint, prosecutors say the group carried out the attack on orders from Durk in retaliation for the earlier King Von slaying. They cite a text allegedly sent by Durk to another co-conspirator: “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.”
According to prosecutors, the group used “a credit card associated with OTF” to buy plane tickets to fly to Los Angeles and rent a hotel room. Using two cars, including one with fake license plates, the group then tracked Rondo’s SUV through the city until they reached the gas station.
“Jones and Lindsey, and Co-Conspirator 2 used the firearms procured by defendant Grant — including the fully automatic firearm — to shoot at T.B.’s car, striking and killing S.R., who was standing next to T.B.’s car while T.B. was inside,” prosecutors write.
After fleeing the scene, prosecutors say the group later reconvened at a restaurant, where they hashed out payments for the crime. Later in the day, they allegedly used the same OTF-linked credit card to purchase plane tickets and fly back to Chicago.
Rapper Lil Durk was arrested late Thursday (Oct. 24) in Florida on a federal murder-for-hire charge, hours after several of his alleged associates were indicted on similar charges over their alleged involvement in a shooting aimed at rapper Quando Rando.
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The Chicago rapper (Durk Devontay Banks) is being held in Broward County jail on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Office, according to Broward Sheriff’s Office inmate records. Charges are not yet public in court records, and additional details on the case against him are not yet available.
The star’s attorney, Brian Bieber, confirmed to Billboard that Durk was in custody and would have an initial court appearance in Florida federal court on Friday.
Durk’s arrest came hours after Los Angeles federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against several alleged members of Durk’s Only the Family (OTF) hip-hop group. The five men — Kavon London Grant, Deandre Dontrell Wilson, Keith Jones, David Brian Lindsey and Asa Houston — are charged with murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire conspiracy.
In the indictment, prosecutors say the five men were behind a 2022 shooting in Los Angeles aimed at Quando Rondo (Tyquian Bowman) that left his cousin dead. They say that shooting was ordered by an unnamed co-conspirator in retaliation for a 2020 shooting in Atlanta, in which a Rondo associate allegedly shot and killed Chicago rapper King Von (Dayvon Bennett).
“After the [2020] murder, Co-Conspirator 1 made clear, in coded language, that Co-Conspirator 1 would pay a bounty or monetary reward, and/or make payment to anyone who took part in killing T.B. for his role in D.B.’s murder,” prosecutors write, using Rondo and Von’s initials.
Durk is not charged or mentioned in the earlier case.
King Von, a rising rapper in Chicago’s drill scene and a childhood friend of Durk, was shot and killed outside an Atlanta nightclub on Nov. 6, 2020, after an argument between two groups turned into a fight in the parking lot. A 22-year-old man named Timothy Leeks, reportedly an associate of Rondo, was arrested days later, but the case was eventually dropped.
Two years later, on Aug. 19, 2022, Rondo and associate Lul Pab (Saviay’a Robinson) were ambushed by gunmen while sitting in their car at a Los Angeles gas station. Rondo emerged unscathed, but Robinson later died at the hospital.
According Thursday’s indictment, that killing was allegedly carried out by OTF members Grant, Wilson and Houston, as well as by Jones and Lindsey, who prosecutors say were “members of other gangs in Chicago.” They allege the group “used two vehicles to track, stalk, and attempt to kill T.B. by gunfire — including with a fully automatic firearm — resulting in the death of S.R.”
Prosecutors say the group carried out the attack on orders from the unnamed “Co-Conspirator 1” in retaliation for the earlier King Von slaying. At one point, that unnamed conspirator allegedly texted another co-conspirator: “Don’t book no flights under no names involved wit me.”
“Co-Conspirator 1 would place bounties on individuals that Co-Conspirator 1 and other OTF members wanted to kill, including T.B.,” prosecutors write in Thursday’s indictment. “As part of the bounty, co-conspirators … would pay anyone who took part in the killing of T.B. and/or reward individuals with lucrative music opportunities with OTF.”
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino must be deposed in the ongoing litigation over the 2021 disaster at the Astroworld music festival, the Texas Supreme Court says.
In a ruling last week, the high court denied Live Nation’s petition seeking to stop the deposition, rejecting its arguments that victims were simply seeking to depose the executive in order to “harass Live Nation and to coerce settlements.”
The Oct. 15 ruling, which left in place a trial judge’s decision this summer forcing Rapino to testify, came nearly three years after the 2021 incident, in which a crowd crush during Travis Scott’s headlining set left 10 dead and hundreds injured.
The disaster spawned hundreds of lawsuits against Live Nation, Scott and others, collectively seeking billions of dollars in damages. Many of those cases have since settled on private terms, but some victims are still moving toward a jury trial. A so-called bellwether trial had been scheduled to start this week but was pushed back to February after more settlements were reached.
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In seeking to block Rapino’s deposition, Live Nation’s attorneys argued that he was the kind of top-level “apex” executive who can’t typically be dragged into court cases. They said he was far removed from actual decision-making and was “not involved in the festival”, meaning he didn’t have any unique information for the lawsuit that couldn’t be gleaned from other sources.
“Mr. Rapino’s only connection to the festival was as Live Nation’s ultimate executive,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “Any knowledge he may possess was obtained from others who have knowledge superior to his own.”
But attorneys for victims argued that Rapino had played a more direct role in the operations of Astroworld than Live Nation was letting on. Among other evidence, they cited an email Rapino sent on the night of the disaster, instructing Live Nation’s festival director to wait for more information about the death toll before canceling the rest of the festival. “If 5 died we would cancel,” he wrote in the message.
“Remarkably, Live Nation claims that Rapino was not the decisionmaker on whether to cancel the Festival,” the lawyers for the victims wrote. “This email proves otherwise, and plaintiffs want an opportunity to examine Rapino about it.”
Following last week’s ruling, it’s unclear when Rapino’s deposition will take place. A spokesperson for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment on the court’s order.
A Georgia judge is weighing whether to declare a mistrial in Young Thug’s long-running Atlanta gang trial, a move that would require prosecutors to either start from scratch or drop a case that has already lasted more than two years.
The motion for a mistrial was sparked by an incident Wednesday (Oct. 23) in which a state’s witness accidentally revealed sensitive information to the jury. Defense attorneys said the mistake was caused by prosecutor missteps, and the judge quickly chided government lawyers for “sloppiness.”
A mistrial would mean an abrupt end to a criminal trial that has stretched across 10 months of jury selection and 11 months of testimony to become the longest-ever in state history. Prosecutors have meandered through a vast list of witnesses, and the case has been beset by unusual delays — including a jailhouse stabbing of one defendant and a bizarre episode over a secret meeting that saw the presiding judge removed from the case.
Since taking over the case this summer, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker has expressed frustration with how the Fulton County District Attorney’s office has been handling the case. Last month, she blasted the prosecutors for “poor lawyering, “baffling” decisions and steps to repeatedly “hide the ball” amid a “haphazard” trial.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Whitaker refused outright to declare a mistrial with prejudice, which would have permanently ended the case. But she said she would consider doing so without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could attempt to retry their case from scratch in front of a new jury.
The specter of such an outcome has prompted prosecutors to discuss plea deals. According to X posts by Cath Russon, managing editor at Law&Crime, each defense team was set to meet individually on Thursday with District Attorney Fani Willis to discuss potential deals.
As a result of the negotiations and the pending mistrial motions, all trial proceedings before Whitaker on Thursday (Oct. 24) and Friday (Oct. 25) have been postponed and the trial is currently scheduled to resume on Monday morning (Oct. 28), according to Russon.
Thug (Jeffery Williams), a chart-topping rapper and producer who helped shape the sound of hip-hop over the past decade, was indicted in May 2022 along with dozens of others over allegations that his “YSL” was not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life” but rather a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life.” The case, built around Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, claims the group committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
While the slow-moving trial has dragged on, Thug has been sitting in jail for more than two years, repeatedly denied bond over fears that he might intimidate witnesses. If the judge grants a mistrial and prosecutors decide to retry their case, he could have years more in jail until a verdict is reached. Such an outcome could potentially motivate defendants, too, to consider a negotiated resolution.
The Wednesday incident that sparked the calls for a mistrial took place as prosecutors were questioning a witness named Wunnie Lee (aka Slimelife Shawty), a former defendant in the YSL case who signed a plea agreement in exchange for testifying.
While on the stand, prosecutors asked Lee to identify certain defendants by showing him social media posts. While reading one of the posts, Lee read aloud the hashtag #freequa — a reference to a previous prison sentence for Marquavius Huey (aka Qua), one of Thug’s current co-defendants.
That was a crucial error by prosecutors. The jury was not supposed to know which defendants had previously been incarcerated, and defense attorneys argued that the government was supposed to redact the post and prep Lee not to mention it. After the admission before jurors, defense attorneys quickly moved for a mistrial.
“We’re not going to be able to unring this bell,” defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland said in court. “It is painfully obvious that the state is not prepping their witnesses.”
The misstep quickly drew another sharp critique from Judge Whitaker, who attempted to reach a solution that would allow the case to move forward: “What I’m trying to do is fix your sloppiness so that everybody won’t have wasted 10 to 12 months of their lives in this trial.”
A$AP Rocky is set to go to trial in Los Angeles early next year on charges that he fired a gun at a former friend and collaborator on the streets near a Hollywood hotel in 2021. The trial of the 36-year-old rapper, fashion mogul, Grammy nominee and celebrity co-chair of the next Met Gala is set to begin […]
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: 2 Live Crew wins a trial to take back control of its music catalog; Young Thug’s attorney wins a decision overturning his criminal contempt conviction; Diddy faces ever more accusations of sexual abuse; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Termination Determination
2 Live Crew won a rare courtroom showdown over copyright law’s “termination right” — a crucial federal provision that allows songwriters and artists to take back the rights to their music decades after they sold them away to a company.
Termination has been at the heart of recent lawsuits involving Cher, Brian Wilson and Dwight Yoakam, and both Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment faced class actions from artists pushing to take back their music en masse. Jay-Z recently invoked termination to win back his debut album, and it was also the core issue behind a new “landmark” copyright rule issued last year about who gets paid streaming royalties.
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2 Live’s dispute kicked off in 2020 when Uncle Luke (Luther Campbell) and the heirs of two co-members invoked termination against Lil Joe Records, which bought the band’s catalog out of bankruptcy in the 1990s. The label fought back by suing the group in federal court, arguing that termination didn’t apply to the five albums at issue in the case.
Such disputes rarely reach a jury. But at a trial earlier this month, attorneys for Lil Joe argued that the protections of the bankruptcy sale had trumped any termination rights held by the members. 2 Live’s attorneys told a different story — one of “deceit and dishonesty” by Lil Joe’s owner that “wouldn’t be out of place in a Netflix movie.”
In their verdict, the jurors sided with 2 Live, allowing them to regain much of their catalog. Go read our entire story here to find out more.
Other top stories this week…
CONTEMPT CLEARED – Georgia’s Supreme Court sided with Brian Steel, an attorney serving as lead counsel to Young Thug in the rapper’s never-ending Atlanta gang trial, and reversed a ruling earlier this year that had held him in contempt of court. The decision will close a bizarre chapter in which Judge Ural Glanville sentenced Steel to 20 days in prison for refusing to reveal how he’d learned of a secret meeting between the judge and prosecutors — an incident that later saw Glanville removed from the case. But it won’t end the trial, which is already the longest in Georgia state history and has no end in sight.
PHOTOG STRIKES AGAIN – The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was hit with a lawsuit over allegations that the museum illegally displayed a copyrighted image of Van Halen snapped by veteran rock photographer Neil Zlozower. If that name sounds familiar, it should: Zlozower has filed more than fifty such lawsuits over the past decade, including cases against Universal Music Group, Spotify, Ticketmaster, Mötley Crüe and many others.
GOING HOME – Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory — a convicted drug trafficker and money-launderer involved in the early careers of rappers Jeezy and T.I. — was released from prison and will serve the remainder of his decades-long sentence in a halfway house. The rise and fall of Meech’s gang has been chronicled in 50 Cent’s Starz series BMF, on which Flenory’s son plays his father.
ALWAYS MORE DIDDY – Since you last heard from Legal Beat a week ago, there have three big developments in the story of Sean “Diddy” Combs, who currently stands accused of decades of sexual abuse:
Combs was hit with another wave of six civil lawsuits, including several alleging assaults as late as 2022 and one claiming he assaulted a 13-year-old girl. The cases were the latest from two attorneys who had already filed six such lawsuits and warned earlier this month that they represent at least 120 other alleged victims.
The new cases prompted Combs’ lawyer to ask the judge overseeing his criminal case to issue a gag order that would bar alleged victims and their attorneys from issuing “extrajudicial statements” about Combs to the press, arguing that such statements are threatening his right to a fair trial.
Separately in the criminal case, the Combs team demanded a court order forcing the government to reveal the names of his alleged sexual abuse victims, arguing he cannot fairly defend himself without knowing their identities: “The government is forcing him, unfairly, to play a guessing a game.”
RAP SCION ARRESTED – T.I.‘s 20-year-old son Clifford “King” Harris Jr. was arrested in Georgia on an open warrant stemming from 2022 charges of speeding, driving with a suspended license and DUI. The incident was sparked when King almost hit a police car as he was pulling out of a gas station; the officers reported that they smelled cannabis when they approached his car and that he was found with a gun on his hip.
Young Thug’s attorney Brian Steel has won a ruling at the Georgia Supreme Court overturning a trial judge’s controversial decision to hold the lawyer in criminal contempt earlier this year amid the rapper’s ongoing Atlanta gang trial.
In a decision Tuesday, the state’s top court reversed Judge Ural Glanville’s June contempt ruling, in which he had sentenced Steel to 20 days in jail for refusing to reveal how he’d learned of a secret meeting between the judge and prosecutors – an incident that later saw Glanville removed from the case.
Given that Glanville’s presence at the secret meeting was directly involved in the dispute with Steel, the Supreme Court ruled that he should have recused himself and allowed another judge to decide the attorney’s fate.
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“The exchange between Steel and Judge Glanville makes clear that Judge Glanville was involved in the controversy,” the high court wrote in its ruling. “For these reasons, a different judge should have presided over the contempt hearing, and the failure to do so requires reversal.”
Thug (Jeffery Williams) and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that his “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.
Months into the massive trial, Steel alerted Judge Glanville in early June that he had learned of a secret “ex parte” meeting that morning between the judge, prosecutors and a witness named Kenneth Copeland. Steel argued that such a meeting, without defense counsel present, had potentially involved coercion of a witness and was clear grounds for a mistrial.
Rather than address Steel’s complaints, Glanville instead repeatedly demanded that he divulge who had informed him about a private meeting in his chambers, suggesting the leak was illegal: “If you don’t tell me how you got this information, you and I are going to have problems.”
When Steel refused to comply, Glanville held him in contempt and sentenced him to 20 days to be served over ten consecutive weekends. After Steel filed an appeal, the Supreme Court put the sentence on pause until it was able issue its decision.
Glanville argued that the ex parte meeting had been entirely proper and repeatedly refused requests to step down from the case. But in July, after he referred the case to another judge, Glanville was ordered to step aside over concerns about how the incident would impact the “public’s confidence in the judicial system.”
The bizarre episode, which resulted in weeks-long delay before Judge Paige Reese Whitaker took over, was just one of many slow-downs in a trial that is already the longest in Georgia state history. It took an unprecedented 10-month process just to pick a jury, and the case has also been halted by the stabbing of another defendant and other unusual events.
While the slow-moving trial has dragged on, Thug has been sitting in jail for more than two years, repeatedly denied bond by both judges to handle the case over fears that he might intimidate witnesses. Prosecutors have only presented part of their vast list of potential witnesses, and the trial is expected to run well into 2025.
Last month, Whitaker appeared to reach her wits’ end with the prosecutors trying the case — complaining of “poor lawyering, “baffling” decisions and steps to repeatedly “hide the ball” amid a “haphazard” trial: “I don’t know if I can stress any more than I already have how much the state’s lawyers need to make an effort to be upfront and forthright in the trial of this case.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is facing a lawsuit over allegations that it illegally displayed a copyrighted image of Van Halen, the latest of more than 50 such cases filed by veteran rock photographer Neil Zlozower over the past decade.
In a complaint filed Friday in Ohio federal court, attorneys for the litigious photog say the Rock Hall never paid to license Zlozower’s image – a black-and-white photo of late-70’s Van Halen in the recording studio — before blowing it up into an eight-foot-tall display in the Cleveland museum.
In his lawsuit, Zlozower says that an operation like the Hall, which is full of copyrighted images and sound recordings, ought to have known better.
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“Defendant is a sophisticated company which owns a comprehensive portfolio of physical and digital platforms and has advanced operational and strategic expertise in an industry where copyright is prevalent,” his lawyers write. “Defendant’s staff have significant experience in copyright matters and are familiar with specific practices including the need to ensure that all of the works used in their exhibits have been properly licensed.”
A spokesman for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Rock Hall is just the latest company to face a lawsuit from Zlozower, who also snapped images of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen over a decades-long career. Since 2016, court records show he’s filed more than 57 copyright lawsuits against a wide range of defendants, demanding monetary damages over the alleged unauthorized use of his photographs.
He’s twice sued Universal Music Group, once over an image of Elvis Costello and another time over a photo of Guns N’ Roses, and sued Warner Music Group this summer over an image of Tom Petty. A different case targeted Ticketmaster, accusing the Live Nation unit of using an image of Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde. In 2016, Zlozower sued Mötley Crüe itself for using images he had snapped of Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and other band members during their 1980s heyday.
In his new case against the Rock Hall, Zlozower’s attorneys say the museum made an “exact copy of a critical portion of plaintiff’s original image” for the exhibit, which they say “did not include any photo credit or mentions as to the source of the image.”
“The photograph was willfully and volitionally copied and displayed by defendant without license or permission, thereby infringing on plaintiff’s copyrights in and to the photograph,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit is seeking an award of so-called statutory damages – which can potentially reach as high as $150,000 per work infringed if Zlozower can prove that the museum intentionally infringed his copyrights.
Sean “Diddy” Combs was hit with another wave of six civil abuse lawsuits late Sunday, including several cases alleging attacks as late as 2022 and one claiming he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl.
Filed by anonymous Jane Doe and John Doe plaintiffs, the lawsuits are the latest from attorneys Andrew Van Arsdale and Tony Buzbee, who filed six other cases against Combs last week and warned earlier this month that they represent at least 120 such alleged victims.
In one case, a Los Angeles businessman says Combs exposed himself and groped him during a 2022 promotional event for his Ciroc vodka brand. In another, a musical artist says the rapper drugged and raped her at a 2022 party in New York City. In yet another, a personal trainer says the star similarly dosed him and forced him to engage in repeated sex acts during a 2022 awards after party.
“While in and out of consciousness, individuals at the party forced plaintiff into sexual acts with both men and woman,” the lawsuit reads. “Plaintiff’s physical disposition made it impossible for him to reject their advances or otherwise control his body. These individuals, including Combs, essentially passed Plaintiff’s drugged body around like a party favor for their sexual enjoyment.”
In the most shocking allegation, one case alleges that Combs “drugged and raped a thirteen year-old girl at a house party,” an incident that allegedly followed the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards and took place in the presence of other unnamed celebrities who also participated in the assault.
A representative for Combs did not immediately return a request for comment on the new cases. In a previous statement on Buzbee’s earlier suits, his legal team said he has “never sexually assaulted anyone” and that he has “full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process.”
Once one of the most powerful men in the music industry, Combs has faced a flood of abuse accusations over the past year, starting with a bombshell civil case from his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura and then followed by a dozen additional lawsuits. Last month, he was indicted by federal prosecutors over allegations that he ran a sprawling criminal operation for years aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” If convicted on the charges, which include sex trafficking and racketeering, he faces a potential sentence of life in prison.
Many of the previous lawsuits deal with allegations stretching back years, some dating to the early 1990s. Some of Sunday’s new cases include similar claims, including one from an Arizona woman who claims Combs drugged and raped her following a party at Las Vegas’ Planet Hollywood hotel.
But the new cases also include accusations that reach up until December 2022, less than a year before Combs began facing public abuse allegations. In that case, filed by the unnamed musical artist, the plaintiff claims she attended a New York City party hosted by Combs that month; after having a single glass of wine, she says she soon began “slipping in and out of consciousness.”
“Due to the effects of her drugged drink, Combs raped and sexually assaulted plaintiff,” her lawyers say. “Plaintiff could not stop him from doing so, as if she was trapped inside her body not participating but not able to resist.”
Three of the cases on Sunday were filed by men and three by women; five of them were filed in New York federal court, as were Buzbee’s previous lawsuits. But one was filed in Manhattan’s state court, where an unnamed security guard says that Combs drugged him at a 2005 party and “reached into plaintiff’s pants and grabbed plaintiff’s penis and genitals.”
Also on Sunday night, Combs’ lawyers filed a motion asking the judge overseeing the criminal case for a gag order that would bar alleged victims and their attorneys from issuing “extrajudicial statements” about Combs to the press. They argued such victims are potential witnesses in the upcoming criminal trial and that media statements “threaten Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial.”