Legal News
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A transatlantic legal battle between Jimi Hendrix’s estate and his former bandmates 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.
The two dueling camps — Hendrix’s estate and Sony Music on one side and the estates of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell on the other — have each filed their own lawsuit on opposite sides of the Atlantic over control of the rights to music created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience.
After a year of jockeying over which case should take precedence, a Manhattan federal judge ruled Tuesday that it should be Redding and Mitchell’s UK lawsuit. She pointed out that the English litigation 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 litigation centers on estate matters in England, general release documents located in England, and copyright and intellectual property rights under English law,” Judge Ronnie Abrams wrote. “It can thus hardly be said that the courts of England are not an adequate forum.”
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 UK claiming they own a stake in Hendrix’s music and arguing that they’re owed millions in royalties. The Hendrix estate and Sony responded a month later by filing their own lawsuit in New York federal court, arguing that Redding and Mitchell signed away their rights shortly after the legendary rocker died in 1970, in exchange for “significant monetary consideration.”
But for over a year, the two sides have been duking it out over which case should proceed first. The Hendrix estate and Sony say the contractual releases, which will play a central role in the case, were all signed in New York as part of probate proceedings in that state. But Redding and Mitchell’s heirs have claimed the estate is merely trying to “circumvent” English courts to win a friendly judge in America.
“Plaintiffs are merely trying to win the race to the courthouse because they apparently believe this court will be more sympathetic to their claim than the English court before which it is now pending,” the Redding and Mitchell heirs wrote last year. “Such blatant forum shopping is not entitled to any deference.”
Last month, a London appeals court ruled that the U.K. case could proceed, regardless of what happened in New York. That ruling said that the New York releases might indeed end up being the “central aspect in the dispute,” but that the British case also dealt with broader issues of English law.
And on Tuesday, Judge Abrams cited that April ruling as a key factor in why she had decided that the New York case could wait until the British case was resolved.
“The London High Court’s lengthy decision finding jurisdiction over the English action underscores the appropriateness of that forum, and the merits of that action are now being actively litigated in English courts,” the judge wrote. “This action is hereby stayed pending the resolution of defendants’ action in England.”
Neither side’s attorneys immediately returned requests for comment.
Read the entire ruling here:
Five TikTok content creators have filed a lawsuit 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.
The Montana residents also argued in the complaint, filed in federal court late Wednesday without public notice, that the state doesn’t have any authority over matters of national security. Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law Wednesday and said it would protect Montana residents’ private data and personal information from being harvested by the Chinese government.
The ban is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
“The law takes the broadest possible approach to its objectives, restricting and banning the protected speech of all TikTok users in Montana to prevent the speculative and unsubstantiated possibility that the Chinese government might direct TikTok Inc., or its parent, to spy on some Montana users,” the complaint states.
“We expected a legal challenge and are fully prepared to defend the law,” said Emily Flower, spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Justice.
TikTok has argued the law infringes on people’s First Amendment rights.
However, spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday. She also declined to say whether the company helped coordinate the complaint.
The plaintiffs are Montana residents who use the video-sharing app for things like promoting a business, connecting with military veterans, sharing outdoor adventures or expressing their sense of humor. Two of them have more than 200,000 followers.
One content creator, Carly Ann Goddard, shares videos about living on a ranch, parenting, recipes and home decor. Her account has 97,000 followers and has allowed her to roughly triple her family’s household income, the complaint states. TikTok creators can make money in several ways, including by being paid to advertise products to their followers.
The lawsuit — filed just hours after Gianforte signed the measure into law — states the ban would “immediately and permanently deprive Plaintiffs of their ability to express themselves and communicate with others.”
“Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.
The case could serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free America many national lawmakers have envisioned. Cybersecurity experts say it could be difficult to enforce.
Some lawmakers, the FBI and officials at other agencies are concerned the video-sharing app, owned by ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on U.S. citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok says none of this has ever happened.
A former executive at ByteDance alleges the tech giant has served as a “propaganda tool” for the Chinese government, a claim ByteDance says is baseless.
China passed laws in 2014 and 2017 that compel companies to cooperate with the country’s government for state intelligence work. TikTok says it has never been asked to hand over its data and it wouldn’t do so if asked.
“TikTok is spying on Americans. Period,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told a legislative committee in March. “TikTok is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party. It is owned by a Chinese company, and under China law, if you are based in China, you will cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party. Period.”
More than half the U.S. states, including Montana, and the federal government have banned TikTok from government-owned devices.
Montana’s law would prohibit downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.
Opponents say Montana residents could easily circumvent the ban by using a virtual private network, a service that shields internet users by encrypting their data traffic, preventing others from observing their web browsing. Montana state officials say geofencing technology is used with online sports gambling apps, which are deactivated in states where online gambling is illegal.
The idea of a TikTok ban has been around since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump attempted to bar the company from operating in the U.S. through an executive order that was halted in federal courts. President Joe Biden’s administration initially shelved those plans, but more recently threatened to ban the app if the company’s Chinese owners don’t sell their stakes.
Montana’s law would be nullified if the federal government placed a ban on TikTok or if it was sold to a company not based in a country that is federally designated as a foreign adversary, which currently includes China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and Cuba.
Lawyers for Fetty Wap are asking a judge to sentence him to five years – the minimum under the law – after he pleaded guilty last year to federal drug charges, arguing that the star rapper committed his crimes only to “financially support others” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The “Trap Queen” star (real name Willie Junior Maxwell II) has admitted to participating in what prosecutors called “a multimillion-dollar bicoastal drug distribution organization,” pleading guilty in August to a single charge of conspiring to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine.
Now, with sentencing set for next week, the rapper’s lawyers say he should receive the minimum possible sentence for that conviction, arguing that he “realizes the terrible mistake he made” and is “truly sorry for the loss and hurt he has caused.”
“What makes this case unusual is Mr. Maxwell’s motivation,” his lawyers wrote in a Wednesday (May 18) filing. “Personal gain was not his motivation. Rather, he was motivated by his commitment to financially support others. He now realizes that he does not have to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.”
Sentencing guidelines call for a prison term ranging from seven and nine years, but in their filing, Fetty Wap’s lawyers say their client deserves less than that because he only turned to crime amid the pandemic, as his touring income dried up but “the bills kept coming in.”
“Suddenly it felt like life was going in reverse and he became ashamed when he began to struggle to keep up the lifestyle that he created for so many. His judgment became impaired,” the rapper’s lawyers wrote. “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.”
Fetty Wap was arrested in October 2021 at Rolling Loud New York, after prosecutors unveiled an indictment against him and five others: Anthony Leonardi, Robert Leonardi, Brian Sullivan, Kavaughn Wiggins and Anthony Cyntje, a New Jersey corrections officer.
At the time, prosecutors said the 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.”
“The fact that we arrested a chart-topping rap artist and a corrections officer as part of the conspiracy illustrates just how vile the drug trade has become,” FBI assistant director-in-charge Michael J. Driscoll said at the time.
Federal prosecutors have not yet filed their own sentencing recommendations.
Ruling on a case that record labels and publishers have called “critical to the American music industry,” the U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday that Andy Warhol violated a photographer’s copyrights when he used her images of Prince to create one of distinctive screen prints.
By a seven to two vote, the high court ruled that Warhol did not make legal “fair use” of photos of Prince snapped by Lynn Goldsmith, a trailblazing rock-and-roll photographer who also captured images of Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen.
Attorneys for the late artist has warned that creators must be able to re-use earlier works and that a loss would “chill” creativity. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that Warhol had used the photo for a largely the same commercial purpose as Goldsmith – and had offered little compelling reason for doing so.
“Lynn Goldsmith’s original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists,” the justice wrote.
The ruling is the first time in more than three decades the justices have ruled on how creative works are covered by fair use. The last time the court did so was a landmark 1991 decision upholding 2 Live Crew‘s bawdy parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.”
Ahead of the decision, the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Music Publishers’ Association had urged the court to adopt Thursday’s more limited vision of fair use. They said the outcome of the case was “critical to the American music industry,” warning that sampling and interpolation might have been regarded as legal fair use under Warhol’s “wide and manipulable” approach.
Warhol created his images in 1984 as artwork for a Vanity Fair article called “Purple Fame,” a sarcastic ode to the then-rising star. To do so, he used a portrait of the star taken in 1981 by Goldsmith. Vanity Fair licensed her image for use in the magazine, but Warhol also created more than a dozen other versions, which were later sold to collectors, displayed in museums and licensed for use without the her consent.
When Prince died suddenly from a drug overdose in 2016, Condé Nast magazine re-used Warhol’s image on the cover of a tribute issue – a prominent display that caught Goldsmith’s attention. After she threatened to sue the Andy Warhol Foundation for copyright infringement, the group filed a preemptive lawsuit to prove that the works were legal.
In 2019, a federal judge ruled that Warhol’s images had “transformed Prince from a vulnerable, uncomfortable person to an iconic, larger-than-life figure.” Such “transformative use” is often the key question when courts decide if something counts as a legal fair use.
But in 2021, a federal appeals court overturned that decision, sending the case to the Supreme Court. The court said that merely adding Warhol’s “signature style” to Goldsmith’s image had not created something “fundamentally different and new.”
In Thursday’s decision, the Supreme Court affirmed that ruling. In a 38-page opinion, Justice Sotomayor repeatedly stressed that the two images had been used for largely the same purpose – to illustrate a magazine with an image of Prince.
“If an original work and secondary use share the same or highly similar purposes, and the secondary use is commercial, the first fair use factor is likely to weigh against fair use, absent some other justification for copying,” the justice wrote.
With such similar purposes, the justice said that simply wanting to offer a new “meaning or message” wasn’t enough on its own.
“Copying might have been helpful to convey a new meaning or message. It often is,” the justice wrote. “But that does not suffice under [fair use]. Nor does it distinguish [Warhol] from a long list of would-be fair users: a musician who finds it helpful to sample another artist’s song to make his own, a playwright who finds it helpful to adapt a novel, or a filmmaker who would prefer to create a sequel or spinoff, to name just a few.”
Read the Supreme Court’s entire decision here.
A Florida man who testified against three former friends who murdered rising rap star XXXTentacion during a robbery five years ago will spend the next two years in prison, a judge ruled Wednesday (May 17).
Circuit Judge Michael Usan sentenced Robert Allen to seven years in prison, with credit for the five years he has already spent at the Broward County jail. He will then spend 20 years on probation. He could have received a life sentence.
Allen, 27, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder and testified earlier this year against Michael Boatwright, 27, Dedrick Williams, 27, and Trayvon Newsome, 25. They were convicted of first-degree murder in March and sentenced to life in prison.
During the monthlong trial, prosecutors linked Allen, Boatwright, Williams and Newsome to the June 18, 2018, shooting outside Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale through extensive surveillance video taken inside and outside the store. They stole $50,000 and made cellphone videos hours after the shooting showing them flashing fistfuls of $100 bills.
XXXTentacion, whose legal name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports with a friend when an SUV swerved in front of him and blocked his BMW.
Surveillance video showed two masked gunmen emerging and confronting the 20-year-old singer at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing cash XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank, got back into the SUV and sped away. The friend was not harmed.
Boatwright was identified as the primary shooter with Newsome being identified as the other gunman. Williams was the group’s leader and the driver of the SUV.
Allen testified that the men set out that day to commit robberies and went to the motorcycle shop to buy Williams a mask. There they spotted the rapper and decided to make him their target. Allen and Williams went inside the shop to confirm it was him. They then went back to the SUV they had rented, waited for XXXTentacion to emerge and ambushed him.
Montana became the first state in the U.S. to enact a complete ban on TikTok on Wednesday when Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a measure that’s more sweeping than any other state’s attempts to curtail the social media app, which is owned by a Chinese tech company.
The measure, which is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, is expected to be challenged legally and will serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free America that many national lawmakers have envisioned.
“Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party,” Gianforte said in a statement.
TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter argued that the law infringes on people’s First Amendment rights and is unlawful. She declined to say whether the company will file a lawsuit.
“We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana,” Oberwetter said in a statement.
Keegan Medrano, policy director for the ACLU of Montana, said the Legislature “trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment.”
Some lawmakers, the FBI and officials at other agencies are concerned the video-sharing app, owned by ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on American citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok says none of this has ever happened.
When Montana banned the app on government-owned devices in late December, Gianforte said TikTok posed a “significant risk” to sensitive state data. More than half of U.S. states and the federal government have a similar ban.
On Wednesday, Gianforte also announced he was prohibiting the use of all social media applications tied to foreign adversaries on state equipment and for state businesses in Montana effective on June 1. Among the apps he listed are WeChat, whose parent company is headquartered in China; and Telegram Messenger, which was founded in Russia.
The legislation, drafted by the attorney general’s office, easily passed through Montana’s GOP-controlled Legislature.
Gianforte had wanted to expand the TikTok bill to include apps tied to foreign adversaries, but the legislature did not send the bill to him until after the session ended, preventing him from offering any amendments.
Montana’s new law prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.
Opponents consider the measure to be government overreach and say Montana residents could easily circumvent the ban by using a virtual private network, a service that shields internet users by encrypting their data traffic, preventing others from observing their web browsing. Montana state officials say geofencing technology is used with online sports gambling apps, which are deactivated in states where online gambling is illegal.
TikTok, which has said it has a plan to protect U.S. users, has vowed to fight back against the ban, along with small business owners who said they use the app for advertising to help grow their businesses and reach more customers.
The app’s fun, goofy videos and ease of use has made it immensely popular, and U.S. tech giants like Snapchat and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, see it as a competitive threat.
Though many lawmakers in Montana have been enthusiastic about a ban, experts who followed the bill closely said the state will likely have to defend the legislation in court.
NetChoice, a trade group that counts Google and TikTok as its members, called the bill unconstitutional.
“This is a clear violation of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from blocking Americans from accessing constitutionally-protected speech online via websites or apps,” Carl Szabo, who serves as the group’s vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.
Officials are also bound to receive criticism from advocacy groups and TikTok users who don’t want their favorite app to be taken away. TikTok has been recruiting so-called influencers and small businesses who use the platform to push back on a ban. But others who haven’t been part of an official campaign coordinated by the company are also worried about what lawmakers are doing.
Adam Botkin, a former football player and recent graduate at the University of Montana, said it was a scary time for him as a content creator in Montana. The 22-year-old has nearly 170,000 followers on TikTok, where he mostly posts short videos of himself performing football kicks.
He says he sometimes makes “tens of thousands” of dollars per month from brands looking to market their products on his social media accounts, including Instagram, where he has roughly 44,000 followers.
Botkin says most of his income comes from Instagram, which is believed to be more lucrative for content creators. But he has to grow his following on that platform — and others — to have the same level of popularity that he does on TikTok. He says he’s trying to do that, and won’t try to circumvent the TikTok ban by using a VPN.
“You got to adapt and evolve with how things move,” Botkin said. “So, if I have to adapt and move, I’ll adapt.”
Chatter about a TikTok ban has been around since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump attempted to bar the company from operating in the U.S. through an executive order that was halted in federal courts. President Joe Biden’s administration initially shelved those plans, but more recently threatened to ban the app if the company’s Chinese owners don’t sell their stakes.
TikTok doesn’t want either option and has been clamoring to prove it’s free of any Chinese government interference. It’s also touting a data safety plan it calls “Project Texas” to assuage bipartisan concerns in Washington.
At the same time, some lawmakers have emerged as allies, arguing efforts to restrict data harvesting practices need to include all social media companies, not just one. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blocked a bill in March that would ban TikTok nationally, saying such a move would violate the Constitution and anger the millions of voters who use the app.
Montana’s TikTok ban also comes amid a growing movement to limit social media use among kids and teens and, in some cases, impose bans. Several bills circulating in Congress aim to get at the issue, including one that would prohibit all children under the age of 13 from using social media and require permission from a guardian for users under 18 to create an account.
Some states, like Utah and Arkansas, have already enacted laws that would hinge social media use on parental consent and similar bills are in the works in other states. Last year, California enacted a law that would require companies to beef up data protection practices for children and offer them the highest privacy settings.
Ed Sheeran is on a legal winning streak.
Less than two weeks after the star singer won a blockbuster trial over whether his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” a federal judge has dismissed a second, closely-related copyright case accusing him of copying the same iconic song.
U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton had ruled last fall that Sheeran would need to face a jury trial in the second case, just like he did in last month’s showdown in Manhattan federal court. But on Tuesday (May 16), the judge issued a surprise decision reversing himself and dismissing the case without a trial.
The reason? The judge said he could rule himself, without the help of a jury, that the combination of simple elements that Sheeran allegedly stole (a chord progression combined with a harmonic rhythm) was not unique enough to be covered by copyright law in the first place.
“It is an unassailable reality that the chord progression and harmonic rhythm in ‘Let’s Get It On’ are so commonplace, in isolation and in combination, that to protect their combination would give ‘Let’s Get It On’ an impermissible monopoly over a basic musical building block,” Judge Stanton wrote, echoing the arguments that Sheeran’s attorneys made throughout last month’s trial.
Sheeran has spent years defending himself over “Thinking Out Loud.” Though the song was a commercial and critical success — it hit No. 2 on the Hot 100 before winning a Grammy award for song of the year — critics and the public quickly noticed similarities with “Let’s Get It On,” with one reviewer calling it an “incredibly obvious successor” to Gaye’s famed slow jam.
Sheeran was first sued by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On” with Gaye. It was that long-running case that last month culminated in a high-profile trial in Lower Manhattan, which featured passionate arguments from both sides and saw the singer himself playing the guitar from the witness stand. On May 4, the jurors returned a verdict that Sheeran and his co-writer Amy Wadge had not infringed the earlier song, clearing the star of millions of dollars in potential damages.
But even following that verdict, Sheeran was still facing another case filed by Structured Asset Sales, an entity owned by industry executive David Pullman that owns a separate one-third stake in Townsend’s copyrights. Last October, Judge Stanton ruled in that case that the pop star would need to face a jury of his peers. The judge said there was “no bright-line rule” for deciding whether Gaye’s selection and arrangement of common musical elements were creative enough to warrant copyright protection.
But on Tuesday, less than two weeks after the big verdict in the other case, Judge Stanton made the rare legal decision to “reconsider” his own ruling to send the case to trial.
Among other things, the judge cited the fact that the same combination of chords and harmonic rhythm had appeared in at least four other songs before “Let’s Get It On” was even released, including “Get Off Of My Cloud” by The Rolling Stones and “Georgy Girl” by The Seekers.
“Multiple songwriters have combined the two commonplace elements in the same manner for years,” Judge Stanton wrote. “If their combination were protected and not freely available to songwriters, the goal of copyright law … would be thwarted.”
The judge also cited a recent ruling that dismissed a case against Donald Glover over the Childish Gambino song “This Is America” on similar legal grounds, suggesting that the decision had changed the case law on how federal courts assess such combinations of unprotectable elements.
“To prevent manifest injustice, defendants’ motion for reconsideration is granted,” Judge Stanton wrote. “The Clerk of the Court is directed to close the case.”
In a statement to Billboard following the ruling, Sheeran’s lead attorney Donald S. Zakarin said his team and his client were “truly pleased” with the outcome: “Judge Stanton concluded that Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge did not infringe, a conclusion consistent with the jury determination that Ed and Amy independently created Thinking Out Loud. This is an important victory not only for Ed and Amy and all songwriters but also for the music loving public.”
Though Tuesday’s ruling is a key victory for the pop star, it’s not the end of the road for the “Thinking Out Loud” litigation. Both the verdict earlier this month and the new ruling can still be appealed, which could take years to resolve. And Structured Asset Sales is also pursuing a third, more novel case based on a different copyright covering Gaye’s more famous recorded version of the song.
In an interview with Billboard following the ruling, Pullman said his company would appeal Tuesday’s decision on multiple grounds. And he stressed that he would continue to litigate the third case, which has been paused while the other cases played out.
“In the new case, in front of a different judge, we have the sound recording in that case,” Pullman said. “Through all these years of litigation, the one thing the defendants have been petrified of is the sound recording. They don’t want to play it for the jury, because then they would see the similarities.”
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: An ugly sexual assault lawsuit against country star Jimmie Allen; a potential agreement between record labels and streamers over AI-generated fake songs; allegations that NYPD cops stole pricey champagne from a music festival; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Jimmie Allen Sexual Assault Lawsuit
Country music star Jimmie Allen was hit with a civil lawsuit last week containing some truly ugly accusations: That he had repeatedly sexually harassed and raped a woman on his management team, and that her company then fired her when she complained.
In a complaint filed in Tennessee federal court, the anonymous “Jane Doe” accuser alleged that Allen “manipulated and used his power” over her job as a day-to-day manager in order to “sexually harass and abuse her” over a period of 18 months from 2020 to 2022.
Months later, when she says she was “on the verge of a nervous breakdown and considered committing suicide” and chose to disclose the problem to her employers — management firm Wide Open Music and founder Ash Bowers — she says she was promptly fired in retaliation.
Allen denied any wrongdoing, admitting to a sexual relationship with his accuser but saying it had been consensual. Bowers, too, strongly refuted the claims — saying his company had quickly ended its relationship with Allen after learning of the relationship with his accuser
But the fallout was quick: Allen’s record label, BBR Music Group, announced hours later that it had suspended its work with the singer; the next day, his current management company, The Familie, and booking agency, UTA, both announced they were doing the same.
For more on the Jimmie Allen lawsuit, including access to the full legal documents filed in the case, go read our full story.
Other top stories…
MUSIC AI ON CAPITOL HILL – At a Senate hearing over potential regulation for artificial intelligence, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) grilled Sam Altman, CEO of the company behind ChatGPT, over AI’s impact on the music industry — including whether music AI platforms should pay artists whose works are used to train the machines. “There has to be compensation to that artist,” Blackburn told Altman.
A TAKEDOWN SYSTEM FOR AI? – The major labels are in talks with Spotify and other streamers to create an informal process to deal with AI-generated soundalikes, similar to last month’s infamous “Fake Drake” song. The proposed system would operate similarly to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice-and-takedown process but would cite name-and-likeness rights rather than federal copyrights.
MARILYN MANSON CASE GUTTED – A Los Angeles judge dismissed much of Marilyn Manson’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-fiance, Evan Rachel Wood, ruling that many of his claims were barred under a California law aimed at protecting free speech. Manson’s case claimed that Wood orchestrated a conspiracy of false abuse accusations to destroy his career.
ELECTRIC ZOO CHAMPAGNE HEIST – Three NYPD detectives were hit with criminal charges over allegations that they stole nearly $3,000 worth of Jay-Z’s Ace of Spades brand champagne from the VIP area during last year’s Electric Zoo festival.
TIDAL CASE DISMISSED – A judge tossed out a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey and his Block Inc. over its 2021 acquisition of majority ownership in Jay-Z’s Tidal. The court ruled that Dorsey and Block didn’t violate their fiduciary duty to investors even though they made a “terrible business decision” to buy the failing streamer — a decision made after Dorsey vacationed with Jay-Z in the Hamptons.
VILLAGE PEOPLE v. TRUMP – Disco legends Village People sent a cease-and-desist letter to Donald Trump, threatening legal action over a costume-clad tribute band at his Mar-a-Lago resort that’s allegedly been performing “Macho Man” and other hit songs without permission.
MOFI SETTLEMENT APPROVED – A federal judge greenlit a $25 million settlement struck by vinyl producer Mobile Fidelity to resolve accusations that the company’s pricey “all analog” records were secretly created using digital methods, overruling objections from some customers that the settlement was “tainted by the stink of collusion.”
LETS TRY THIS AGAIN – T.I. headed back to court for a second trial in his lawsuit claiming that toymaker MGA stole the design of its “OMG” dolls from the OMG Girlz — a defunct teen pop trio created by his wife, Tameka “Tiny” Harris. The new proceedings kicked off months after the first trial ended in an abrupt mistrial.
A U.S. senator representing Music City had tough questions about artificial intelligence’s impact on the music industry during a Congressional hearing on Tuesday, at one point asking the CEO of the company behind ChatGPT to commit to not using copyrighted songs to train future machines.
At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee about potential regulation for AI, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) repeatedly grilled Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, over how songwriters and musical artists should be compensated when their works are used by AI companies.
Opening her questioning, Blackburn said she had used OpenAI’s Jukebox to create a song that mimicked Garth Brooks – and that she was clearly concerned about how the singer’s music and voice had been used to create such a tool.
“You’re training it on these copyrighted songs,” Blackburn told Altman. “How do you compensate the artist?”
“If I can go in and say ‘write me a song that sounds like Garth Brooks,’ and it takes part of an existing song, there has to be compensation to that artist for that utilization and that use,” Blackburn said. “If it was radio play, it would be there. If it was streaming, it would be there.”
At one point, Blackburn demanded a firm answer: “Can you commit, as you’ve done with consumer data, not to train [AI models] on artists’ and songwriters’ copyrighted works, or use their voices and their likenesses without first receiving their consent?”
Though Altman did not directly answer that question, he repeatedly told the senator that artists “deserve control” over how their copyrighted music and their voices were used by AI companies.
“We think that content creators need to benefit from this technology,” Altman told the committee. “Exactly what the economic model is, we’re still talking to artists and content owners about what they want. I think there’s a lot of ways this can happen. But very clearly, no matter what the law is, the right thing to do is to make sure people get significant upside benefit from this new technology.”
Blackburn’s questioning came amid a far broader discussion of the potential risks posed by AI, including existential threats to democracy, major harm to the labor market, and the widespread proliferation of misinformation. One witness, a New York University professor and expert in artificial intelligence, told the lawmakers that it poses problems “on a scale that humanity has not seen before.”
The music industry, too, is worried about AI-driven disruption. Last month, a new song featuring AI-generated fake vocals from Drake and The Weeknd went viral, underscoring growing concerns about AI’s impact on music and highlighting the legal uncertainties that surround it.
One of the biggest open questions is over whether copyrighted music can be used to train AI platforms – the process whereby machines “learn” to spit out new creations by ingesting millions of existing works. Major labels and other industry players have already said that such training is illegal, and cutting-edge litigation against the creators of such platforms could be coming soon.
At Tuesday’s hearing, in repeatedly asking Altman to weigh in on that question, Blackburn drew historical parallels to the last major technological disruption to wreak havoc on the music industry — a scenario that also posed novel legal and policy questions.
“We lived through Napster,” Blackburn said. “That was something that really cost a lot of artists a lot of money.”
Though he voiced support for compensation for artists, Altman did not get into specifics, saying that many industry stakeholders had “different opinions” on how creators should be paid. When Blackburn asked him if he thought the government should create an organization similar to SoundExchange – the group that collects certain blanket royalties for streaming – Altman said he wasn’t familiar with it.
“You’ve got your team behind you,” Blackburn said. “Get back to me on that.”
Three NYPD detectives are facing criminal charges over allegations that they stole nearly $3,000 worth of Jay-Z’s Ace of Spades brand champagne from the VIP area during last year’s Electric Zoo festival.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Monday (May 15) that Jonathan Gonzalez, 33, and Wojciech Czech, 44, would each face a charge of grand larceny in the fourth degree and a charge of criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree — both felonies — over the September 2022 incident at the yearly electronic music festival.
Gonzalez and another detective, Warren Golden, 31, were also charged with official misconduct, Bragg’s office said.
“In addition to the alleged theft that occurred, none of the Officers working at the event stepped up and stopped this activity,” Bragg said in a statement announcing the charges. “Public confidence in the criminal justice system depends on members of law enforcement acting with the utmost integrity while on duty and following the same rules that apply to everyone else.”
In a statement, the NYPD told Billboard: “As a result of the continuing joint investigation with the Internal Affairs Bureau and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, two NYPD officers were arrested and subsequently suspended from duty today. The NYPD will continue to pursue the facts in this investigation and initiate further discipline where appropriate.” It’s unclear which two detectives have been arrested.
Gonzalez, Czech and Golden could not immediately be located for comment, nor could representatives for the officers.
According to prosecutors, all three detectives were working narcotics at the festival when they noticed that several VIP attendees had ordered bottles of Armand de Brignac — a pricey brand of champagne co-owned by Jay-Z that’s better known as “Ace of Spades” because of a giant spade on the bottle.
When the concertgoers stepped away, prosecutors say Gonzalez took two unopened bottles — valued at a whopping $2,900 total — and grabbed a backpack. Czech then allegedly handed him the bottles to place into the bag, while Golden allegedly stood by and did nothing.
Prosecutors say that when the trio left the VIP tent and forced their way into a staff-only area, they were pursued and confronted by two attendees who saw the theft and reported it to a security guard.
“Following a brief interaction between the attendees, the defendants, and the security officer, the two bottles were taken from defendant Gonzalez’s bag and returned to the attendees,” the official charging document reads. “The three defendants then left the area and returned to their command. The security officer notified his supervisors, who in turn notified the NYPD.”
It’s unclear exactly what kind of sentences the three could be facing if they’re convicted. Fourth-degree grand larceny and possession of stolen property charges can result in as much as four years in prison under New York law. But criminal sentences can widely vary based on many factors, including potential cooperation by defendants, and could potentially only include probation and fines.