Legal News
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Tony Bennett’s daughters have expanded their legal battle against their older brother, claiming in a new lawsuit that he has “abused” his power over the late singer’s affairs to “enrich himself.”
Echoing allegations from a separate case they filed last year, Antonia and Johanna Bennett accuse D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett of “improper and unlawful conduct” in his role as trustee of the family estate, both before and after the legendary singer’s 2023 death.
They say the legal action is necessary to “protect their father’s wishes,” which were that all four of his children “be treated equally.”
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“Since Tony’s death, Johanna and Antonia have discovered that Danny exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain,” attorneys for the Bennett sisters write in the Monday filing.
Among other allegations, Antonia and Johanna say Danny paid himself “excessive and unearned commissions” and gave “substantial loans and gifts to himself and his children” prior to the singer’s death: “Danny engaged in these improper transactions without accountability or oversight of any kind, freely using and controlling Tony’s assets and trust assets often as if they were Danny’s own.”
Antonia and Johanna first sued Danny in a petition filed last summer in the same New York court, but that case sought only to force Danny to open the books for the family trust. The new filing is more of an outright lawsuit, accusing him of various forms of wrongdoing and is seeking monetary damages.
An attorney for Danny did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations Tuesday.
In court filings in the earlier case, Danny’s lawyers have argued that he was “fully authorized to take the steps he took” and that Bennett had “specifically excluded his daughters from ever having any role in such matters after his death.” They also say he has been “fully transparent” about the details of the Iconoclast deal, including providing them with the full agreement and a detailed breakdown of income.
“The undisputed facts establish that Tony provided Danny with authority to manage his affairs and business opportunities, and that Danny did so honestly and in an appropriate manner,” his attorney wrote in a February filing seeking to dismiss the case. “Ironically, Petitioners, despite their baseless complaints, are the beneficiaries of Danny’s hard work and devotion to his father.”
Like the earlier case, Monday’s lawsuit repeatedly references last year’s sale of Bennett’s likeness rights and other intellectual property to the firm Iconoclast. Antonia and Johanna say Danny earned millions from that deal and had “clear conflicts of interest” when he executed it, but has refused to provide them with a clear accounting of the proceeds or other key information about the sale.
“Danny’s explanation for the timing and reasons for the Iconoclast transaction contradict the financial information Danny has provided and fail to establish in any way that the transaction was appropriate, properly valued, free of conflicts of interest and improper self-dealing, and in the best interest of the beneficiaries,” attorneys for the daughters write.
Iconoclast is not accused of any wrongdoing in the lawsuit. The company, which describes itself as “dedicated to preserving and growing the legacy of culturally significant artists,” did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The daughters also claim that Danny mishandled Bennett’s physical property after his death, doing so in a “malicious and retaliatory manner” simply because they had asked for more transparency into the financial affairs.
“Danny prohibited Johanna and Antonia from retaining certain items that are priceless to them, and he kept them from even entering Tony’s apartment to see these items for a prolonged period of time,” their lawyers write. “Danny also discarded items of tremendous sentimental value to Johanna and Antonia without notice.”
Dua Lipa won a ruling Thursday (March 27) dismissing a copyright lawsuit claiming she copied her smash hit song “Levitating” from two different decades-old songs.
The case, filed in 2022 by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, accused Lipa of ripping off their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and their 1980 song “Don Diablo.” The lawsuit was one of two high-profile copyright cases filed over “Levitating,” a massive hit that spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.
In her decision, Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that Lipa’s song shared only generic elements with Brown and Linzer’s songs — the kind of basic musical building blocks that are not covered by federal copyright law and cannot be owned by any one songwriter.
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“The court finds that a musical style, defined by plaintiffs as ‘pop with a disco feel,’ and a musical function, defined by plaintiffs to include ‘entertainment and dancing,’ cannot possibly be protectable,” the judge wrote. “To hold otherwise would be to completely foreclose the further development of music in that genre or for that purpose.”
The judge said that some of the material Brown and Linzer claimed Lipa stole — like a “patter style” featuring rapid singing of one syllable per note — had been “used for centuries” and existed in operas by Mozart and operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan. The judge said another allegedly infringing element, a rapid tempo, was also “common” and had appeared identically in “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees.
“It is possible that a ‘layperson’ could listen to portions of plaintiffs’ and defendants’ songs and hear similarities,” the judge said. “But … the similarity between the works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the plaintiffs’ work.”
In a statement to Billboard, an attorney for Brown and Linzer said they “respectfully disagree” with the decision and would file an appeal.
“This case has always been about standing up for the enduring value of original songwriting, and we continue to believe in the strength of Mr. Brown and Mr. Linzer’s creative legacy,” attorney Jason T. Brown said. “There’s a growing disconnect between how these cases are decided — by academically analyzing briefs, bar lines, and musical notation — versus how audiences actually experience music.”
An attorney for Lipa did not immediately return a request for comment.
Released on Dua Lipa’s 2020 album Future Nostalgia, “Levitating” spent a whopping 41 weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100 — the longest ever such run for a female artist — and was later named the No. 1 Hot 100 song of 2021.
In early 2022, the star was sued over the track twice, both over accusations that she had lifted key elements from earlier songs. The first lawsuit came from a Florida reggae band named Artikal Sound System, which claimed Lipa lifted the core hook for her song from their 2015 “Live Your Life.” That case was dropped in 2023 after Lipa’s attorneys won a key early-stage ruling.
The second case came from Brown and Linzer, who alleged that Lipa had stolen the melody that starts just a few seconds into her song, when Lipa begins singing, “If you wanna run away with me…” They called it a “duplicate” of their own songs.
But in Thursday’s ruling, Judge Failla said that claim was merely over “a descending chord and the one additional note” — a “combination of two unprotectable elements” that she said are “not sufficiently numerous or original to constitute an original work entitled to copyright protection.”
In reaching that conclusion, the judge heavily cited from recent litigation against Ed Sheeran over accusations that his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On.” That case also ended with a ruling that Sheeran had used only common, unprotectible elements.
Latin music executive Angel Del Villar was convicted by a federal jury Thursday (March 27) on felony charges of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels, setting the stage for a potential decades-long prison sentence.
Jurors found the Del Records CEO guilty on 10 counts of violating the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, a federal law that bars U.S. residents from doing business with known drug traffickers, as well as one conspiracy charge, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles told Billboard on Thursday.
Prosecutors alleged that Del Villar repeatedly arranged concerts with Jesus Pérez Alvear, a Guadalajara-based promoter who allegedly had ties to Mexican cartels. At trial this week, regional Mexican superstar Gerardo Ortiz took the stand to testify against Del Villar, saying he had seen Pérez Alvear at the Del Records offices and had himself performed at one of the promoter’s concerts.
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As reported by Rolling Stone, attorneys for Del Villar argued during opening statements last week that he had been “manipulated” into working with Pérez Alvear by a “trusted” former employee named Brian Gutierrez, who they say assured him that it was legal. They argued that Gutierrez was a paid informant for the FBI who had helped the feds “manufacture a gotcha situation” to “take down” Del Villar.
After eight days of trial, those defense arguments clearly did not sway the jury, which handed down guilty verdicts against both Del Villar and his Del Entertainment Inc. Following the verdict, Del Villar will face sentencing in August; under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, he could face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, though he could also receive far less than that.
Attorneys for Del Villar did not immediately return a request for comment.
Founded by Del Villar in 2008, Del Records later grew into a top record company for regional Mexican music. The label was home to música mexicana supergroup Eslabon Armado, whose global hit, “Ella Baila Sola” with Peso Pluma, became one of the biggest songs of 2023, as well as Lenin Ramirez and other chart-topping artists.
But in June 2022, Del Villar, 41, CFO Luca Scalisi, 56, and Del Records itself were all charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Passed in 1999, the law allows the U.S. to impose targeted sanctions on foreign individuals involved in the illegal drug trade and ban U.S. residents from doing business with them.
The U.S. Treasury Department added Pérez Alvear to the sanctions list in 2018, claiming he and his company, Gallistica Diamante, had helped cartels “exploit the Mexican music industry to launder drug proceeds and glorify their criminal activities.” According to court records, he has since died.
Prosecutors said Del Villar and Scalisi used Pérez Alvear to arrange four Mexican concerts for an undisclosed Del Records artist, then accepted nearly $200,000 in payments from him, all while aware that he had been sanctioned. Charging documents cite a never-sent Del Records press release acknowledging that status, as well as private messages in which Scalisi noted that Pérez Alvear was “under homeland security watch” and Del Villar was directly told that Pérez Alvear was “a sanctioned US person.”
Following this month’s trial for Del Villar, Scalisi will face his own jury trial in July on similar charges.
Ye (formerly Kanye West) is facing a lawsuit claiming he sampled a song by German singer-songwriter Alice Merton despite her refusal to license it — a move she says “shocked and humiliated” her because she’s the descendant of Holocaust survivors.
In a copyright case filed Monday (March 26) in federal court, attorneys for Merton say Ye prominently used clips from her 2022 track “Blindside” in his 2024 song “Gun to My Head” with Ty Dolla $ign and Kid Cudi, even after she had expressly refused to clear the sample.
When contacted by Ye’s reps last year, Merton says she and her publisher told them that they were denying him a license because “the artist’s values are contrary to our values” — a reference to the star’s antisemitic statements over the years.
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“Although defendants’ use of plaintiffs’ song could potentially bring in significant revenue, [she] was unwilling to compromise her personal beliefs and wanted not to be associated with Ye in any Manner,” her lawyers write. “Merton is a German resident who has close ties to the Holocaust through Jewish family members who survived its horrors, and as such feels closely connected to it.”
Merton’s new lawsuit is one of more than a dozen such cases filed against Ye during his career over claims of unlicensed sampling or interpolating. The controversial rapper has faced nine such infringement cases since 2019 alone, including a high-profile battle with the estate of Donna Summer that settled last year.
In Monday’s complaint, Merton says she is the “direct descendant of Holocaust survivors” — and that she was thus “understandably shocked and humiliated” when the song was released featuring his music: “Merton’s name was suddenly appearing everywhere, with claims that the song was a collaboration between YE, Cudi, and Merton.”
Making matters worse, Merton says that when the song was not included on Ye’s Vultures 2 album, fans blamed her and began harassing her to approve the sample.
“Plaintiff Merton began receiving death threats and abuse from Defendants’ fan base,” he lawyers write. “Defendant did nothing to stop the abuse, allowing his fans to intimidate and harass Plaintiff Merton.”
A spokesperson for Ye could not immediately be located for comment on Wednesday (March 26).
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: Miley Cyrus can’t escape a copyright lawsuit claiming she stole her “Flowers” from a Bruno Mars song; more drama in Drake’s lawsuit against UMG over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”; Mariah Carey wins a copyright lawsuit over “All I Want For Christmas Is You”; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Miley Can’t Wreck “Flowers” Copyright Case
When Miley Cyrus was sued last year, accused of ripping off her chart-topping “Flowers” from the Bruno Mars song “When I Was Your Man,” it wasn’t Mars or any of the song’s co-writers who filed the case. Instead, it was a financial entity called Tempo Music Investments, which had bought out the rights of co-writer Philip Lawrence.
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Does that matter? Miley’s attorneys certainly thought it did, arguing in a motion to dismiss that it represented a “fatal and incurable defect” in the lawsuit. But in a ruling this week, a federal judge rejected that argument, calling it “incorrect” and a “misunderstanding” of legal precedent.
In doing so, the judge warned that restricting entities that buy partial copyrights from enforcing them in court — a major issue in the music industry after a years-long catalog acquisition bonanza — would be a radical shift in the legal landscape with major economic consequences.
“Such a limitation would diminish the value of jointly owned copyrights, because buyers would be less interested in purchasing a copyright that they cannot enforce, thereby disincentivizing co‐authorship and collaboration in works,” the judge wrote. “This would undermine Congress’s intent.”
For more on the ruling, go read our entire story here, including the full ruling issued last week.
Other top stories this week…
MORE DRAKE v. UNIVERSAL – UMG asked a judge to halt all discovery in Drake’s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” arguing that he was unfairly demanding “highly commercially sensitive documents” — including Lamar’s record deal. The star’s lawyers fired back just days later, arguing discovery should continue because they would likely win the case, noting that “millions of people” around the world think Kendrick was literally calling Drake a pedophile.
CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY – A federal judge dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Mariah Carey that accused her of stealing key elements of her perennial holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” from a little-known 1989 song of the same name by an artist named Vince Vance. In doing so, the judge endorsed reports by musicologists who said the two tracks were “very different songs” that shared only “commonplace Christmas song clichés” that had been used in many earlier tracks.
LIMP LITIGATION – A federal judge shook up Limp Bizkit’s $200 million lawsuit against UMG, sending much of the contentious legal battle to state court but reviving some of its key accusations. In an earlier ruling, the judge had outright rejected the band’s “rescission” demand seeking to void its contracts with the music giant; in the new decision, the judge left that question open for a future ruling by a state court. The ruling means that the band’s copyright infringement allegations, which carry the potential for a large damages award, are also back in play.
LIVE NATION SETTLEMENT – The concert giant agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it failed to warn investors about the kind of anticompetitive behavior that ultimately led to the Justice Department’s sweeping antitrust case. Plaintiffs’ lawyers say the deal provides a “fair, reasonable, and adequate result” from the lawsuit, which claimed Live Nation saddled shareholders with significant losses because it didn’t disclose the “regulatory risks it was currently facing” before news of the big antitrust case was made public.
DIDDY DECISION – A federal judge dismissed racketeering accusations and other claims against Sean “Diddy” Combs in a civil lawsuit filed by former collaborator Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, ruling that the music producer failed to meet the legal requirements to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. But the judge also allowed other parts of Jones’ sexual abuse lawsuit to move forward, including claims that Combs sexually assaulted him.
BUZBEE WITHDRAWAL – Elsewhere in the world of Diddy, attorney Tony Buzbee withdrew from 15 abuse lawsuits in New York federal court, two days after telling a judge he had “made an error in judgment” by failing to disclose that he was not admitted to practice law in that court. Buzbee, who has filed more than 20 Combs cases and fought an acrimonious battle with Jay-Z, said his admission problems had “become a distraction” from the allegations in his cases.
DERULO TRIAL AHEAD – A federal judge ruled that Jason Derulo must face a jury trial over allegations that he improperly failed to credit or pay a co-writer named Matthew Spatola on the chart-topping hit “Savage Love.” Seeking to dismiss the case, Derulo had argued that Spatola didn’t deserve a stake in the copyright just because he was present for a few studio sessions, but the judge said jurors might see things differently. A trial is tentatively scheduled for May.
CASE DISMISSED – Showtime won a ruling dismissing a lawsuit by a woman who claimed George & Tammy — a TV series about country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette — unfairly turned her late husband George Richey, who was previously married to Wynette, into “the villain.” The show might have been “unflattering” to him, the judge said, but the accuser didn’t meet the legal requirements for her to sue Showtime for unjust enrichment: “Normally, a plaintiff who cries unjust enrichment must have actually enriched somebody,” the judge wrote.
EMINEM LEAK CHARGES – Federal prosecutors charged Joseph Strange, a longtime former employee of Eminem, with criminal copyright infringement over allegations he leaked the rapper’s unreleased music on the internet. In charging documents, the feds said Strange played or distributed over 25 songs online without Eminem’s or his label’s consent: “The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem’s artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated,” the rapper’s spokesman said.
“MAFIA-LIKE ORGANIZATION” – Eugene “Big U” Henley Jr., who helped launch the late Nipsey Hussle‘s career, was hit with a federal criminal case that claims he ran the Rollin’ 60s Neighborhood Crips as a “mafia-like” group despite outwardly posing as an anti-gang activist and music executive. Among other allegations, the feds say Henley was responsible for the murder of a 21-year-old aspiring rapper who was signed to his Uneek Music label.
A federal judge has dismissed civil racketeering accusations and other claims filed against Sean “Diddy” Combs by former collaborator Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, though he also allowed parts of the music producer’s sexual abuse lawsuit to move forward.
In a decision issued Monday, Judge J. Paul Oetken ruled that Jones could not sue Diddy and others under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – the federal “RICO” law often used against the Mafia and the same statute prosecutors are citing in their criminal case against Combs.
The judge said Jones hadn’t shown that the alleged illegal “enterprise” operated by Diddy – the kind of illicit operation outlawed by RICO – had directly caused the star to renege on paying Jones for his work Combs’ Love Album.
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“The court cannot identify any such causal link,” Oetken wrote. “Defendants’ alleged sex, drug, and gun trafficking activities — the vast majority of the predicate acts pleaded in the operative complaint — did not foreseeably or naturally preclude defendants from honoring their recording contract with Jones.”
Monday’s ruling dismissed the RICO charge against Combs, his chief of staff Kristina Khorram and his businesses. The judge also dismissed Jones’ breach of contract claim and several claims emotional distress, finding them legally deficient.
But Oetken allowed several other key accusations to proceed, including sex trafficking, sexual assault and the claim that Combs is liable for an alleged assault perpetrated by others at his house. Those claims will now proceed into more litigation and toward an eventual trial.
Reps for the defendants and an attorney for Jones did not immediately return a request for comment. Combs has repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing; Khorram denied the accusations to CNN last week, saying she “never condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone.”
Jones sued Combs in March 2024, accusing the rapper of assaulting him while he was working as a producer on the Love Album. But the case went far beyond that, also leveling sweeping allegations about a vast RICO conspiracy involving numerous others, including not just Khorram but also Universal Music Group and CEO Lucian Grainge.
After UMG and Grainge said they would seek penalties over those “recklessly false” allegations, Jones’ attorney Tyrone Blackburn conceded that there had been “no legal basis” for filing them and asked to have them “withdrawn immediately.”
In Monday’s decision, Oetken sharply criticized Blackburn, saying he found the lawyer’s conduct in the case “unsettling.” He noted that court filings had been filled with “insults, misstatements, and exaggerations,” and said Blackburn had leveled “schoolyard taunts” at opposing lawyers.
In one incident, the judge said Blackburn had referenced the criminal case before saying Combs and his companies were “presumed guilty of being a RICO criminal organization” – an obvious inversion of the bedrock “innocent until proven guilty” standard at the heart of American criminal law.
“That any licensed member of the bar would espouse such an absurd understanding of the law is not just disturbing, but shocking,” the judge wrote Monday. “While the court will not hold Blackburn’s antics against Jones at this point, it warns Blackburn that further misconduct may lead to sanctions or to referral for discipline.”
Jones’ lawsuit is just one of dozens filed against Combs over the past year accusing him of serious sexual abuse and other wrongdoing. He’s also facing a criminal trial in May on federal RICO and sex trafficking charges; if convicted, he’s looking at a potential life prison sentence.
Ángel del Villar‘s criminal trial case could set a precedent in Latin music. The CEO of regional Mexican powerhouse label, Del Records, is accused of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels. Del Villar’s ongoing trial began on March 18 at a downtown Los Angeles federal courtroom and follows a 2022 criminal […]
Live Nation has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the company failed to warn investors about the kind of anticompetitive behavior that ultimately led to the Justice Department’s sweeping antitrust case.
In a filing Friday (March 21) in California federal court, attorneys for the plaintiffs said the deal with Live Nation would provide a “fair, reasonable, and adequate result” for thousands of investors who could be covered by the settlement. Live Nation continues to deny any wrongdoing, according to the court filings.
The case, filed in August 2023 as a proposed class action, claimed that Live Nation had failed to disclose to investors that it had engaged in anticompetitive conduct that was “likely to incur regulatory scrutiny and face fines, penalties, and reputational harm.”
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“Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and omissions of material fact about the company’s compliance with antitrust laws, its cooperation with governmental investigations, and the regulatory risks it was currently facing,” attorneys for the investors wrote.
As the government’s antitrust investigation was slowly revealed in the press — and then the blockbuster case was finally filed in May — Live Nation’s share price dropped, allegedly causing investors to face “significant” losses.
“The gradual revelation of the truth about the company’s anticompetitive conduct in violation of antitrust laws, refusal to fully cooperate with investigators, and undisclosed risks of regulatory action caused precipitous declines in the market value of the company’s stock,” attorneys for the investors wrote.
The DOJ and dozens of states filed their case in May, with the aim of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster over accusations that they form an illegal monopoly in the live music industry. The case, which remains pending, accuses the company of a wide range of wrongdoing, including coercing artists into using the company’s promotion services and retaliating against venues that opted not to use Ticketmaster.
According to the lawsuit filed by the investors, Live Nation’s stock dropped $7.92 per share, or 7.8 percent, when the feds filed their case. Even before the lawsuit was formally filed, media reports about the investigation — including that Live Nation had “stonewalled” a Senate probe — had caused similar decreases in price.
According to settlement papers submitted on Friday, experts for the investors estimated that a best-case scenario might net them a whopping $743 million in damages at the end of the lawsuit. But their lawyers said that continuing to litigate the case also posed “significant” downside risk.
“The settlement provides a favorable, immediate and guaranteed recovery and eliminates the risk, delay, and expense of continued litigation,” plaintiff’s lawyers wrote. “While a greater recovery might be a theoretical possibility, evaluating the benefits of settlement must be tempered by recognizing that any compromise involves concessions on the part of all parties.”
Under the terms of the deal, the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs will be able to seek as much as 33 percent of the settlement, meaning up to $6.6 million. The two named plaintiffs, shareholders Brian Donley and Gene Gress, will get an extra $5,000 each.
A spokeswoman for Live Nation and an attorney for the plaintiffs did not immediately return requests for comment on the settlement.
Showtime has won a ruling dismissing a lawsuit that claimed George & Tammy – a television series about country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette – unfairly turned her late husband into “the villain.”
The case, filed last year, alleged that Showtime’s series 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.
But in a decision Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Richey’s widow (Sheila Slaughter Richey) lacked the grounds to file the case. The show might have been “unflattering” to him, the judge said, but it did not meet the legal requirements for her to sue Showtime for “unjust enrichment.”
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“Normally, a plaintiff who cries unjust enrichment must have actually enriched somebody,” Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote.
In his ruling, the judge said Sheila’s dispute was really with Wynette’s daughter, Georgette Jones, who had licensed her memoir to Showtime as the basis for the series. But he suggested she had instead sued the network because of the potential for a larger judgment.
“Sheila could have sued Georgette for breaking their agreement,” Bibas wrote. “But George & Tammy had been a hit, and Showtime had presumably profited handsomely from Georgette’s breach. So instead of going after Georgette for whatever damages her breach caused, Sheila set out for bigger game.”
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.
Sheila filed her case in January 2024, claiming the show had depicted Richey as a “devious husband” who engaged in physical abuse, facilitated Wynette’s drug addiction, and committed “financial and managerial manipulation” of the late country icon.
Accusations about a harmful depiction of a real-world person would typically be filed as a defamation lawsuit, but Sheila didn’t sue Showtime for defamation. And that’s likely because she couldn’t: Under U.S. law, defamation cases can only be filed by living people, not on behalf of the deceased.
Instead, Sheila claimed the show indirectly violated a 2019 legal settlement in which Georgette promised to not make disparaging statements about Richey. Since George & Tammy was based on Georgette’s 2011 memoir about her parents, the lawsuit alleged that Showtime had been unjustly enriched by Georgette’s decision to violate her agreement with Sheila.
In Tuesday’s decision, Judge Bibas rejected that legal workaround. He ruled that Sheila had simply not met the strict requirements to sue the networek for unjust enrichment — saying that Showtime might have profited from the show, but not at Sheila’s expense.
“The crux of Sheila’s claim is that Georgette wronged her by breaching the non-disparagement agreement and Showtime profited from that wrong,” the judge wrote. “But that is not enough for unjust enrichment. Instead, a plaintiff must usually allege that she is the one who enriched the defendant.”
Sheila didn’t hand over any money to the network, Bibas said, or perform any uncompensated services. And he stressed that Showtime had also not violated any of her intellectual property rights, since she did not “own the story that Showtime used.”
“The network’s right to turn George and Tammy’s story into a TV show came from the First Amendment and from buying the rights to dramatize Georgette’s book,” the judge wrote. “So Showtime did not exploit Sheila’s property rights by making the series.”
Though he rejected the current lawsuit, the judge gave Sheila a chance to refile an updated version next month, suggesting that additional evidence might help show that the network facilitated Georgette’s decision to breach her agreement. He gave her until April 18 to file the new complaint against Showtime.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday.
Jason Derulo must face a jury trial over allegations that he improperly failed to credit or pay a co-writer of his chart-topping viral TikTok song “Savage Love,” a federal judge says.
Producer Matthew Spatola sued the singer in 2023, claiming he had been unfairly cut out of the credits and royalties after he made important contributions to Derulo’s hit song, which spent a week atop the Hot 100 in 2020.
Derulo had pushed to have the case dismissed, arguing that Spatola wasn’t entitled to a stake in the copyright just because he was present for a few studio sessions. But in a ruling Thursday, Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald said that question would need to be decided by a jury of his peers.
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“While defendants may have established by undisputed evidence that Derulo controlled the sessions, there are genuine disputes of material fact regarding whether [Spatola] is a joint author,” the judge wrote. “It is for the jury to decide how to weigh the factors.”
The ruling was hardly a slam dunk victory for Spatola, who played guitar during two of the nine sessions that led to “Savage Love.” Judge Fitzgerald repeatedly noted that it was Derulo, not Spatola, who was ultimately in charge of the creative choices behind the song.
“The uncontroverted evidence is that plaintiff made certain contributions—perhaps very important contributions—but that ultimately, Derulo accepted them or rejected them as he saw fit, and plaintiff did not have the same standing,” the judge wrote.
But the judge said creative control was only one part of the legal analysis, and that jurors could potentially by swayed by other factors – like screenshots of an Instagram conversation in which Derulo used the “prayer hands emoji” after Spatola posted about his work on the song.
“A reasonable jury could find that in this post, plaintiff publicly held himself out as a producer of Savage Love and that, instead of disputing the characterization publicly or privately, Derulo let the characterization stand,” the judge said. “Of course, a jury may also find that this is not strong evidence.”
An attorney for Derulo did not immediately return a request for comment on the ruling.
Spatola’s case is hardly the first credit controversy over “Savage Love.” Fully entitled “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat),” the song is a remix of an earlier instrumental called “Laxed (Siren Beat)” – a viral sensation on TikTok that was released by a New Zealand teen using the name Jawsh 685.
According to a report by Variety, Derulo initially engaged in talks about partnering with Jawsh, but later “went rogue” and teased his version in May 2020 before fully reaching any kind of agreement. That move sparked public backlash and private threats of legal action from Sony Music, which had by then signed Jawsh to a record deal.
The situation was seemingly resolved by late June 2020, when the song was formally released with the credits reading “Jawsh 685 x Jason Derulo.” It ultimately spent 31 weeks on the Hot 100, and another remix featuring BTS helped push the song to No. 1 in October 2020.
Spatola, a producer and musician who says he’s worked with Drake, DJ Khaled, Juice WRLD and others, filed his lawsuit in 2023 — claiming he had played a key role in creating the song but hadn’t been properly compensated.
“Derulo … unilaterally released ‘Savage Love,’ without providing any credit whatsoever to Spatola for the work they jointly created together,” his lawyers wrote. “This lawsuit is filed to right that wrong.”
Following Thursday’s decision, those accusations will now be decided by a jury. A trial, expected to run roughly 10 days, is tentatively scheduled for May.
In a statement to Billboard on Friday, Spatola’s attorneys (Thomas Werge of the Werge & Corbin Law Group and Christopher Frost of Frost LLP) praised the ruling and said they “look forward to vindicating Mr. Spatola’s rights” at the upcoming trial.
“For us it represents a resounding rejection of an attempt, through legal maneuvers, to avoid having to face trial for not providing our client with the credit he deserves,” the lawyers said. “The ruling acknowledges that the evidence supports Mr. Spatola’s claim of joint ownership, which will now be heard by a jury.”