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When fake, sexually-explicit images of Taylor Swift flooded social media last week, it shocked the world. But legal experts weren’t exactly surprised, saying it’s just a glaring example of a growing problem — and one that’ll keep getting worse without changes to the law and tech industry norms.
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The images, some of which were reportedly viewed millions of times on X before they were pulled down, were so-called deepfakes — computer-generated depictions of real people doing fake things. Their spread on Thursday quickly prompted outrage from Swifties, who mass-flagged the images for removal and demanded to know how something like that was allowed to happen to the beloved pop star.
But for legal experts who have been tracking the growing phenomenon of non-consensual deepfake pornography, the episode was sadly nothing new.
“This is just the highest profile instance of something that has been victimizing many people, mostly women, for quite some time now,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at Boston University School of Law who studies privacy and technology law.
Experts warned Billboard that the Swift incident could be the sign of things to come — not just for artists and other celebrities, but for normal individuals with fewer resources to fight back. The explosive growth of artificial intelligence tools over the past year has made deepfakes far easier to create, and some web platforms have become less aggressive in their approach to content moderation in recent years.
“What we’re seeing now is a particularly toxic cocktail,” Hartzog said. “It’s an existing problem, mixed with these new generative AI tools and a broader backslide in industry commitments to trust and safety.”
To some extent, images like the ones that cropped up last week are already illegal. Though no federal law squarely bans them, 10 states around the country have enacted statutes criminalizing non-consensual deepfake pornography. Victims like Swift can also theoretically turn to more traditional existing legal remedies to fight back, including copyright law, likeness rights, and torts like invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Such images also clearly violate the rules on all major platforms, including X. In a statement last week, the company said it was “actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” as well as “closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed.” Sunday to Tuesday, the site disabled searches for “Taylor Swift” out of “an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”
But for the victims of such images, legal remedies and platform policies often don’t mean much in practice. Even if an image is illegal, it is difficult and prohibitively expensive to try to sue the anonymous people who posted it; even if you flag an image for breaking the rules, it’s sometimes hard to convince a platform to pull it down; even if you get one pulled down, others crop up just as quickly.
“No matter her status, or the number of resources Swift devotes to the removal of these images, she won’t be completely successful in that effort,” said Rebecca A. Delfino, a professor and associate dean at Loyola Law School who has written extensively about harm caused by pornographic deepfakes.
That process is extremely difficult, and it’s almost always reactive — started after some level of damage is already done. Think about it this way: Even for a celebrity with every legal resource in the world, the images still flooded the web. “That Swift, currently one of the most powerful and known women in the world, could not avoid being victimized shows the exploitive power of pornographic deepfakes,” Delfino said.
There’s currently no federal statute that squarely targets the problem. A bill called the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act, introduced last year, would allow deepfake victims to file civil lawsuits, and criminalize such images when they’re sexually-explicit. Another, called the Deepfake Accountability Act, would require all deepfakes to be disclaimed as such and impose criminal penalties for those that aren’t. And earlier this month, lawmakers introduced No AI FRAUD Act, which would create a federal right for individuals to sue if their voice or any other part of their likeness is used without permission.
Could last week’s incident spur lawmakers to take action? Don’t forget: Ticketmaster’s messy 2022 rollout of tickets for Taylor’s Eras tour sparked congressional hearings, investigations by state attorneys general, new legislation proposals and calls by some lawmakers to break up Live Nation under federal antitrust laws.
Experts like Delfino are hopeful that such influence on the national discourse — call it the Taylor effect, maybe — could spark a similar conversation over the problem of deepfake pornography. And they might have reason for optimism: Polling conducted by the AI thinktank Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute over the weekend showed that more than 80% of voters supported legislation making non-consensual deepfake porn illegal, and that 84% of them said the Swift incident had increased their concerns about AI.
“Her status as a worldwide celebrity shed a huge spotlight on the need for both criminal and civil remedies to address this problem, which today has victimized hundreds of thousands of others, primarily women,” Delfino said.
But even after last week’s debacle, new laws targeting deepfakes are no guarantee. Some civil liberties activists and lawmakers worry that such legislation could violate the First Amendment by imposing overly-broad restrictions on free speech, including criminalizing innocent images and empowering money-making troll lawsuits. Any new law would eventually need to pass muster at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has signaled in recent years that it is highly skeptical of efforts to restrict speech.
In the absence of writing new laws that make deepfake porn even more illegal, concrete solutions will likely require stronger action by social media platforms themselves, which have created vast, lucrative networks for the spread of such materials and are in the best position to police them.
But Jacob Noti-Victor, a professor at Cardozo School of Law who researches how the law impacts innovation and the deployment of new technologies, says it’s not as simple as it might seem. After all, the images of Swift last week were already clearly in violation of X’s rules, yet they spread widely on the site.
“X and other platforms certainly need to do more to tackle this problem and that requires large, dedicated content moderation teams,” Noti-Victor said. “That said, it’s not an easy task. Content detection tools have not been very good at detecting deepfakes so far, which limits the tools that platforms can use proactively to detect this kind of material as it’s being posted.”
And even if it were easy for platforms find and stop harmful deepfakes, tech companies have hardly been beefing up their content moderation efforts in recent years.
Since Elon Musk acquired X (then named Twitter) in 2022, the company has loosened restrictions on offensive content and fired thousands of employees, including many on the “trust and safety” teams that handle content moderation. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, laid off more than 20,000 employees last year, reportedly also including hundreds of moderators. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all reportedly made similar cuts.
Amid a broader wave of tech layoffs, why were those employees some of the first to go? Because at the end of the day, there’s no real legal requirement for platforms to police offensive content. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a much-debated provision of federal law, largely shields internet platforms from legal liability for materials posted by their users. That means Taylor could try to sue the anonymous X users who posted her image, but she would have a much harder time suing X itself for failing to stop them.
In the absence of regulation and legal liability, the only real incentives for platforms to do a better job at combating deepfakes are “market incentives,” said Hartzog, the BU professor — meaning, fear of negative publicity that scares away advertisers or alienates users.
On that front, maybe the Taylor fiasco is already having an impact. On Friday, X announced that it would build a “Trust and Safety center of excellence” in Austin, Texas, including hiring 100 new employees to handle content moderation.
“These platforms have an incentive to attract as many people as possible and suck out as much data as possible, with no obligation to create meaningful tools to help victims,” Hartzog said. “Hopefully, this Taylor Swift incident advances the conversation in productive ways that results in meaningful changes to better protect victims of this kind of behavior.”
A federal judge says prosecutors cannot cite rap lyrics written by Jam Master Jay’s alleged killer during his murder trial, warning that “music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them.”
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In a decision issued Tuesday, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall ruled that the lyrics prosecutors wanted to use against Karl Jordan Jr. – one about shooting a man in the head, another alluding to drugs – were not directly connected to the Run DMC star’s 2002 murder, so they couldn’t be presented to the jury.
The ruling came amid a broader debate over the use of rap lyrics in criminal trials, a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from the music industry and efforts by lawmakers to stop it. A gang trial in Atlanta, in which prosecutors are using Young Thug’s lyrics against him, has drawn particular scrutiny.
In that case, the judge allowed the lyrics to be used, as have most judges confronted with the issue. But on Tuesday, Judge Hall not only barred them from being cited in Jordan’s case, but offered a detailed analysis of the practice and the risks that come with it.
“Courts should be wary of overly permissive rules allowing the use of rap lyrics and videos against criminal defendants at trial,” the judge wrote. “Music artists should be free to create without fear that their lyrics could be unfairly used against them at a trial.”
In a remarkable 14-page opinion, the judge offered a sweeping historical overview of hip hop’s past. She took readers from the genesis of hip hop in the Bronx to the present day, name-dropping Grand Master Flash, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Dr. Dre, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, Future and Ice Spice along the way.
Because rappers have “played the part of storytellers, providing a lens into their lives and those in their communities,” the judge wrote, their music has often depicted “criminal conduct” and other real-life issues – something that has attracted scrutiny “not only from the public, but also from law enforcement.”
“As a result, the admissibility of rap lyrics has become the subject of dispute in courtrooms across the country,” Judge Hall wrote.
In Jordan’s case, prosecutors wanted to play a lyric in which he rapped “We aim for the head, no body shots, and we stick around just to see the body drop.” Since Jay was shot in the head, the government argued that the lyric “speaks directly to the issues in the case.”
But Judge Hall disagreed. Citing lyrics by Nas (“two in the dome, he’s laid down”) and Ice Cube (“two shots hit him in the face when they blasted”), the judge ruled that lines Jordan wrote “merely contain generic references to violence that can be found in many rap songs.”
She applied the same analysis to another lyric cited by prosecutors, in which Jordan rapped about “breaking down bricks” – an line that the government argued was an allusion to the drug charges he’s also facing. But again, Judge Hall cited other songs in which rappers say the same thing, like Migos’ 2021 track “Modern Day.”
“The members of Migos, however, do not stand accused of drug trafficking in this or any other case,” the judge wrote. “Jordan’s lyrics are simply too imprecise.”
The big problem, the judge wrote, is that rappers not only have a right to tell stories about violence and crime, but are also “increasingly incentivized to create music about drugs and violence to gain commercial success.” She warned that many “will exaggerate or fabricate the contents of their music in pursuit of that success.”
In all cases involving lyrics, Judge Hall said the core question should be whether the music has a “nexus to the criminal conduct” – meaning, a direct, literal connection to alleged crime. If prosecutors can’t show that, then lyrics should be avoided.
“Juries should not be placed in the unenviable position of divining a defendant’s guilt, in whole or in part, from a musical exposition with only a tenuous relationship to the criminal conduct alleged,” the judge wrote.
Judge Hall was careful to say that she was not banning all lyrics from cases. As a hypothetical, she referenced Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 track “The Art of Peer Pressure,” in which he raps about ripping off a house while “The sun is goin’ down” and “somebody in this room.”
“If the government wished to admit these lyrics into evidence at a subsequent trial accusing Lamar of burglarizing an occupied residence with his friends at sunset, there would be a more than sufficient basis to do so,” the judge wrote. “Individuals who choose to confess unmistakable details of their crimes should be held to those statements, to be sure.”
But Judge Hall said that was not the case with Jordan’s lyrics – nor with huge numbers of other rap songs that feature references to dark subjects.
“Themes of violence and criminality have become so prevalent within the genre that they have little, if any, probative value at trial,” the judge wrote. “It is critical that resolution of guilt and innocence emerge from evidence with a close relationship to a specific criminal act, and not be based on perceptions born from the commercial and artistic promotion of a criminal lifestyle.”
The trial over Jam Master Jay’s 2002 killing, in which Jordan and Ronald Washington stand accused of murdering the Run DMC star as payback for a failed drug deal, kicked off Monday. The proceedings are expected to run for several more weeks.
Read the entire decision here:
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: A long-simmering feud between the families of Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone has erupted into a new lawsuit over a proposed Netflix biopic; Madonna’s team vows to “vigorously” fight a lawsuit over her late concert starts; a man stalking Taylor Swift is arrested three times before he’s kept behind bars; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Hey, Ho, Let’s Go … To Court
Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone — who were very much not actual brothers — didn’t like each other much in life. And guess what? Their heirs don’t like each other much either.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan court, Johnny’s widow, Linda Ramone, sued Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh, over allegations that he had “covertly” developed a planned Netflix movie starring Pete Davidson as Joey. She says that any movie based on the pioneering punk band requires her sign-off.
“To permit defendants alone to tell the authoritative story of the Ramones would be an injustice to the band and its legacy,” Linda’s lawyers wrote.
The case is the latest in years of battles between Linda and Mickey, who split 50-50 ownership of the Ramones IP. And it raises interesting legal questions about so-called life rights deals — and how they raise unique challenges in the context of musical biopics.
To learn more, go read our full story, featuring the full backstory, legal analysis and access to the actual court docs.
Other top stories this week…
LATE DEBATE – Madonna’s management team and Live Nation responded to a high-profile lawsuit claiming the music legend harmed her fans by starting New York City concerts later than scheduled, disputing some allegations and saying they plan to “defend this case vigorously.”
TAYLOR’S STALKER HELD IN JAIL – David Crowe, the man charged with stalking Taylor Swift outside her Manhattan home, was ordered by a New York judge to remain in custody after he was arrested for a third time shortly after being released from jail the first time.
JAM MASTER JAY MURDER TRIAL – Two men accused of murdering Run-DMC‘s Jam Master Jay, Karl Jordan, Jr. and Ronald Washington, finally headed to trial this week, more than 21 years after the rap icon’s killing. Prosecutors say the two men killed Jay as payback after a failed cocaine deal; if convicted, they each face the possibility of life in prison.
JIMI HENDRIX ROYALTIES CASE – A London judge issued a ruling that the heirs of Jimi Hendrix’s former bandmates could continue to sue Sony Music over the rights to three classic albums, clearing the way for a trial next year to resolve the contentious lawsuit.
RIDESHARING … A GLOCK? – Chicago rapper Lil Zay Osama was indicted on two federal charges of illegal firearm possession after he allegedly left an automatic Glock pistol in the back of an Uber after a ride in New York City.
50 CENT SUED OVER MIC TOSS – The rapper was hit with a civil lawsuit over an incident last summer in which he was captured on video throwing a microphone at a concert, filed by a Los Angeles radio host who says she was struck by the mic and suffered “severe and permanent injuries.”
FUGEE LAWYER LEAKS – David Kenner, the attorney who unsuccessfully represented Fugees rapper Pras Michel in his criminal trial case year, pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt charge over allegations that he leaked grand jury materials to reporters ahead of the trial. The lawyer was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation and will have to pay a fine.
KAT VON D CLEARED – A jury found that celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D did not violate a photographer’s copyrights when she used his portrait of Miles Davis as the basis for a tattoo she put on the arm of a friend, capping off a closely-watched case against the LA Ink star.
A judge on Monday rejected Cher’s request that her adult son be put into a court conservatorship controlling his money.
The Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer and actor had argued in a petition that 47-year-old Elijah Blue Allman’s large payments from the trust of his late father, rocker Gregg Allman, are putting him in danger because of his struggles with mental health and substance abuse.
But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica A. Uzcategui was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed and declined the petition, though she will still consider a larger, long-term conservatorship at a hearing in March.
Cher observed the hearing remotely. She appeared on a large screen in the courtroom throughout, but did not take part in the arguments.
Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
“We are thrilled that the court saw that he does not need a temporary conservatorship,” Allman’s lawyer said as he stood alongside him outside the courthouse. “He’s got a lot of support, he’s doing great.”
Cher’s attorneys argued that the support Allman was getting was from people who tell him what he wants to hear and downplay the size of his problems. They said his current apparent sobriety and mental health were illusory. They said he suffers from bipolar disorder, has been recently homeless, and that having large amounts of money might lead to access to drugs that could endanger his life.
Blue and his attorneys have consistently argued since the petition was first filed in December that none of this is true.
Uzcategui had already signaled at a hearing on January 5 that she wasn’t inclined to establish a conservatorship, delaying the decision until Monday because documents had not been shared in time with Allman’s attorneys.
Cher’s attorneys said that she was not necessarily seeking any direct control over Allman’s money, and would be happy to have a court-appointed fiduciary manage his finances. They did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the judge’s decision.
Court conservatorships, known as guardianships in some states, have come under far greater scrutiny in recent years after a temporary conservatorship imposed on Britney Spears in 2008 would end up leaving her without control of her money and major life affairs for nearly 14 years.
A contentious lawsuit over Jimi Hendrix’s music is going to trial, after a London judge ruled that the heirs of his former bandmates could continue to sue Sony Music over the rights to three classic albums.
The estates of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell say they own a share of the rights to three albums created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience, and they’ve been battling in court for more than two years to prove it.
Sony had argued that the case should be dismissed because Redding and Mitchell both signed away their rights in the early 1970s shortly after Hendrix died, but a judge on London’s High Court ruled Monday that the dispute – over “arguably the greatest rock guitarist ever” — must be decided at trial.
“My overall conclusion is that the claims in respect of copyright and performers’ property rights survive and should go to trial,” Justice Michael Green wrote in his ruling, obtained by Billboard. The judge wrote that Redding and Mitchell’s heirs had “a real prospect of succeeding” on their argument that the decades-old releases “do not provide a complete defence” for Sony.
It’s unclear when the trial will take place. A rep for Sony did not immediately return a request for comment on the court’s decision. An attorney for the Hendrix estate, which is not formally a party to the U.K. case, did not immediately return a request for comment.
In a statement to Billboard, Redding and Mitchell’s attorneys said the ruling would mean “we can hopefully obtain some justice for the families” of the two musicians. “No one is denying that Jimi Hendrix was one of, if not, the greatest guitarist of all time. But he didn’t make his recordings alone, and they could not have achieved any success without the contributions of Noel and Mitch.”
Hendrix teamed up with Redding and Mitchell in 1966 to form the Experience, and the trio went on to release a number of now-iconic songs before Hendrix’s death, including “All Along The Watchtower,” which spent nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and peaked at No. 20.
The current fight kicked off in 2021, when Redding and Mitchell’s heirs sent a letter in the U.K. claiming they own a stake in Hendrix’s music and arguing that they’re owed millions in royalties. Hendrix’s own estate and Sony responded a month later by preemptively suing in New York federal court, aiming to prove they were in sole control of the music. Redding and Mitchell’s heirs then filed their own case against Sony in British court.
The transatlantic dispute centers on agreements that Redding and Mitchell signed in New York in 1973 to resolve litigation after Hendrix died suddenly at the age of 27. In the settlement, the two men agreed not to sue Jimi’s estate and any record companies distributing his music in return for one-time payments — $100,000 paid to Redding and $247,500 to Mitchell.
Sony and the Hendrix estate have argued in court filings that those “broad releases” prohibit Redding and Mitchell’s heirs from making any legal claim to the band’s music. The heirs, on the other hand, say the two men died in poverty and that they’re legally entitled under U.K. law to a cut of the lucrative Hendrix Experience music they helped create.
On Monday, Justice Green did not rule on that core dispute, saying he “cannot decide those contentious issues” about the power of the release agreements signed by Redding and Mitchell. Instead, he ruled simply that there are “sustainable arguments on such issues that will have to be decided at a trial.”
In statement, a rep for the Redding and Mitchell estates said they looked forward to the trial. “Noel and Mitch died in penury despite being two thirds of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and owning the copyright in the recordings jointly with Jimi,” Edward Adams said. “We see our case as carrying a torch for Noel, in particular, who spent over three decades seeking justice.”
The trial will come after years of jockeying over whether the dispute should be heard first in American or British courts. In May, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the English litigation could take precedence, citing the fact that it had kicked off nearly a month earlier than the American case, and that a British appeals court had already ruled that their case could move forward. The U.S. case, filed in Manhattan federal court, is currently paused.
Two men accused of murdering Run-DMC‘s Jam Master Jay will finally head to trial Monday (Jan. 29), more than 21 years after the rap icon’s killing.
Karl Jordan, Jr. and Ronald Washington, who were charged with Jay’s long-unsolved 2002 murder in 2020, will stand trial at a Brooklyn federal courthouse. Prosecutors say the two men killed Jay as payback after a failed cocaine deal; if convicted, they each face the possibility of life in prison.
Following the selection of a jury last week, opening statements are slated to begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday. The trial, before U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, is expected to run for a month.
Run-DMC, a trio consisting of Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, is widely credited as one of the most influential early acts in hip-hop history. The trio’s 1985 release, King of Rock, was hip-hop’s first platinum album, and the group’s 1986 cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jay’s shocking 2002 killing had long been one of hip hop’s famous cold cases, joining the unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. Though witnesses were in the room when the murder happened, and police generated a number of leads, no charges were filed until August 2020, when prosecutors finally unveiled the case against Washington and Jordan.
According to charging documents and statements by prosecutors, Washington and Jordan broke into Jay’s studio on the night of Oct. 30, 2002. Washington allegedly initially pointed a gun at another individual in the studio; as he was doing so, Jordan allegedly fired two shots, one of which struck Jay in the head at close range, killing him almost instantly.
The motive for the killing was allegedly a drug deal gone bad. Prosecutors say Jay had arranged to purchase 10 kilograms of cocaine that would be distributed in Maryland by Washington, Jordan and others. When Jay backed out of the deal, prosecutors say, the two decided to kill him.
“The defendants allegedly carried out the cold-blooded murder of Jason Mizell, a brazen act that has finally caught up with them thanks to the dedicated detectives, agents and prosecutors who never gave up on this case,” prosecutors said at the time. “The charges announced today begin to provide a measure of justice to the family and friends of the victim, and make clear that the rule of law will be upheld, whether that takes days, months, or decades.”
Jay Bryant, a third man allegedly involved in the killing who prosecutors charged with murder last May, will have a separate trial later this year.
Ahead of the trial, Jordan and Washington argued that prosecutors waited too long to charge them, meaning they wouldn’t be able to properly defend themselves. For instance, Jordan said cell phone records that would support his alibi were no longer available, and that key witnesses would have trouble remembering information.
But in September 2022, the federal judge overseeing the case rejected those arguments, calling them “speculative” and unsupported by evidence: “The court has no idea what Jordan believes the phone records contain, how they could conceivably contradict the Government’s evidence, and how those contradictions could conceivably demonstrate that Jordan did not commit the crime.”
A jury found Friday that celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D did not violate a photographer’s copyright when she used his portrait of Miles Davis as the basis for a tattoo she put on the arm of a friend.
The Los Angeles jury deliberated for just over two hours before deciding that the tattoo by the former star of the reality shows “Miami Ink” and “LA Ink” was not similar enough to photographer Jeffrey Sedlik’s 1989 portrait of the jazz legend that she needed to have paid permission.
“I’m obviously very happy for this to be over,” Von D, who inked her friend’s arm with Davis as a gift about seven years ago, said outside the courtroom. “It’s been two years of a nightmare worrying about this, not just for myself but for my fellow tattoo artists.”
The eight jurors made the same decision about a drawing Von D made from the portrait to base the tattoo on, and to several social media posts she made about the process, which were also part of Sedlik’s lawsuit. And they found that the tattoo, drawing and posts also all fell within the legal doctrine of fair use of a copyrighted work, giving Von D and other tattoo artists who supported her and followed the trial a resounding across-the-board victory.
“We’ve said all along that this case never should have been brought,” Von D’s attorney Allen B. Grodsky said after the verdict. “The jury recognized that this was just ridiculous.”
Sedlik’s attorney Robert Edward Allen said they plan to appeal. He said it the images, which both featured a close-up of Davis gazing toward the viewer and making a “shh” gesture, were so similar he didn’t know how the jury could reach the conclusion they did.
“If those two things are not substantially similar, then no one’s art is safe,” Allen said.
He told jurors during closing arguments earlier Friday that the case has “nothing to do with tattoos.”
“It’s about copying others’ protected works,” Allen said. “It’s not going to hurt the tattoo industry. The tattoo police are not going to come after anyone.”
Allen emphasized the meticulous work Sedlik did to set up the shoot, to create the lighting and mood, and to put Davis in the pose that would make for an iconic photo that was first published on the cover of JAZZIZ magazine in 1989. Sedlik registered the copyright in 1994.
And he said that subsequently, licensing the image to others including tattoo artists was a major part of how he made his living.
Von D said during the three-day trial that she never licenses the images she recreates, and she considers work like the Davis tattoo a form of “fan art.”
“I made zero money off it,” she testified. “I’m not mass-producing anything. I think there is a big difference.”
Her attorney Grodsky emphasized for jurors that that lack of an attempt to cash in on the image was essential to the tattoo being a form of fair use, an exception in copyright law used for works including commentary, criticism and parody.
Allen argued in his closing that the social media posts about the tattoo were a promotion of her and her studio, and thus a form of monetizing the image.
If jurors had sided with Sedlik, they could have awarded him as little as a few hundred dollars or as much as $150,000.
Von D was among the stars of the reality series “Miami Ink” then was the featured artist on its spinoff “LA Ink,” which ran on TLC from 2007 to 2011.
The 41-year-old Von D, whose legal name is Katherine von Drachenberg, was already a prominent young tattoo artist when she became a TV personality through her appearances on TLC’s “Miami Ink” starting in 2005 on TLC. She was the central star of its spinoff, “LA Ink,” which ran from 2007 to 2011 and made her possibly the most famous tattoo artist in the country.
Von D said that despite the victory, she’s not enthused about getting back to work.
“I think I don’t want to ever tattoo again, my heart has been crushed through this in different ways,” she said. “We’ll see with time.”
50 Cent is facing a new civil lawsuit over an incident last summer in which he was captured on video throwing a microphone at a concert, filed by a Los Angeles radio host who says she was struck by the mic and suffered “severe and permanent injuries.”
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles court, Power 106 host Bryhana Monegain accused 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) and concert giant AEG of legal negligence over the August episode, in which the rapper chucked the mic off to the side of the stage after he became frustrated that it was not working.
Monegain – who publicly shared images of gash on her forehead the next day – claims in her lawsuit that the microphone hit her in the face and left wrist, causing major injuries.
“Plaintiff was transported by ambulance to the Los Angeles General Medical Center emergency department for treatment of injuries, including but not limited to, a concussion, laceration over her forehead, and pain in her left wrist,” her lawyers write. “Plaintiff complained of dizziness, headaches, light and sound sensitivity, and nausea [and] continues to suffer from here severe injuries and emotional distress.”
Part of the incident — which happened on Aug 30. while 50 Cent was performing at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles as part of his Final Lap Tour — was captured in viral videos. In them, the rapper is seen looking frustrated with a microphone, then throwing it down off the side of the stage. Later in the performance, while Nas was onstage, videos show 50 getting annoyed again before hurling the new mic to the same offstage section.
While the viral video doesn’t show the microphone hitting anyone, Monegain appeared in photos shared on social media with a wound on her forehead that was allegedly caused by 50 Cent’s mic.
Reps for 50 Cent did not return a request for comment on Friday. In a statement at the time, his lawyer Scott Leemon told Billboard that “Curtis would never intentionally strike anyone with a microphone.”
Thursday’s lawsuit is purely a civil matter. At the time of the incident, Monegain reportedly filed a police report on the night of the concert alleging criminal battery. But court records show that no charges were ever filed, and TMZ later reported that both the L.A. District Attorney’s office and the L.A. City Attorney’s office had both declined to bring a criminal case against the rapper.
As in any negligence lawsuit, Monegain claims that 50 Cent and AEG had a duty to keep her and other attendees safe from any dangers that they either knew about or should have seen coming. Instead, she says they “failed to create an environment that was safe for attendees on the subject premises.” She claims that 50 Cent should have known “the dangerous nature of a performer throwing a microphone into a crowed area” but did so anyway.
The lawsuit does not say how much money Monegain is seeking, but asks for “past and future wage loss, hospital and medical expenses” and other unspecified “general damages” over the harm she allegedly suffered.
A spokesperson for AEG did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations.
Chicago rapper Lil Zay Osama is facing a two-count federal indictment for illegal firearm possession after he allegedly left an automatic Glock pistol in the back of an Uber after a ride in New York City.
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Prosecutors say that Lil Zay (real name Isaiah Dukes) carried a loaded pistol that had been modified into a machine gun during the rideshare trip from a luxury hotel in Manhattan to a recording studio in Queens, then left it in the back when he exited the vehicle.
The indictment, handed down by a Brooklyn federal grand jury Wednesday, charges Lil Zay with possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered firearm – accusations that carry a prison sentence as long as twenty years if he’s convicted.
“Machineguns have no place on the streets of our communities,” said Tommy Kalogiros, the lead investigator at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, better known as the ATF. “They are weapons intended to kill and injure with maximum effect, with the shooter often firing uncontrollably and indiscriminately.”
The new federal case is only the latest gun charge for Lil Zay.
Last month, he was arrested in Chicago after Lil Zay and three other men allegedly led police on a high-speed chase. When the car was finally stopped, police reportedly found multiple loaded Glock pistols, as well as the same kind of modification device to convert a firearm into a fully automatic machine gun that was featured in Wednesday’s indictment. Before that, Lil Zay was reportedly arrested in Chicago in January 2023 on separate weapons charges – an incident that led to Lil Zay’s awkward-looking mugshot going viral on social media.
After the September 2022 taxi incident at the center of Wednesday’s indictment, Lil Zay was arrested in New York, but he was later released after he posted bond. Two months later, the rapper claimed on Instagram that the case over the incident had been “dismissed” and demanded an apology from hip hop personality DJ Akademiks, who had publicized incident on social media.
“Me personally leaving a gun in an Uber? Think about it lol I never did that!” he wrote in an Instagram story the time. “So stop saying I did cause if I did DNA would’ve been on gun and they would have found me with it.”
There’s a new front in the long legal war between the family members of late Ramones founders Joey and Johnny Ramone, this time over a planned Netflix movie starring Pete Davidson centered on the pioneering punk band.
In a lawsuit filed Saturday (Jan. 21) in Manhattan court, Johnny’s widow, Linda Ramone, claims that Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh (Mitchel Hyman) “covertly developed an unapproved and unauthorized Ramones-based biopic” based on his own “one-sided recitation of the history of the Ramones.”
Though the lawsuit doesn’t identify Netflix by name, it says that the disputed movie will be based on Leigh’s memoir, I Slept with Joey Ramone. Netflix’s planned movie, announced in 2021, has the same name; is based on the same book; and is being developed with the “support of the Estate of Joey Ramone.”
Since Linda and Leigh split ownership of the intellectual property for the band — widely regarded as pioneers of punk rock and one of the most influential rock bands of all time — Linda says a movie that will focus heavily on the Ramones as a group cannot go forward without her say-so.
“Ms. Ramone objects to defendants’ attempt to create a Ramones film without her involvement — not to be obstinate, but rather based on defendants’ disregard for [Ramones] assets and their conduct and treatment of Ms. Ramone and her late husband,” Linda’s attorneys write. “To permit defendants alone to tell the authoritative story of the Ramones would be an injustice to the band and its legacy.”
Though the planned movie is one major point of dispute, Linda’s lawsuit also includes a raft of other allegations against Leigh and David Frey, a director of the Ramones’ holding company appointed to his role by Leigh. She says the pair have “effectively shut down the entire company,” unfairly withheld payments to her, and otherwise thrown the company’s operations into chaos.
“It is apparent from defendants’ continuing course of conduct that their main objective is to torment Ms. Ramone until she agrees to sell her interests,” Linda’s lawyers write. “Regrettably, Defendants appear willing to allow the band’s legacy to decay, in order to benefit their own self-interest.”
“They Weren’t Friendly”
Joey (real name Jeffrey Ross Hyman), who served as the band’s lead vocalist from their founding in 1974, died of cancer in 2001. Johnny (real name John William Cummings), the band’s guitarist, died in 2004, also of cancer.
The two punk rockers, who were not actually related, had a notoriously unbrotherly relationship — a rift rooted partly in their differing personalities and political views, but also in the fact that Linda dated Joey before eventually marrying Johnny. The two nonetheless formed a lucrative business partnership, touring heavily for decades until the band finally broke up for good in 1996. But in a 2016 interview with the New York Post, Leigh put it bluntly: “They weren’t friendly.”
In the years since the two bandmates passed away, that feud has seemingly continued between Leigh and Linda.
As the executors of Johnny and Joey’s respective estates, Linda and Leigh each own half of Ramones Productions Inc., an entity that has been described in court filings as “the vehicle through which the iconic punk rock musical group … markets, merchandizes, licenses and produces its memorabilia and musical related products.”
In 2018, Leigh filed a legal action against Linda via private arbitration, alleging that she was improperly using the band’s intellectual property and unfairly associating herself with the “Ramones” name with projects like a “Ramones Ranch” in Los Angeles, violating the agreement that governs how Ramones Productions is run.
In a decision that was later made public in court, an arbitrator partly sided with Leigh, restricting how Linda could use “The Ramones” name, and even requiring her to go by “Linda Cummings-Ramone” in certain situations. But the arbitrator roundly criticized both sides for their ongoing feuding, reminding them that they had an “almost sacred mission to be the caretakers for the band’s creative work.”
“Instead, the parties have allowed their personal egos and their animus for one another to interfere with their joint obligations by failing to communicate, obfuscating information and unreasonably withholding their approvals,” the arbitrator wrote in May 2019.
The admonishment did little good. Last year, the pair headed back to litigation, this time after Linda initiated arbitration proceedings that aimed to remove someone from the board of directors of Ramones Productions. Leigh filed a court case to halt the arbitration, arguing that it was an improper use of that process. That case remains pending.
“A Universal Story of Family”
The latest legal scuffle appears to have been triggered in part by the plans for a movie version of I Slept With Joey Ramone — Leigh’s 2009 memoir billed as “an enduring portrait of a man who struggled to find his voice and of the brother who loved him.” Netflix announced the film in April 2021, with Davidson set to co-write and star as Joey, and Jason Orley (Big Time Adolescence, I Want You Back) signed on to direct.
“’I Slept with Joey Ramone’ is a great rock anthem that will make an equally great rock biopic, set apart by a universal story of family,” Adam Fogelson, chairman of the company spearheading the film, said in Netflix’s press release announcing the project.
Netflix said that the movie, which remains in early-stage “development” in 2024, would be produced with “the cooperation and support of the Estate of Joey Ramone.” But in her new lawsuit this week, Linda says that such a project needs the sign-off of Ramones Productions, not just Joey’s estate.
“As 50% shareholder of RPI, Ms. Ramone would never have consented to defendants’ unilateral development of a Ramones biopic,” her lawyers wrote. “Nor would she (then or at any point in the future) agree to permit the inclusion of any RPI intellectual property or recordings in such a film project.”
According to Linda’s attorneys, Leigh and Frey have told others that they plan to “circumvent” any objections she has to the movie, including by potentially re-recording Ramones songs that could be used in the film. And once they do so, she says they will unfairly get to tell the “authoritative story” of the iconic band.
“There will likely not be an appetite for a subsequent Ramones film, thus destroying the single most lucrative and substantial corporate opportunity of the company and usurping it as defendants’ own,” Linda wrote.
Netflix is not named in the lawsuit and is not accused of any wrongdoing. The company did not return a request for comment on the new lawsuit.
Life Rights? Or Free Speech Rights?
Legally speaking, whether a movie producer would need one band member to sign off on a movie about one of his famous bandmates is a tricky question. Would John Lennon’s estate need to sign off on a Paul McCartney movie? Could Dave Grohl stop a Kurt Cobain biopic?
While many risk-averse filmmakers and studios secure “life rights” before they make such movies — essentially a guarantee that the production will not be hamstrung by litigation over likeness rights or defamation allegations — they’re not strictly necessary. The First Amendment largely protects the right to make movies based on real historical figures, whether they want their story told or not.
“Life rights are an agreement for access and a promise not to sue, but there’s no intellectual property attached to our life story itself,” says Lisa Callif, an attorney at the firm Donaldson Callif Perez who specializes in rights clearance for films and TV. “We all have a First Amendment right to tell a story. A story about a band is just comprised of facts, even if they’re really interesting facts.”
But in practical terms, a movie about a famous band raises a unique problem: It effectively needs to use that band’s copyrighted music. Can you imagine watching Walk The Line without hearing Johnny Cash songs, or Straight Outta Compton without any N.W.A tracks? In the context of a musical biopic, that gives someone like Linda, with her veto power over the band’s music, more leverage to demand involvement.
“It gets stickier with rights to music,” Callif said. “Even if you can tell the story, you’re not going to be able to license any of the music.”
The other layer to the current dispute is contractual. Linda’s lawsuit points to a legal settlement from 2009 in which both she and Leigh allegedly agreed that any “separate or individual projects” involving Ramones intellectual property would “require the prior written approval” of the company and its owners. Even if a studio has the right to tell any historical story it wants, a party to a contract could be barred from signing certain deals.
“Intransigence and Harmful Actions”
Beyond the dispute over the film, Linda’s new lawsuit includes a slew of other accusations about Leigh, echoing the strongly worded tone of their previous legal battles.
Linda says Leigh and Frey have “refused to engage with the Ramones’ record label, its social media creative agency, its merchandising partners, or its long-term business managers”; that they “regularly create internecine disputes and unnecessary work that drains the company of funds”; that they have “prevented the company from conducting basic operational tasks”; and have “baselessly and in bad faith” withheld dividend payments from her, “effectively holding Ms. Ramone’s money hostage” unless she agrees with their initiatives.
“After exhausting every resource at her disposal to try to right the ship … Linda Ramone reluctantly brings this action as a last resort,” Linda’s lawyers write. “Simply put, RPI, as currently constituted, is not working due to the intransigence and harmful actions undertaken by [Frey and Leigh].”
Ultimately, Linda claims that the only possible solution to the years-long dispute is to remove Frey from the company and appoint a court-order receiver to take charge of it: “Mr. Frey’s continued involvement and obfuscation remains a significant hurdle toward resolving even the most straightforward of operational issues.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Frey and Leigh of breaching their fiduciary duty to the company and of unjust enrichment. It demands that the court order Frey’s removal as director of the company, and requests the appointment of a receiver.
An attorney for Leigh declined to comment on the lawsuit’s allegations. An attorney for Frey did not immediately return requests for comment.
“Ramones Fans Want A Ramones Movie”
In some ways, the current dispute over the Joey biopic was predicted by that 2019 arbitration ruling which detailed the long struggle between Linda and Leigh.
In it, the arbitrator went to great lengths to plead with Linda and Leigh to put aside their differences. He warned them that their “time-consuming and costly” legal battles had caused the Ramones brand to experience “tepid growth.”
“Mickey Hyman and Linda Cummings-Ramone have been entrusted with the exceedingly important mission of preserving the legacy of the Ramones for its existing followers, and to grow this iconic brand to a new world-wide group of music fans,” the arbitrator wrote at the time “The only way those goals can be accomplished, in my estimation, is for there to be some radical changes made by Mickey, Linda, and their representatives.”
If those changes could be made, the arbitrator identified one key area for future growth: A movie. He cited the then-recent success of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, which he said had boosted Queen to “its highest chart position in 38 years” and “demonstrates the power that a biopic can have on improving the stature of a rock band.” That movie eventually earned more than $900 million.
“In my estimation, Ramones fans want a Ramones movie,” the arbitrator wrote at the time. “To make that happen, each side will need to put on hold their individual desires to make a Mickey movie or a Linda movie and join together to authorize a great biopic to be made about this historically important band.”
