Legal News
Page: 82
Adidas secretly filed a legal action last year in federal court that successfully froze $75 million in bank accounts held by Kanye West’s Yeezy brand after their high-profile split, newly unsealed court documents show.
Federal court records obtained by Billboard show that the case was filed on Nov. 11, just weeks after the German sneaker giant publicly terminated its relationship with the embattled rapper (sometimes known as Ye) in the wake of his antisemitic statements and other erratic behavior.
Adidas filed the case to ensure such funds were not transferred out of Yeezy’s bank accounts while the two companies litigated their business divorce via private arbitration. And a federal judge quickly granted the company’s request for such an “attachment” order on a so-called ex parte basis — meaning the judge issued the freeze without giving Yeezy a chance to make counter-arguments.
“Petitioner has demonstrated that it has satisfied the grounds for an ex parte attachment because the court is satisfied that there is a risk that Yeezy will remove or dissipate assets if notice of this request for attachment is given to Yeezy,” Judge Valerie E. Caproni wrote in her Nov. 11 order freezing the money.
The existence of the litigation was first reported Wednesday evening (May 24) by the legal news outlet Law360.
The newly-revealed litigation with Yeezy is just one piece of a messy breakup for Adidas. With the company sitting on $1.3 billion worth of unsold Yeezys, CEO Bjorn Gulden announced earlier this month that Adidas would begin selling them, but would “donate money to the organizations that help us and were harmed by what Ye said.”
While West himself had previously disclosed that Adidas filed a federal case to freeze assets — he claimed in a November video that the company had “put a $75 million hold” on his bank accounts — the actual existence of the case could not be independently confirmed because it was filed “under seal,” meaning it was not made public like normal legal filings.
But last week, the case and its key documents were unsealed, thanks to another ruling earlier in the month by Judge Caproni. Referencing West’s own comments disclosing the case, the judge said the desire of both sides for “confidentiality” was now outweighed by the public right to access court records.
“Notably, the attachment itself is no longer confidential as Ye discussed Adidas’s decision to ‘freeze’ his accounts in a public interview, and accordingly, no confidentiality interest exists as to the existence of the attachment order,” Judge Caproni wrote on May 9. “The court further finds that any trade secrets or sensitive business information may adequately be protected through redaction.”
Now, the newly-unsealed court docket shows that lawyers for Adidas and Yeezy are currently sparring over whether the asset freeze should remain in place going forward.
In an April filing, Yeezy’s lawyers urged Judge Caproni to undo the freeze, arguing that Adidas had “failed to show that it was ever entitled to such an order in the first place.” Yeezy’s lawyers said Adidas had made procedural errors in securing the order and had not provided enough proof that it needed the freeze to remain in place.
“Adidas has offered no evidence that Yeezy is currently insolvent or that it has made any effort to conceal its assets or put them beyond Adidas’s reach in the event Adidas obtains an arbitral award against Yeezy,” attorney Peter D. Hawkes wrote for the brand. “Nor has Adidas offered anything more than speculation that, in the absence of attachment, collection of any arbitral award would be more challenging.”
Adidas strongly disagrees. In its own brief filed in early May, the company argued that West had demonstrated a “pattern of volatile behavior” and was in “severe financial stress,” imperiling Adidas’s ability to recover the funds the company believes it will win in the pending arbitration battle.
“There is every indication that if released, Yeezy will spend them, misusing Adidas’s property and rendering an award against them ineffectual,” the company wrote.
Adidas also warned that, if the $75 million is released, West’s conduct had severely harmed his own ability to earn it back in other ways. The company rattled off a list of alleged incidents, including West “stating his admiration of Hitler” and “suggesting that Jewish people ‘are used by the Chinese’ to control Black people.”
“Ye [has] further diminished the value of his endorsement and commercial opportunities by continuing to make racist and incendiary statements,” Adidas’s lawyers wrote.
A lawyer for Yeezy did not return requests for comment on Thursday. A spokesman for Adidas declined to comment.
Los Angeles prosecutors are asking a judge to impose a harsh sentence against rapper Tory Lanez after he was convicted last year of shooting Megan Thee Stallion, arguing he behaved with “indifference for human life” at a moment when Megan was “particularly vulnerable.”
Following his December conviction on three felony counts, Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) faces a maximum of 22 years when he’s sentenced next month. But California law only allows courts to impose such “higher term” sentences when prosecutors have proven there are “aggravating circumstances.”
In a new filing on Tuesday (May 23) obtained by Billboard, attorneys for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office said Lanez’s conduct clearly met those circumstances. Among other things, they said Lanez had fired the gun not just at Megan one time, but five times “in the middle of a residential neighborhood.”
“The brazenness of defendant’s conduct is alarming but the conscious disregard for the well-being and safety of all those around him signifies a high degree of indifference for human life,” prosecutors wrote.
The filing also said Megan had been “particularly vulnerable” at the moment of the crime, another factor that can serve as aggravating circumstances. She had been “unarmed and completely defenseless,” they wrote, while “dressed in only a bikini, shoeless and on foot in a neighborhood completely foreign to her.”
“As she walked away from defendant, unaware he was armed with a firearm, defendant fired multiple rounds at victim striking her bare feet,” the filing said. “She was afforded no opportunity and was in no position to defend herself, find cover, or shield herself in any way. Besides an argument in the car, there was no justifiable provocation or event that would have signaled to her that defendant would have fired a gun at her, not just once but five times.”
Attorneys for Lanez did not immediately return a request for comment on the new filing.
Lanez was convicted on Dec. 23 on three felony charges over the mid-2020 incident, during which the rapper allegedly shot Megan (real name Megan Pete) in the foot during an argument after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills.
The shooting happened in the early-morning hours of July 12, 2020, when a driver was shuttling Lanez, Megan and her assistant and friend Kelsey Harris from a party at Kylie Jenner’s house. According to prosecutors, Megan got out of the vehicle during an argument and began walking away when Lanez shouted “Dance, bitch!” and proceeded to shoot at her feet.
Following the incident, Megan initially told police officers that she had cut her foot stepping on broken glass, but days later alleged that she had been shot. Lanez was eventually charged with the shooting in October 2022.
During the blockbuster trial, Lanez’s lawyers made their best effort to sow doubt over who had pulled the trigger, painting a scenario in which Harris could have been the shooter. But a key defense witness offered confusing eyewitness testimony, and prosecutors pointed to an earlier interview in which Harris pinned the blame squarely on Lanez. Megan herself offered powerful testimony that Lanez had been the one to shoot her; neither Lanez nor the driver took the witness stand.
Following the guilty verdict, Lanez’s attorneys filed a motion seeking a new trial. They called the case a “miscarriage of justice,” arguing that Judge David Herriford made numerous errors that had put their client at an unfair advantage.
But that motion was denied last month, clearing the way for sentencing. A hearing is currently set for June 13, but such scheduled events have often been pushed back in Lanez’s case.
Fetty Wap was sentenced to six years in federal prison Wednesday after pleading guilty last year to federal drug charges.
Attorneys for the “Trap Queen” star (real name Willie Junior Maxwell II) had urged the judge to issue only a five-year sentence, the minimum allowed under the law. Prosecutors instead asked for between seven and nine years, urging the judge to “send a message” against a star who used his music to “glamorize the drug trade.”
At a hearing Wednesday in Long Island federal court, Judge Joanna Seybert split the difference – ordering the rapper to serve a six-year sentence, to be followed by an additional five years of post-release supervision.
An attorney for Fetty did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed the sentence but declined to comment further.
Fetty Wap was arrested in October 2021 at Rolling Loud New York, after prosecutors unveiled an indictment against him and five others. Prosecutors claimed group had shipped more than 100 kilograms of the drugs from California and distributed them on Long Island, contributing to “the addiction and overdose epidemic we have seen time and time again tear people’s lives apart.”
In August, Fetty admitted to participating in the scheme, pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiring to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine.
Ahead of Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, his lawyers pleaded for leniency, saying he “realizes the terrible mistake he made” and is “truly sorry for the loss and hurt he has caused.” Seeking the minimum of five years, they argued that Fetty only turned to crime to support family members as his touring income dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Personal gain was not his motivation,” they wrote. “Rather, he was motivated by his commitment to financially support others.”
But prosecutors quickly fired back with a darker story: Of a successful musician who had already earned millions but chose to “supplement his income” by selling “drugs he knew would ruin lives.” And notably, they cited Fetty’s music itself, claiming he should receive a harsher punishment in part because he used his songs to “glamorize the drug trade.”
“Before his arrest, the defendant became famous singing about his experience cooking crack cocaine, selling drugs and making substantial money from those illegal endeavors,” prosecutors wrote. “Young people who admire the defendant and are considering selling drugs need to be sent a message.”
Such references to rap lyrics in criminal cases has come under scrutiny in recent years. Critics say drugs and violence are stock elements of hip-hop and should not be treated literally — and that by doing so, prosecutors infringe on free speech and sway courts with unfair evidence, with predictably disproportionate harm inflicted on Black artists.
The Gap is suing Kanye West over allegations that the rapper made unapproved changes to a Los Angeles retail location that resulted in an expensive lawsuit from the building’s owner.
In a complaint filed last month in Los Angeles court, the apparel giant claimed that West – and not Gap – is on the hook for a lawsuit filed last year by a company called Art City Center, the landlord who owns the retail space.
“Defendants made numerous alterations to the building at the subject premises without Gap’s approval, much less pursuant to the terms of the Agreement,” Gap’s lawyers wrote in an April 2 complaint. “The performance of the work not only breached the Strategic Agreement, but the manner of preparing for and performing the work caused the need for … repairs and restoration.”
Gap is one of many former business partners that split with West (sometimes known as Ye) and his Yeezy brand last year in the wake of antisemitic statements and other erratic behavior. The breakup was a particularly stark reversal, coming just a year after Gap announced a 10-year deal with West for a branded line called “Yeezy Gap.”
As part of that partnership, Gap agreed to open up to five retail locations for the Yeezy partnership, including one at 1360 East 6th Street in Los Angeles – the property owned by Art City Center.
In October, the landlord filed a lawsuit against Gap, claiming that the company had breached its lease agreement by making “numerous, significant, unapproved modifications” to the building. They included adding a ramp and a tunnel to the parking lot, removing three bathrooms, and removing lights that “led to additional damage to the ceiling and roof caused by water/rain.”
The company claimed that Gap owed $822,924 and counting in “holdover” damages – 150 percent of monthly rent for every month in which the building has original condition – and another $470,350 from the work that would be required to undo the alleged damage.
In its new complaint against West, Gap says the terms of their agreement require him indemnify the company against such legal claims.
“The Gap denies that it has any liability to [Art City],” the company wrote. “However, if the Gap does have any such liability, any damages allegedly sustained by plaintiff, if any, were the result of the actions or inactions of [West and Yeezy].”
West could not immediately be located for comment.
Gap is not the only former Kanye business partner now facing legal problems. Last month, Adidas was hit with a class action lawsuit claiming the sportswear giant knew about West‘s problematic “personal behavior” years prior to ending its partnership with the disgraced rapper but failed to warn investors about it. That case is pending.
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: Lawyers for Fetty Wap battle with prosecutors ahead of his sentencing over federal drug charges; the Supreme Court issues a major copyright ruling on Andy Warhol’s images of Prince; Ed Sheeran wins another lawsuit over “Let’s Get It On”; and much more.
Want to get The Legal Beat newsletter in your email inbox every Tuesday? Subscribe here for free.
THE BIG STORY: Fetty Wap Faces Drug Sentencing
With Fetty Wap facing sentencing this week for his conviction on federal drug charges, the rapper’s lawyers and prosecutors are battling over how much prison time he should receive — and in the process, they’ve dipped into one of music’s biggest legal controversies.
Attorneys for the rapper, who pleaded guilty in August to participating in “a multimillion-dollar bicoastal drug distribution organization,” asked a judge last week to sentence him to just five years — the minimum under the law. They say he only turned to crime to support family members as his touring income dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But prosecutors quickly fired back with a darker story: Of a successful musician who had already earned millions but chose to “supplement his income” by selling “drugs he knew would ruin lives.” And notably, they cited Fetty’s music itself, claiming he should receive a harsher punishment in part because he used his songs to “glamorize the drug trade.”
“Before his arrest, the defendant became famous singing about his experience cooking crack cocaine, selling drugs and making substantial money from those illegal endeavors,” prosecutors wrote. “Young people who admire the defendant and are considering selling drugs need to be sent a message.”
If you’ve been following music law for the past year, you’ll know that’s a controversial move.
After a high-profile gang indictment against Young Thug in Atlanta, the use of rap lyrics in criminal cases has come under increasing scrutiny. Critics say references to drugs and violence are stock elements of hip-hop and should not be treated literally — and that by doing so, prosecutors infringe on free speech and sway courts with unfair evidence, with predictably disproportionate harm inflicted on Black artists.
Lawmakers in California recently enacted a law that sharply restricts the practice, and legislators in New York seem poised to pass a similar bill later this year. A federal bill to limit when lyrics can be used in cases like the one against Fetty Wap was re-introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last month but faces a less clear path to passage than the state-level measures.
To get the full story, including the actual legal documents filed by both sides, go read our full articles on the sentencing recommendations from Fetty Wap and from prosecutors.
Other top stories…
SCOTUS RULES ON WARHOL & FAIR USE – Ruling on a case that record labels and publishers called “critical to the American music industry,” the U.S. Supreme Court said that Andy Warhol did not make “fair use” of a photographer’s copyrights when he used her images of Prince to create one of his distinctive screen prints. The ruling essentially maintained the status quo for music companies, who feared that a decision for Warhol could have disrupted industry practices for sampling, or possibly given legal cover for AI companies to use copyrighted songs.
JIMI HENDRIX DISPUTES HEADS TO UK – A transatlantic legal battle between Jimi Hendrix’s estate and his former bandmates — over control of the rights to music created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience — is going to be fought primarily in London for now, after a U.S. federal judge ruled that she would defer to the British courts.
ED SHEERAN WINS AGAIN – Less than two weeks after Ed Sheeran won a blockbuster jury trial over whether his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” a federal judge dismissed a second, closely-related copyright case accusing him of copying the same iconic song.
YOUTUBE WON’T FACE CLASS ACTION – A federal judge dealt a major blow to a lawsuit that claims YouTube enables piracy by restricting access to copyright tools like Content ID, refusing to allow the case to proceed as a class action that could have included tens of thousands of rightsholders.
FACIAL-RECOGNITION FIGHT CONTINUES – The owner of Madison Square Garden Entertainment filed a new legal action demanding access to the phone records of a New York state liquor investigator, opening a new front in a sprawling legal war over the use of facial recognition technology to ban lawyers from venues.
The owner of Madison Square Garden has filed a new legal action demanding access to the phone records of a New York state liquor investigator — the same state official who the company reportedly hired a private detective to tail.
In a petition filed Monday, attorneys for MSG Entertainment (MSGE) asked a New York judge to force Verizon to hand over cellphone records from Charles Stravalle, an investigator for the State Liquor Authority (SLA). The filing says the records will prove MSGE’s allegations that the SLA has unfairly targeted the company with a “sham” investigation over its controversial move to use facial-recognition technology to ban opposing lawyers from its venues.
“The SLA is misusing its enforcement powers at the behest of politically influential lawyers,” MSGE’s attorneys wrote. “Angered and motivated, those lawyers prevailed on the SLA to conduct an inherently compromised investigation of MSG.”
According to MSGE’s filing, already-revealed texts between those same lawyers and Stravalle “show that the investigation was compromised from the start” — and MSGE now wants access to the rest of them.
“MSG needs the phone records it subpoenaed from respondent Verizon to be able to more fully understand how deep this collusion and corruption goes, and how high the deck was stacked against MSG from the start,” the company wrote.
In a statement to Billboard, MSGE’s attorney Jim Walden said: “We believe the incriminating evidence revealed by the communications between the SLA and the plaintiff’s attorneys is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what our motion and subsequent subpoenas will uncover. We look forward to exposing the SLA’s abuses and bringing the facts to light.”
A rep for the SLA did not return a request for comment from the agency and Stravalle. A rep for Verizon did not immediately respond to a request for comment, including whether or not it would comply with the subpoena.
The new filing comes two months after the New York Times reported that MSGE and Dolan had hired a private detective to track Stravalle after he was assigned to work on the SLA’s probe into the company.
It also comes amid an increasingly sprawling legal battle facing MSGE and Dolan, who also own Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theater and other live music venues throughout New York City.
The fight began last year when MSGE enacted new rules to ban attorneys who are suing the company from attending events at Madison Square Garden and other MSGE venues. When MSGE began enforcing those rules using facial recognition technology, it drew public scrutiny and backlash from lawmakers like State Senator Liz Kruger, who expressed concern that MSGE’s rules were “discriminatory and retaliatory.”
In November, the SLA began investigating whether the lawyer ban violates state alcohol laws, which require businesses to be “open to the public” — a probe that could result in the revocation of MSGE’s liquor licenses. In January, New York Attorney General Letitia James requested information about the ban, warning that it might violate local, state and federal human rights laws. And in March, state lawmakers threatened to revoke Madison Square Garden’s property tax exemption which is valued at roughly $43 million a year.
Through it all, MSGE and Dolan have remained defiant. In a January television interview in which he threatened to stop serving alcohol at Madison Square Garden, Dolan defended his company’s actions: “If you’re suing us, we’re just asking you please don’t come until you’re done with your argument with us, and yes we’re using facial recognition to enforce that.”
Monday’s new petition is Dolan’s latest legal effort to fight back against the SLA investigation. He previously sued to challenge the validity of the investigation itself, but the case was tossed out in April after a judge ruled that MSGE could not bring such a case until the SLA had actually issued a decision. MSGE is currently appealing that ruling to a state appeals court.
Read the entire petition from MSGE here:
A federal judge on Monday (May 22) dealt a major blow to a lawsuit that claims YouTube enables piracy by restricting access to copyright tools like Content ID, refusing to allow the case to proceed as a class action that could have included tens of thousands of rightsholders.
The lawsuit, filed by a composer named Maria Schneider, claims that YouTube has become a “hotbed of piracy” because the platform provides “powerful copyright owners” like record labels with Content ID to block and monetize unauthorized uses of their content, but fails to do the same for “ordinary owners.”
But in his ruling on Monday, Judge James Donato said that Schneider could not team up with tens of thousands of other rightsholders who she claims suffered similar harm from YouTube’s policies, dramatically reducing the scope of the lawsuit.
Cases can only be “certified” as class actions if the various accusers share similar complaints against the defendant. And in Schneider’s case, Judge Donato said different rightsholders would have very different cases against YouTube.
“It has been said that copyright claims are poor candidates for class-action treatment, and for good reason,” the judge wrote. “Every copyright claim turns upon facts which are particular to that single claim of infringement [and] every copyright claim is also subject to defenses that require their own individualized inquiries.”
Filed in 2020, Schneider’s lawsuit claims that YouTube (owned by Google parent Alphabet) forces songwriters and other smaller rights holders to use “vastly inferior and time-consuming manual means” of policing infringement, allowing piracy of their material to flourish on the platform.
For its part, YouTube says it’s done nothing wrong. In court documents, the company has argued that it’s spent “spent over $100 million developing industry-leading tools” to prevent piracy, but that it limits access because “in the hands of the wrong party, these tools can cause serious harm.”
With a trial date looming next month, attorneys for Schneider had urged Judge Donato to let the case move forward as a class action. An expert retained by her legal team suggested that the class “at a minimum” would include between 10,000 and 20,000 aggrieved copyright owners.
“The Copyright Act does not countenance such blatant disregard of individual artists’ intellectual property rights,” her attorneys wrote. “Class actions were created for this institutionalized misbehavior that relies upon the disincentives and lack of resources for a lawsuit absent collective action. A class action is the superior method through which YouTube’s participation in and facilitation of copyright infringement can be held to account.”
But in Monday’s ruling, Judge Donato strongly disagreed. He said the many individual claims against YouTube would require “highly individualized inquiries into the merits,” including a case-by-case assessment of whether YouTube possibly had a valid license to those particular songs.
“Whether YouTube has a license for a particular work will be a matter of intense inquiry at trial,” the judge wrote. “The answer to this inquiry will depend upon facts and circumstances unique to each work and copyright claimant.”
Monday’s order won’t end the case, but it will now proceed to trial based only on copyrights owned by Schneider and two other plaintiffs (Uniglobe Entertainment and AST Publishing). The lawsuit is scheduled for a June 12 trial, though it’s unclear if that date will be changed in the wake of Monday’s decision.
An attorney for Schneider and a representative for YouTube did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday’s order.
Social media company TikTok Inc. filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to overturn Montana’s first-in-the-nation ban on the video sharing app, arguing the law is an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights and is based on “unfounded speculation” that the Chinese government could access users’ data. The lawsuit by TikTok itself follows one filed last week by five content […]
The European Union slapped Meta with a record $1.3 billion privacy fine Monday and ordered it to stop transferring users personal information across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decadelong case sparked by U.S. cybersnooping fears.
The penalty of 1.2 billion euros is the biggest since the EU’s strict data privacy regime took effect five years ago, surpassing Amazon’s 746 million euro fine in 2021 for data protection violations.
Meta, which had previously warned that services for its users in Europe could be cut off, vowed to appeal and ask courts to immediately put the decision on hold.
The company said “there is no immediate disruption to Facebook in Europe.” The decision applies to user data like names, email and IP addresses, messages, viewing history, geolocation data and other information that Meta — and other tech giants like Google — use for targeted online ads.
“This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and U.S.,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, and chief legal officer Jennifer Newstead said in a statement.
It’s yet another twist in a legal battle that began in 2013 when Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint about Facebook’s handling of his data following former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations of electronic surveillance by U.S. security agencies. That included the disclosure that Facebook gave the agencies access to the personal data of Europeans.
The saga has highlighted the clash between Washington and Brussels over the differences between Europe’s strict view on data privacy and the comparatively lax regime in the U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law. The EU has been a global leader in reining in the power of Big Tech with a series of regulations forcing them police their platforms more strictly and protect users’ personal information.
An agreement covering EU-U.S. data transfers known as the Privacy Shield was struck down in 2020 by the EU’s top court, which said it didn’t do enough to protect residents from the U.S. government’s electronic prying. Monday’s decision confirmed that another tool to govern data transfers — stock legal contracts — was also invalid.
Brussels and Washington signed a deal last year on a reworked Privacy Shield that Meta could use, but the pact is awaiting a decision from European officials on whether it adequately protects data privacy.
EU institutions have been reviewing the agreement, and the bloc’s lawmakers this month called for improvements, saying the safeguards aren’t strong enough.
The Ireland’s Data Protection Commission handed down the fine as Meta’s lead privacy regulator in the 27-nation bloc because the Silicon Valley tech giant’s European headquarters is based in Dublin.
The Irish watchdog said it gave Meta five months to stop sending European user data to the U.S. and six months to bring its data operations into compliance “by ceasing the unlawful processing, including storage, in the U.S.” of European users’ personal data transferred in violation of the bloc’s privacy rules.
If the new transatlantic privacy agreement takes effect before these deadlines, “our services can continue as they do today without any disruption or impact on users,” Meta said.
Schrems predicted that Meta has “no real chance” of getting the decision materially overturned. And a new privacy pact might not mean the end of Meta’s troubles, because there’s a good chance it could be tossed out by the EU’s top court, he said.
“Meta plans to rely on the new deal for transfers going forward, but this is likely not a permanent fix,” Schrems said in a statement. “Unless U.S. surveillance laws gets fixed, Meta will likely have to keep EU data in the EU.”
Meta warned in its latest earnings report that without a legal basis for data transfers, it will be forced to stop offering its products and services in Europe, “which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.”
The social media company might have to carry out a costly and complex revamp of its operations if it’s forced to stop shipping user data across the Atlantic. Meta has a fleet of 21 data centers, according to its website, but 17 of them are in the United States. Three others are in the European nations of Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Another is in Singapore.
Other social media giants are facing pressure over their data practices. TikTok has tried to soothe Western fears about the Chinese-owned short video sharing app’s potential cybersecurity risks with a $1.5 billion project to store U.S. user data on Oracle servers.
Federal prosecutors want a judge to sentence Fetty Wap to as much as nine years in prison after the rapper pleaded guilty last year to drug charges, citing lyrics they say “glamorize the drug trade” and arguing that the court needs to “send a message” to kids.
The filing came just a day after lawyers for “Trap Queen” star (real name Willie Junior Maxwell II) asked for just five years, arguing that he only turned to crime to support family members as his touring income dried up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In their own brief on Thursday, prosecutors told a darker story: Of a successful musician who had already earned millions but chose to “supplement his income” by selling “drugs he knew would ruin lives.” In a particularly notable move, they pointed to Fetty’s music itself, arguing he had used his “fame, sizeable platform and influence to glamorize the drug trade.”
“Before his arrest, the defendant became famous singing about his experience cooking crack cocaine, selling drugs and making substantial money from those illegal endeavors,” prosecutors wrote, also citing a recent song that they says contains coded references to drugs. “Even after his arrest and while awaiting trial in this very serious federal drug case, the defendant continued to glamorize the drug trade.”
The use of rap lyrics in criminal cases is a controversial tactic. Critics say references to drugs and violence are stock elements of hip hop and should not be treated literally — and that by doing so, prosecutors infringe on free speech and sway courts with unfair evidence. Lawmakers in California recently enacted a law that sharply restricts the practice, and a similar bill has been proposed to do so in federal cases.
But in Thursday’s filing, prosecutors repeatedly referenced Fetty Waps works. Pointing to “Trap Queen” – a song that reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 – they claimed the rapper had “admitted” to a probation officer that it was an “ode to a former girlfriend who assisted him a cocaine base distribution operation.” They also cited the music video for that song, claiming Fetty had “enlisted young children who stood behind him while he idealized selling drugs.”
Now, with the rapper facing a prison sentence for selling drugs, prosecutors said the judge has a “responsibility to send a clear, unambiguous deterrent message” to fans of his music.
“Young people who admire the defendant and are considering selling drugs need to be sent a message that selling drugs is not a glamorous lifestyle and, if they participate in that trade, they will receive lengthy prison sentences,” prosecutors wrote. “That message is even more important in this case, as the defendant has promoted and profited from his drug dealing through his fame and music.”
Fetty Wap was arrested in October 2021 at Rolling Loud New York, after prosecutors unveiled an indictment against him and five others. Prosecutors claimed group had shipped more than 100 kilograms of the drugs from California and distributed them on Long Island, contributing to “the addiction and overdose epidemic we have seen time and time again tear people’s lives apart.”
In August, Fetty admitted to participating in the scheme, pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiring to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine. He faces sentencing next week by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert.
The sentence requested by prosecutors on Thursday — between 87 and 108 months – is the same as what’s suggested by federal sentencing guidelines. But it came just a day after attorneys for Fetty Wap said he should face only five years, the minimum sentence allowed under the law.
In that filing, his lawyers said the rapper “realizes the terrible mistake he made” and is “truly sorry for the loss and hurt he has caused.” They argued he only turned to crime amid the pandemic, as his touring income dried up: “Desperate to keep up with his financial obligations, Mr. Maxwell became involved in the instant offense for a few months in the spring of 2020.”
In their own filing on Thursday, prosecutors said Fetty was perhaps not quite as reformed as his attorneys had claimed. They cited an incident last summer in which the rapper’s bail was revoked for pointing a gun and threatening to kill someone on a FaceTime call in which he called someone a “rat.”
“The defendant’s conduct while on bail is also extremely troubling,” the prosecutors wrote. “While none of us is clairvoyant, the defendant’s possession of a firearm and threatening conduct while on bail is a concerning predictor of future behavior.”
An attorney for Fetty Wap did not return a request for comment. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.