Legal News
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This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Prosecutors move to seize R. Kelly’s funds held by Sony Music and Universal Music Publishing Group; Dua Lipa wins the first round in her copyright battle over “Levitating”; a federal judge rules that Tennessee’s anti-drag law is unconstitutional; and much more.
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THE BIG STORY: Feds Move to Seize R. Kelly’s Royalty Funds
In the wake of criminal convictions that will see him spend decades in prison, R. Kelly is also facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and restitution payments. Last week, the feds told his record label and music publisher to help him pay up.
Prosecutors in Brooklyn asked a federal judge for so-called writs of garnishment against Sony Music and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) — court orders that would compel the two companies to hand over funds tied to Kelly. The two companies are “in possession of property” belonging to Kelly, the filing said, that could be used to pay down the $504,289 he owes to victims and the government.
It’s unclear how much Sony Music and UMPG are holding in Kelly-tied money, but the feds aren’t the only ones trying to get at it.
R. Kelly victim Heather Williams, who won a $4 million civil judgment against the singer, is also seeking to tap into the Sony Music account — as is Midwest Commercial Funding, a property management company that won a separate $3.5 million ruling against Kelly over unpaid rent at a Chicago studio.
In March, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Williams had priority to the funds over Midwest Commercial Funding because she was the first to properly demand the money from Sony. But that ruling left unclear whether she’ll enjoy similar priority over federal prosecutors.
For the full story, go read the entire article, which includes access to the full legal documents filed in court.
Other top stories this week…
DUA LIPA WINS ROUND ONE – A federal judge cast serious doubts on a copyright lawsuit claiming Dua Lipa stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track by a band called Artikal Sound System, saying she’s seen no evidence that Lipa ever even heard the song she’s accused of copying.
ADIDAS DROPS YEEZY MONEY CASE – And just like that, it was over. After a whirlwind week of litigation, Adidas abruptly dropped a federal court case aimed at freezing $75 million held by Kanye West’s Yeezy brand. But the two companies will continue to battle it out in a private arbitration case, in which Adidas will likely argue that West’s “offensive conduct” caused the breakdown of their long-standing partnership.
KANYE SUED OVER PAPS CLASH – In other Kanye legal news, the embattled rapper was hit with a civil assault lawsuit over an alleged incident in which the rapper grabbed a paparazzo’s phone and threw it into traffic.
TENN. DRAG LAW RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL – A federal judge ruled that Tennessee’s first-in-the-nation law restricting drag shows violates the First Amendment, barring prosecutors in Memphis from enforcing the new statute and sending the closely-watched legal battle to a federal appeals court.
DIDDY ACCUSES BOOZE GIANT OF RACISM – Sean “Diddy” Combs filed a scathing lawsuit against alcohol giant Diageo for allegedly breaching their partnership deal for a brand of tequila, leveling accusations of racism at the company and claiming it has treated his product line “worse than others because he is Black.”
HOV WINS $7M OVER COLOGNE DEAL – A New York state appeals court sided with Jay-Z in his long legal battle against a fragrance company called Parlux over a cologne endorsement deal that went bad, ordering the company to pay him nearly $7 million in unpaid royalties.
PRODUCER ACCUSED OF HARASSMENT – A new lawsuit filed in Los Angeles claims that Grammy-nominated dance music producer and DJ Paul Oakenfold repeatedly masturbated in front of his former personal assistant. He quickly denied the accusations, calling them “a calculated attempt to tarnish my reputation and extort money.”
SHEERAN CASE HEADS TO APPEAL – A month after Ed Sheeran won a high-profile jury verdict that his “Thinking Out Loud” did not infringe Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” his copyright accusers formally launched their appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit.
INDIE ROCKERS SETTLE CEREAL SPAT – The band OK Go reached a confidential settlement to end a bizarre legal battle with Post Foods over a new line of on-the-go cereal packages called “OK Go!,” which the band believed infringed the trademark rights to its name.
K-POP INSIDER TRADING? – Three employees at the record label HYBE could reportedly be prosecuted for insider trading in South Korea for allegedly using non-public information about K-pop group BTS’ planned hiatus before the news was given to investors.
A federal judge has serious doubts about a copyright lawsuit claiming Dua Lipa stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track, saying she’s seen no evidence that Lipa ever even heard the song she’s accused of copying.
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The band Artikal Sound System sued the star last year, claiming her 2020 song – which spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart – borrowed its core hook from their 2017 tune “Live Your Life.”
But in a ruling on Monday, U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes said there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” had had “access” to the earlier song – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit.
Artikal Sound System offered a complex theory: that one of Lipa’s co-writer had previously worked with a woman who was allegedly taught guitar by the brother-in-law of one band member. But in her ruling, Judge Sykes was clearly unimpressed.
“These attenuated links, which bear little connection to either of the two musical compositions at issue here, also do not suggest a reasonable likelihood that defendants actually encountered plaintiffs’ song,” the judge wrote.
The band also claimed that the song was so widely-available that the “Levitating” writers must have heard it, citing the fact that it had been played at concerts, that they had sold “several hundred” physical CDs, and that it was available on some streaming platforms.
But Judge Sykes said those arguments were “too generic or too insubstantial” to sustain a lawsuit.
“Plaintiffs’ failure to specify how frequently they performed “Live Your Life” publicly during the specified period, where these performances took place, and the size of the venues and/or audiences precludes the Court from finding that Plaintiffs’ live performances of the song plausibly contributed to its saturation of markets in which Defendants would have encountered it,” the judge wrote.
In technical terms, Monday’s ruling dismissed the lawsuit against Lipa. But the case isn’t over: the judge ruled that Artikal Sound System could try to fix the mistakes she had identified and refiled a so-called amended complaint.
Attorneys for both sides did not return requests for comment on Tuesday.
“Levitating,” released on 2020 on Lipa’s second studio album Future Nostalgia, was a massive hit, eventually peaking at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and securing the honor of being the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the chart.
Artikal Sound System is a reggae band based out of South Florida, founded in 2012 as a duo before later adding additional musicians and vocalist Logan Rex. The band released “Live Your Life” on its 2017 EP Smoke and Mirrors.
In their March lawsuit, the band said the songs sounded so similar that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” The lawsuit also named Warner Records, as well as others who helped create the hit track.
But in November, Lipa’s lawyers made counter-arguments that were largely adopted in Monday’s ruling, claiming that the band’s efforts to show that Lipa or the other writers ever heard “Live Your Life” were “tortured” and “nothing more than a speculative.”
“Plaintiffs are essentially seeking to plead access,” the star’s legal team wrote, “by alleging that someone who knows someone who knows someone might have met one of the ‘Levitating’ writers.”
Following Monday’s decision, Artikal Sound System has until June 16 to refile their case.
Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ son, 29-year-old Justin Combs, was arrested for DUI in Los Angeles this weekend. A spokesperson for the LAPD confirmed to Billboard on Monday morning (June 5) that the younger Combs was taken into custody on Sunday morning on a misdemeanor DUI charge. At press time no additional information was available on the […]
The band OK Go has reached a confidential settlement to end a bizarre legal battle with Post Foods over a new line of on-the-go cereal packages called “OK Go!”
Just months after OK Go — a power pop band best known for its viral music videos — vowed to fight back against a “big corporation” that “chose to steal the name of our band to market disposable plastic cups of sugar to children,” attorneys for both sides asked a Minnesota federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit permanently, with each side paying their own legal bills.
The filing said that the two sides had “settled this action on terms agreeable to all parties,” but did not include specific terms of the agreement in public court records, like whether the band would be paid or if Post would change the brand name. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Friday (June 2).
The settlement will resolve an unusual legal dispute that pitted a pop band against a multinational food company, asking the question: Will consumers who see a portable snack package of Fruity Pebbles on a supermarket shelf think that a band with a similar name had endorsed it?
The fight started in September when an attorney for the band sent a cease-and-desist letter warning Post that OK Go was “surprised and alarmed” to see Post’s new product line. He claimed the name infringed the trademark rights to the band’s name since it would “suggest to consumers that OK Go is endorsing Post’s products,” or falsely imply that the cereal company had received permission to use it.
“Our client regards this matter with the utmost seriousness and has authorized us to take all steps necessary in any venue to protect its rights,” OK Go’s attorney wrote in the September letter. “If we do not hear from you within 10 days of the date of this letter, we will assume that Post does not wish to resolve this matter amicably.”
A week later, an attorney representing Post responded, saying that the company must “respectfully disagree” with the band’s accusations. The attorney argued that rock music and breakfast cereal were “clearly unrelated” products and that the phrase “OK Go” was merely a common term that had previously been used by many other companies on their products.
In January, Post took the battle to court, asking a federal judge for what’s known as a “declaratory judgment” — meaning a pre-emptive ruling that the company did nothing wrong. Post argued that the trademark rights of a rock band like OK Go don’t extend to an unrelated product like cereal and that the new cups are clearly marked with Post’s own brand names to avoid any confusion.
“Without resolution by this court, Post will be unfairly forced to continue investing in its new OK GO! brand while under the constant threat of unfounded future litigation by defendants,” the cereal company wrote in its lawsuit.
In a statement to Billboard at the time, the members of OK Go said they’d been surprised to learn of Post’s lawsuit.
“A big corporation chose to steal the name of our band to market disposable plastic cups of sugar to children. That was an unwelcome surprise, to say the least,” the band wrote. “But then they sue US about it? Presumably, the idea is that they can just bully us out of our own name, since they have so much more money to spend on lawyers? I guess that’s often how it works, but hopefully, we’ll be the exception.”
According to Post’s lawsuit, the company had offered to pay the band as part of a “good faith effort” to resolve the dispute without resorting to litigation, despite its belief that the accusations lacked legal merit. The company claimed OK Go rejected that offer and made no counter-proposal, leaving Post with no choice but to file a lawsuit.
A month after Ed Sheeran won a high-profile jury verdict that his “Thinking Out Loud” did not infringe Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” his copyright accusers have formally launched their appeal.
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The heirs of Ed Townsend — who co-wrote the iconic song with Gaye – filed a so-called notice of appeal Thursday in Manhattan federal court, the first step toward asking a federal appeals court (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) to overturn the outcome and revive their lawsuit against Sheeran.
The upcoming appellate battle will mark the next chapter in nearly seven years of litigation over “Thinking Out Loud” — a commercial and critical success that hit No. 2 on the Hot 100 before eventually winning the Grammy Award for song of the year.
In their suit, Kathryn Townsend Griffin and other Townsend heirs claimed that Sheeran had “knowingly and intentionally infringed” the earlier tune, stealing the “heart” from one of the most “instantly recognizable songs in R&B history.”
The two songs at issue in the case do sound similar, as even Sheeran has seemingly acknowledged: The star was captured on video at a 2014 concert toggling back and forth between them, drawing huge applause from the audience. But his lawyers say that’s simply because the two tracks share commonplace musical building blocks – elements that are free for all to use and cannot be “monopolized” under copyright law.
After years of delay, the case finally went to trial in April. Lawyers for the Townsends urged the jurors to “give credit where credit is due,” playing that concert video of Sheeran and calling it a “smoking gun.” But Sheeran’s lawyers, supported by testimony from the star himself that included a brief guitar performance, argued the star had done nothing wrong by using “the scaffolding on which all songwriting is built.”
On May 4, jurors sided with Sheeran, finding that he and his co-writer had independently created “Thinking Out Loud” without copying it from “Let’s Get It On” and clearing him of millions in potential legal damages.
A verdict against the singer would have reverberated throughout the music industry, much like an infamous 2015 verdict against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over their megahit “Blurred Lines,” which made musicians and companies more cautious about similar-sounding songs. Instead, his case represents the latest lawsuit in which such claims were rejected, following a 2020 ruling on Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” and a 2022 ruling on Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.”
Thursday’s motion – procedural first step in any appeal in federal court – does not include detailed arguments; those will be filed later at the Second Circuit. But they will likely include challenges to what evidence the judge allowed to be used in the case and how he conducted the trial in April. Such appeals typically face an uphill climb, particularly when a case was decided by a jury rather than by a judge.
Briefs will be filed at the Second Circuit in the coming months. It could take the court well over a year to issue a final ruling.
A paparazzo is suingKanye West over an alleged incident in which the rapper grabbed her phone and threw it into traffic, according to court documents obtained by Billboard.
Photographer Nichol Lechmanik is suing West (sometimes known as Ye) for assault, battery, negligence and interference with the exercise of her civil rights following the alleged altercation, which occurred on the afternoon of Jan. 27 outside Sports Academy in Newbury Park, Calif., per the complaint filed in California Superior Court in Ventura County on Wednesday (May 31).
Lechmanik alleges that while driving her car and filming Ye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian as she exited the facility, she noticed that West was “angrily confronting” another photographer on the street outside. “Given Defendant Ye’s reputation for violence against photographers, his history of physically harming them, and based on his threatening body language, Plaintiff became fearful for the photographer’s safety,” the complaint reads. It states that Lechmanik then began filming the incident on her phone from inside her car with the window open.
Lechmanik alleges that Ye then walked up to her car and “aggressively” said, “You all ain’t gonna run up on me like that,” and when she replied that she wasn’t, he became “enraged,” reached into her car and “ripped her phone out of her hands” before throwing it “onto the street towards oncoming traffic.”
According to the lawsuit, Lechmanik said the incident caused her “great mental, and emotional pain and suffering” and that she “anticipates incurring medical and related expenses.”
Lechmanik is requesting general and special damages, punitive and exemplary damages, civil penalties and costs of the suit. Additionally, she’s asking for an order enjoining West and “all persons acting in concert with him or acting on his behalf, from touching, striking, annoying, contacting, molesting, attacking, threatening, or otherwise interfering with…the Plaintiff, and all persons similarly situated, to pursue the occupation of photographer.”
West has a long history of legal scuffles with paparazzi that stem all the way back to 2008 when he was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after breaking the flash of a paparazzo’s camera.
Three HYBE employees could be prosecuted for insider trading in South Korea for allegedly using non-public information about K-pop group BTS’ planned hiatus before the news was given to investors, according to multiple reports out of South Korea. South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the equivalent of the Securities Exchange Commission in the U.S., […]
A former Playboy model who alleges Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her and another woman at his home in 1969 sued him Thursday under a new California law that suspends the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims.
In her lawsuit, Victoria Valentino, 80, says she was an actress and singer 54 years ago, when she met Cosby, now 85. The comedian and actor later approached her at a Los Angeles café, where he spotted her crying over the recent drowning death of her 6-year-old son.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.
Cosby offered to pay for a spa treatment for Valentino and a friend, and then sent a chauffeured car to pick the women up for dinner. That evening at a steakhouse, Cosby gave them each a pill, she said in the court filing.
“Here! Take this!” the lawsuit alleges Cosby said to them. “It will make you feel better. It will make us ALL feel better.”
Cosby then drove the women to his house, where Valentino passed out on a couch, and later woke up and witnessed him sexually assaulting her unnamed friend, according to the lawsuit. The court documents allege Cosby then “engaged in forced sexual intercourse” with Valentino while she was incapacitated from the drug.
Valentino’s allegations come on the heels of lawsuits last year by six Cosby accusers in New York under a similar provision known as a “lookback” law that allows adults to file sexual abuse cases for allegations that had fallen outside the statute of limitations.
The former “Cosby Show” star, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment by at least 60 women, has denied all allegations involving sex crimes. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era — and spent nearly three years at a state prison near Philadelphia before a higher court threw out the conviction and released him in 2021.
His spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, said Thursday that Valentino’s lawsuit lacks “any proof or facts” and that so-called lookback laws violate constitutional rights aimed at protecting crime victims and “those that are accused of a crime.”
“What graveyard can Mr. Cosby visit, in order to dig up potential witnesses to testify on his behalf?” Wyatt asked in a statement. “America is continuing to see that this is a formula to make sure that no more Black Men in America accumulate the American Dream that was secured by Mr. Cosby.”
The lawsuit in LA County Superior Court was filed nearly two years after Cosby left prison when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 sexual assault conviction. They found he gave incriminating testimony in a deposition about the encounter only after believing he had immunity from prosecution. The trial judge and an intermediate appeals court had found no evidence of such immunity.
Earlier this year, a Los Angeles jury awarded $500,000 to a woman who said Cosby sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion when she was a teenager in 1975.
Seven other accusers received a settlement from Cosby’s insurers in the wake of the Pennsylvania conviction over a defamation lawsuit they had filed in Massachusetts. Their lawsuit said that Cosby and his agents disparaged them in denying their allegations of abuse.
Valentino’s lawsuit requests a jury trial and seeks unspecified punitive damages.
Federal prosecutors are formally moving to seize R. Kelly’s money held by Sony Music and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), saying it will be used to pay victims and fulfill outstanding fines.
Two years after they won a jury verdict convicting the disgraced singer of sex trafficking and racketeering, prosecutors in Brooklyn have asked a federal judge for so-called writs of garnishment against the label and publisher — court orders that would compel the two companies to hand over funds tied to Kelly.
Sony Music and UMPG are believed to be “in possession of property” belonging to Kelly that could be used to pay down the $504,289 that he currently owes in victim restitutions and criminal fines, the feds argued.
It’s unclear how much of Kelly’s funds each company currently holds. A court ruling in March disclosed that Kelly’s royalty account with Sony held $1,544,333 as of 2020.
Neither Sony Music nor UMPG immediately returned requests for comment on the filings.
After he was sentenced last summer to 30 years in prison on the sex trafficking and racketeering charges, Kelly was ordered to pay more than $480,000 in fines and restitution. After he was sentenced again in February on separate child pornography convictions in Illinois, another $42,000 was tacked on.
Thursday’s filings are the latest efforts by the government to collect on those judgments. Last fall, prosecutors confiscated nearly $30,000 in Kelly’s prison commissary account. But the feds have competition for that money.
R. Kelly victim Heather Williams, who won a $4 million civil judgment against the singer, is also seeking to tap into the Sony Music account — as is Midwest Commercial Funding, a property management company that won a separate $3.5 million ruling against Kelly over unpaid rent at a Chicago studio.
In March, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Williams had priority to the funds over Midwest Commercial Funding because she was the first to properly demand the money from Sony. But that ruling left unclear whether she’ll enjoy similar priority over a slew of additional monetary penalties that Kelly owes to victims as a result of his federal criminal convictions.
Federal prosecutors in both Illinois and New York declined to comment on that decision at the time.
In a statement Thursday (June 1), Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told Billboard that she and her client believe that the restitution order against him is incorrect and will be overturned on appeal. But she said they have “no opinion” on prosecutors seeking to garnish funds held by Sony Music and UMPG.
A New York state appeals court has sided with Jay-Z in his long-legal battle against a fragrance company called Parlux over a cologne endorsement deal that went bad.
In a ruling issued Thursday, a panel of appeals judges upheld a 2021 jury verdict that cleared the superstar of wrongdoing and potentially $67 million in damages. It also affirmed a judge’s ruling last year that it was actually Jay-Z, and not Parlux, that was owed money — nearly $7 million in unpaid royalties.
“There were multiple rational bases for upholding the jury verdict, and plaintiffs have not set forth a sufficient basis … to overturn it,” a five-judge panel ruled unanimously.
Barring further appeals, the decision could finally mean the end for more than six years of litigation over “Gold Jay-Z,” a cologne brand that the superstar, whose real name is Shawn Carter, launched in 2013 through a partnership with Parlux.
In its 2016 lawsuit, the company accused the rapper and his S. Carter Enterprises of failing to properly promote the brand, breaching his contract and dooming the product to failure. Jay-Z quickly countersued, claiming he had fulfilled his obligations despite numerous missteps from Parlux – and that the company still owed him money.
After a three week trial in late 2021, featuring heated testimony from the star himself, jurors largely sided with Jay-Z and found that Parlux was entitled to nothing. Then in August, New York Supreme Court Justice Andrew Borrok ruled Parlux owes Jay-Z $6.78 million in unpaid royalties, including interest.
Seeking the overturn the verdict on appeal, attorneys for Parlux argued that the trial judge had improperly instructed the jury about requirements in the contract about Jay-Z’s personal appearances and the need for Parlux to provide a “product development plan.”
But in Thursday’s ruling, the appellate panel was unmoved: “The court correctly instructed the jury on the burdens of proof, and any error in characterizing the notice requirement for personal appearances and the PDP as ‘conditions precedent’ was harmless when considering the overall instructions.”
Parlux can still challenge the outcome once more, taking the case to the Court of Appeals, New York’s top appellate court. An attorney for the company did not immediately return a request for comment.