Legal News
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Mariah Carey has won a federal court ruling dismissing a copyright lawsuit over her perennial holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” – a decision that cited an expert who said the songs mostly just shared “Christmas song clichés.”
In a ruling issued Wednesday, Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani rejected allegations from songwriter Vince Vance that Carey and others had stolen key elements of her Christmas blockbuster from his 1989 song of the same name.
Ruling that Vance had failed to show that the songs were similar enough to violate copyright law, the judge cited analysis by a musicologist who said the two tracks were “very different songs” that shared only “commonplace Christmas song clichés” that had been used in many earlier tracks.
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“Plaintiffs have not met their burden of showing that [the songs by] Carey and Vance are substantially similar under the extrinsic test,” Ramírez Almadani wrote, using the legal term for how courts assess such allegations.
The judge not only tossed out Vance’s case, but also ruled that he and his lawyers should be punished for filing “frivolous” arguments. Calling it “egregious” conduct that aimed to “cause unnecessary delay and needlessly increase the costs of litigation,” the judge ordered that Vance and his lawyers to repay the legal bills Carey incurred defending those arguments.
Vance (real name Andy Stone) first sued Carey in 2022, claiming “All I Want” infringed the copyrights to a 1989 song of the exact same name recorded by his Vince Vance and the Valiants. Vance claimed that the earlier track received “extensive airplay” during the 1993 holiday season — a year before Carey released her now-better-known hit.
“Carey has … palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own,” Vance wrote in his latest complaint. “Her hubris knowing no bounds, even her co-credited songwriter doesn’t believe the story she has spun.”
Vance’s allegations were a big deal because Carey’s song is big business. The 1994 blockbuster, which became even more popular after it was featured in the 2003 holiday rom-com Love Actually, has re-taken the top spot on the Hot 100 for six straight years and earned a whopping $8.5 million in global revenue in 2022.
Carey’s attorneys asked the judge to end the case last year, arguing that the two songs shared only generic similarities that are firmly in the public domain – including basic Christmas terminology and a simple message that’s been used in “legions of Christmas songs.”
“The claimed similarities are an unprotectable jumble of elements: a title and hook phrase used by many earlier Christmas songs, other commonplace words, phrases, and Christmas tropes like ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘mistletoe,’ and a few unprotectable pitches and chords randomly scattered throughout these completely different songs,” Carey’s attorneys wrote at the time.
In Wednesday’s ruling, Ramírez Almadani granted that motion by endorsing two reports from musicologists hired by Carey’s lawyers that strongly rejected Vance’s allegations. In one report, New York University professor Lawrence Ferrara testified that he had found “at least 19 songs” that incorporated the same lyrical idea as “All I Want” that had been released prior to Vance’s track.
“[Vance] and [Carey] in their entirety are very different songs and the only element of similarity is the use of a common lyrical idea and Christmas song clichés that were in common use prior to [Vance],” Ferrara wrote in the report that the judge cited.
Vance’s attorneys submitted their own expert reports supporting his allegations, but the judge rejected them as evidence – saying that one was “not based on sufficient facts or data” and was “not the product of reliable principles and methods” as required by existing legal precedents.
Neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
A former employee of Eminem (Marshall Mathers) has been criminally charged in connection with the sale of unreleased music by the rap superstar, it was announced by Acting U.S. Attorney Julie Beck on Wednesday (March 19). According to the criminal complaint, the FBI was contacted by employees of Eminem’s music studio in Ferndale, Michigan, to […]
Alleged Rollin’ 60s Los Angeles Crips gang leader and music executive Eugene “Big U” Henley Jr. has been charged as part of a 107-page sprawling indictment that compares his “Big U Enterprise” to a “mafia-like organization,” the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday (March 19).
According to the DOJ, Henley, 58, remains at large and is considered a fugitive as he faces conspiracy charges related to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. He and his associates are accused of racketeering, extortion, human trafficking, fraud and the murder of a 21-year-old aspiring rapper who signed to his Uneek Music label, among other charges.
Henley is credited with helping launch the career of rapper Nipsey Hussle, who was a member of the Rollin’ 60s in South Central Los Angeles prior to his death in 2019.
Two others named in the indictment, Sylvester “Vey” Robinson and Mark “Bear Claw” Martin, have been arrested on the same criminal complaint in which Henley was charged; both were expected to appear in U.S. District Court in L.A. on Wednesday afternoon. Overall, 10 Rollin’ 60s members have been arrested in the past 24 hours, while another four were already in custody. Law enforcement is currently tracking down five other defendants, “three of whom are expected to be in custody shortly,” according to the DOJ press release. In addition to Henley, one other unnamed defendant is considered a fugitive.
“The allegations in the complaint unsealed today reveal a criminal enterprise that engaged in murder, extortion, human trafficking, and fraud — all led by a supposed anti-gang activist and purported music entrepreneur who was nothing more than a violent street criminal,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally in a statement.
McNally continued: “Eliminating gangs and organized crime is the Department of Justice’s top priority. Today’s charges and arrests target the leadership of this criminal outfit and will make the neighborhoods of Los Angeles safer. I am grateful for the work of our prosecutors and law enforcement partners.”
According to the DOJ, Henley was involved in the murder of rapper “R.W.” — the victim’s initials — who signed to his Uneek Music label in January 2021. While recording at a studio in Las Vegas, R.W. allegedly recorded a diss track taking shots at Henley. According to the DOJ, Henley and Robinson then confronted R.W. in Vegas, with Henley allegedly later shooting R.W. in the head and leaving his body in a ditch off Interstate 15. He also allegedly had the studio’s security camera footage scrubbed and ordered any witnesses not to speak with authorities following the murder.
The indictment states that Henley rose to prominence with the Crips gang in the 1980s and has remained a leader within the organization. The feds accuse him of leveraging his relationships with the Rollin’ 60s to the benefit of his Big U Enterprise, which allegedly used violence, fear and intimidation tactics to increase its power.
While associated with the Rollin’ 60s, Big U Enterprise is being treated as an independent organization tied to various crimes also including robbery, exploiting sex workers and illegal gambling.
Per the Los Angeles Times, athletes, celebrities and musicians were among Henley’s extortion victims, who were required to “check-in” for “protection” when visiting Los Angeles. He allegedly defrauded companies, donors, athletes and celebrities, including former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green. Henley allegedly took donations from both men that were meant for charity and transferred the funds to his personal bank account.
Attorney Tony Buzbee is withdrawing from more than a dozen sexual abuse lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York federal court two days after telling a judge he had “made an error in judgment” by failing to disclose that he was not admitted to practice law in that court.
Buzbee, who’s filed more than 20 cases against Combs and has fought an acrimonious battle with Jay-Z after filing a lawsuit by a woman who briefly accused him of rape, filed motions Wednesday (March 19) to withdraw across 15 different civil lawsuits in the Southern District of New York, the federal court district covering Manhattan.
The moves came two days after Buzbee told Judge Ronnie Abrams in one of those cases that he’d “made an error in judgment by failing to inform you that I was not admitted to the Southern District” and would “remedy this error by withdrawing my representation” until he was admitted.
In the same filing, Buzbee stressed that he was “in good standing of the New York State Bar” and would still be “eminently qualified” to continue handling the case, but said he would step away “as I sort these issues out.”
“My admission status has become a distraction that has shifted the focus of the matter away from where it should be, which is securing justice for the plaintiff,” Buzbee told Judge Abrams in the Monday letter.
The lawsuits against Combs will proceed with other attorneys at the helm, and Buzbee will remain in cases filed in New York state courts or other jurisdictions. Buzbee did not return a request for comment from Billboard, but in a Tuesday statement to the Houston Chronicle, he said: “Until that administrative issue is sorted out, my colleagues who are formally admitted in the SDNY will continue to push those cases while I continue to march forward in the New York State cases.”
Combs is facing a flood of abuse accusations, including dozens of civil lawsuits and a sweeping criminal indictment from federal prosecutors. He faces a jury trial on those charges in May; if convicted, he’s looking at a potential life prison sentence.
Buzbee, a well-known plaintiffs’ attorney in the Houston area, announced in October that was representing 120 individuals who had been victimized by Combs and would soon begin filing civil lawsuits on their behalf. He’s since filed more than 20 such cases, mostly repping anonymous Doe accusers who say the star sexually assaulted or raped them.
In December, Buzbee added Jay-Z as a defendant to one of those cases, accusing the star of joining Combs in raping an unnamed 13-year-old girl in 2000. The star vehemently denied the shocking allegations and has subsequently sued Buzbee and the accuser for defamation. In February, Buzbee’s client voluntarily dropped the case against Jay-Z without a settlement.
A federal judge is shaking up Limp Bizkit’s $200 million lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), issuing a procedural ruling that sends much of the contentious legal battle to state court but allows copyright claims to move ahead toward trial.
In a decision issued Tuesday (March 19), Judge Percy Anderson said he would decline to exercise jurisdiction over the majority of the lawsuit’s accusations against UMG, including its core claim that the band is entitled to a ruling of “rescission” that voids its deals with the label and allows it to take back copyrights to its music.
Citing concerns about “economy, convenience [and] fairness,” the judge ruled that those claims must instead be handled by state courts in New York or California. But he denied UMG’s motion to dismiss the band’s claim of copyright infringement, allowing those claims to proceed in his court.
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Though hardly a slam dunk, the ruling is a positive development for Limp Bizkit. In an earlier ruling, Judge Anderson had outright rejected the rescission claim — a holding that also meant the band couldn’t sue the label for copyright infringement. In the new decision, the judge left the question of rescission open for a future ruling by a state court, meaning that claim — and the lucrative copyright claims — are back in play.
Though the copyright claims will now move forward in his court, the judge has repeatedly stressed that those allegations can only succeed if the band’s contracts with UMG are rescinded and it regains its ownership of the copyrights. The judge could potentially pause the case while the rescission issue is litigated in state court, but he gave no indication that he would do so in Tuesday’s decision.
Frontman Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit sued in October, claiming the band had “never received any royalties from UMG” despite its huge success over the years: “The band had still not been paid a single cent by UMG in any royalties until taking action.” The band argued that the damages total owed by UMG would “easily surpass $200 million” when the case was over.
But in January, Judge Anderson sided with UMG on the core question of rescission. He ruled that the band had in fact been “paid millions in advances” and that UMG had fronted “substantial sums” to record and distribute Limp Bizkit’s albums — meaning the band didn’t deserve the drastic remedy of terminating the decades-old deals in their entirety.
“Plaintiffs seek rescission of contracts that have governed the parties’ relationship beginning in 1996 — nearly 30 years — because the agreements should be rescinded as fraudulently induced,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged the type of ‘substantial’ or ‘total failure’ in the performance of the contracts that could support rescission of the parties’ agreements.”
Following that ruling, Limp Bizkit responded by filing an updated version of the lawsuit. In it, the band added new factual allegations to support their demand for rescission, including that its former manager had fraudulently induced them to sign agreements, engaging in “wrongful self-dealing” while the band was “paid nothing.”
In Tuesday’s decision, Judge Anderson said those new allegations would require the kind of detailed analysis of novel state-law issues that a state-level court was better suited to address.
“The rescission claims, on which the copyright claims depend, … require an analysis of state law of both New York and California law involving facts and law that are distinct from those necessary to adjudicate the copyright claim,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiffs’ effort to rescind the agreements as a result of the alleged fraud committed by their former business manager appears to also raise complex and novel theories for which there is limited controlling legal precedent.”
Universal Music Group is asking a federal judge to halt all discovery in Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” arguing that the star is unfairly demanding “highly commercially sensitive documents” – including Lamar’s record deal.
A day after moving to dismiss the lawsuit, UMG followed up Tuesday by asking the judge to pause discovery until he rules on that motion. That ruling is likely to end the entire case, UMG argued, and the label should not face costly demands for documents that will ultimately “be rendered moot.”
Such a delay is particularly necessary, UMG said, because Drake’s lawyers are already demanding “broad discovery” requests that impose an “undue burden” on the company. Those asks have allegedly ranged from Interscope boss John Janick’s pay structure to Lamar’s record deal.
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“Drake’s requests…seek production of confidential, proprietary, and highly commercially sensitive documents — including all contracts between UMG and Kendrick Lamar,” the label writes. “Proceeding with discovery while the motion is pending would waste the parties’ resources and would constitute an undue burden on defendant.”
In a statement Wednesday, Drake’s attorney Michael J. Gottlieb said it was “unsurprising” that UMG was “desperate” to avoid handing over evidence: “This motion is a ploy to delay producing documents and communications that UMG hopes to keep hidden and buried. If UMG has nothing to hide, it should not have an issue with discovery.”
UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.
Lamar released “Not Like Us” last May amid a high-profile beef with Drake that saw the two stars drop a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a “certified pedophile” over an infectious beat, eventually became a chart-topping hit in its own right and was the centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show.
In January, Drake took the unusual step of suing UMG over the song, claiming the label had defamed him by boosting the track’s popularity. The lawsuit, which doesn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.
UMG moved to dismiss the case on Monday, arguing not only that Drake’s allegations against the company were clearly “meritless,” but that the star filed his case simply because he had been publicly embarrassed: “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”
In Tuesday’s filing, UMG argued that it was highly likely to succeed on those claims. And it warned that the daunting cost of defending against meritless defamation cases can be abused by those that want to squelch free speech.
“Critically, courts in this District have emphasized that defamation defendants must be protected from unnecessary discovery to safeguard First Amendment protections,” the company’s lawyers write. “A stay is therefore particularly warranted here given the untenability of Drake’s defamation claim and the First Amendment rights at issue.”
The two sides have already sparred over discovery once before. In a court filing last month, Drake’s lawyers said UMG was unfairly seeking to delay the case as their client continued to be defamed — and they cited Lamar’s halftime show as evidence of such ongoing harm. A judge eventually sided with Drake over that procedural issue, setting the stage for UMG’s motion on Tuesday.
Miley Cyrus has lost her initial bid to dismiss a copyright case claiming her chart-topping “Flowers” ripped off the Bruno Mars song “When I Was Your Man,” allowing the high-profile lawsuit to proceed toward a trial.
Seeking to end the case at the outset, attorneys for Cyrus had argued that the plaintiff who filed the lawsuit lacked the legal “standing” to pursue it. The case was filed not by Mars himself, but a financial entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought the rights of his co-writer Philip Lawrence.
But in a ruling issued Tuesday, a Los Angeles federal judge rejected that argument, calling it “incorrect” and a “misunderstanding” of existing legal precedents.
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“Tempo now steps into Lawrence’s shoes and is a co‐owner of the exclusive rights of the copyright,” Judge Dean D. Pregerson wrote. “Because Lawrence as a co‐owner could sue for infringement, Tempo as co‐owner, in lieu of Lawrence, can sue for infringement without joining the other co‐owners of the copyright.”
Attorneys for Cyrus called Tempo’s partial ownership a “fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim,” but Judge Pregerson ruled that endorsing the star’s argument would be a radical shift in the legal landscape and have a profound economic and creative impact.
“Such a limitation would diminish the value of jointly owned copyrights, because buyers would be less interested in purchasing a copyright that they cannot enforce, thereby disincentivizing co‐authorship and collaboration in works,” the judge wrote. “This would undermine Congress’s intent.”
In rejecting it, the judge took Miley’s argument to its rational endpoint: “If, as songwriter defendants’ arguments seem to suggest, a co‐owner’s right to sue for infringement is lost upon transfer, then if all original co‐authors transferred their interest, the copyright could never be enforced.”
Tuesday’s ruling is only an initial decision, and does not mean that Tempo will win its case against Cyrus. As it moves ahead, her attorneys will pivot to more substantive arguments – that her song simply did not infringe the Mars hit because they share only “unprotected ideas and musical building blocks.”
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday.
“Flowers,” which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100, has been linked to “Your Man” since it was released in January 2023. Many fans immediately saw it as an “answer song,” with lyrics that clearly referenced Mars’ song. The reason, according to internet sleuths, was that “Your Man” was a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth — and her allusions were a nod to their divorce.
When “Flowers” was first released, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song — a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” to countless rap diss records.
But Tempo sued in September, claiming “Flowers” had lifted numerous elements beyond the clap-back lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.” Tempo, which had purchased a fractional share in the song from co-writer Lawrence, argued it was “undeniable” that Cyrus’ hit “would not exist” if not for “Your Man.”
In her motion to dismiss the case, attorneys for Miley said that the total lack of involvement from Mars and the song’s two other co-writers was not some procedural quirk in the case, but rather a fatal flaw: “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”
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: Universal Music Group asks a judge to dismiss Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”; Live Nation loses an early battle in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit; Karol G is accused of copyright infringement over a song from her chart-topping album Mañana Será Bonito; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: “A Misguided Attempt To Salve His Wounds”
In its first court response to Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” the world’s biggest music company didn’t exactly hold back.
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Universal Music Group filed a scathing motion seeking to dismiss the libel case this week – not only arguing that it was “meritless,” but also ridiculing Drake for filing it in the first place.
“Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated,” UMG’s lawyers wrote. “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”
Twisting the knife further, the label cited a 2022 petition in which Drake and other stars demanded that prosecutors stop citing rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials: “Drake was right then and is wrong now. The complaint’s unjustified claims against UMG are no more than Drake’s attempt to save face for his unsuccessful rap battle with Lamar.”
For more, go read the full story here, which includes access to the actual motion filed in court by UMG.
Other top stories this week…
LIVE NATION RULING – A federal judge ruled that the Justice Department can move ahead with a key allegation in its antitrust case against Live Nation: That the company illegally forces artists to use its promotion services if they want to perform in its massive network of amphitheaters. The ruling denied Live Nation’s bid to dismiss that claim, known as “tying” in antitrust law parlance, at the outset of the government’s sweeping monopoly case.
KAROL G LAWSUIT – Two producers filed a copyright lawsuit against Karol G and UMG over accusations that a track called “Gatúbela,” from the Colombian superstar’s chart-topping album Mañana Será Bonito, stole key elements from their earlier song called “Punto G.” In an unusual twist, the plaintiffs claim that one of Karol G’s producers tacitly admitted the charge in an exchange on social media.
OFFSET SUES PRODUCER – The former Migos member launched a lawsuit against ChaseTheMoney, a producer who worked on his 2023 album Set It Off, claiming the one-time collaborator has been demanding a large increase in fees and royalties long after the deal was done. The case is a “declaratory judgment” lawsuit, meaning Offset is preemptively seeking a court ruling that the original contract with Chase was valid and that he did nothing wrong by sticking to it.
SONY MUSIC v. USC – Sony Music sued the University of Southern California (USC) for more than $25 million over claims that the college sports powerhouse illegally used songs by Michael Jackson, Beyonce and AC/DC in TikTok and Instagram videos hyping its teams. The lawsuit, which claims USC was warned multiple times over several years, is the latest in a string of copyright cases filed against brands that use the vast music libraries provided by social media platforms for what rightsholders say are simply digital advertisements.
CLINTON CLASH – George Clinton filed a lawsuit over allegations that his one-time business partner, Armen Boladian, fraudulently obtained the rights to the vast majority of the funk pioneer’s music catalog. The case, which accuses Boladian and his Bridgeport Music of “abusive, deceptive, and fraudulent practices,” is only the latest time the music legend and his former agent have sparred in court. Boladian’s attorneys told Billboard that Clinton has “lost each and every time” and that they would quickly seek to dismiss the latest case.
DIDDY VIDEO – Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs’ alleged in court filings that CNN “substantially altered” and then destroyed the infamous 2016 surveillance video of him assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura. CNN quickly responded by flatly denying the charge, saying it “never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage.” Prosecutors later reportedly revealed at a hearing that they have a recording of the original surveillance footage.
DEFAMATION DISMISSED – A federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Diana Copeland, a former assistant to R. Kelly, against Netflix and Lifetime over how she was portrayed in the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.” The judge ruled that Copeland had failed to clear the “high bar” for filing libel cases over newsworthy subjects: “The First Amendment demands ‘adequate breathing space’ for the free flow of ideas, especially about public figures on matters of public controversy.”
CASE CLOSED – The rapper Plies dropped a copyright lawsuit he’d filed against Megan Thee Stallion, GloRilla, Cardi B and Souja Boy over accusations that the 2024 song “Wanna Be” featured an uncleared sample. Filed last year, the case claimed that Megan and GloRilla stole Plies’ material indirectly by legally sampling a Soulja Boy song – a track that the lawsuit alleged had itself illegally used material from his 2008 track “Me & My Goons.”
Universal Music Group has filed a scathing first court response to Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” blasting the case as “no more than Drake’s attempt to save face” after losing a rap beef.
In a motion filed Monday (March 17) seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, attorneys for the music giant argued that Drake’s allegations against the company were clearly “meritless” — and that he had gone to court simply because he had been publicly embarrassed.
“Plaintiff, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated,” UMG’s lawyers write. “Instead of accepting the loss like the unbothered rap artist he often claims to be, he has sued his own record label in a misguided attempt to salve his wounds.”
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In the filing, UMG pointedly noted that Drake himself had leveled his own “hyperbolic insults” and “vitriolic allegations” during the same exchange of stinging rap tracks, including accusing Lamar of domestic abuse and questioning whether the rival had really fathered his son.
“Drake has been pleased to use UMG’s platform to promote tracks leveling similarly incendiary attacks at Lamar,” the company’s attorneys write. “But now, after losing the rap battle, Drake claims that ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory. It is not.”
In a statement to Billboard on Monday, Drake’s attorney Michael J. Gottlieb responded to the new filing. “UMG wants to pretend that this is about a rap battle in order to distract its shareholders, artists and the public from a simple truth: a greedy company is finally being held responsible for profiting from dangerous misinformation that has already resulted in multiple acts of violence,” Gottlieb said. “This motion is a desperate ploy by UMG to avoid accountability, but we have every confidence that this case will proceed and continue to uncover UMG’s long history of endangering, abusing and taking advantage of its artists.”
Lamar released “Not Like Us” last May amid a high-profile beef with Drake that saw the two stars release a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a “certified pedophile” over an infectious beat, eventually became a chart-topping hit in its own right and was the centerpiece of Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show.
In January, Drake took the unusual step of suing UMG over the song, claiming the label had defamed him by boosting the track’s popularity. The lawsuit, which doesn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleges that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.
But in Monday’s response, UMG says the lyrics to Lamar’s song are clearly the kind of free speech that are shielded from defamation lawsuits by the First Amendment. The song contains over-the-top insults, the company argued, but so do all such tracks, including those by Drake.
“Diss tracks are a popular and celebrated artform centered around outrageous insults, and they would be severely chilled if Drake’s suit were permitted to proceed,” the company wrote. “Hyperbolic and metaphorical language is par for the course in diss tracks — indeed, Drake’s own diss tracks employed imagery at least as violent.”
In technical terms, UMG is arguing that Lamar’s lyrics are either “rhetorical hyperbole” or opinion — the kind of statements that might sound bad but cannot actually be proven false. Since defamation only covers false assertions of fact, statements of hyperbole and opinion can’t form the basis for such lawsuits.
To make that point, UMG cites Drake’s own public support for a 2022 petition criticizing prosecutors for using rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases. That letter, also signed by Megan Thee Stallion, 21 Savage and many other stars, criticized prosecutors for treating lyrics as literal statements of fact.
“As Drake recognized, when it comes to rap, ‘the final work is a product of the artist’s vision and imagination’,” UMG’s lawyers write. “Drake was right then and is wrong now. The complaint’s unjustified claims against UMG are no more than Drake’s attempt to save face for his unsuccessful rap battle with Lamar. The court should grant UMG’s motion and dismiss the complaint with prejudice.”
Drake’s attorneys will file a court response to UMG’s motion in the weeks ahead, and the judge will rule on the motion at some point in the next few months. If denied, the case will move ahead into discovery and toward an eventual trial.
The rapper Plies has dropped a copyright lawsuit he filed against Megan Thee Stallion, GloRilla, Cardi B and Souja Boy over accusations that that the 2024 song “Wanna Be” featured an uncleared sample.
Filed in federal court last year, the case claimed that Megan and GloRilla stole Plies’ material indirectly by legally sampling a Soulja Boy song – a track that the lawsuit alleged had itself illegally used material from his 2008 track “Me & My Goons.”
But in a motion filed Friday, Plies (Algernod Washington) voluntarily dismissed his entire lawsuit against the stars. He did so “without prejudice,” meaning he could refile it in the future, but for now the case is closed.
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An attorney for Plies did not immediately return a request for comment on why the case was dismissed. Court documents did not indicate that any kind of settlement had been reached.
“Wanna Be,” released by Megan and GloRilla last April, debuted at No. 11 on the Hot 100. A remix, featuring Cardi, was released in late May. The song features a prominent sample of Soulja Boy’s 2010 track “Pretty Boy Swag,” which spent 16 weeks on the chart that summer.
Plies, best known for his 2007 singles “Shawty” and “Hypnotized,” filed his case in November, naming all four stars (Megan Pete, Gloria Woods, Belcalis Almanzar and Deandre Way) as defendants.
“Defendant Soulja Boy authorized Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla to sample [his song],” lawyers for Plies write. “[Wanna Be] incorporates substantial elements of the copyrighted material underlying ‘Me & My Goons,’ without authorization from plaintiffs.”
Such accusations – claiming that a legal sample featured an unlicensed sample – have become increasingly common. While all samples in major releases are strictly cleared, copyrighted material featured within the sampled songs can sometimes be trickier to catch. In the last year, Barry White’s estate filed a lawsuit claiming Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” sampled from a 1980s hip-hop song that had ripped off White’s music, and a New Orleans group briefly sued Beyoncé for the same thing over a sample of Big Freedia featured in “Break My Soul.”