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A songwriter who sued Mariah Carey over accusations that she stole her “All I Want for Christmas is You” from his earlier song has dropped his lawsuit — for now.
Mississippi artist Vince Vance filed his copyright lawsuit this summer, claiming Carey’s 1994 holiday blockbuster infringed his 1989 song of the same name. It was no small accusation: “All I Want” has reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 during each of the past three holiday seasons.
But in a court filing on Tuesday, Vance’s attorneys moved to voluntarily dismiss the case against Carey. The move means the case will be dismissed, but leaves the door open for Vance to refile the case in the future. Attorneys for both Carey and Vance did not return requests for comment.
Vance sued in June, claiming his “All I Want for Christmas is You” was recorded in 1989 and had received “extensive airplay” during the 1993 holiday season — a year before Carey released her better-known song under the same name. Calling Carey’s track a “derivative” of his own, he demanded at least $20 million in damages from her, co-writer Walter Afanasieff and Sony Music.
The lawsuit against Carey surprised many when it was filed. Wasn’t it too late for Vance to bring his case? There must be a statute of limitations for suing over asong that’s been in the zeitgeist for nearly three decades, right?
But the surprising answer to that question is no, thanks largely to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2014 on the movie Raging Bull, which overturned long-standing rules that limited how long a copyright owner can wait before taking action in court.
In the music industry, the Raging Bull ruling has sparked a number of lawsuits in recent years over decades-old copyright disputes, like a high-profile case against Led Zeppelin over “Stairway To Heaven.” Another case accused U2 of infringement over 1991’s “The Fly,” while Meat Loaf was hit with another suit over 1993’s “I’d Do Anything For Love.”
But just because someone can bring a lawsuit doesn’t mean they’ll win it — and experts told Billboard this summer that Vance’s allegations over “All I Want for Christmas is You” would still face a difficult road ahead in court.
Though the two songs share an identical name and single lyric, that’s where the similarities pretty much end. And that name is hardly unique: records at the U.S. Copyright Office show many other songs with the name “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” including a number from before either Carey or Vance’s songs were written.
“The only similarity he claims is in the title of the song, not the music or lyrics,” Paul Fakler, a veteran music litigator at the law firm Mayer Brown, told Billboard this summer. “Words and short phrases are not protectable under copyright law, and there are dozens of other songs with that same title.”
Before Vance moved to drop the case this week, very little actual litigation had taken place in the intervening four months and the case was still in the earliest procedural stages. His attorneys did not respond to questions about why they dropped the case or whether they plan to refile it.
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: Major law firms cut ties with Kanye West over his antisemitic comments, Slacker fights with SoundExchange over a huge royalties judgment, Coachella sues a nearby business called “Coachillin,” and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Kanye West Is Running Out of Lawyers
After a string of antisemitic statements earlier this month, Kanye West has lost nearly every aspect of his once-formidable business empire. His representatives at CAA have dropped him, and his signature fashion partnerships with Adidas, The Gap and Balenciaga have all been terminated.You can now add his lawyers to that list.Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, the prestigious Wall Street firm that represented Kanye in his dealings with Gap, confirmed to multiple outlets last week that the firm is not currently representing him and “have made the decision not to work with him in the future.”Greenberg Traurig, a top music firm that’s repping him in both a copyright lawsuit and an employment case, said it was taking steps to withdraw from those cases as fast as ethically possible: “This firm was founded by individuals who faced discrimination and many of us lost ancestors because of that kind of hate and prejudice,” the firm wrote in a statement, referring to Jewish founders Larry Hoffman, Mel Greenberg and Robert Traurig.Robert Cohen of Cohen Clair Lans Greifer Thorpe & Rottenstreich, the rapper’s sixth divorce attorney in his split with Kim Kardashian who he only just hired in September, has also dropped him, according to a report from Reuters. And Brown Rudnick partner Camille Vasquez, who rose to prominence representing Johnny Depp in his defamation case against Amber Heard, quit just days after being hired by the embattled rapper, as first reported by the New York Post.It seems even prospective lawyers are distancing themselves. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Alex Spiro, a Billboard Top Music Lawyer who reps Jay-Z and Elon Musk, told Reuters that Ye “asked me to be his attorney but the representation never formalized.” Spiro made it clear: “I do not represent Mr. West.”A lack of options for legal representation isn’t a great situation for West, because he has no shortage of legal problems.Even if he avoids any court battles over his various corporate breakups — and that’s far from certain, given the messy web of intellectual property he splits with Adidas and other former partners — he’s still got plenty of litigation ahead, including looming December deadlines in the divorce case; multiple copyright lawsuits over claims of illegal sampling; a case claiming he stiffed a production company that worked on his Sunday Service; a lawsuit claiming he refused to return clothes to a high-end fashion rental service; a case claiming he owes $4.5 million to a celebrity accountant he abruptly fired; and threats of lawsuits from the family of George Floyd over his incendiary statements about Floyd’s killing.
Other top stories this week…
SLACKER’S ROYALTY WOES – Slacker warned a judge that a recent ruling, requiring the streamer to hand over nearly $10 million in unpaid royalties to SoundExchange, would cause “economic damage” for the company that would be “unsustainable.” But SoundExchange quickly fired back that it had spent years “indulging” such excuses and that labels and artists had waited “long enough” to get paid by the streamer: “The court should deny defendants’ latest attempt to shirk their obligations with the promise that next time will be different.”COACHELLA v. ‘COACHILLIN’ – AEG’s Goldenvoice, the owner of Coachella, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit over a planned “Coachillin” business park located just a few miles north of the festival grounds at the Empire Polo Club. The suit said the 160-acre development plan, aimed at cannabis businesses, isn’t a problem — but needs to pick a new name: “The public has come to associate the phrase ‘Coachillin’ to refer to the Coachella Festival and plaintiffs, not merely to refer to the Coachella Valley — and certainly not Coachillin Holdings.” The case is the latest in a string of trademark cases from Goldenvoice, which sued Ticketmaster last year over a New Year’s Eve concert called “Coachella Day One 22″ and sued a West African company last month over an event called “Afrochella.”COMEDY CARTEL? JUDGE SAYS NO – A federal judge rejected one of Pandora’s key arguments in its legal battle with comedians, dismissing claims that a licensing group called Word Collections was operating as an illegal comedy “cartel” that violated federal antitrust laws. The ruling came in sprawling litigation filed by a slew of comics who want Pandora to start paying the equivalent of publishing royalties for spoken-word content. Faced with those allegations, the streamer responded by arguing that Word Collections and the comedians were effectively trying to create a “monopolistic portfolio” of comedy rights, aimed at “dramatically increasing” the prices streamers must pay. But in the ruling this week, the judge didn’t buy it — saying Pandora didn’t properly allege that the comics had conspired to fix prices, nor that their grouping amounted to an illegal monopoly in the comedy world.BAIL REVOKED FOR TORY LANEZ – A Los Angeles judge ordered Tory Lanezto be placed under house arrest ahead of a trial over accusations that he shot Megan Thee Stallion, citing an incident last month in which the singer allegedly assaulted singer August Alsina in Chicago. The singer is facing more than 22 years in prison over the alleged July 2020 altercation with Stallion, in which he allegedly shot her in the foot during an argument following a party in the Hollywood Hills. The trial is set to kick off at the end of November and the singer had been out on bail, but in September Alsina claimed that Lanez and his entourage attacked him following a Chicago concert. Prosecutors at the time said they were investigating those claims, and Judge David Herriford cited the accusations to revoke Lanez’ bail this week.
A celebrity accountant is suing Kanye West for $4.5 million in allegedly unpaid fees, claiming the embattled artist and entrepreneur abruptly fired him just weeks after hiring him and told him he was “insane” if he thought he would stick to their agreement.
In a lawsuit filed Oct. 21, Thomas St. John claims he was hired in May by Yeezy LLC to serve as its chief financial officer for an 18-month contract with a $300,000 per month fee. He says he demanded those guarantees because of the “risks” of working with West and to assure the star “would not simply walk away.”
But St. John claims that West then did exactly that. At a June meeting at the pricey Malibu restaurant Nobu Ryokan, the accountant claims West “became heated and aggressive” and then abruptly terminated his new CFO.
“He screamed at Mr. St. John and made clear he no longer wanted to work with Plaintiff,” St. John’s lawyers wrote. “When confronted by the 18-month commitment that had just been made, Mr. West stated words to the effect of ‘the 18 month term was bullsh–’ and ‘you’re insane for even thinking I would stick to it.’”
If the new lawsuit is any indication, it looks like St. John plans to stick to it. He says West has made just three of the 18 payments he owes — and is demanding that a court order him to pay the $4.5 million owed on the deal.
Even though it involves millions of dollars, St. John’s new lawsuit might barely even register on the list of problems currently facing the once-beloved rapper.
After a string of antisemitic statements earlier this month, West has lost nearly every aspect of his once-formidable business empire. His representatives at CAA have dropped him, and his signature fashion partnerships with Adidas, The Gap and Balenciaga have all been terminated. It’s hard to know if he’ll even have lawyers to rep him in the current case, since many of his attorneys have begun to cut ties as well.
Even before the current whirlwind, West was already being accused of stiffing business partners. In early July, the high-end fashion rental service David Casavant Archive said West never returned more than a dozen “esteemed” items and owed $400,000 in late fees. A few weeks later, the production company Phantom Labs said the star owed $7.1 million for work done on his cancelled Coachella and other events.
A spokesperson for West could not be located to comment on the new lawsuit. Multiple former press representatives for West have recently told Billboard that they no longer work with him.
A federal judge has rejected one of Pandora’s key arguments in its legal battle with comedians, dismissing claims that a licensing group called Word Collections was operating as an illegal comedy “cartel.”
Months after a slew of comedians (including the estates of George Carlin and Robin Williams) sued Pandora to seek more royalties for spoken-word content, the streamer fired back in May with allegations that the comics had violated federal antitrust laws by doing so.
Pandora claimed that by teaming up with Word Collections to demand such royalties, the comedians were effectively trying to create a “monopolistic portfolio” of comedy rights, aimed at “dramatically increasing” the prices streamers must pay for comedy.
But in a ruling on Wednesday, Judge Mark C. Scarsi dismissed those claims. He said Pandora had not properly alleged that Word Collections and the comedians had conspired to fix prices, nor that they amounted to an illegal monopoly in the comedy world.
“Pandora’s description of Word Collections’ impressive but short list of comedians whose works it licenses does not suffice to demonstrate that Word Collections owns a dominant share of the comedy recording market in the United States,” the judge wrote.
The ruling is a blow for Pandora, though not a fatal one. The judge left open the possibility that the streamer could re-raise the issue, and the company can still pivot to other defenses, like the more fundamental argument that comics are simply not legally entitled to the added royalties they’re seeking.
A rep for Pandora declined comment.
Judge Scarsi’s decision came amid a long and tricky fight over how and when streamers like Pandora must pay for the comedy recordings that appear on their services – a more unsettled legal question than one might think.
Every piece of music is covered by two copyrights – one for the sound recording itself and another for the underlying work that’s been recorded. Streaming services like Pandora pay for both when it comes to songs, but for comedy records, they’ve typically only ever paid for the recordings.
Part of the problem is that there is no society like ASCAP or BMI to collect such royalties for spoken works. Over the past 18 months, two groups – Word Collections and Spoken Giants – have moved to fill that void and have begun asking streaming services to pay those fees for comedy; those efforts are what prompted Spotify to pull down some comedy content last fall.
And since February, a number of comedians have taken the issue to court, accusing Pandora of willfully refusing to pay for content: “Pandora did what most goliaths do: it decided it would infringe now to ensure it had this very valuable intellectual property on its platform to remain competitive, and deal with the consequences later. Later is now.”
Pandora has sharply refuted the allegations, arguing it has “always satisfied its copyright obligations” by paying “millions of dollars in license fees every year” for comedy recordings. It says that comedy records are less akin to music and more like movies, for which streamers like Netflix typically pay only a single, all-encompassing license, regardless of the various elements that are used in the film.
If Pandora’s antitrust counterclaims remain dismissed, those core arguments about copyrights and licenses could now take center stage in the case.
Richard Busch, a prominent music litigator who is representing the comedians, told Billboard on Thursday that he and his clients are “obviously very happy with the decision.”
“We always believed the antitrust counterclaim Pandora brought was ludicrous and a transparent attempt to intimidate these legendary comedians,” Busch said. “The court could not have been clearer in its ruling. We now hope to be able to focus on and litigate the serious copyright infringement claims that are at the heart of this litigation.”
Britney Spears‘ father and his lawyers should be sanctioned and found in contempt of court for disclosing confidential medical information on his daughter that was under seal, the pop star’s lawyer said Wednesday (Oct. 26) at a hearing that ended with no decision on the issue.
“They’re trying to embarrass Britney Spears and bully Britney Spears, while trying to vindicate Jamie Spears,” said attorney Mathew Rosengart.
The sealed exhibits were included in a motion from Jamie Spears filed in July to compel the deposition of his daughter, which was denied. After the filing was submitted, Rosengart was forced to move to seal the motion to compel. Alex Weingarten, representing Jamie Spears, challenged the sealing.
“Why did he oppose the sealing motion?” Rosengart asked. He urged L.A. Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny to find Weingarten in contempt of court and to issue sanctions against him and Jamie Spears.
“None of this has anything to do with the matters before the court,” responded Weingarten. He said he’ll “refrain from commenting” on Rosengart’s “unnecessary speech.”
Penny agreed to seal the motion. She found that some of the exhibits in the filing were “already ordered sealed and are confidential,” explaining that it was “highly inappropriate for Jamie Spears to proffer these documents.”
In September, Jamie Spears moved for a state appeals court to overturn Penny’s ruling barring him from deposing his daughter over claims that he abused and surveilled her. Weingarten didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
During the hearing, the judge also denied a motion from Lynne Spears for her daughter to cover her $663,203 legal bill. In her motion for fees, she stressed that her daughter was subjected to treatment she “did not believe was warranted.” Spears opposed covering the bill because her mother was never a fiduciary.
The order denying fees was issued as Rosengart continues to probe management firm Tri Star’s involvement in establishing the conservatorship and the firm’s alleged surveillance of Spears. In a discovery order issued on Oct. 10, Penny granted parts of Tri Star’s motion to quash Spears’ subpoena while refusing its effort to get out of providing records and communications relating to allegations made by a former Spears security staffer in The New York Times documentary, Controlling Britney Spears, of electronic surveillance, cloning or monitoring of the pop star’s phone. She found that requests to depose Tri Star executives and produce documents on the issue are “relevant and discoverable.”
Tri Star executive Robin Greenhill, accused of helping Spears’ father spy on her private messages, denied any knowledge of surveillance in a declaration to the court and maintained that no one at the firm “ever suggested monitoring Ms. Spears’ electronic communications.” Lawyers for the firm called requests for information dating back 14 years “grossly overbroad,” stressing that Tri Star was not involved at the outset of the conservatorship.
In the same order, Penny limited the scope of discovery and depositions to the accounting period in 2019, which details money in and out of the estate that year. She also found that requests for information about the establishment of the conservatorship are off limits.
“Evidence of extrinsic fraud is not currently present,” reads the order from Penny, who concluded that “the scope of discovery in the present proceeding must necessarily relate to the pending petitions and filed objections to the petitions.”
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Tri Star attorney Scott Edelman called the ruling a “complete victory” for his client.
“As we have said all along, and the Court correctly held in its ruling, there is no fraud in connection with any of the prior accountings filed as part of Ms. Spears’ conservatorship,” he said. “The Court also correctly held that there was no evidence of any fiduciary relationship between Tri Star, as business manager, and Ms. Spears, as conservatee.”
According to court documents, Jamie Spears owed at least $40,000 to Tri Star for a loan it gave him. Rosengart has stressed the conflict of interest when Jamie Spears hired the firm to manage the conservatorship. Tri Star has been paid more than $18 million from Spears’ estate.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
A Los Angeles judge on Wednesday ordered Tory Lanez be placed under house arrest ahead of a trial over accusations that he shot Megan Thee Stallion, citing an incident last month in which the singer allegedly assaulted singer August Alsina in Chicago.
Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) had been out on bail over the alleged shooting, but last month Alsina claimed that Lanez and his entourage attacked him following a Chicago concert. At the time, prosecutors in the Stallion case said they were “aware” of Alsina’s claims and were investigating them.
At a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, Judge David Herriford cited those accusations to revoke bail, ordering Lanez to be placed under house arrest until Nov. 28, when the trial is scheduled to begin. If convicted, he faces more than 22 years in prison.
A rep for Lanez did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard.
Lanez was charged in October 2020 with one count of assault with a firearm and another gun possession charge over the July 2020 incident, in which he allegedly shot Stallion in the foot during an argument after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills.
Stallion had initially told police officers that she cut her foot stepping on broken glass, but days later revealed that she had suffered a gunshot wound. After media outlets reported that Lanez had fired the gun, Megan directly accused him in an August 2020 Instagram video.
Lanez pleaded not guilty in November 2020. At a December 2021 hearing, a Los Angeles judge allowed the case to move forward to a trial. During that hearing, a police detective testified that Stallion had told him that Lanez yelled “Dance, bitch!” as he opened fire around her feet, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Though he’d remained out on bail while awaiting trial, Lanez has repeatedly drawn the ire of the judge overseeing the case.
In August 2021, the rapper’s bail was increased from $190,000 to $250,000 after he made a surprise appearance at the Rolling Loud Miami Festival on July 25 just moments after Stallion departed the stage — effectively violating a protective order that requires him to stay at least 100 yards away from the “Savage” hitmaker. And this past April, a judge increased his bail again to $350,000 after some of the rapper’s social media posts were found to have breached court orders requiring him to avoid any contact with Stallion.
The incident with Alsina was apparently the last straw.
In a Sept. 18 post on Instagram, Alsina shared an image in which he can be seen standing in an elevator with blood coming from his mouth. In the caption, Alsina claimed Lanez physically assaulted him after he refused to shake his hand following a show the previous night.
A video published to Twitter a day later, which purported to document the lead-up and aftermath of the alleged assault, appears to show Alsina rebuffing a handshake from Lanez backstage. In the final half of the video, Lanez seems to be celebrating as a man off-camera can be heard saying Lanez “knocked him out.”
Alsina appears to have filed a police report with the Chicago Police Department, who confirmed to Billboard that they had received a report of a “30-ye[a]r-old male” being “punched in the face by a 30-year-old male after exiting a building in the 2300 block of S. Lake Shore Drive” – the location of a theater where both Lanez and Alsina were billed to perform that night.
Slacker is pleading with a judge to overturn his recent ruling requiring the streamer to pony up $10 million in unpaid royalties, arguing it will cause the company economic ruin. But SoundExchange says it is merely the company’s “latest attempt to shirk their obligations.”
The two have been battling in court since June over allegations that Slacker’s parent LiveOne — formerly LiveXLive — owes millions to artists and labels. Earlier this month, SoundExchange demanded — and quickly won — a ruling from Judge André Birotte Jr. that LiveOne must pay up the full $9,765,396 in unpaid royalties.
Faced with that massive judgment, Slacker now says that SoundExchange’s demand for full payment was an unfair tactic and must be overturned — or risk permanently harming its financials: “This economic damage this will cause LiveOne will be unsustainable for this small company.”
But SoundExchange is unimpressed. In a response, the company says that LiveOne has “steadfastly” avoided paying for music for years, and that harsh measures are “necessary to protect performing artists.”
“The court should deny defendants’ latest attempt to shirk their obligations with the promise that next time will be different,” SoundExchange’s lawyers wrote.
“Refusing To Pay”
SoundExchange, which collects performance royalties for sound recording copyrights, sued LiveOne in June, claiming the company had stopped paying artists and labels way back in 2017. And it claimed that a subsequent audit revealed it had been underpaying for years before that.
Court records show the two sides entered into the repayment plan in 2020, which gave Slacker two years to pay its debts. But in the June lawsuit, the SoundExchange claimed that Slacker had quickly failed to live up to the terms of the agreement.
“By refusing to pay royalties for the use of protected sound recordings, Slacker and LiveOne have directly harmed creators over the years,” SoundExchange president and CEO Michael Huppe said at the time. “Today, SoundExchange is taking a stand through necessary legal action to protect the value of music and ensure creators are compensated fairly for their work.”
Just a few months into the litigation, SoundExchange played an unusual legal trump card. On Oct. 12, the group invoked a pre-signed judgment, which had been inked by execs at Slacker back in 2020 as part of the repayment plan. Under the terms of that earlier deal, if Slacker ever defaulted again, its executives agreed that a judge should enter a so-called judgment against the company for the full sum owed.
On Oct. 13, Judge Birotte Jr. did exactly that, ordering the Slacker to pay $9,765,396, which covered both unpaid royalties and late fees. He also permanently barred the company from using the so-called statutory license, an important federal provision that makes copyright licenses for recorded music automatically available to internet radio companies like Slacker and Pandora at a fixed price.
“Economic Damage”
Faced with that huge debt, LiveOne responded last week with a motion seeking to “set aside the judgment” and asking the judge order the two companies into settlement talks – a move they say will allow them to reach “a fair payment schedule.”
LiveOne’s lawyers said they had been engaged in “ongoing and fruitful negotiations” for a new repayment plan when SoundExchange had suddenly invoked the pre-signed consent judgment. They argued the move came only because LiveOne did not agree to “a complete acceptance” of SoundExchange’s “last and final” settlement offer.
More startlingly, LiveOne’s lawyers said SoundExchange’s big judgment had quickly caused other creditors to call in other debts owed, threatening “economic damage” to the company that would be “unsustainable.”
“Plaintiff’s surreptitious request for entry of judgment has triggered LiveOne’s default on two substantial senior secured notes which are secured by all of LiveOne’s and their subsidiaries assets,” LiveOne’s lawyers wrote. “If LiveOne does not promptly discharge SoundExchange’s default judgment, the secured creditors will accelerate the loans and call for immediate repayment of principal and unpaid interest.”
A rep for LiveOne did not immediately return a request for comment on the filing or for elaboration on its claims about the company’s finances.
“Long Enough”
In a new filing this week, SoundExchange offered no apologies for playing hardball with LiveOne. It said it had spent years “indulging” the company’s “many excuses for non-payment,” and that it had simply become time for the streamer to be legally forced to pay up.
“Five years is long enough,” the group wrote. “SoundExchange has no obligation to negotiate ad infinitum with defendants, who have demonstrated at every opportunity that they will leverage the creativity of others without compensation.”
SoundExchange’s lawyers said the group had been “initially amenable” to working out another deal, but that their patience quickly ran out: “Facing stalled settlement negotiations and an apparent unwillingness to abide by their contractual, statutory, or judicial obligations, that willingness had limits.”
As for LiveOne’s warnings that such a ruling might destroy the company, SoundExchange was skeptical. The group’s lawyers pointed out that LiveOne had missed key deadlines in the case, and had waited months to hire litigation attorneys to deal with the lawsuit.
“Defendants’ contention that the judgment poses an existential threat to their business is difficult to square with their lackadaisical approach to finding counsel and subsequent non-adherence to the court’s deadlines,” they wrote.
And if things really are as bad LiveOne’s attorneys claim, SoundExchange said it’s all the more reason for a final judgment to be entered against the company.
“Every hour defendants divert consumers who might otherwise use a different, royalty-paying digital music streaming service, thereby depriving rightsholders of royalties to which they are entitled,” the group wrote. “If Defendants’ dire financial situation is to be believed, artists may never see those royalties.”
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: Cardi B avoids millions in damages by winning her trial over a sexually-explicit album cover, Jay-Z files a lawsuit to escape his Cognac partnership with Bacardi, Miley Cyrus quickly settles a case over an Instagram photo of herself, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Cardi B Wins Trial Over ‘Raunchy’ Album Cover
It was all over pretty quick.After nearly five years of litigation, it took just four days of trial and 90 minutes of deliberation for a jury to clear Cardi B of wrongdoing in a lawsuit filed by Kevin Brophy, a California dad whose back tattoos were unwittingly photoshopped onto a “raunchy” Cardi album cover.Brophy sued in 2017 for millions in damages, claiming he was “devastated, humiliated and embarrassed” by the cover of her 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1. The image featured Cardi staring directly into the camera with her legs spread wide, holding a man’s head while he appears to perform oral sex on her.Here was the problem: While the actual man in the image was a model who had consented to the shoot, a giant tattoo on his back belonged to Brophy. Unbeknownst to Cardi, a freelance graphic designer had typed “back tattoos” into Google Image, found one that fit (Brophy’s), and photoshopped it onto the model’s body. It apparently didn’t occur to him that he would need anyone’s approval to do so.When the trial kicked off last week, Brophy testified that the image had been a “complete slap in the face” and had caused him “hurt and shame.” Then on Wednesday, Cardi herself took the stand — repeatedly sparring with Brophy’s attorney (A. Barry Cappello of Cappello & Noel LLP), demanding “receipts” to support the allegations, and accusing him and his lawyers of “harassing” her in hopes of scoring a settlement.In the end, jurors were clearly swayed by the arguments from Cardi’s lawyers (Peter Anderson of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and Lisa F. Moore of Moore Pequignot LLC). Among other defenses they raised, their primary argument was pretty simple: That nobody would have recognized a relatively unknown man based merely on his back tattoo, and that he had little proof anyone did.After the verdict, Cardi took to Twitter to celebrate her legal victory: “I just won this lawsuit …Im soo emotional right now,” the superstar wrote. “I wanna kiss Gods feet right now …..IM BEYOND GRATEFUL!!!!”
Other top stories this week…
HOV WANTS OUT OF BOOZE BIZ — Jay-Z filed a lawsuit seeking to end his involvement with D’Usse Cognac, a brand he currently co-owns with spirits giant Bacardi. The rap mogul’s lawyers claimed that Bacardi is legally required to buy out his half of the business, but that the company is “lowballing” and “stonewalling” him to get a cheaper price. The lawsuit said Jay-Z’s move to exit D’Usse came amid “growing concern” about how Bacardi was running the company, including supply chain failures and an unwillingness to change prices.HEDLEY SINGER SENTENCED FOR SEX ASSAULT — Singer Jacob Hoggard, the former frontman for multi-platinum pop-rock band Hedley, was sentenced in Canada to five years in prison for the sexual assault of an Ottawa woman. The sentence came after a June verdict that found Hoggard guilty of sexual assault causing bodily harm of a woman known only as “JB” during a 2016 incident in an Ontario hotel room. Hoggard could have received as much as 14 years, but prosecutors sought only six to seven years. His defense attorneys asked for three to four years.ONE ASTROWORLD VICTIM SETTLES CASE — Attorneys for the family of Axel Acosta, a 21-year-old man who died at the last year’s Astroworld music festival in Houston, announced they had reached an agreement to resolve their legal case against Live Nation and Travis Scott, one of the first known settlements in the sprawling litigation over the disaster. But sources close to Scott quickly said he had not been involved in settlement talks, and no formal notice was filed on the court’s docket, leading to uncertainty about what had actually happened. Even if a deal is struck by Acosta’s family, thousands of other alleged victims are still seeking billions of dollars in damages from Live Nation, Scott and others, claiming they were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event.CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST LIL DURK — Prosecutors in Georgia told a judge that they would no longer pursue criminal charges against the Chicago rapper (real name Durk Derrick Banks) over a 2019 shooting in downtown Atlanta, citing “prosecutorial discretion.” Along with the late rapper King Von, Durk was arrested way back in May 2019 on accusations that he was involved in gunfire near the popular Atlanta restaurant The Varsity, which left a victim with a non-fatal gunshot wound to the thigh. More than three years later, prosecutors insisted “probable cause existed for the defendant’s arrest” but that “the decision of the District Attorney at this time is not to prosecute.”MILEY CYRUS ENDS INSTAGRAM CASE — Just a month after it was filed, Miley Cyrus settled a copyright lawsuit that accused the star of violating copyright law by posting a paparazzi photo of herself to Instagram. Such allegations are a bizarrely common legal problem for celebrities, and over the past few years Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Emily Ratajkowski, LeBron James, Katy Perry and others have all faced similar cases. Like Miley’s case, most of the lawsuits quickly settle. That’s because it’s actually a pretty cut-and-dried legal issue: Photographers own the copyrights to the images that they take, and using those photos without a license constitutes infringement. Unfair as it might seem, appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free.MUSIC HACKER GETS TWO YEARS IN PRISON — A British computer hacker who stole unreleased songs from Ed Sheeran and Lil Uzi Vert was sentenced in the UK to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors said Adrian Kwiatkowski, 23, hacked the artists’ cloud-based accounts and sold their songs on the dark web in exchange for $147,000 in cryptocurrency. The case was actually sparked by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which linked the crime to Kwiatkowski and then handed the case off to British authorities.
Jay-Z wants to sell his stake in D’Usse Cognac, and says that Bacardi – which owns the other half of the business – is legally required to buy it. But in a new lawsuit, the superstar claims the liquor giant is “lowballing” and “stonewalling” him to get a cheaper price.
In a complaint filed in Delaware court, Jay-Z’s SCLiquor LLC says that it exercised a contractual option to sell its 50 percent stake in D’Usse to Empire Investments, the Bacardi unit that owns the other half and runs the company’s day-to-day operations. Hov’s company claims the move came after years of “mismanagement and underperformance” by Bacardi.
But according to the lawsuit, which was made public on Thursday (Oct. 20), Bacardi and Empire responded to the move not by following the rules, but by refusing to hand over key information and scheming to “artificially depress” the price it would pay.
“Empire sought to stall and stonewall SC’s efforts in an attempt to wrest SC’s 50% membership interest in D’Usse at a cheaper price by, among other things, refusing to provide necessary information,” SCLiquor’s lawyers wrote.
According to the lawsuit, SCLiquor holds a so-called “put option” on D’Usse’s corporate entity, a legal mechanism that, when triggered, requires Bacardi to buy out Jay-Z’s half of the business. The two sides are supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price.
But Jay-Z’s lawyers say that when they exercised the put option last year, Empire and Bacardi did anything but operate in good faith.
“Instead, Empire has abused its day-to-day control of D’Usse to deprive SC of information necessary to … assess D’Usse’s value,” SCLiquor’s lawyers wrote. “Empire has done so by engaging in an apparent shell-game with its parent company Bacardi.”
They say the move to sell off Hov’s stake came amid “growing concern” about how Empire was running the company, including its “blatant conflict of interest” with Bacardi. Jay-Z’s lawyers say Empire has relied on Bacardi to provide key services, even though the parent company has had repeated failures that hurt D’Usse, including supply chain failures and an unwillingness to change prices.
In its current form, the lawsuit is only seeking to force Empire to turn over more information about D’Usse. But the complaint says that information will also be used to “investigate potential future actions for damages.”
A rep for Bacardi did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit.
A computer hacker who stole unreleased songs from British pop star Ed Sheeran and American rap artist Lil Uzi Vert has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, U.K. prosecutors said Friday.
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Adrian Kwiatkowski, 23, of Ipswich in southern England, hacked the artists’ cloud-based accounts and sold their songs on the dark web in exchange for cryptocurrency. City of London Police, which investigated the case, said Kwiatkowski made 131,000 pounds ($147,000) on the transactions.
“Kwiatkowski had complete disregard for the musicians’ creativity and hard work producing original songs and the subsequent loss of earnings,” said Joanne Jakymec of the Crown Prosecution Service. “He selfishly stole their music to make money for himself.”
In August, Kwiatkowski pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including 14 copyright offenses and three counts of computer misuse. He was sentenced Friday (Oct. 21) in Ipswich Crown Court.
City of London Police worked with authorities in the United States to investigate the case after the management companies of several musicians reported that an individual, known online as Spirdark, had gained access to their clients’ cloud-based accounts and was selling their content.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation in 2019, and linked the email address used for Spirdark’s cryptocurrency account to Kwiatkowski. It then identified the IP address of the device used to hack one of the accounts as his home address.
After further investigation, Kwiatkowski was arrested by the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit in September 2019.
“Cybercrime knows no borders, and this individual executed a complex scheme to steal unreleased music in order to line his own pockets,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr. said.