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A woman who once appeared “obviously intoxicated” in a Kanye West music video cannot sue for defamation after the footage was used in the Kanye-focused Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs, a federal judge says, even if she later got sober and “turned her life around.”
Cynthia Love sued last year, claiming jeen-yuhs filmmakers Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah defamed her by including the footage in the 2022 Netflix series. The clip, which showed Love dancing and slurring her words at a Chicago barbecue spot, was originally shot for the 2003 music video for Kanye West’s debut single, “Through The Wire.”
Love’s argument was unusual. She admitted that the footage was authentic — normally the death knell for a libel lawsuit. But she argued that because she had later gotten sober, it had become false and defamatory to use it in the present day.
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In a ruling Tuesday (Feb. 27), Judge Steven Seeger sharply rejected that argument, ruling that the footage was “historically accurate” and shows a “a past truth,” even if it was a truth that Love did not want to remember.
“Holding up a mirror isn’t defamation. Holding up a 20-year-old picture isn’t defamation, either,” the judge wrote. “They both reflect reality, like it or not.”
It did not matter that Love had later “turned things around,” the judge wrote, or that the Netflix doc depicts her at her “darkest moments” years ago: “The ‘Jeen-yuhs’ video accurately portrays Love in a moment of time several decades ago. The video does not suggest that Love remains in an intoxicated state, or anything of that sort.”
Directed by Coodie & Chike (the moniker used by the filmmakers), jeen-yuhs depicted West’s career through unreleased archival footage, much of it filmed by Coodie over decades of working with the rapper. After landing at Netflix for a reported $30 million, the series was released in February 2022 — just months before West would receive widespread condemnation for a string of antisemitic statements.
Years earlier, Love had briefly appeared in the “Through The Wire” video, which was directed by Coodie & Chike in one of their first projects. The video showed Love drunkenly dancing in Chicago eater Original Leon’s Bar-B-Q. That footage, plus additional unused footage showing her interacting with West, later appeared in jeen-yuhs, making up about two minutes of footage total across two episodes.
Love sued last year, accusing Coodie & Chike and Netflix of defamation and a wide range of other wrongdoing. (West was not named or accused of any wrongdoing). She claimed they had “recklessly disregarded the truth” that she had made “an amazing transformation” since the ugly footage was filmed, hurting her reputation among present-day peers: “Neighbors, co-workers, and family cannot help but view and treat her as someone less worthy of their respect, esteem and trust,” her lawyers wrote.
But in Tuesday’s order dismissing those allegations, Judge Seeger pointedly noted that “sometimes the truth hurts, and when the truth hurts, it isn’t defamation.” Summarizing her argument as “the footage was true then, but it isn’t true now,” the judge told her that’s simply not how defamation law works.
“Plain and simple, any allegations about Love in the ‘Jeen-yuhs’ docuseries are true,” the judge wrote. “The docuseries includes real-world clips of Love, without doctoring the content or adding any false material. It shows true clips of a real event.”
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return a request for comment.
Sony Music has reached a settlement to resolve a lawsuit filed by New York Dolls singer David Johansen and other artists in an effort to regain control of their masters, finally ending years of closely-watched class-action litigation against major record labels over copyright law’s termination right.
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The tentative agreement, announced in court papers last week, will resolve a case in which artists claimed Sony had unfairly rejected their efforts to invoke termination – a federal law that’s supposed to let authors take back control of their works decades after they sold them away.
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The exact terms of the settlement, which attorneys for Sony called “an agreement in principle to settle all claims in this case,” were not disclosed. Neither side immediately returned request for comment on the agreement.
Johansen, along with fellow artists John Lyon and Paul Collins, filed the case against Sony in 2019, claiming the company had essentially refused to approve any termination requests from its recording artists. The case, filed as a proposed class action that aimed to represent hundreds of others in a similar situation, was lodged the same day as a closely-related case against Universal Music Group.
Taken together, the two lawsuits represented a sweeping critique of how the two music giants were allegedly approaching termination rights, which were created in the 1970s as a means of helping correct the imbalance of power between large entertainment companies and individual creators. In the case of the music business, if a musician sold away the rights to a song that later became a smash hit, termination theoretically allows them to get those lucrative copyrights back decades later — between 35 and 56 years later, depending on when the song was sold.
According to the lawsuits against Sony and UMG, the music companies had imposed an across-the-board rule that sound recordings (separate from the underlying musical compositions) were effectively never subject to the termination. The labels allegedly argued that most recordings were “works for hire,” in which the company simply hires artists to contribute to them; if true, that would mean the label was the legal author, and performers had no rights to win back in the first place.
But the lawsuits were dealt a serious blow last year, when a federal judge ruled that the UMG case could not proceed as a class action. Though he noted that the artists “raise issues of fairness in copyright law that undoubtedly extended beyond their own grievances,” the judge said that each of the individual musician’s circumstances were different, meaning each would need to file their own case against UMG.
That ruling did not decide the merits of the case, but it presented a severe logistical hurdle. Such lawsuits are extremely expensive, and artists typically lack the same kind of legal resources as the major labels who have allegedly denied their termination requests. A class action would have allowed the artists to pool their resources and secure a sweeping decision with only a single set of legal costs.
Following that ruling – and the judge’s subsequent rejection of the artists efforts to quickly appeal it – the two sides began moving toward a settlement. “Missing You” singer John Waite, one of the artists who filed the case against UMG, settled out in May; the remaining defendants in that case reached a settlement with UMG in December.
The UMG ruling was not directly binding on the lawsuit against Sony, which was being handled by a different judge in the same federal district court. But the two cases were filed by the same lawyers and were largely identical, meaning the UMG ruling certainly did not bode well for the Sony case’s chances to be approved as a class action.
Before last week, the Sony case had long been paused while the two sides worked on a settlement. In Friday’s motion announcing such an agreement, Sony asked to extend that pause until May, allowing them time to finalize the settlement in writing and submit it to the judge. The request was approved Monday, putting the case on track to be closed out this spring.
Attorneys for Sony and the plaintiffs both did not return requests for comment on Wednesday.
The estate of Donna Summer filed a copyright lawsuit against Kanye West on Tuesday (Feb. 27), accusing him of “shamelessly” using her 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission in his song “Good (Don’t Die).” Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In a complaint filed in Los Angeles […]
A federal jury in Brooklyn on Tuesday (Feb. 27) found two New York City men guilty in the 2002 murder of Run-DMC‘s Jam Master Jay, setting the stage for potential decades-long prison sentences.
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Following a three-week trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts against both Karl Jordan, Jr., 40, and Ronald Washington, 59, who were charged in 2020 with the rap pioneer’s long-unsolved killing in Queens.
The convictions came after prosecutors called more than 30 witnesses to the stand to prove their case, in which they accused Jordan and Washington of killing the rapper as payback after he cut them out of a cocaine deal. The defense called just one witness of their own: an expert on memory.
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“This case is not complicated,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Artie McConnell said during his closing arguments last week. “It’s about greed, it’s about money, it’s about jealousy.”
Following Tuesday’s conviction, Jordan and Washington each face a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. They will be able to challenge the verdict, first to the judge and then to a federal appeals court, but such appeals face long odds.
Attorneys for both defendants and the prosecution did not immediately return requests for comment on the verdict.
Run-DMC, a trio consisting of Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, is widely credited as one of the most influential early acts in hip-hop history. The trio’s 1985 release, King of Rock, was hip-hop’s first platinum album, and the group’s 1986 cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jay’s shocking killing, on Oct. 30, 2002, had long been one of hip-hop’s famous cold cases, joining the unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. Though witnesses were in the room when the murder happened and police generated a number of leads, no charges were filed until August 2020, when prosecutors finally unveiled the case against Washington and Jordan.
Over the three-week trial, prosecutors told jurors that Jay had turned to the drug trade as Run-DMC’s popularity had waned. They argued that Washington, a childhood friend, and Jordan, Jay’s godson and neighbor, had helped Jay sell the drugs, but eventually plotted his murder after he allegedly cut them out of a deal.
Jurors heard testimony from two alleged eyewitnesses, Uriel “Tony” Rincon and Lydia High, who say they were in the studio on the night of the shooting. Rincon identified both men and named Jordan as the shooter; High identified Washington and said he had been joined by an unknown shooter. Both said they had withheld such information from investigators for years for fear of retaliation.
As is common in criminal cases, neither Washington nor Jordan testified in their own defense. Their attorneys called only an expert witness to testify on human memory, who told the jury that memories can fade and change over time and can be affected by stress.
The jury began deliberating on Thursday (Feb. 22) before being dismissed for a three-day weekend. They initially resumed deliberations on Monday (Feb. 26), but then were ordered to restart from scratch after a juror was excused because they claimed they could not be impartial.
Sentencing and post-trial motions will take place in future proceedings. Jay Bryant, a third man allegedly involved in the killing who prosecutors charged with murder last May, will have a separate trial later this year.
Beyond Tuesday’s guilty verdict, the case over Jay’s killing could have a lasting effect on the law.
In a ruling near the beginning of the trial, the federal judge overseeing the case ruled that prosecutors could not cite violent rap lyrics written by Jordan as evidence against him. Warning that “music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them,” the judge said such materials should only be used as evidence if they have a clear and direct connection to the crime at issue in the case.
The ruling came amid a broader debate over the use of rap lyrics in criminal trials, a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from the music industry and efforts by lawmakers to stop it. A high-profile gang trial in Atlanta, in which prosecutors are using Young Thug’s lyrics against him, has drawn particular scrutiny to the issue.
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 federal appeals court overturns a $1 billion verdict won by the major labels over internet piracy; Kanye West blasts Adidas for selling “fake Yeezys” while also “suing” him; Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler wins the dismissal of one of his sexual abuse cases; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Billion-Dollar Piracy Verdict Gone – For Now
One billion dollars – with a “B.” Back in 2019, that’s the massive sum that a federal jury ordered Cox Communications to pay to Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group after concluding that the internet service provider had turned a blind eye to infringement by its users.
Piracy is no longer the existential threat it was once for the music industry. But in the mid-2010s, it was still a big deal — so much so, that music companies began suing ISPs to force them to take action. In 2018, the Big Three filed such a case against Cox, claiming that it had essentially helped its subscribers illegally share more than 10,000 of their copyrighted songs.
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ISPs are usually shielded from lawsuits over infringing conduct by their users, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its system of so-called safe harbors. But the judge overseeing the case ruled that Cox had forfeited the DMCA’s protections by failing to terminate subscribers who had repeatedly pirated music. Stripped of immunity, Cox was ordered to pay the labels more than $99,000 for every song its users infringed — one of the largest ever awards in an intellectual property lawsuit.
Cox appealed the case, arguing that it was “unprecedented in every way” and would require ISPs to cut off vital internet access based on unproven accusations of piracy. The labels said it was a fair punishment for a company that had allegedly avoided the problem for fear of losing money.
After more than four years of waiting for a ruling (so long that file-sharing has become something of antique topic) a federal appeals court finally weighed in this week — overturning the huge verdict, but leaving Cox still facing the potential for massive damages. Go read the full story to find out more.
Other top stories this week…
IS ADIDAS SUING YE? – Kanye West took to Instagram to blast Adidas for “suing him” at the same time that it was selling “fake Yeezys” to consumers: “Not only are they putting out fake colorways that are non-approved, they’re suing me for $250 million.” So is Adidas really suing him? The answer is … complicated.
MORE DIDDY ALLEGATIONS – Sean Combs was hit with another abuse lawsuit, this time by a producer named Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr. who says the rapper sexually assaulted and harassed him. But the case also includes more bizarre allegations, claiming that Diddy and others participated in a “RICO enterprise” – civil allegations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law that’s more often used in criminal cases against mobsters and drug cartels. Combs’ lawyer Shawn Holley told Billboard that the claims were “pure fiction” filed by a man “shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday.”
…AND A NEW RESPONSE – Days earlier, Combs also filed his first legal response to one of his earlier abuse cases, in which a woman claims that he “sex trafficked” and “gang raped” her when she was a 17-year-old girl in 2003. In the filing, Combs told a federal court that the allegations are “fictional”; among other things, Diddy’s lawyers said the case was filed so late that it violates his constitutional right to defend himself.
EAGLES’ STOLEN NOTES TRIAL – Don Henley took the stand in an ongoing criminal trial of three memorabilia sellers who prosecutors claim tried to sell stolen draft lyrics to “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits. The accused defendants claim Henley willingly gave the pages to a journalist decades ago, meaning they were never stolen. But in his testimony, the rock legend said he only gave the writer access, not possession: “You know what? It doesn’t matter if I drove a U-Haul truck across country and dumped them at his front door. He had no right to keep them or to sell them.”
STEVEN TYLER RULING – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in 1975, ruling that she had waited too long to bring her case. Jeanne Bellino sued the rocker in November under New York’s “lookback” law that allows abuse victims to sue over decades-old claims. But the judge ruled that her allegations — forcible kissing and groping — were not covered by the law because they did not present a “serious risk of physical injury.”
NICKELBACK CASE DISMISSED – A federal appeals court rejected a copyright lawsuit that claimed Nickelback ripped off its 2006 hit “Rockstar” from an earlier song called “Rock Star,” ruling that the band can’t be sued simply for using “clichés” and “singing about being a rockstar.”
IDOL PRODUCER SUED AGAIN – Former American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe was hit with another sexual assault lawsuit, this time by an unidentified woman who claims he forcibly touched her in 2016. Lythgoe was already facing an earlier lawsuit from Paula Abdul over two separate alleged incidents of sexual assault.
A music producer who says he worked on Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ 2023 album The Love Album: Off the Grid is accusing the hip-hop mogul of sexual assault and harassment, sex trafficking and various other forms of misconduct in a sprawling lawsuit filed Monday (Feb. 26).
In the complaint, filed by plaintiff Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones Jr. in New York federal court, the producer accuses Combs of “groping and touching” his anus and trying to groom him into engaging in sexual acts with Combs and other individuals, including Love Album producer Steven Aaron Jordan (a.k.a. Stevie J) and a cousin of Combs’ ex-girlfriend Yung Miami (named as a Jane Doe defendant). He also claims that Combs “forced” him to “solicit sex workers,” some of whom were underage, as well as to “perform sex acts to the pleasure of Mr. Combs.”
In one alleged incident from February 2023, Jones claims he woke up “naked, dizzy, and confused” in a “bed with two sex workers and Mr. Combs” at Combs’ home in Miami and “believes” he was drugged by Combs.
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The lawsuit, filed by attorney Tyrone Blackburn, names several more defendants whom Jones claims conspired with Combs in an alleged “RICO enterprise” to enable his misconduct: Universal Music Group (UMG), its subsidiary Motown Records, Combs’ label imprint Love Records, UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, former Motown CEO/chairwoman Ethiopia Habtemariam; Combs’ chief of staff, Kristina Khorram; and Combs’ son, Justin Combs. Federal RICO cases, which are based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act traditionally used to target the mafia and drug cartels, are brought to more effectively sweep up members of alleged crime rings. (Notably, the ongoing Georgia criminal case against Young Thug that alleges the rapper ran a violent Atlanta street gang is based on a Georgia statute modeled off of the federal RICO law.)
In this case, Jones claims the “RICO enterprise” in question was set up to recruit sex workers, some of them underage, and to acquire and distribute drugs and guns out of Combs’ Miami home. He accuses the participants in the alleged enterprise of keeping him under their control by threatening him with violence, ostracism from the music industry and nonpayment for work on the album, which he says he still has not been compensated for despite having allegedly produced nine tracks.
The lawsuit also brings up an alleged September 2022 incident at Chalice Recording Studio in Hollywood, during a writing and producing camp for The Love Album, that allegedly resulted in a man being shot in the stomach following a “heated conversation” between Combs, his son Justin Combs and another unnamed man. Following the incident, Jones claims Combs forced him to lie to police by telling them the man was injured in a drive-by shooting outside. Jones is suing Combs, UMG, Motown, Love Records and Chalice Recording Studio for providing “inadequate or negligent security” during the camp.
In a statement sent to Billboard, Combs’ attorney Shawn Holley said: “Lil Rod is nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 billion lawsuit shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday. His reckless name-dropping about events that are pure fiction and simply did not happen is nothing more than a transparent attempt to garner headlines. We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies. Our attempts to share this proof with Mr. Jones’ attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, have been ignored, as Mr. Blackburn refuses to return our calls. We will address these outlandish allegations in court and take all appropriate action against those who make them.”
A spokesperson for Justin Combs sent the following statement: “Justin Combs categorically denies these absurd allegations. They are all lies! This is a clear example of a desperate person taking desperate measures in hopes of a pay day. There will be legal consequences for all defamatory statements made about the Combs family.”
Representatives for UMG, Motown, Love Records, Grainge and Chalice Recording Studio did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Habtemariam could not be located for comment at press time.
Jones is asking for damages for loss of past and future income as well as “mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, stress and anxiety, emotional pain and suffering, and emotional distress”; punitive damages; and the costs of bringing the suit.
The Love Album was originally announced in May 2022 as a release on Combs’ newly formed imprint Love Records, to be released in tandem with UMG’s Motown. However, the album — which featured a laundry list of stars including Mary J. Blige, Burna Boy, John Legend, Justin Bieber and The Weeknd — was ultimately released independently in September 2023.
Jones’ lawsuit is just the latest in a string of legal accusations to be lodged against Combs over the past several months. In November, Combs’ longtime girlfriend, R&B singer Cassie, sued him for rape and physical abuse, though the case was promptly settled. He was subsequently sued by two more women for sexual assault and later by a Jane Doe who claimed Combs “sex trafficked” and “gang raped” her when she was 17. Combs has denied all of the allegations.
Don Henley said Monday that he never gave away handwritten pages of draft lyrics to “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits, calling them “very personal” in testimony that also delved into an ugly but unrelated episode: his 1980 arrest.
Henley, the Grammy-winning co-founder of one of the most successful bands in rock history, is prosecutors’ star witness in an unusual criminal trial surrounding the lyrics sheets.
Henley says they were stolen decades ago from his barn in Malibu, California. He testified Monday that he was appalled when the material began turning up at auctions in 2012.
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“It just wasn’t something that was for public viewing. It was our process. It was something very personal, very private,” he said in a raspy drawl. “I still wouldn’t show that to anybody.”
The defendants are three collectibles experts who bought the pages years later through a writer who had worked with the Eagles on a never-published band biography. The defense maintains that Henley willingly gave them to the scribe.
Under cross-examination, Henley acknowledged that he didn’t remember “the entirety” of his conversations with the writer, Ed Sanders, who isn’t charged in the case. Nor, Henley said, could he recall whether he gave Sanders permission to take the documents off the property.
But Henley insisted he gave Sanders only access to the documents, not permanent possession of them, in the hopes that a firsthand view of “the time and effort that went into” the lyrics would improve the book.
He said he told Sanders he could look at the pages, ideally at a breakfast table in an apartment upstairs from the barn.
“I never gave him permission to keep those items,” Henley said.
At issue are about 100 sheets of legal-pad paper inscribed with lyrics-in-the-making for multiple songs on the “Hotel California” album, including “Life in the Fast Lane,” “New Kid in Town” and the title track that turned into one of the most durable hits in rock. Famed for its lengthy guitar solo and puzzlingly poetic lyrics, the song still gets streamed hundreds of millions of times a year.
The defendants — rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz and rock memorabilia specialists Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski — have pleaded not guilty to charges including criminally possessing stolen property. Their lawyers say there was nothing illegal in what happened to the lyrics sheets.
The defense has signaled that it plans to question Henley, 76, about how clearly he remembers his conversations with Sanders during an era in which the rocker was living in his own fast lane. In an apparent attempt to defuse some of those questions, a prosecutor brought up Henley’s 1980 arrest.
Henley pleaded no contest in 1981 to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, after authorities found cocaine, quaaludes, marijuana and a 16-year-old sex worker naked and suffering from an overdose at his Los Angeles home the prior November. He was sentenced to probation and a $2,500 fine, and he requested a drug education program to get some possession charges dismissed.
Henley testified Monday that he’d been depressed about the Eagles 1980 breakup and had sought “an escape” by calling a sex worker.
“I made a poor decision which I regret to this day,” he said.
As for his memory, he said, “I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast last Friday morning, but I can tell you where we stayed when we played Wembley in 1975 and we opened for Elton John and the Beach Boys,” referring to London’s Wembley Stadium.
Sanders began working with the Eagles in 1979 on a band biography that never made it into print. He sold the documents to Horowitz, who sold them to Kosinski and Inciardi. Kosinski has a rock ‘n’ roll collectibles auction site; Inciardi was then a curator at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
In a 2005 email to Horowitz, Sanders said Henley’s assistant had sent him the documents for the biography project, according to the indictment.
Henley reported them stolen after Inciardi and Kosinski began in 2012 to offer them at various auctions.
Henley also bought four pages back for $8,500 in 2012. He testified that he resented having to buy back what he contends was his own property. But he said he saw it as “the most practical and expedient” way to get the auction listing, which contained photos of the lyrics sheets, off the internet.
Kosinski’s lawyers, however, have argued that the transaction implicitly recognized his ownership.
Meanwhile, Horowitz and Inciardi started ginning up alternate stories of how Sanders got hold of the manuscripts, Manhattan prosecutors say.
Among the alternate stories were that they were left behind backstage at an Eagles concert, that Sanders received them from someone he couldn’t recall, and that he got them from Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, according to emails recounted in the indictment. Frey had died by the time Horowitz broached that last option in 2017.
Sanders contributed to or signed onto some explanations, according to the emails. He hasn’t responded to messages seeking comment about the case.
Kosinski forwarded one of the various explanations to Henley’s lawyer, then told an auction house that the rocker had “no claim” to the documents, the indictment says.
Henley has been a fierce advocate for artists’ rights to their work. Since the late 1990s, he and a musician’ rights group that he co-founded have spoken out in venues from the Supreme Court to Congress about copyright law, online file-sharing and more. As recently as 2002, Henley testified to Congress to urge copyright law updates to fight online piracy.
Henley also sued a Senate candidate over unauthorized use of some of the musician’s solo songs in a campaign spot. Another Henley suit hit a clothing company that made t-shirts emblazoned with a pun on his name. Both cases ended in settlements and apologies from the defendants.
Henley also testified to Congress in 2020, urging copyright law updates to fight online piracy.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler of sexually assaulting a teenage girl decades ago, ruling that she had waited too long to bring her case.
Former teen model Jeanne Bellino sued the rocker in November, claiming he had forcibly kissed, groped and “humped” her twice over a single day in Manhattan in the summer of 1975. The case was filed under a recently-amended New York City law that allows abuse victims to sue over decades-old claims.
But in a ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Bellino’s case did not qualify under the new statute. He ruled that the special “lookback” window only applies to cases where the abuser’s actions presented a “serious risk of physical injury” – and that Tyler’s alleged actions did not do so.
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“The complaint in this case does not alleged conduct presenting a serious risk of physical injury and therefore fails to state a legally sufficient claim under the [NYC statute],” the judge wrote.
Wednesday’s ruling could be legally significant. Numerous other alleged victims who have filed long-delayed abuse cases under the law in question — New York’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law – after it opened a two-year window for such lawsuits from March 1, 2023 to March 1, 2025.
Bellino sued in November, claiming she had suffered “severe and permanent emotional distress” over the incidents, which allegedly occurred when she was 17 and Tyler was 27. “Tyler used his power, influence, and authority as a well-known musician to sexually assault Plaintiff.”
In her complaint, Bellino claimed that she and a friend had arranged to meet Aerosmith in Manhattan. First, she said that Tyler pushed her into a phone booth and “stuck his tongue down her throat” before groping her and “humping her pretending to have sex with Plaintiff.” After she returned to a hotel with the band later in the day, she claimed that Tyler “again pinned Plaintiff against the wall” and forcibly kissed and groped her.
Tyler has not publicly commented on the lawsuit, but in court filings, his attorneys have said he “vehemently denies” the allegations. In their motion to dismiss the case, his lawyers argued Bellino could not use the New York City newly-enacted statute to sue over “purported sexual misconduct that occurred nearly half a century ago.”
“Ms. Bellino’s attempt to advance a claim based on legislative enactments decades after the purported misconduct occurred is contrary to the legislative intent, statutory construction, and fundamental notions of individual liberty and due process embedded in both the state and federal constitutions,” Tyler’s lawyers wrote in a motion earlier this month.
Wednesday’s ruling from Judge Kaplan granted that motion, dismissing the lawsuit. But the judge said Bellino could potentially seek to file an updated version of her case; he gave her until next month to request the right to do so. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Thursday.
The lawsuit was the second abuse case against Tyler in recent years. In 2022, the rock star was sued by Julia Holcomb, who claims that Tyler repeatedly assaulted her for three years starting in 1973, when she was just 16 years old. Holcomb claims to be the girl Tyler referred to in his memoir, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, when he wrote he “almost took a teen bride” and convinced her parents to grant him guardianship over her.
Holcomb’s case, filed in Los Angeles under a different look-back statute, remains pending. Tyler has denied those allegations, too, and his lawyers are seeking to have the case dismissed.
A new sexual assault lawsuit has been filed against Nigel Lythgoe, this time by an unidentified woman who claims the former American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer forcibly touched her in 2016.
The suit, filed on Saturday in Los Angeles Superior Court, is the latest against Lythgoe accusing him of sexual misconduct and abuse. After Paula Abdul sued the producer in December over two separate incidents of sexual assault, a pair of unnamed contestants on “AAG,” which is believed to be a reference to reality series All American Girl cited in a complaint from the women, came forward with accusations that he made unwanted sexual advances and groped them inside his Los Angeles home in 2003. That second suit was filed in January against a defendant with the initials “N.L.,” which multiple outlets identified as the producer.
Lythgoe stepped back from his on-camera and behind the scenes roles on SYTYCD in the wake of the allegations. The producer did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.
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The suit says the accuser met Lythgoe at a hotel in Beverly Hills and that he “insisted” on driving her home. The complaint describes the alleged assault, which took place inside his car over the course of at least ten minutes.
“Plaintiff tried to push Lythgoe away from her and instruct Lythgoe’s driver how to return to her house, but Lythgoe continued to grab at Plaintiff, fondle her breasts, and kiss her,” the suit states. “Lythgoe even shoved his hand up Plaintiff’s skirt and penetrated her genitalia.”
The woman claims the producer eventually relented once his driver arrived at her apartment after allegedly taking an unexpectedly long route. She alleges she continues to suffer severe mental anguish due to the incident.
The complaint brings claims for sexual battery, gender violence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It seeks an unspecified amount in damages.
“It is troubling to hear of yet another alleged incident of a woman being taken advantage of and abused by a prominent public figure,” said Melissa Eubanks, a lawyer for the Jane Doe plaintiff who also represents Abdul in her suit against Lythgoe, in a statement.
In her complaint, Abdul accused Lythgoe of assaulting her twice during one of the early seasons of American Idol and years later when she was a judge on SYTYCD.
“Lythgoe shoved Abdul against the wall, then grabbed her genitals and breasts and began shoving his tongue down her throat,” the suit stated.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
A federal appeals court has rejected a copyright lawsuit that claimed Nickelback ripped off its 2006 hit “Rockstar” from an earlier song called “Rock Star,” ruling that the band can’t be sued simply for using “clichés” and “singing about being a rockstar.”
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Upholding a judge’s decision last year that tossed the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Monday that Kirk Johnston had not even come close to proving that Nickelback infringed his earlier song when it released “Rockstar.”
Johnston, the lead singer of a Texas band called Snowblind Revival, had argued that the two songs have such similar lyrics that the lower judge should have ruled that they were “strikingly similar,” but the appeals court sharply disagreed.
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“Johnston’s expert categorizes the lyrics into common themes such as ‘making lots of money,’ ‘connections to famous people,’ and ‘references to sports’,” the three-judge panel wrote. “But these broad categories are mere clichés of being a rockstar that are not unique to the rock genre. Singing about being a rockstar is not limited to Johnston.”
Ditto for other lyrics about sports, the appeals court wrote. Johnston’s song included the line “Might buy the Cowboys and that’s how I’ll spend my Sundays,” while Nickelback’s song featured the line “And a bathroom I can play baseball in.”
“These lyrics reference different sports in different contexts, and do not approach the threshold of striking similarity,” the appellate judges wrote. “No reasonable juror would think that Nickelback could have produced its lyric about baseball only by copying Johnston’s lyric about football.”
Released on Nickelback’s 2005 album, All the Right Reasons, “Rockstar” has not aged well with critics. In 2008, the Guardian said the song “makes literally no sense and is the worst thing of all time.” In 2012, Buzzfeed listed it as the second-worst song ever written, citing it as an example of “why everyone hates Nickelback so much.” But the song was a commercial hit, eventually reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2007 and ultimately spending nearly a year on the chart.
Johnston sued in May 2020, claiming the hit song had stolen “substantial portions” of his own “Rock Star,” including the “tempo, song form, melodic structure, harmonic structures and lyrical themes.” In particular, he cited similar lyrics about rock star lifestyles, making huge amounts of money and having famous friends.
But in March 2023, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman that Johnston’s case at times “borders on the absurd.” He said any similarities between the two songs were just “outlandish stereotypes and images associated with being a huge, famous, rock star,” and that much of the rest of the songs were different.
“Stated simply, they do not sound alike,” the judge wrote. “Where both songs evoke similar themes, they are rendered dissimilar through the vivid detail of the original expression in Nickelback’s lyrics.”
On Monday, the Fifth Circuit upheld that decision – meaning that, barring an extremely unlikely trip to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case is over for good.
In the ruling, the appeals court also upheld another important finding: That there was zero evidence that frontman Chad Kroeger and the other members of the rock band ever heard Johnston’s earlier song. Such “access” is a key question in any copyright lawsuit; without showing “access”, an accuser like Johnston must prove that two songs are essentially identical.
In appealing that ruling, Johnston argued that his band Snowblind Revival and Nickelback were “moving in relatively the same circles,” or that UMG executives had potentially attended one of his band’s shows at an Austin concert venue. But the appeals court was unmoved, calling it “mere speculation.”
“Inferring access from this evidence would require ‘leaps of logic’ that are not supported by the record,” the appeals court wrote. “A jury would have to infer that the executives Johnston named actually attended Snowblind’s shows or received one of his demo CDs, and that these executives then showed the song to Nickelback. This “chain of hypothetical transmittals is insufficient …especially in the face of testimony from Nickelback members and relevant executives that they had never heard of Johnston’s song.”
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Wednesday.