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: A deep-dive into whether rappers like Kendrick Lamar and Drake can sue each other for defamation over wild allegations in diss tracks; a lawsuit from TikTok over an “unprecedented” law banning the app from the U.S.; Britney Spears settles her divorce case; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Defamatory Dissing?
Over the weekend, as Kendrick Lamar and Drake exchanged diss tracks filled with wild accusations, spectators on social media began to wonder if either rapper could be setting themselves up for legal trouble: “Has anyone ever filed a defamation lawsuit over a diss track before?” joked Matt Ford, a legal reporter at the New Republic, on Saturday night.An actual lawsuit seems unlikely, for the simple reason that any rapper responding to a diss track with a team of lawyers would be committing reputational suicide. But the discussion got us thinking: Could a rapper like Drake or Kendrick sue over the kind of scathing insults we saw this weekend?While diss tracks filled with extremely specific invective (and we mean extremely) could certainly lead to a libel lawsuit in theory, legal experts tell Billboard that such a case would face not just legal challenges but also practical problems. Go read our full story here.
Other top stories this week…
TIKTOK SUES US OVER BAN – TikTok and parent company ByteDance filed a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning recently-passed legislation in the U.S. requiring the Chinese company to sell the popular app or face a national ban. The companies called the legislation an “unprecedented” and unconstitutional action aimed at “singling out” one company and “silencing” more than 170 million Americans who use TikTok.BRITNEY DIVORCE FINALIZED – Britney Spears reached a settlement to finalize her divorce from husband Sam Asghari, resolving their 14-month marriage according to the terms of “a written agreement” – likely a reference to a reported “ironclad prenup” that Asghari signed before their 2022 wedding.ASTROWORLD TRIAL DELAYED – The first civil trial for Travis Scott, Live Nation and others over their alleged roles in the 2021 disaster at the Astroworld music festival had been set to kick off this week, but the proceedings were postponed due to a tricky dispute over whether Apple – which aired an exclusive livestream of the fateful concert – can potentially be held liable.TOMMY LEE ABUSE CASE TOSSED – A Los Angeles judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee of sexually assaulting a woman in a helicopter in 2003, ruling that she had failed to allege any kind of “cover-up” – a key requirement under the California statute she cited to file the lawsuit. It ain’t over yet, though: The judge gave her a chance to refile an amended complaint within 20 days.MORGAN WALLEN UPDATE – The criminal case against Morgan Wallen for allegedly throwing a chair off the roof of a six-story Nashville bar is moving forward after an initial court hearing. The star, who did not appear in person and has not yet entered a plea, is facing three felony counts of reckless endangerment over the incident, in which the chair landed just feet from several police officers standing on the street below. AI SENATE HEARING – Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl and other industry bigwigs were on Capitol Hill last week for a Senate hearing on the NO FAKES Act, a proposed federal law that would allow individuals to sue over the use of their name, likeness or voice without permission in “digital replicas” like AI-powered deepfakes. Go read Kristin Robinson’s entire breakdown of the hearing here.NICK PRODUCER LIBEL SUIT – Former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider filed a defamation lawsuit against Warner Bros. Discovery and others behind an explosive documentary called Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, alleging that the series wrongly implied that he had sexually abused the child actors he worked with.
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TikTok and parent company ByteDance have filed a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning recently-passed legislation requiring the Chinese company to sell the popular app or face a national ban, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in D.C. federal court, TikTok and Byte Dance called the law an “unprecedented” and unconstitutional action aimed at “singling out” one company and “silencing” more than 170 million Americans who use TikTok.
“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban,” lawyers for the two companies wrote. “There are good reasons why Congress has never before enacted a law like this.”
The lawsuit came just week after President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which requires that ByteDance either divest ownership of TikTok by Jan. 19 or face a national ban on the app. Proponents have argued that TikTok presents a national security threat because of its connections to the Chinese government and access to millions of Americans.
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In Tuesday’s complaint, TikTok argued that such national security concerns were not sufficient to override the First Amendment’s protections for free speech. The company’s attorneys said lawmakers had failed to “articulate any threat posed by TikTok” and had cited only “speculative concerns,” meaning they were making an “extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of power” without clear reason.
“If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down,” TikTok’s lawyers wrote.
The new lawsuit came just days after TikTok – an increasingly influential part of the music industry ecosystem – reached an agreement with Universal Music Group to end a months-long standoff over rights to the music giant’s catalog.
In the new complaint, TikTok argued that it had already spent billions of dollars addressing the potential security risks cited by lawmakers, and had reached voluntary agreements with executive agencies like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to safeguard user data and the integrity against foreign government influence.
“Congress tossed this tailored agreement aside, in favor of the politically expedient and punitive approach of targeting for disfavor one publisher and speaker,” TikTok’s attorneys wrote. “Congress must abide by the dictates of the Constitution even when it claims to be protecting against national security risk.”
TikTok has already had success in court over U.S. efforts to ban the app. Citing the First Amendment, a federal judge in 2020 blocked former President Donald J. Trump from carrying out an executive order barring TikTok from app stores. And last year, a federal judge in Montana overturned a law in that state banning the app, ruling that legislation not only violated free speech, but also encroached on federal authority to regulate foreign relations.
After an ugly weekend of diss-track crossfire, the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake now features unproven accusations of spousal abuse, drug use and even pedophilia. Those claims might be “slander” to many people, but are they defamatory? We asked the legal experts.
The long-simmering dispute between the two hip hop heavyweights went thermonuclear on Friday, when Drake dropped a track claiming Lamar had abused his fiancée. Minutes later, Lamar fired back with accusations about addictions, hidden children and plastic surgery. The next day he dropped another song accusing Drake and others of pedophilia.
With the allegations getting wilder by the minute, spectators on social media began to wonder if either rapper – but particularly Kendrick – could be setting themselves up for more than just another scathing response: “Has anyone ever filed a defamation lawsuit over a diss track before?” joked Matt Ford, a legal reporter at the New Republic, on Saturday night.
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An actual lawsuit seems unlikely, for the simple reason that any rapper responding to a diss track with a team of lawyers would be committing reputational suicide. But let’s play it out: Could a rapper like Drake or Kendrick sue over the kind of scathing insults we saw this weekend?
While diss tracks filled with extremely specific invective (and we mean extremely) could certainly lead to a libel lawsuit in theory, legal experts tell Billboard that such a case would face not just legal challenges but also practical problems. First and foremost? That the accuser would open themselves up to painful discovery by opposing lawyers.
“Any plaintiff suing for defamation is putting their entire life and reputation on the line,” says Dori Hanswirth, a veteran litigator who heads the media law practice at the law firm Arnold & Porter. “If someone decided to sue over a statement that they preyed upon underage women, for example, then that person’s entire dating history would be fair game in the litigation.”
While the term “slander” gets thrown around on the internet a lot these days, actual legal defamation is pretty hard to prove in America, thanks to the First Amendment and its robust protections for free speech. Winning a case requires that an accuser show that a statement about them was factually false; mere statements of opinion don’t count, and neither do bombastic exaggerations.
“The public … has to believe that the speaker is being serious, and not just hurling insults in a diss fight,” Hanswirth says. “If the statements are not taken literally, then they are rhetorical hyperbole and not considered to be defamatory. The context of this song-by-song grudge match tends to support the idea that this is rhetorical, and a creative way to beef with a rival.”
Another legal roadblock is that both Drake and Kendrick are so-called public figures — a status that makes it very hard to win a defamation lawsuit. Under landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedents, a public figure must show that their alleged defamer acted with “actual malice,” meaning they knew their statement was false or they acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
In practice, the “actual malice” rule has made it nearly impossible for prominent people to sue for libel. And that’s by design. Without strong protections, defamation lawsuits would allow government officials, business leaders and other powerful people to harass and silence anyone who criticizes them, stifling free speech about important public issues.
“The Supreme Court has held that this heightened standard always applies where the plaintiff is a public figure, and it is designed to promote robust expression and debate,” said Adam I. Rich, a music and First Amendment attorney at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine.
So, what’s the verdict? No matter how ugly the insults between Drake and Kendrick, it seems like the beef between them is probably going to remain in the form of verse rather than legal briefs.
“As both a lawyer and a fan,” Rich says, “I hope Drake and Kendrick turn the heat down and play the next round out in the studio, not the courtroom.”
A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee of sexually assaulting a woman in a helicopter in 2003, ruling that her case was filed too late.
The case against Lee, launched last year by an anonymous Jane Doe accuser, was filed under a newly enacted California law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for years-old sexual assaults – one of several such laws passed around the country in recent years.
But in a decision issued Monday, Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled that Lee’s accuser had failed to show that Lee’s alleged assault had been followed by any kind of “cover-up” – a key requirement under the provision she cited.
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“The court finds that plaintiff has not pled facts sufficient to support the theory of the necessary ‘cover up’ because plaintiff has not asserted facts evidencing defendants’ concerted effort to hide evidence relating to sexual assault,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff instead makes vague allegations that the court finds insufficient to support the revival of a claim.”
Though the ruling is a setback for Lee’s accuser, the case is not yet over. The judge gave her and her attorneys 20 days to file an updated version of her complaint if she has additional information that would fix the flaws in her case. Her attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.
In her December complaint, the Jane Doe plaintiff claimed she had been “lured under false pretenses” by Lee’s personal helicopter pilot into taking a ride from San Diego to Los Angeles in February 2003. Once onboard, she claimed that Lee and the pilot “consumed several alcoholic beverages, smoked marijuana, and snorted cocaine” before the rock star assaulted her.
“Tommy Lee then proceeded to sexually assault plaintiff by forcibly groping, kissing, penetrating her with his fingers, and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation,” her lawyers wrote. “As a result of Tommy Lee’s sexual assault, Plaintiff has suffered severe emotional, physical, and psychological distress.”
The case, over an incident that allegedly occurred more than two decades ago, was filed under the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act – a California law that created a three-year window starting last year for alleged survivors to file sexual assault lawsuits that would normally be barred by the statute of limitations.
The case against Lee was one of many cases filed during the “look-back windows” created by similar statutes, including New York’s Adult Survivors Act. Just before that law expired in November, a flood of years-old abuse cases hit the courts, most notably against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
But such laws have strict requirements. In the case of the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, an alleged victim must show that the defendant “engaged in a cover up or attempted a cover up,” meaning a “concerted effort to hide evidence relating to a sexual assault or other inappropriate conduct” or conduct that “incentivizes individuals to remain silent.”
In her complaint, Lee’s accuser claimed that the drummer and other defendants “engaged in a concerted effort to prevent information or evidence of such sexual assaults from being made public or disclosed to anyone.” But in her ruling on Monday, Judge Fujie said that simply spelling out the statute’s requirement was not enough.
“These allegations are conclusory in nature and do not allege specific actions directed to plaintiff,” the judge wrote. “As such, plaintiff’s action as alleged is effectively time-barred.”
In a statement to Billboard, Lee’s attorney Sasha Frid said: “We applaud the court’s decision. The court got it right in finding that the plaintiff cannot assert a claim against Tommy Lee. From the outset, Mr. Lee has vehemently denied these false and bogus accusations.”
A criminal case against Morgan Wallen for allegedly throwing a chair off the roof of a six-story Nashville bar is moving forward after an initial court hearing Friday (May 3).
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Wallen’s attorney Worrick Robinson appeared on behalf of the star before a Nashville judge, who set a new court date for Aug. 15. The hearing did not involve entering a plea, and Wallen had waived his right to appear in person, but Robinson said the star himself would be at the next hearing.
“This is obviously very complicated case and it’s not going to resolve itself without subpoenas and witnesses,” Robinson told the media after the hearing. “The state will subpoena witnesses and we’ll work on the case on our end. Morgan will be here on Aug. 15, and several things can happen in the case. We might have a hearing, we might settle the case or the case might continue. Those are the options.”
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Wallen, who is in the midst of three sold-out headlining shows at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on his One Night at a Time Tour this weekend, was arrested in Nashville on April 7 in connection to the chair-throwing incident. Two Metro Nashville Police Department officers were reportedly standing on the street below Chief’s on Broadway, owned by country singer Eric Church, when the chair landed approximately three feet from the officers. Police then reportedly spoke with staff and witnesses and viewed security footage to confirm Wallen’s alleged actions.
After the arrest, the country star was charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
“I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility,” Wallen said in a statement on April 19. “I have the utmost respect for the officers working every day to keep us all safe. Regarding my tour, there will be no change.”
Speaking with the media after Friday’s hearing, Robinson confirmed that there is surveillance footage of the incident, which he has viewed. He also addressed the issue of the police report noting that Wallen was seen “laughing” after the incident. “As each of you know, you can’t always believe everything you read, and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that at all, so I don’t have any proof that that is correct.”
Asked by media if they have a preference to settle the case, Robinson said, “These cases are always complicated and you just never know what’s going to happen. As an attorney, all you can do is be prepared and that’s what the district attorney’s office will do also. Everybody will prepare as if there’s going to be a hearing, but I think everybody generally wins if you can resolve it in a manner that everybody can live with.”
Robinson also responded to media who asked if Wallen was denying throwing the chair, saying, “I think he has said he takes responsibility for what he’s done … We’re not required to enter a plea of any type. But you’ve read his words and I think you understand them clearly.”
Friday night (May 3), Wallen continues with his second of three sold-out shows at Nissan Stadium as part of his One Night at a Time tour.
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Britney Spears has reached a settlement to finalize her divorce from husband Sam Asghari, according to court documents obtained by Billboard.
Less than a year after the pair announced they would end their 14-month marriage, attorneys for both Spears and Asghari filed paperwork Wednesday in Los Angeles court to end the proceedings. The filings say the “uncontested” divorce is bound by “a written agreement regarding their property” and spousal support.
Asghari filed for divorce from Spears in August, citing irreconcilable differences. The pair had dated since they met on the set of her “Slumber Party” music video in 2016 before getting engaged in September 2021. They soon tied the knot in a star-studded Los Angeles wedding ceremony in June 2022, which featured a gatecrashing incident by a man Spears had briefly married in 2004.
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Following the news of the divorce, Asghari said at the time: “We will hold onto the love and respect we have for each other and I wish her the best always.” In her own statement, Spears said: “6 years is a long time to be with someone so, I’m a little shocked but … I’m not here to explain why because its honestly nobody’s business !!!”
The mention in Wednesday’s legal filings of a “written agreement” is likely a reference to a prenuptial agreement. When the pair married in 2022, TMZ reported that Asghari had signed “an ironclad prenup” which meant that he “doesn’t get a dollar from the fortune Brit’s made up to this point.” Such legal agreements are standard procedure for celebrities who have a large disparity in assets with a new spouse, since state law could potentially require splitting property in the event of divorce.
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Beyond referencing such an agreement, Wednesday’s filings included little detail. Asghari’s attorneys said he would “give up forever any right to receive spousal or partner support” except for what is listed in their settlement agreement. The extent to which Spears pays for his legal bills is also governed by the written contract.
The agreements were signed by attorneys for both sides. Spears was represented by celebrity divorce specialist Laura Wasser and her longtime personal attorney Mathew Rosengart, who also handled her long conservatorship battle. Asghari was represented by Neal Hersh, another well-known celebrity divorce attorney. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
News of Wednesday’s agreement was first reported by TMZ. To be finalized, the deal must now be signed by the judge overseeing the case, though that step is formality.
It’s been a busy few weeks for Spears’ lawyers. Last week, she reached another settlement to end a long-running legal dispute with her father Jamie Spears over allegations of misconduct during his years running the pop star’s 13-year conservatorship that ended in 2021.
Former Nickelodeon producer/writer Dan Schneider fired back at the team behind the bombshell series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV on Wednesday (May 1) in a lawsuit in which he alleged that the documentary series wrongly implied that he sexually abused the child actors he worked with.
According to the Associated Press, Schneider filed the defamation suit against Warner Bros. Discovery and other companies behind the investigative series in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming in the suit that the show’s trailer and episodes deliberately mixed and juxtaposed images and mentions of him with the criminal sexual abusers spotlighted in the show with the implication he was involved.
Former teenage actor Schneider (Head of the Class) split with Nickelodeon in 2018 after more than a decade at the center of some of the network’s most successful, star-making shows, including All That, The Amanda Show, Kenan & Kel and as executive producer of Zoey 101, iCarly and Victorious, with the latter three, respectively, launching the careers of Jamie Lynn Spears, Miranda Cosgrove and Jenette McCurdy and Victoria Justice and Ariana Grande.
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Schneider took center stage during many storylines in Quiet, which interviewed the casts and crews of several of Schneider’s most successful shows to describe how the sets he was responsible for often sexualized their young teen stars in a sometimes tense, toxic work environment some described as abusive. The series originally ran on the ID channel in March and is now available to stream on Max.
Among the bombshell revelations in the series that spotlighted descriptions of sexual abuse of child actors was the emotional commentary from Drake & Josh star Drake Bell, who described his grooming and sexual abuse by former childhood dialogue coach Brian Peck; Peck was convicted of sexually assaulting a Nickelodeon child actor (Bell) in 2004. In the third episode, Bell graphically recounts the abuse he suffered at Peck’s hands when he was 14- and 15-years-old.
Other former actors on Nickelodeon shows from the Schneider era also allege that they were rife with sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crew and alleged predatory behavior. The show suggests that Schneider’s shows tended to put young women in comedic situations with overt sexual implications, while depicting him as an angry and emotionally abusive boss, including specific allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination form women who worked as writers under him on All That.
Among the allegations are that he displayed pornography on his computer in their presence in the writers’ room and often asked for massages from female staffers with the implication that they could help get the women’s sketches on the shows, which he has denied.
According to the AP, the suit claims “Quiet on Set’s portrayal of Schneider is a hit job. While it is indisputable that two bona fide child sexual abusers worked on Nickelodeon shows, it is likewise indisputable that Schneider had no knowledge of their abuse, was not complicit in the abuse, condemned the abuse once it was discovered and, critically, was not a child sexual abuser himself.” In addition to Discovery — parent company of ID and Max — the suit names the show’s producers as well, Sony Pictures Television and Maxine Productions. The suit claims that the series and its trailer unjustly implicated Schneider in child sex abuse by showing pictures of him, some with his arm around young actresses, amid discussions of what they said were unsafe environments on his sets.
The series claims that kid actors were made to wear suggestive costumes and act in inappropriate sketches with clearly pornographic undertones. All That actor Leon Frierson talks about his superhero character, Captain Big Nose, who wore tights and underwear and a prosthetic nose with matching noses on his shoulders.
“You can’t help but notice that it looks like penises and testicles on my shoulders,” he says in the series, adding that one sketch included Captain Big Nose blasting a giant sneeze caused by his allergy to asteroids, with the punchline consisting of him shooting messy goo on the face of a young woman. “The joke in that sketch is effectively a cum shot joke. It’s a cum shot joke for children,” culture writer Schaachi Koul says in the premiere episode of the five-part series. “Looking back, it’s very strange. Frankly, it was just uncomfortable,” says Frierson, who also describes that getting close to “kingmaker” Schneider could result in another level of success for the young actors. “It was important to be on his good side, and he made it known who was on his good side,” he says.
Nickelodeon, which was not named in the suit, said in a statement in the series that it could not “corroborate or negate” the allegations from two decades ago, but that it investigates all formal complaints and has strict protocols for shows starring minors.
Schneider, 58, was not interviewed for the series, but issued a YouTube video apology after the show aired in which he said he was sorry for “past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret.” The suit is seeking financial damages to be determined at trial for what it described as “the destruction of Schneider’s reputation and legacy” via “false statements and implications” as well as the editing and removals of portions of the series and trailers.
“Schneider will be the first to admit that some of what they said is true,” the lawsuit claims according to The Huffington Post. “At times, he was blind to the pain that some of his behaviors caused certain colleagues, subordinates, and cast members. He will regret and atone for this behavior the rest of his life. But one thing he is not — and the one thing that will forever mar his reputation and career both past and present — is a child sexual abuser.”
In a statement to HuffPo, Schneider said the series “highlighted mistakes I made and poor judgment I exhibited during my time at Nickelodeon. … There is no doubt that I was sometimes a bad leader. I am sincerely apologetic and regretful for that behavior, and I will continue to take accountability for it.”
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened on Tuesday (April 30) to discuss a proposed bill that would effectively create a federal publicity right for artists in a hearing that featured testimony from Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl, artist FKA Twigs, Digital Media Association (DiMA) CEO Graham Davies, SAG-AFTRA national executive director/chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, Motion Picture Association senior vp/associate general counsel Ben Sheffner and the University of San Diego professor Lisa P. Ramsey.
The draft bill — called the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act (NO FAKES Act) — would create a federal right for artists, actors and others to sue those who create “digital replicas” of their image, voice, or visual likeness without permission. Those individuals have previously only been protected through a patchwork of state “right of publicity” laws. First introduced in October, the NO FAKES Act is supported by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
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Warner Music Group (WMG) supports the NO FAKES Act along with many other music businesses, the RIAA and the Human Artistry Campaign. During Kyncl’s testimony, the executive noted that “we are in a unique moment of time where we can still act and we can get it right before it gets out of hand,” pointing to how the government was not able to properly handle data privacy in the past. He added that it’s imperative to get out ahead of artificial intelligence (AI) to protect artists’ and entertainment companies’ livelihoods.
“When you have these deepfakes out there [on streaming platforms],” said Kyncl, “the artists are actually competing with themselves for revenue on streaming platforms because there’s a fixed amount of revenue within each of the streaming platforms. If somebody is uploading fake songs of FKA Twigs, for example, and those songs are eating into that revenue pool, then there is less left for her authentic songs. That’s the economic impact of it long term, and the volume of content that will then flow into the digital service providers will increase exponentially, [making it] harder for artists to be heard, and to actually reach lots of fans. Creativity over time will be stifled.”
Kyncl, who recently celebrated his first anniversary at the helm of WMG, previously held the role of chief business officer at YouTube. When questioned about whether platforms, like YouTube, Spotify and others who are represented by DiMA should be held responsible for unauthorized AI fakes on their platforms, Kyncl had a measured take: “There has to be an opportunity for [the services] to cooperate and work together with all of us to [develop a protocol for removal],” he said.
During his testimony, Davies spoke from the perspective of the digital service providers (DSPs) DiMA represents. “There’s been no challenge [from platforms] in taking down the [deepfake] content expeditiously,” he said. “We don’t see our members needing any additional burdens or incentives here. But…if there is to be secondary liability, we would very much seek that to be a safe harbor for effective takedowns.”
Davies added, however, that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which provides a notice and takedown procedure for copyright infringement, is not a perfect model to follow for right of publicity offenses. “We don’t see [that] as being a good process as [it was] designed for copyright…our members absolutely can work with the committee in terms of what we would think would be an effective [procedure],” said Davies. He added, “It’s really essential that we get specific information on how to identify the offending content so that it can be removed efficiently.”
There is currently no perfect solution for tracking AI deepfakes on the internet, making a takedown procedure tricky to implement. Kyncl said he hopes for a system that builds on the success of YouTube’s Content ID, which tracks sound recordings. “I’m hopeful we can take [a Content ID-like system] further and apply that to AI voice and degrees of similarity by using watermarks to label content and care the provenance,” he said.
The NO FAKES draft bill as currently written would create a nationwide property right in one’s image, voice, or visual likeness, allowing an individual to sue anyone who produced a “newly-created, computer-generated, electronic representation” of it. It also includes publicity rights that would not expire at death and could be controlled by a person’s heirs for 70 years after their passing. Most state right of publicity laws were written far before the invention of AI and often limit or exclude the protection of an individual’s name, image and voice after death.
The proposed 70 years of post-mortem protection was one of the major points of disagreement between participants at the hearing. Kyncl agreed with the points made by Crabtree-Ireland of SAG-AFTRA — the actors’ union that recently came to a tentative agreement with major labels, including WMG, for “ethical” AI use — whose view was that the right should not be limited to 70 years post-mortem and should instead be “perpetual,” in his words.
“Every single one of us is unique, there is no one else like us, and there never will be,” said Crabtree-Ireland. “This is not the same thing as copyright. It’s not the same thing as ‘We’re going to use this to create more creativity on top of that later [after the copyright enters public domain].’ This is about a person’s legacy. This is about a person’s right to give this to their family.”
Kyncl added simply, “I agree with Mr. Crabtree-Ireland 100%.”
However, Sheffner shared a different perspective on post-mortem protection for publicity rights, saying that while “for living professional performers use of a digital replica without their consent impacts their ability to make a living…that job preservation justification goes away post-mortem. I have yet to hear of any compelling government interest in protecting digital replicas once somebody is deceased. I think there’s going to be serious First Amendment problems with it.”
Elsewhere during the hearing, Crabtree-Ireland expressed a need to limit how long a young artist can license out their publicity rights during their lifetime to ensure they are not exploited by entertainment companies. “If you had, say, a 21-year-old artist who’s granting a transfer of rights in their image, likeness or voice, there should not be a possibility of this for 50 years or 60 years during their life and not have any ability to renegotiate that transfer. I think there should be a shorter perhaps seven-year limitation on this.”
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: Tupac’s estate threatens to sue Drake over his use of the late rapper’s voice; Megan Thee Stallion faces a lawsuit over eye-popping allegations from her former cameraman; Britney Spears settles her dispute with her father; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Drake, Tupac & An AI Showdown
The debate over unauthorized voice cloning burst into the open last week when Tupac Shakur’s estate threatened to sue Drake over a recent diss track against Kendrick Lamar that featured an AI-generated version of the late rapper’s voice.In a cease-and-desist letter first reported by Billboard, litigator Howard King told Drake that the Shakur estate was “deeply dismayed and disappointed” by the rapper’s use of Tupac’s voice in his “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The letter warned Drake to confirm in less than 24 hours that he would pull the track down or the estate would “pursue all of its legal remedies” against him.“Not only is the record a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights, it is also a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time. The Estate would never have given its approval for this use.”AI-powered voice cloning has been top of mind for the music industry since last spring when an unknown artist released a track called “Heart On My Sleeve” that featured — ironically — fake verses from Drake’s voice. As such fake vocals have continued to proliferate on the internet, industry groups, legal experts and lawmakers have wrangled over how best to crack down on them.With last week’s showdown, that debate jumped from hypothetical to reality. The Tupac estate laid out actual legal arguments for why it believed Drake’s use of the late rapper’s voice violated the law. And those arguments were apparently persuasive: Within 24 hours, Drake began to pull his song from the internet.
For more details on the dispute, go read our full story here.
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Other top stories this week…
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FKA Twigs is slated to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on Tuesday afternoon (April 30) to warn members of Congress about the dangers of the unsanctioned use of artificial intelligence to mimic an artist’s unique style and delivery.
The singer/dancer will also reveal that she has been developing a deepfake of herself over the past year in a bid to explore using AI to help with marketing and streamlining the creative process, as well as to head off anyone else beating her to the AI punch.
“As a future-facing artist, new technologies are an exciting tool that can be used to expressdeeper emotions, create fantasy worlds, and touch the hearts of many people,” she will tell the committee, which will also hear from Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl. Her appearance in D.C. is in support of the Senate’s bipartisan Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe (“NO FAKES Act”) draft proposal, aimed at protecting Americans from nonconsensual AI-generated deepfakes and creating federal-level rules to protect an individual’s voice and image from being used in harmful AI-generated content.
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Her testimony — provided to Billboard ahead of her appearance — will open with the 36-year-old artist describing a life spent immersed in the arts, including the ballet, singing and acting lessons her dancer mother and stepdad dance company director sacrificed to provide for her. “From the age of 16, I began to explore both dance and music as a career, and that interest in multiple disciplines has defined my life for the past two decades both personally and professionally,” she will tell the committee.
The Grammy-nominated singer and recent soloist with the acclaimed Martha Graham Dance Company — and co-star in an upcoming adaptation of The Crow — will tell the committee that she wanted to testify because “my music, my dancing, my acting, the way that my body moves in front of a camera and the way that my voice resonates through a microphone is not by chance; they are essential reflections of who I am. My art is the canvas on which I paint my identity and the sustaining foundation of my livelihood. It is the essence of my being.”
All of that, however, is under threat, she testifies, noting that while AI can’t replicate the depth of her journey, “those who control it hold the power to mimic the likeness of my art, to replicate it and falsely claim my identity and intellectual property. This prospect threatens to rewrite and unravel the fabric of my very existence. We must enact regulation now to safeguard our authenticity and protect against misappropriation of our inalienable rights.”
At a time when bootleg AI songs claiming to feature the voices of major stars such as The Weeknd are proliferating — including the Drake AI freestyle diss track “Taylor Made” with computer-generated voices of Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac Shakur that was removed after a lawsuit threat from Shakur’s estate — Twigs says that the progenitors of the internet could not have predicted three decades ago how integral, and sometimes dangerous, it would become to our lives.
“AI is the biggest leap in technological advancement since the internet. You know the saying ‘Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me,’” she says. “If we make the same mistakes with the emergence of AI, it will be ‘shame on us.’”
Having gleefully embraced technology throughout her career, Twigs will describe her bespoke deepfake, which she trained in the quirks of her personality and tuned to the exact tone of her voice to speak in several languages. “I will be engaging my AI twigs later this year to extend my reach and handle my online social media interactions, whilst I continue to focus on my art from the comfort and solace of my studio,” she says.
“These and similar emerging technologies are highly valuable tools both artistically and commercially when under the control of the artist,” she tells the committee. “What is not acceptable is when my art and my identity can simply be taken by a third party and exploited falsely for their own gain without my consent due to the absence of appropriate legislative control.”
Noting that history is littered with the stories of artists being the first ones to be exploited during moments of great technological advance, Twigs will warn that the “general and more vulnerable public” are often next. “By protecting artists with legislation at such a momentous moment in our history we are protecting a five-year-old child in the future from having their voice, likeness and identity taken and used as a commodity without prior consent, attribution or compensation,” she says.
Her testimony includes a plea to the committee to help protect artists and their work from the dangers of AI exploitation, speaking on behalf of fellow creators whose careers depend on the ability to create with the knowledge that they can maintain “tight control” over their “art, image, voice and identity.”
“Our careers and livelihoods are in jeopardy, and so potentially are the wider image-related rights of others in society,” she says. “You have the power to change this and safeguard the future. As artists and, more importantly, human beings, we are a facet of our given, learned, and developed identity. Our creativity is the product of this lived experience overlaid with years of dedication to qualification, training, hard work and, dare I say it, significant financial investment and sacrifice. That the very essence of our being at its most human level can be violated by the unscrupulous use of AI to create a digital facsimile that purports to be us, and our work, is inherently wrong.”
The testimony will end with an urgent plea, as well as a dire warning: “We must get this right … you must get this right,” she says. “Now… before it is too late.”
In January, a bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers announced a bill aimed at regulating the use of AI for cloning voices and likenesses, the No AI FRAUD Act, which could establish a federal framework for protecting one’s voice and likeness while laying out First Amendment protections.