Legal News
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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.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs returned to federal court in New York City on Friday (March 14), pleading not guilty to the latest version of an indictment charging him with two decades of sex trafficking crimes.
The 55-year-old Combs, his beard noticeably grayer than even weeks ago, stood with his hands folded before him as he told Judge Arun Subramanian that he had read the indictment and understood the charges against him.
Combs, who has been held without bail since his September arrest, hugged two of his lawyers as he entered the courtroom and he blew kisses to family members and waved as he was led out by U.S. marshals afterward.
Subramanian told lawyers that questionnaires will be distributed to hundreds of prospective jurors at the end of April so that questioning of would-be jurors can begin on May 5, with opening statements expected to occur on May 12.
According to the indictment, Combs used the “power and prestige” he wielded as a music mogul to intimidate, threaten and lure women into his orbit, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship.
The indictment said he then used force, threats and coercion to cause victims, including three women specified in the court papers, to engage in commercial sex acts.
It said he subjected his victims to violence, threats of violence, threats of financial and reputational harm and verbal abuse.
“On multiple occasions, Combs threw both objects and people, as well as hit, dragged, choked and shoved others,” it said. “On one occasion, Combs dangled a victim over an apartment balcony.”
Defense lawyers have argued that prosecutors used the charges to try to demonize sex acts between consenting adults.
Part of the discussion in court Friday revolved around what will be allowed at the trial regarding a video that aired on CNN last year that showed Combs punching his former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, and throwing her on the floor in a hotel hallway.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner said the video was “critical to the case.”
Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said the video was “deceptive and not in accordance with the actions that took place.”
He said certain actions were speeded up in the video by as much as 50% and others were taken out of order.
“From the defense standpoint, it’s a misleading piece of evidence, a deceptive piece of evidence, a piece of evidence that has been changed,” he said.
Steiner also said the government was reluctant to share information about accusers who may testify in the case with defense lawyers until deadlines arrive that require the information to be turned over.
She said many of the “individuals are incredibly frightened” not only at having their names revealed publicly but having them disclosed to defense attorneys.
A federal judge says 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.
In a written ruling issued Friday (March 14), Judge Arun Subramanian denied Live Nation’s request to dismiss an accusation that the concert giant illegally required artists to buy one service if they wanted to purchase another one — known in antitrust parlance as “tying.”
Ahead of the ruling, attorneys for Live Nation had argued that it was merely refusing to let rival concert promoters rent its venues, something that’s fair game under longstanding legal precedents. But the judge wrote in his ruling that the DOJ’s accusations were clearly focused on artists, not competing firms.
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“The complaint explains that due to Live Nation’s monopoly power in the large-amphitheater market, artists are effectively locked into using Live Nation as the promoter for a tour that stops at large amphitheaters,” the judge wrote, before adding later: “These allegations aren’t just about a refusal to deal with rival promoters. They are about the coercion of artists.”
The decision was not on the final merits of the DOJ’s case; the feds must still provide factual evidence to prove that Live Nation actually coerced artists. But at the earliest stage of the case, when courts must assume allegations are true, Judge Subramanian ruled that the DOJ had done enough to move ahead.
The DOJ and dozens of states filed the sweeping antitrust lawsuit in May, aimed at breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster over accusations that they form an illegal monopoly over the live music industry. The feds alleged Live Nation runs an illegal “flywheel” — reaping revenue from ticket buyers, using that money to sign artists, then leveraging that repertoire to lock venues into exclusive ticketing contracts that yield ever more revenue.
Among other accusations, the government argued that Live Nation was exploiting its massive market share in amphitheaters — allegedly 40 of the top 50 such venues in the country – to force artists to use its concert promotion services.
“Live Nation has a longstanding policy going back more than a decade of preventing artists who prefer and choose third-party promoters from using its venues,” the DOJ wrote in its complaint. “In other words, if an artist wants to use a Live Nation venue as part of a tour, he or she almost always must contract with Live Nation as the tour’s concert promoter.”
Not so, argued attorneys for Live Nation. In its own court filings, the company said that it merely refuses to rent out its portfolio of amphitheaters to the competing concert promotion companies that artists have hired — and that it is “settled law” under federal antitrust statutes that a company has “no duty to aid its competitors.”
In Friday’s decision, Judge Subramanian said that argument could succeed at trial, but that the DOJ’s basic legal theory was sound enough to survive for now: “The facts may ultimately show that the tying claim here is nothing more than a refusal-to-deal claim,” the judge wrote. “But at this stage, the court’s role is to determine whether the complaint states a plausible tying claim, and it does.”
Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment. A trial is tentatively scheduled for March 2026.
Karol G and Universal Music Group (UMG) are facing a copyright infringement lawsuit over a track from the Colombian superstar’s chart-topping album Mañana Será Bonito. In a case filed in Miami federal court, producers Ocean Vibes (Jack Hernandez) and Alfr3d Beats (Dick Alfredo Caballero Rodriguez) say the singer and her co-writers stole key elements of […]
CNN is denying accusations from Sean “Diddy” Combs’ attorneys that the network altered and then destroyed the infamous 2016 surveillance video of him assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura.
In court filings Thursday, attorneys for the indicted hip-hop mogul leveled a bombshell accusation: that CNN “substantially altered” the footage in “significant respects” and then destroyed the original copy, even though they knew about the criminal investigation into Diddy.
But in a statement just hours later, CNN flatly rejected the claim: “CNN never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source. CNN aired the story about the video several months before Combs was arrested.”
Thursday’s dispute is significant because Diddy’s attorneys will cite CNN’s alleged mishandling as a reason for the footage to be excluded from the upcoming trial, potentially depriving prosecutors of a visceral piece of evidence to present to jurors. In the filing, Combs’ team confirmed that they would make such arguments would be covered in a upcoming motion.
Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.
A trial is currently set to start on May 5. If convicted on all of the charges, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
The Cassie video, which aired on CNN in May, showed Combs striking his then-girlfriend in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. The clip drew far more attention to the accusations against the star, and prompted an apology from Combs shortly after it aired.
“My behavior on that video is inexcusable,” Combs said at the time. “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry.”
In the months leading up to trial, attorneys for the star have repeatedly targeted the tape in pre-trial motions, including previously claiming that federal authorities had improperly leaked it to the press to “taint the jury pool.” Prosecutors sharply denied that charge, arguing that Combs was using such claims to in an effort to “suppress a damning piece of evidence.”
In Thursday’s court filing, Diddy’s lawyers said that subpoenas to CNN had proven that the video had been altered, including “covering the time stamp, “changing the video sequence” and “speeding up the video to make it falsely appear that the actions in the video are taking place faster than they are.” As a result of the changes, the clips “do not fairly and accurately depict the events in question.”
In the same filing, the Combs legal team also argued that CNN had “purchased the only known copy” of the footage, uploaded into their systems, and then “destroyed the original footage.”
In a statement to Billboard on Friday, Cassie’s attorney Douglas Wigdor criticized Diddy over the filings: “It is not surprising that Combs would make a disingenuous argument to exclude the disturbing video from being shown to the jury in the upcoming trial. I am confident that the video fairly and accurately represents what happened, will be admitted into evidence, and that Combs will be held accountable for his depravity.”
Offset is suing 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.
In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court, attorneys for the former Migos member say that reps for ChaseTheMoney (Chase Rose) signed a contract ahead of the album’s October 2023 release, covering payment for his production work on the track “Worth It.” But months later, ChaseTheMoney’s new manager allegedly reached out to demand more money for the same work.
“The new manager proposed new terms for the producer agreement, including a producer fee that was more than five times the amount of the producer fee that was agreed upon, and a royalty percentage more than double,” Offset’s lawyers write in their Tuesday (March 11) court complaint.
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After Offset’s team “promptly responded” the deal had already been locked down and “would not be re-negotiated,” his lawyers say reps for ChaseTheMoney repeatedly offered other versions of the contract, each containing “different proposals as to the financial terms.”
When Offset’s team allegedly continued to refuse to alter the deal, the lawsuit claims that ChaseTheMoney began claiming that the previous manager who had negotiated the Set It Off deal — a man identified only as J Hill in court documents — was actually “not his manager” at the time the original deal was struck.
But according to Tuesday’s lawsuit, ChaseTheMoney clearly sent them to J Hill to work out the deal, saying the producer told Offset and his team via text message that Hill would “figure logistics” for clearing his contributions to “Worth It.”
“ChaseTheMoney referred to J Hill as his manager in various correspondence to Offset and his A&R team [and] ChaseTheMoney directed Offset and his A&R team to discuss the clearance of the recording with J Hill on ChaseTheMoney’s behalf,” Offset’s lawyers write. “J Hill had confirmed in writing that he represented ChaseTheMoney as his manager, and no person affiliated with or connected to ChaseTheMoney had ever claimed or contended prior to July of 2024 that that J Hill was not ChaseTheMoney’s manager.”
The terms of the original deal, according to Offset, gave Chase a $10,000 producer fee and half of the 2 percent producer royalty, minus certain amounts that were deemed recording costs and recoupable advances.
When reached for comment Thursday (March 13) via direct message on Instagram, ChaseTheMoney said: “I’m not being sued. It’s the other way around lol.” He declined to comment further, then deleted those messages. After a review of court records, Billboard was not able to locate a lawsuit filed by Chase against Offset.
Reps for Offset did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday.
In technical terms, the lawsuit filed this week is what’s known as a “declaratory judgment” action —meaning Offset is not accusing Chase of legal wrongdoing but instead is arguing that Chase is improperly accusing him of doing something wrong. By filing such a case, Offset is asking a judge to rule that the original contract is valid and enforceable and that he has complied with all of its requirements.
Tuesday isn’t the first time Offset has filed such a lawsuit over a music contract.
Back in 2022, the rapper filed a similar declaratory judgment lawsuit against Quality Control Music, the record label that helped launch his career as a member of Migos. In it, he claimed the company was continuing to seek to control of his solo work, even though he had “paid handsomely” for the right to break free from his original record deal: “Offset now brings this action to vindicate his rights and to make it clear to the world that Offset, not Quality Control, owns Offset’s music.”
The star later dropped that lawsuit in August 2023.
Free Our Art, a new non-profit dedicated to safeguarding First Amendment creative freedoms for artists, has officially launched with widespread support from major arts advocacy groups and creative industry leaders.
The nonprofit focuses on the growing trend of creative works being used as confessions in court, advocating for state and federal legislation to limit this practice, supporting legal aid for defendants and funding research.
Free Our Art backs legislation establishing a single standard for admitting creative expression as evidence in court. The bipartisan federal Restoring Artistic Protection (RAP) Act was reintroduced in 2023, and states including Georgia, Maryland, Missouri and New York are considering similar bills. This follows cases where courts have overturned convictions due to prejudicial use of lyrics as evidence.
The movement began in the music industry, where artists have faced increasing legal scrutiny, particularly in hip-hop.
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Supporters include the Recording Academy, Black Music Action Coalition, Recording Industry Association of America, Songwriters of North America and SAG-AFTRA, among others. The organization’s leadership includes Harvey Mason jr., Julie Greenwald and Lyor Cohen, with advisory boards co-chaired by advocates and scholars including Dina LaPolt, Willie “Prophet” Stiggers, Dr. Erik Nielson and Lucius Outlaw III.
“RIAA is proud to stand with the creative community supporting free expression,” said Michele Ballantyne, president and COO of RIAA. “Free Our Art stands for responsible, balanced legislative approaches that protect the First Amendment and safeguard and encourage all forms of creative expression while allowing reasonable, limited use of artist works in court only where they are truly relevant and necessary and not being used to inflame and distort the process.”
Mason jr. added: “Music has always been a powerful tool for storytelling and self-expression, and unfairly silencing any genre or form of creativity is a violation against all music people. With the Free Our Art coalition, the Recording Academy will continue leading the fight to protect artists’ right to create freely, without fear of their work being criminalized.”
According to Free Our Art, scholars have documented nearly 700 cases where lyrics, primarily in hip-hop, were used in legal proceedings — with actual instances likely much higher. The group also cites a 2019 study at Arizona State University School of Law that found judges often fail to exclude creative works as character evidence, underscoring the need for legislative action.
Calling an artist’s right to create without fear “non-negotiable,” LaPolt, co-founder of SONA, said that “twisting creative expression into courtroom evidence isn’t just wrong—it’s a blatant attack on our First Amendment rights. This isn’t about one artist or one genre; it’s about protecting every creator from a dangerous legal precedent.”
The issue of lyrics being used in court gained renewed attention following the May 2022 indictment of rappers Young Thug and Gunna on RICO charges, where prosecutors cited song lyrics as evidence of gang affiliation. Young Thug received a 15-year probation sentence, while Gunna was released in December 2022 after pleading guilty to a gang-related charge.
Free Our Art aims to prevent similar cases from unfairly targeting artists based on their creative expression. More information on the organization’s efforts can be found here.
Last month, Vice President J.D. Vance represented the U.S. at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris. In a speech addressing top leaders from around the world, he declared, “I think our response [to AI] is to be too self-conscious, too risk-averse, but never have I encountered a breakthrough in tech that so clearly calls us to do precisely the opposite. […] We believe excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off.”
Vance’s comments marked a stark shift from the Biden administration, which often spoke about weighing AI’s “profound possibilities” with its “risks,” as the former president put it in his farewell address in January. In the wake of Vance’s remarks in Paris, it’s clear that in the Trump White House, AI safety is out and the race for dominance is in. What does that mean for the music business and its quest to protect copyrights and publicity rights in the AI age?
“All the focus is on the competition with China, so national security has become the number one issue with AI in the Trump administration,” says Mitch Glazier, CEO/president of the Recording Industry Association of America. “But for our industry, it’s interesting. The [Trump administration] does seem to be saying at the same time that we also need to be ‘America First’ with our [intellectual property] too. It’s both ‘America First’ for IP and ‘America First’ for AI.”
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That, Glazier thinks, provides an opportunity for the music business to continue to push its AI agenda in D.C. While the president does not have the remit to make alterations to copyright protection in the U.S., the Trump administration still has powerful sway with the Republican-dominated legislative branch, where the RIAA, the Recording Academy and others have been fighting to get new protections for music on the books. Glazier says there’s been no change in strategy there — it’s still full steam ahead, trying to get those bills passed into law in 2025.
Top copyright attorney Jacqueline Charlesworth, partner at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, still fears that Vance’s speech — as well as President Trump’s inauguration in January, where he was flanked by top executives from Apple, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet — “reflected a lot of influence from the large tech platforms.” Many major tech companies have taken the position that training their AI models on copyrights does not require consent, credit or compensation. “My concern is that creators and copyright owners will be casualties in the AI race,” she says.
For David Israelite, president/CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association, it’s still too early to totally understand the new administration’s views on copyright and AI. But, he says, “we are concerned when the language is about rushing to train these models — and that becoming a more important principle than how they are trained.”
Glazier holds out hope that Trump’s bullish approach to trade agreements with other nations could benefit American copyright owners and may influence trade partners to honor U.S. copyrights. Specifically, he points to the U.K., where the government has recently proposed granting AI companies unrestricted access to copyrighted material for training their models unless the rights holder manually opts out. Widely despised by copyright holders of all kinds, the music industry has protested the opt-out proposal in recent weeks through op-eds in national newspapers, comments to the U.K. government and through a silent album, Is This What We Want?, co-authored by a thousand U.K. artists, including Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and Hans Zimmer.
Organized by AI developer, musician and founder of AI safety non-profit Fairly Trained, Ed Newton-Rex, Is This What We Want? features silent tracks recorded in famous studios around London to demonstrate the potential consequences of not protecting copyrighted songs. “The artists and the industry in the U.K. have done an incredible job,” says Glazier. “If for some reason the U.K. does impose this opt-out, which we think is totally unworkable, then this administration may have an opportunity to apply pressure because of a renewal of trade negotiations.”
Israelite agrees. “Much of the intellectual property fueling these AI models is American,” he says. “The U.S. tackles copyright issues all the time in trade agreements, so we are always looking into that angle of it.”
It’s not just American music industry trade groups that have been following the Trump administration’s approach to AI. Abbas Lightwalla, director of global legal policy for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global organization representing the interests of the recorded music business, says he and his colleagues followed Vance’s Paris speech “with great interest,” and that future trade agreements between the U.S. and other nations are “absolutely on the radar,” given that IFPI advocates across the world for the music industry’s interests in trade negotiations. “It’s crucial to us that copyright is protected in every market,” he says. “It’s a cross-border issue… If the U.S. is doing the same, then I think that’s a benefit to every culture everywhere to be honest.”
Charlesworth says this struggle is nothing new; the music industry has dealt with challenges to copyright protection for decades. “In reflecting on this, I feel like, starting in the ‘90s and 2000s, the tech business had this ‘take now, pay later’ mentality to copyright. Now, it feels like it’s turned into ‘take now, and see if you can get away with it.’ It’s not even pay later.”
As the AI race continues to pick up at a rapid pace, Israelite says he’s “not that hopeful that we are going to see any kind of government action quickly that would give us guidance” — so he’s also watching the active lawsuits surrounding AI training and copyright closely and looking to the commercial space for businesses in AI and IP that are voluntarily working out solutions together. “We’re very involved and focused on partnerships with AI that can help pave the way for how this technology provides new revenue opportunities for music, not just threats,” he says.
Glazier says he’s working in the commercial marketplace, too. “We have 60 licensing agreements in place right now between AI companies and music companies,” he says. Meanwhile, the RIAA is still watching the two lawsuits it spearheaded for the three major music companies against AI music startups Suno and Udio and is working to get bills like the NO FAKES Act and NO AI FRAUD Act passed into law.
“While IP wasn’t on the radar in Vance’s speech, the aftermath of it totally shifted the conversation,” says Glazier. “We just have to keep working to protect copyrights.”