Legal News
Page: 41
The rock band Sublime has filed a legal malpractice lawsuit against the prominent music law firm King Holmes Paterno & Soriano LLP, accusing its former attorneys of a “pattern of self-dealing” that was rife with conflicts of interest.
In a complaint filed last week in Los Angeles court, Sublime claims that Howard King, Peter Paterno and Joseph M. Carlone committed a wide range of malpractice while representing the band, including brokering a merchandise deal with one of the firm’s other clients that the band alleges cost it millions of dollars.
The lawsuit claims that King Holmes — a storied music industry law firm with a star-studded list of clients — “failed in their ethical, fiduciary, and lawyerly obligations to protect the interests of their clients.”
“Behind their façade as music industry power brokers, KHPS’ number one priority was not their client Sublime’s legal and business goals, but rather KHPS’ own financial and business interests,” the band’s new attorneys write. “Despite holding themselves out to the public as highly experienced in the business side of music, … defendants engaged in a pattern of self-dealing that was rife with potential and actual, conflicts of interest.”
When reached for comment on the allegations Thursday, Howard King told Billboard simply: “Welcome to Fantasyland. Please enjoy the ride.”
The case was filed by Sublime’s surviving members, Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh, as well as by the widow and son of Bradley Nowell, Sublime’s original lead singer who died of a drug overdose in 1996. The band’s corporate entities — Sublime Merchandising LLC and Jake And Troy Brand LLC — were also named as plaintiffs.
King Holmes Paterno & Soriano touts an eye-popping list of music industry clients, from Dr. Dre to Pharrell Williams to Blink-182 to the Tupac Shakur estate. King famously represented Williams and Robin Thicke in the “Blurred Lines” copyright case; Paterno represented Metallica in its legal battles against Napster over internet piracy.
But in its complaint, Sublime accuses King Holmes of “playing both sides” on multiple occasions. In one instance, the firm allegedly failed to disclose that it was representing both the band and former manager Dave Kaplan on the same transaction, even though the two sides had “adverse interests” in the deal. In another, the band claims that King Holmes steered the band into a merchandise deal without disclosing that the company was another one of the firm’s clients.
“Instead of negotiating the most lucrative terms for Sublime on the open market among multiple potential merchandising vendors, KHPS participated in self-dealing,” the band wrote. “KHPS misadvised SUBLIME which resulted in SUBLIME entering into an agreement with FEA, which triggered far less lucrative terms and merchandising royalties than Sublime would have otherwise gotten if they had been taken to the open market at that time.”
In another incident, Sublime claims that Paterno and Carlone failed to disclose that they had negotiated producer credits and fees for themselves on a documentary about the band, allegedly creating another undisclosed conflict of interest.
“Sublime never requested that Paterno make himself a producer, nor Carlone make himself a co producer on the documentary,” the lawsuit reads. “Paterno not only covertly insisted on and obtained this producer title and hefty sum of money, but he then shockingly billed SUBLIME thousands upon thousands of dollars in legal bills for time spent negotiating and obtaining the terms of his producer credit and fee.”
A years-long legal fight over Nirvana‘s iconic smiley face logo could be headed for a major showdown, sparked by a former record label art designer who says he, not Kurt Cobain, created the famed drawing.
Lawyers for the 1990s legends are locked in a sprawling, three-way dispute over the image, which has appeared on countless t-shirts and other merch in the years since Cobain’s death. Nirvana is suing fashion designer Marc Jacobs for using it without permission on grunge-themed apparel, while Robert Fisher — a former designer at Geffen Records — is fighting the band over who created it in the first place.
In a filing last month in Los Angeles federal court, Fisher asked for the right to take the case to a federal appeals court. He wants to challenge a decision in favor of the band, issued in December by the judge overseeing the case, that he claims would “unfairly tip the balance of equities in favor of Nirvana” in an upcoming trial.
“For justice to occur, the jury should be presented with all disputed issues of fact, not only those convenient to Nirvana,” Fisher’s lawyers wrote.
Nirvana has been in court for years over the famous drawing – a yellow smiley face with X’d-out eyes that first appeared during promotion for 1991’s Nevermind. The design eventually became something of an unofficial logo for the band, and has become particularly prominent again in recent years amid a wave of 90s nostalgia among younger music fans.
Lawyers for Nirvana’s corporate entity first sued Marc Jacobs in 2018, accusing the design house of using a look-alike image on a line of its own t-shirts and other apparel called “Bootleg Redux Grunge.” They said Jacobs had just replaced “Nirvana” with the word “Heaven” and replaced the two eyes with an “M” and a “J,” but had changed little else.
“Defendants’ use of Nirvana’s copyrighted image on and to promote its products is intentional, and is part and parcel of a wider campaign to associate the entire ‘Bootleg Redux Grunge’ collection with Nirvana, one of the founders of the ‘grunge’ musical genre,” the band’s lawyers wrote at the time.
In their initial complaint, Nirvana’s lawyers said the smiley face had been created by Cobain – the conventional wisdom for decades about the logo’s origins. But after reading media coverage of the lawsuit, Fisher jumped into the case in 2020, claiming the band’s allegations against Jacobs suffered from just one teeny-tiny flaw: “It is, in fact, Mr. Fisher, who authored the Happy Face, not Mr. Kurt Cobain.”
In legal filings, Fisher told a detailed story of how he allegedly created the design. While working as an art director at Geffen, he said he had quickly become “Nirvana’s go-to person for most of its graphic design needs.” In the summer of 1991, he says he was asked to design something more “consumer-friendly” than an existing t-shirt logo, which featured a circular illustration depicting one of the circles of hell from Dantes Inferno.
“Wanting to stick with a circular design, he started playing around with variations of the smiley faces that he used to draw in his final year at [college], when acid culture was at its peak,” Fisher’s lawyers wrote. “Ultimately, Mr. Fisher settled on an x-eyed design and added a tongue pointing sideways.”
After the lawsuit against Marc Jacobs was filed, Fisher says he originally took his story to the band, assuming it would “help” their lawyers to understand his involvement in the creation of the smiley logo. But he says he was quickly rebuffed because the “the facts” were “a serious inconvenience” to the band.
“For 30 years now, Nirvana has reaped enormous profits from Mr. Fisher’s works through the sale of a wide range of products,” his lawyers wrote in their legal filings. “Assisted by a team of lawyers and managers, Nirvana was able to do so without any compensation to Mr. Fisher by falsely claiming authorship and ownership.”
Unsurprisingly, Nirvana see things differently. The band’s lawyers have staunchly maintained that it was Cobain who had designed the image. But as an alternative, they’ve also argued something else: That even if it was Fisher who created the logo, he did done so as a “work-for-hire” for Geffen. Under the rules of copyright law, would mean that the company — and not Fisher — was the legal “author” of the work.
In December, Judge John A. Kronstadt largely agreed with Nirvana’s assessment. Fisher had argued that he’d done the logo on his own, as a side project separate from his job at Geffen. But the judge ruled that Fisher had clearly been an employee of Geffen at the time, and the task in question – designing a graphic for a Geffen-signed band – was clearly done as part of that job. “Assuming Fisher drew the Smiley,” the judge wrote, “it was a work for hire for Geffen.”
It’s that ruling that Fisher now wants to appeal. In last month’s filing, he asked Judge Kronstadt to hit pause on the case, and instead allow him to immediately challenge the decision at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In doing so, he warned the judge that his decision on the work-for-hire issue was not only “highly erroneous” – he says he created the design “as a fan of the band, outside of any of his tasks for Geffen” — but also procedurally unfair.
“It will likely be years until this lawsuit is finally resolved and Fisher is able to appeal,” his lawyers wrote. “This case would proceed to a trial where the jury would be extremely limited in the findings it could make and where it would be required to completely ignore Fisher’s position in this matter.”
Attorneys for Nirvana did not return a request for comment, but they believe no such delay is necessary. In legal filings, they’ve asked the judge to move toward settling a trial date; in private correspondence that Fisher disclosed in his filings, they were more blunt: “We are opposed. The Court’s ruling is clear, carefully considered and correct. No more delay. Let’s get the case to trial ASAP.”
Lawyers for Marc Jacobs – which obviously stands to benefit if Fisher is the true owner of the smiley face logo – declined to comment for this story. But they’ve also weighed in and, unsurprisingly, they want any talk of a trial postponed until Judge Kronstadt decides on whether Fisher can get his chance to make his case before an appeals court: “The case will only be ready for trial after Mr. Fisher’s role in that trial is determined.”
A federal judge ruled Wednesday (Jan. 31) that a tribute band sued by Earth, Wind & Fire for trademark infringement can continue to try to prove its bold counterargument: That the legendary R&B group abandoned the intellectual property rights to its name.
Faced with a lawsuit for using the name “Earth Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion” at concerts, the smaller act argued last summer that the original group had allowed plenty of other tribute bands to use its name without repercussion — so many, in fact, that it could no longer claim any exclusive legal rights to it.
Lawyers for Earth, Wind & Fire have called that argument meritless and demanded that it be dismissed, but in a decision Wednesday, Judge Federico A. Moreno refused to do so. Though he said Legacy Reunion might ultimately find it “difficult” to prove that “abandonment” argument, he said they had “done enough” to avoid having it tossed out entirely in the early stages of the case.
Earth, Wind & Fire has continued to tour since founder Maurice White died in 2016, led by longtime members Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and White’s brother, Verdine White. The band operates under a license from an entity called Earth Wind & Fire IP, a holding company owned by Maurice White’s sons that formally owns the name.
In a March lawsuit, that company accused Legacy Reunion of trying to trick consumers into thinking it was the real Earth Wind & Fire. Though it called itself a “Reunion,” the lawsuit said the tribute band contained only a few “side musicians” who briefly played with Earth, Wind & Fire many years ago.
“Defendants did this to benefit from the commercial magnetism and immense goodwill the public has for plaintiff’s ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ marks and logos, thereby misleading consumers and selling more tickets at higher prices,” the group’s lawyers wrote.
Tribute acts — groups that exclusively cover the music of a particular band — are legally allowed to operate, and they often adopt names that allude to the original. But they must be clear that they are a tribute band, and they can get into legal hot water if they make it appear that they are affiliated with or endorsed by the original. In 2021, ABBA filed a similar case against a what it called a “parasitic” band called ABBA Mania.
Facing the lawsuit filed by Earth, Wind & Fire, Legacy Reunion filed a response in August that listed out a dozen other tribute acts that allegedly feature “Earth, Wind & Fire” as part of their name. Legacy Reunion argued that since the original band had “taken no action to enforce its purported trademark rights,” it had legally abandoned them.
“Due to the unchecked third-party use of the phrase, [EW&F] has abandoned ‘Earth, Wind & Fire,’ and [the name] has lost its trademark significance,” wrote attorneys for Substantial Music Group, which operates Legacy Reunion.
In a response fired back in September, attorneys for Earth, Wind & Fire said the band had very obviously not abandoned its rights to the name, adding that the “bare allegations” made by Legacy Reunion, combined with just a “handful” of other tribute bands, falls “woefully short” of what they would need to prove.
Wednesday’s decision by Moreno rejected Earth, Wind & Fire’s motion to dismiss the abandonment argument, but it does not mean that Legacy Reunion has evaded the band’s infringement allegations. To the contrary, the smaller group must now actually prove that argument in future proceedings.
An attorney for the Earth, Wind & Fire did not immediately return a request for comment.
Showtime is facing a lawsuit over its 2022 television series centered on country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette, filed by the estate of Wynette’s late husband over allegations the show unfairly turned him into “the villain.”
The case, filed Wednesday (Jan. 31) in Delaware court, claims that “George & Tammy” conveyed a “negative and disparaging portrayal” of the late George Richey, a songwriter and producer to whom Wynette was married for decades after her split from Jones.
“The series depicts Richey as a devious husband who abused Wynette and Richey’s prior wife, facilitated and encouraged Wynette’s addiction to prescription painkillers, and engaged in financial and managerial manipulation of Wynette,” write attorneys for Richey’s daughter, Sheila Slaughter Richey.
Though the allegations sound like a defamation lawsuit, they’re not. Instead, the case actually accuses Showtime of violating a 2019 settlement agreement that allegedly barred Wynette’s daughter, Georgette Jones, from making disparaging statements about Richey.
Since George & Tammy was based on Georgette’s 2011 memoir about her parents, the lawsuit claims that Showtime committed so-called tortious interference with contract — meaning the network essentially encouraged Georgette to breach her settlement with Richey’s estate.
“The defendant [was] specifically told, in a written letter delivered prior to the broadcast of the Series, that the Series was based on and featured disparaging information that was the ill-gotten product of Georgette’s violation of the agreement,” the estate’s lawyers wrote. “Nonetheless, Showtime chose to broadcast the Series anyway.”
The case was filed by estate executor Sheila Slaughter Richey, who married Richey in 2001 after Wynette’s 1998 death, and by their son Tatum Richey. In a statement to Billboard, Sheila and Tatum’s attorney, Todd McMurtry, said the case raises “many serious issues” and that he and his clients “look forward to addressing them with the court.”
“Showtime transformed George Richey into the villain of its story, raking in profits and views,” McMurtry said. “Showtime unjustly benefitted from Georgette’s violation of her prior contractual promise to never again disparage or encourage the disparagement of the Richey family.”
A spokesperson for Showtime did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.
Released in December 2022, George & Tammy was well-received by critics — particularly Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain’s respective portrayals of Jones and Wynette. Both were later nominated for Emmy Awards for their performances.
The six-episode limited series was based on The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George, Georgette Jones’ 2011 memoir, and she’s listed in credits as a “consulting producer” on the series. In an August interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Georgette said she had “many, many conversations with the creative team” ahead of the production.
According to Wednesday’s lawsuit, Georgette was tightly restricted in what she could say about Richey. That’s because Sheila previously sued her in 2015 over allegations that she made “false accusations” about Richey and his family. That case settled in 2019, with Georgette allegedly signing a strict non-disparagement clause.
Under the terms of that deal, she agreed to not make “any statements, written or verbal, or cause or encourage others to make any statements, written or verbal, that defame, disparage, or in any way criticize the personal or business reputation practices or conduct” of Richey or his heirs.
But despite that agreement, the lawsuit claims that Showtime “repeatedly disparages” Richey inGeorge & Tammy. The lawsuit claims that in the series, Richey — portrayed by Steve Zahn — encourages Wynette’s drug addiction, is physically abusive toward her and manipulates her to maintain complete control over her career.
The lawsuit takes particular exception to the series finale. In one scene, Jones appears to find a will that Wynette has written on a yellow note pad. Later, a series of text epilogues flash on screen, telling viewers that “George Richey inherited the vast majority of her estate” and that “Tammy’s yellow note pads were never found.”
“The obvious implication is that Richey destroyed the yellow note pads that contained Wynette’s will,” the estate’s lawyers write.
When fake, sexually-explicit images of Taylor Swift flooded social media last week, it shocked the world. But legal experts weren’t exactly surprised, saying it’s just a glaring example of a growing problem — and one that’ll keep getting worse without changes to the law and tech industry norms.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The images, some of which were reportedly viewed millions of times on X before they were pulled down, were so-called deepfakes — computer-generated depictions of real people doing fake things. Their spread on Thursday quickly prompted outrage from Swifties, who mass-flagged the images for removal and demanded to know how something like that was allowed to happen to the beloved pop star.
But for legal experts who have been tracking the growing phenomenon of non-consensual deepfake pornography, the episode was sadly nothing new.
“This is just the highest profile instance of something that has been victimizing many people, mostly women, for quite some time now,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at Boston University School of Law who studies privacy and technology law.
Experts warned Billboard that the Swift incident could be the sign of things to come — not just for artists and other celebrities, but for normal individuals with fewer resources to fight back. The explosive growth of artificial intelligence tools over the past year has made deepfakes far easier to create, and some web platforms have become less aggressive in their approach to content moderation in recent years.
“What we’re seeing now is a particularly toxic cocktail,” Hartzog said. “It’s an existing problem, mixed with these new generative AI tools and a broader backslide in industry commitments to trust and safety.”
To some extent, images like the ones that cropped up last week are already illegal. Though no federal law squarely bans them, 10 states around the country have enacted statutes criminalizing non-consensual deepfake pornography. Victims like Swift can also theoretically turn to more traditional existing legal remedies to fight back, including copyright law, likeness rights, and torts like invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Such images also clearly violate the rules on all major platforms, including X. In a statement last week, the company said it was “actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” as well as “closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed.” Sunday to Tuesday, the site disabled searches for “Taylor Swift” out of “an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”
But for the victims of such images, legal remedies and platform policies often don’t mean much in practice. Even if an image is illegal, it is difficult and prohibitively expensive to try to sue the anonymous people who posted it; even if you flag an image for breaking the rules, it’s sometimes hard to convince a platform to pull it down; even if you get one pulled down, others crop up just as quickly.
“No matter her status, or the number of resources Swift devotes to the removal of these images, she won’t be completely successful in that effort,” said Rebecca A. Delfino, a professor and associate dean at Loyola Law School who has written extensively about harm caused by pornographic deepfakes.
That process is extremely difficult, and it’s almost always reactive — started after some level of damage is already done. Think about it this way: Even for a celebrity with every legal resource in the world, the images still flooded the web. “That Swift, currently one of the most powerful and known women in the world, could not avoid being victimized shows the exploitive power of pornographic deepfakes,” Delfino said.
There’s currently no federal statute that squarely targets the problem. A bill called the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act, introduced last year, would allow deepfake victims to file civil lawsuits, and criminalize such images when they’re sexually-explicit. Another, called the Deepfake Accountability Act, would require all deepfakes to be disclaimed as such and impose criminal penalties for those that aren’t. And earlier this month, lawmakers introduced No AI FRAUD Act, which would create a federal right for individuals to sue if their voice or any other part of their likeness is used without permission.
Could last week’s incident spur lawmakers to take action? Don’t forget: Ticketmaster’s messy 2022 rollout of tickets for Taylor’s Eras tour sparked congressional hearings, investigations by state attorneys general, new legislation proposals and calls by some lawmakers to break up Live Nation under federal antitrust laws.
Experts like Delfino are hopeful that such influence on the national discourse — call it the Taylor effect, maybe — could spark a similar conversation over the problem of deepfake pornography. And they might have reason for optimism: Polling conducted by the AI thinktank Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute over the weekend showed that more than 80% of voters supported legislation making non-consensual deepfake porn illegal, and that 84% of them said the Swift incident had increased their concerns about AI.
“Her status as a worldwide celebrity shed a huge spotlight on the need for both criminal and civil remedies to address this problem, which today has victimized hundreds of thousands of others, primarily women,” Delfino said.
But even after last week’s debacle, new laws targeting deepfakes are no guarantee. Some civil liberties activists and lawmakers worry that such legislation could violate the First Amendment by imposing overly-broad restrictions on free speech, including criminalizing innocent images and empowering money-making troll lawsuits. Any new law would eventually need to pass muster at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has signaled in recent years that it is highly skeptical of efforts to restrict speech.
In the absence of writing new laws that make deepfake porn even more illegal, concrete solutions will likely require stronger action by social media platforms themselves, which have created vast, lucrative networks for the spread of such materials and are in the best position to police them.
But Jacob Noti-Victor, a professor at Cardozo School of Law who researches how the law impacts innovation and the deployment of new technologies, says it’s not as simple as it might seem. After all, the images of Swift last week were already clearly in violation of X’s rules, yet they spread widely on the site.
“X and other platforms certainly need to do more to tackle this problem and that requires large, dedicated content moderation teams,” Noti-Victor said. “That said, it’s not an easy task. Content detection tools have not been very good at detecting deepfakes so far, which limits the tools that platforms can use proactively to detect this kind of material as it’s being posted.”
And even if it were easy for platforms find and stop harmful deepfakes, tech companies have hardly been beefing up their content moderation efforts in recent years.
Since Elon Musk acquired X (then named Twitter) in 2022, the company has loosened restrictions on offensive content and fired thousands of employees, including many on the “trust and safety” teams that handle content moderation. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, laid off more than 20,000 employees last year, reportedly also including hundreds of moderators. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all reportedly made similar cuts.
Amid a broader wave of tech layoffs, why were those employees some of the first to go? Because at the end of the day, there’s no real legal requirement for platforms to police offensive content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a much-debated provision of federal law, largely shields internet platforms from legal liability for materials posted by their users. That means Taylor could try to sue the anonymous X users who posted her image, but she would have a much harder time suing X itself for failing to stop them.
In the absence of regulation and legal liability, the only real incentives for platforms to do a better job at combating deepfakes are “market incentives,” said Hartzog, the BU professor — meaning, fear of negative publicity that scares away advertisers or alienates users.
On that front, maybe the Taylor fiasco is already having an impact. On Friday, X announced that it would build a “Trust and Safety center of excellence” in Austin, Texas, including hiring 100 new employees to handle content moderation.
“These platforms have an incentive to attract as many people as possible and suck out as much data as possible, with no obligation to create meaningful tools to help victims,” Hartzog said. “Hopefully, this Taylor Swift incident advances the conversation in productive ways that results in meaningful changes to better protect victims of this kind of behavior.”
A federal judge says prosecutors cannot cite rap lyrics written by Jam Master Jay’s alleged killer during his murder trial, warning that “music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
In a decision issued Tuesday, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall ruled that the lyrics prosecutors wanted to use against Karl Jordan Jr. – one about shooting a man in the head, another alluding to drugs – were not directly connected to the Run DMC star’s 2002 murder, so they couldn’t be presented to the jury.
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 gang trial in Atlanta, in which prosecutors are using Young Thug’s lyrics against him, has drawn particular scrutiny.
In that case, the judge allowed the lyrics to be used, as have most judges confronted with the issue. But on Tuesday, Judge Hall not only barred them from being cited in Jordan’s case, but offered a detailed analysis of the practice and the risks that come with it.
“Courts should be wary of overly permissive rules allowing the use of rap lyrics and videos against criminal defendants at trial,” the judge wrote. “Music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them at a trial.”
In a remarkable 14-page opinion, the judge offered a sweeping historical overview of hip hop’s past. She took readers from the genesis of hip hop in the Bronx to the present day, name-dropping Grand Master Flash, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Dr. Dre, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Future and Ice Spice along the way.
Because rappers have “played the part of storytellers, providing a lens into their lives and those in their communities,” the judge wrote, their music has often depicted “criminal conduct” and other real-life issues – something that has attracted scrutiny “not only from the public, but also from law enforcement.”
“As a result, the admissibility of rap lyrics has become the subject of dispute in courtrooms across the country,” Judge Hall wrote.
In Jordan’s case, prosecutors wanted to play a lyric in which he rapped “We aim for the head, no body shots, and we stick around just to see the body drop.” Since Jay was shot in the head, the government argued that the lyric “speaks directly to the issues in the case.”
But Judge Hall disagreed. Citing lyrics by Nas (“two in the dome, he’s laid down”) and Ice Cube (“two shots hit him in the face when they blasted”), the judge ruled that lines Jordan wrote “merely contain generic references to violence that can be found in many rap songs.”
She applied the same analysis to another lyric cited by prosecutors, in which Jordan rapped about “breaking down bricks” – an line that the government argued was an allusion to the drug charges he’s also facing. But again, Judge Hall cited other songs in which rappers say the same thing, like Migos’ 2021 track “Modern Day.”
“The members of Migos, however, do not stand accused of drug trafficking in this or any other case,” the judge wrote. “Jordan’s lyrics are simply too imprecise.”
The big problem, the judge wrote, is that rappers not only have a right to tell stories about violence and crime, but are also “increasingly incentivized to create music about drugs and violence to gain commercial success.” She warned that many “will exaggerate or fabricate the contents of their music in pursuit of that success.”
In all cases involving lyrics, Judge Hall said the core question should be whether the music has a “nexus to the criminal conduct” – meaning, a direct, literal connection to alleged crime. If prosecutors can’t show that, then lyrics should be avoided.
“Juries should not be placed in the unenviable position of divining a defendant’s guilt, in whole or in part, from a musical exposition with only a tenuous relationship to the criminal conduct alleged,” the judge wrote.
Judge Hall was careful to say that she was not banning all lyrics from cases. As a hypothetical, she referenced Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 track “The Art of Peer Pressure,” in which he raps about ripping off a house while “The sun is goin’ down” and “somebody in this room.”
“If the government wished to admit these lyrics into evidence at a subsequent trial accusing Lamar of burglarizing an occupied residence with his friends at sunset, there would be a more than sufficient basis to do so,” the judge wrote. “Individuals who choose to confess unmistakable details of their crimes should be held to those statements, to be sure.”
But Judge Hall said that was not the case with Jordan’s lyrics – nor with huge numbers of other rap songs that feature references to dark subjects.
“Themes of violence and criminality have become so prevalent within the genre that they have little, if any, probative value at trial,” the judge wrote. “It is critical that resolution of guilt and innocence emerge from evidence with a close relationship to a specific criminal act, and not be based on perceptions born from the commercial and artistic promotion of a criminal lifestyle.”
The trial over Jam Master Jay’s 2002 killing, in which Jordan and Ronald Washington stand accused of murdering the Run DMC star as payback for a failed drug deal, kicked off Monday. The proceedings are expected to run for several more weeks.
Read the entire decision here:
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 long-simmering feud between the families of Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone has erupted into a new lawsuit over a proposed Netflix biopic; Madonna’s team vows to “vigorously” fight a lawsuit over her late concert starts; a man stalking Taylor Swift is arrested three times before he’s kept behind bars; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Hey, Ho, Let’s Go … To Court
Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone — who were very much not actual brothers — didn’t like each other much in life. And guess what? Their heirs don’t like each other much either.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan court, Johnny’s widow, Linda Ramone, sued Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh, over allegations that he had “covertly” developed a planned Netflix movie starring Pete Davidson as Joey. She says that any movie based on the pioneering punk band requires her sign-off.
“To permit defendants alone to tell the authoritative story of the Ramones would be an injustice to the band and its legacy,” Linda’s lawyers wrote.
The case is the latest in years of battles between Linda and Mickey, who split 50-50 ownership of the Ramones IP. And it raises interesting legal questions about so-called life rights deals — and how they raise unique challenges in the context of musical biopics.
To learn more, go read our full story, featuring the full backstory, legal analysis and access to the actual court docs.
Other top stories this week…
LATE DEBATE – Madonna’s management team and Live Nation responded to a high-profile lawsuit claiming the music legend harmed her fans by starting New York City concerts later than scheduled, disputing some allegations and saying they plan to “defend this case vigorously.”
TAYLOR’S STALKER HELD IN JAIL – David Crowe, the man charged with stalking Taylor Swift outside her Manhattan home, was ordered by a New York judge to remain in custody after he was arrested for a third time shortly after being released from jail the first time.
JAM MASTER JAY MURDER TRIAL – Two men accused of murdering Run-DMC‘s Jam Master Jay, Karl Jordan, Jr. and Ronald Washington, finally headed to trial this week, more than 21 years after the rap icon’s killing. Prosecutors say the two men killed Jay as payback after a failed cocaine deal; if convicted, they each face the possibility of life in prison.
JIMI HENDRIX ROYALTIES CASE – A London judge issued a ruling that the heirs of Jimi Hendrix’s former bandmates could continue to sue Sony Music over the rights to three classic albums, clearing the way for a trial next year to resolve the contentious lawsuit.
RIDESHARING … A GLOCK? – Chicago rapper Lil Zay Osama was indicted on two federal charges of illegal firearm possession after he allegedly left an automatic Glock pistol in the back of an Uber after a ride in New York City.
50 CENT SUED OVER MIC TOSS – The rapper was hit with a civil lawsuit over an incident last summer in which he was captured on video throwing a microphone at a concert, filed by a Los Angeles radio host who says she was struck by the mic and suffered “severe and permanent injuries.”
FUGEE LAWYER LEAKS – David Kenner, the attorney who unsuccessfully represented Fugees rapper Pras Michel in his criminal trial case year, pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt charge over allegations that he leaked grand jury materials to reporters ahead of the trial. The lawyer was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation and will have to pay a fine.
KAT VON D CLEARED – A jury found that celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D did not violate a photographer’s copyrights when she used his portrait of Miles Davis as the basis for a tattoo she put on the arm of a friend, capping off a closely-watched case against the LA Ink star.
A judge on Monday rejected Cher’s request that her adult son be put into a court conservatorship controlling his money.
The Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer and actor had argued in a petition that 47-year-old Elijah Blue Allman’s large payments from the trust of his late father, rocker Gregg Allman, are putting him in danger because of his struggles with mental health and substance abuse.
But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica A. Uzcategui was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed and declined the petition, though she will still consider a larger, long-term conservatorship at a hearing in March.
Cher observed the hearing remotely. She appeared on a large screen in the courtroom throughout, but did not take part in the arguments.
Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
“We are thrilled that the court saw that he does not need a temporary conservatorship,” Allman’s lawyer said as he stood alongside him outside the courthouse. “He’s got a lot of support, he’s doing great.”
Cher’s attorneys argued that the support Allman was getting was from people who tell him what he wants to hear and downplay the size of his problems. They said his current apparent sobriety and mental health were illusory. They said he suffers from bipolar disorder, has been recently homeless, and that having large amounts of money might lead to access to drugs that could endanger his life.
Blue and his attorneys have consistently argued since the petition was first filed in December that none of this is true.
Uzcategui had already signaled at a hearing on January 5 that she wasn’t inclined to establish a conservatorship, delaying the decision until Monday because documents had not been shared in time with Allman’s attorneys.
Cher’s attorneys said that she was not necessarily seeking any direct control over Allman’s money, and would be happy to have a court-appointed fiduciary manage his finances. They did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the judge’s decision.
Court conservatorships, known as guardianships in some states, have come under far greater scrutiny in recent years after a temporary conservatorship imposed on Britney Spears in 2008 would end up leaving her without control of her money and major life affairs for nearly 14 years.
A contentious lawsuit over Jimi Hendrix’s music is going to trial, after a London judge ruled that the heirs of his former bandmates could continue to sue Sony Music over the rights to three classic albums.
The estates of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell say they own a share of the rights to three albums created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience, and they’ve been battling in court for more than two years to prove it.
Sony had argued that the case should be dismissed because Redding and Mitchell both signed away their rights in the early 1970s shortly after Hendrix died, but a judge on London’s High Court ruled Monday that the dispute – over “arguably the greatest rock guitarist ever” — must be decided at trial.
“My overall conclusion is that the claims in respect of copyright and performers’ property rights survive and should go to trial,” Justice Michael Green wrote in his ruling, obtained by Billboard. The judge wrote that Redding and Mitchell’s heirs had “a real prospect of succeeding” on their argument that the decades-old releases “do not provide a complete defence” for Sony.
It’s unclear when the trial will take place. A rep for Sony did not immediately return a request for comment on the court’s decision. An attorney for the Hendrix estate, which is not formally a party to the U.K. case, did not immediately return a request for comment.
In a statement to Billboard, Redding and Mitchell’s attorneys said the ruling would mean “we can hopefully obtain some justice for the families” of the two musicians. “No one is denying that Jimi Hendrix was one of, if not, the greatest guitarist of all time. But he didn’t make his recordings alone, and they could not have achieved any success without the contributions of Noel and Mitch.”
Hendrix teamed up with Redding and Mitchell in 1966 to form the Experience, and the trio went on to release a number of now-iconic songs before Hendrix’s death, including “All Along The Watchtower,” which spent nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and peaked at No. 20.
The current fight kicked off in 2021, when Redding and Mitchell’s heirs sent a letter in the U.K. claiming they own a stake in Hendrix’s music and arguing that they’re owed millions in royalties. Hendrix’s own estate and Sony responded a month later by preemptively suing in New York federal court, aiming to prove they were in sole control of the music. Redding and Mitchell’s heirs then filed their own case against Sony in British court.
The transatlantic dispute centers on agreements that Redding and Mitchell signed in New York in 1973 to resolve litigation after Hendrix died suddenly at the age of 27. In the settlement, the two men agreed not to sue Jimi’s estate and any record companies distributing his music in return for one-time payments — $100,000 paid to Redding and $247,500 to Mitchell.
Sony and the Hendrix estate have argued in court filings that those “broad releases” prohibit Redding and Mitchell’s heirs from making any legal claim to the band’s music. The heirs, on the other hand, say the two men died in poverty and that they’re legally entitled under U.K. law to a cut of the lucrative Hendrix Experience music they helped create.
On Monday, Justice Green did not rule on that core dispute, saying he “cannot decide those contentious issues” about the power of the release agreements signed by Redding and Mitchell. Instead, he ruled simply that there are “sustainable arguments on such issues that will have to be decided at a trial.”
In statement, a rep for the Redding and Mitchell estates said they looked forward to the trial. “Noel and Mitch died in penury despite being two thirds of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and owning the copyright in the recordings jointly with Jimi,” Edward Adams said. “We see our case as carrying a torch for Noel, in particular, who spent over three decades seeking justice.”
The trial will come after years of jockeying over whether the dispute should be heard first in American or British courts. In May, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the English litigation could take precedence, citing the fact that it had kicked off nearly a month earlier than the American case, and that a British appeals court had already ruled that their case could move forward. The U.S. case, filed in Manhattan federal court, is currently paused.
Two men accused of murdering Run-DMC‘s Jam Master Jay will finally head to trial Monday (Jan. 29), more than 21 years after the rap icon’s killing.
Karl Jordan, Jr. and Ronald Washington, who were charged with Jay’s long-unsolved 2002 murder in 2020, will stand trial at a Brooklyn federal courthouse. Prosecutors say the two men killed Jay as payback after a failed cocaine deal; if convicted, they each face the possibility of life in prison.
Following the selection of a jury last week, opening statements are slated to begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday. The trial, before U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, is expected to run for a month.
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 2002 killing 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.
According to charging documents and statements by prosecutors, Washington and Jordan broke into Jay’s studio on the night of Oct. 30, 2002. Washington allegedly initially pointed a gun at another individual in the studio; as he was doing so, Jordan allegedly fired two shots, one of which struck Jay in the head at close range, killing him almost instantly.
The motive for the killing was allegedly a drug deal gone bad. Prosecutors say Jay had arranged to purchase 10 kilograms of cocaine that would be distributed in Maryland by Washington, Jordan and others. When Jay backed out of the deal, prosecutors say, the two decided to kill him.
“The defendants allegedly carried out the cold-blooded murder of Jason Mizell, a brazen act that has finally caught up with them thanks to the dedicated detectives, agents and prosecutors who never gave up on this case,” prosecutors said at the time. “The charges announced today begin to provide a measure of justice to the family and friends of the victim, and make clear that the rule of law will be upheld, whether that takes days, months, or decades.”
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.
Ahead of the trial, Jordan and Washington argued that prosecutors waited too long to charge them, meaning they wouldn’t be able to properly defend themselves. For instance, Jordan said cell phone records that would support his alibi were no longer available, and that key witnesses would have trouble remembering information.
But in September 2022, the federal judge overseeing the case rejected those arguments, calling them “speculative” and unsupported by evidence: “The court has no idea what Jordan believes the phone records contain, how they could conceivably contradict the Government’s evidence, and how those contradictions could conceivably demonstrate that Jordan did not commit the crime.”