Legal
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More than two dozen Taylor Swift fans are suing Live Nation over Ticketmaster’s botched sale of tickets to her Eras tour last month, accusing the company of “anticompetitive conduct,” fraud and other forms of wrongdoing.
In a complaint filed Friday in Los Angeles court – the first known lawsuit over the fiasco – attorneys for the Swift fans called the sale a “disaster” and pinned the blame on Ticketmaster, which they called a “monopoly that is only interested in taking every dollar it can from a captive public.”
“In markets without a singular, monopolistic company, charging prices and fees like Ticketmaster would be impossible,” lawyers for the fans wrote. “And Ticketmaster does not do anything to justify these higher costs. Ticketmaster’s service is not superior or reliable; the massive disaster of the Taylor Swift presale is evidence enough of this.”
In addition to antitrust violations, the lawsuit accused Ticketmaster of intentionally misleading fans ahead of the sale – both by offering more presale codes than it had tickets to sell, and by allowing bots and scalpers into the sale. And because of the company’s unfair control over the secondary resale market, the Taylor fans say Ticketmaster was “eager to allow this arrangement.”
“Ticketmaster claimed that only those with codes would be able to join the presale, but millions of buyers without codes were able to get tickets,” the accusers wrote in the lawsuit. “Many of those without codes were scalpers, and Ticketmaster benefited from scalped tickets as they must be resold on Ticketmaster, who gets an additional fee.”
The new lawsuit came three weeks after the infamous Nov. 15 presale, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried – and many failed – to buy tickets for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour.
Ticketmaster has apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” But that explanation has seemingly not been enough for many of the company’s critics, who have resurfaced longstanding complaints about the outsized power Ticketmaster and Live Nation have wielded in the market for live music since they merged in 2010.
Lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill have called for renewed antitrust scrutiny, and news broke days after the presale that the U.S. Department of Justice had already been investigating Live Nation for potential antitrust violations. Attorneys general in a number of states have also launched their own probes, looking to see whether any state-level consumer protection or antitrust laws were breached.
The new lawsuit echoed those gripes, saying that artists like “have no choice but to work through Ticketmaster” and that “virtually all major music concert ticket sales” are handled by the service. The company then leverages that control to dominate secondary ticket re-sales, the Taylor fans allege, giving the Ticketmaster an incentive to allow bots and scalpers into presales.
“Ticketmaster has stated that it has taken steps to address [scalping], but in reality, has taken steps to make additional profit from the scalped tickets,” lawyers for the Taylor fans wrote. “Ticketmaster forces purchases of tickets from its site to use only Ticketmaster’s Secondary Ticket Exchange for the resale of those tickets. Ticketmaster then gets the higher fees paid by fans who have no choice but to pay for the ‘right’ to use the Ticketmaster Secondary Ticket Exchange platform.”
Whether such claims will be legally successful remains to be seen. Proving that a company violates antitrust laws is no easy task, and linking those supposed violations to actual harm suffered by the spurned Swift fans will be equally difficult.
A rep for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment.
A talent manager who allegedly helped artists like Vampire Weekend and Marshmello gain access to $200 million in COVID-19 relief funds is the target of a new lawsuit that claims he stole the idea to tap those government funds — aimed primarily at helping venues, not artists — from somebody else.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (Nov. 30) in Los Angeles court, longtime music agent Laurence Leader says he was the first to realize that artists might also be able to access Shuttered Venue Operators Grants, a COVID-era federal program that gave out more than $14 billion to help live venues shuttered by the pandemic.
But Leader claims his “novel idea” was quickly stolen by talent manager Michael Oppenheim, who then allegedly used the same scheme to secure more than $200 million in SVOG funds for his own clients at the talent firm NKSFB, including Vampire Weekend, Marshmello, Common, Lil Wayne and many others.
In a complaint seeking more than $30 million in damages, Leader called Oppenheim’s conduct “despicable” and an “outright betrayal” of his trust.
“This lawsuit is brought due to the blatant and brazen theft by defendants of [Leader]’s novel idea for popular mainstream artist and band clients to obtain a grant under a specific government program,” wrote attorneys for Leader’s company, London Calling Entertainment.
Oppenheim did not immediately return a request for comment. Leader’s lawsuit, filed by veteran music litigator Richard Busch, was first reported by the news outlet Puck.
Launched by the U.S. Small Business Administration in April 2021, Shuttered Venue Operators Grants were designed to do exactly what they sound like — provide financial aid to live venues and others companies closely related to them, like vendors that provide services for live events. According to the last report issued by the SBA in July, more than $14 billion was handed out to more than 20,000 businesses.
Though the SVOG funds were a lifeline during COVID for many venues, some have argued they were left out. Dozens of venues have filed lawsuits against SBA over the past two years, claiming they were unfairly denied millions in aid.
In his lawsuit, Leader claims he was the first to discover that touring artists might also qualify for the program. Even though he says others doubted him, he believed that one definition of SVOG eligibility — “performing arts organization operators” — sounded “precisely” like the so-called loan-out companies that artists use to handle their touring businesses.
When Leader used that approach and tried applying for an unnamed jazz musician in June 2021, it was an immediate success: He says his client was quickly awarded nearly $10 million in SVOG money.
Leader says he soon shared his grant idea with Oppenheim, whom he says he’s known professionally for more than 40 years. But Leader claims he shared the SVOG concept “confidentially,” with the clear understanding that he could only be used if Leader was paid a 15 percent commission on grants secured.
Oppenheim initially believe the plan would not work and voiced “skepticism,” Leader’s lawyers say, and eventually went “radio silent” on the entire thing. But Leader claims he later discovered that the talent manager and his firm NKSFB had in fact boldly embraced the idea — allegedly filing successful SVOG applications for more than 70 of their client artists.
“As a direct and proximate result of defendant’s misuse of plaintiff London Calling’s idea … defendants obtained SVOG program grants totaling well in excess of $200 million,” Leader’s lawyers wrote.
Leader doesn’t claim that his idea is a piece of intellectual property, like a patent, copyright or trade secret, since it almost certainly wouldn’t qualify for any such formal protection. As the case is litigated, Oppenheim’s attorneys might argue back that no single person should be able to claim proprietary rights to the process of merely applying for a public government aid program.
But Leader says he and Oppenheim forged an “implied contract” that his valuable idea — helping artists access an otherwise off-limits program — would remain confidential unless Leader was compensated. By using the same scheme for his own ends without payment, Leader says Oppenheim breached that contract.
In monetary terms, he’s seeking $30 million in damages — or a 15 percent cut of the $200 million that Oppenheim allegedly secured in grants. Leader also wants an unspecified amount of “punitive” damages on the grounds that the breach of contract was “willful and malicious.”
Read Leader’s entire lawsuit here:
Before Jay-Z became embroiled in a nasty dispute with Bacardi over their D’Usse Cognac brand, he offered to buy out Bacardi’s half of the business for $1.5 billion, according to newly unsealed legal documents that reveal the sweeping size of the ongoing legal battle.
In the new filing, attorneys for Jay-Z’s SCLiquor LLC disclosed that the star made the offer last year after Bacardi offered him just $460 million for his half of D’Usse. Bacardi quickly rejected the offer, the filing said, even though the star had proposed to pay more than three times what the liquor giant itself believed a 50% stake in the business was worth.
The new document also reveals that Jay-Z believes his share in the business is worth $2.5 billion, the first public hint at how much the star is seeking from Bacardi amid the acrimonious split.
Taken together, the disclosures offer an early glimpse into how much could be at stake in the now-sprawling legal battle over Jay-Z’s efforts to exit D’Usse, which spans at least four lawsuits in two states as well as a private arbitration case.
A rep for Jay-Z declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Bacardi did not immediately return a request for comment on the disclosures.
The legal battle over D’Usse centers on Jay-Z’s exercise of a so-called “put option” — a legal mechanism in the joint venture’s operating agreement that, when triggered, requires Bacardi to buy out Jay-Z’s half of the business. Once invoked, the two sides are supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price for Bacardi to pay.
In this week’s unsealed documents, Jay-Z’s lawyers said he triggered the clause in September 2021, but that when the two sides exchanged figures in December 2021, they came in with vastly different valuations. The rapper suggested his half of the business was worth $2.5 billion; Bacardi said the number was just $460 million.
That was when Jay-Z apparently made his counter-offer: Rather than continue to invoke his put option requiring Bacardi to buy him out, he would offer to go vice-versa. “SC formally offered to buy Bacardi’s 50% interest in D’Usse for $1.5 billion, three times Bacardi’s declared valuation of its share (but less than SC believed it was worth),” his lawyers wrote in the new documents.
When Bacardi turned down that offer, the legal battle began.
As a first step, independent experts at JPMorgan were hired to appraise Jay-Z’s stake in D’Usse, but the process quickly became bogged down in disputes over what processes and data the bank should use to do so. Those disputes were submitted to a private arbitration panel, which then led to multiple New York court lawsuits challenging the arbitration panel’s rulings. Two separate lawsuits have also been filed in Delaware court, accusing Bacardi of “stonewalling” and demanding more access to information from D’Usse.
Those cases are all ongoing, including with a testy hearing in New York court on Thursday (Dec. 1) and a potential arbitration hearing on Friday (Dec. 2).
Notably, the newly unsealed document appears to have been made public accidentally.
Like much of a legal battle that’s been shrouded in unusual secrecy, the filings were originally submitted on Nov. 22 under seal. But on Tuesday (Nov. 29) evening, they were suddenly made public on the court’s digital docket. Letters to the judge indicate that the move was unexpected and that the filing should not have been published until it was further redacted. The document, first reported by Bloomberg Law and independently obtained by Billboard, was then fully re-sealed by Thursday afternoon.
Along with Jay-Z’s massive offer, the filing also revealed other key financial information about the dispute.
For instance, Jay-Z’s lawyers say they wanted JPMorgan’s appraisal to be based on an internal Bacardi document that forecast D’Usse to sell more than 2 million cases of cognac and earn $142.8 million annually by 2026. Bacardi apparently objected, saying those figures were “aspirational” and not a good indicator of the brand’s actual value.
Whether or not JPMorgan can cite the Bacardi forecast is now one of the major points of contention in the litigation.
Read the entire unsealed document here:
A new lawsuit claims that CNN used more than 100 different songs in international segments without paying for them, constituting copyright infringement on a “breathtaking scale.”
Freeplay Music, a company that sells so-called production music for use in web videos, television segments and other content – and hasn’t been afraid to sue over it – claims the cable news giant used the company’s library of music as “their own personal cookie jar” for segments on CNN Philippines, CNN Indonesia, CNN Chile.
“As high-profile news media companies which strive to provide the best news product all across the world, CNN and the international parties know they must obtain a license to use other’s intellectual property,” Freeplay’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Despite this, they willfully and consciously did not do so here on a breathtaking scale.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in California federal court, claimed that CNN used 115 songs across 283 segments. And Freeplay’s lawyers say they were “not minor uses” but rather “essential to each of the segment” – allegedly often used throughout entire segments.
Discovering the illicit use of their music in foreign media segments was like “finding a needle in a haystack,” Freeplay’s lawyers say, but that CNN knew that when it allegedly stole the music: “CNN apparently counted on the difficulty of being caught in deciding to engage in this massive willful copyright infringement.”
Freeplay is seeking at least $17 million in damages, saying anything less “would not get the attention of these media goliaths that continue to commit widespread infringement of FPM’s intellectual property.”
A spokesperson for CNN did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
The case is hardly Freeplay’s first. Court records show that the company has filed dozens of similar copyright lawsuits over alleged unauthorized uses of its music, including cases against online retail giant Alibaba and guitar maker Gibson. Most recently, Freeplay sued Ford Motor Co. in 2020 over accusations that the car company had used 54 different songs in online promotional videos but was was “too cheap” to pay for them.
Ford later countersued in that case, accusing Freeplay of actively seeking out litigation with “bait-and-switch” practices. The carmaker said Freeplay falsely advertises that its music is free to lure companies and individuals to the platform, only to later sue them “to extort vast amounts of money” when they used the music.
“Freeplay has asserted copyright infringement claims in dozens of lawsuits, extracting settlements in these litigations and … in an untold number of other instances where the simple threat of litigation was enough to shake down Internet users who mistakenly thought they were getting exactly what Freeplay advertises – music that was “free” to use,” Ford’s lawyers wrote at the time.
The case between Freeplay and Ford ended in a settlement last year.
A man who has been accused of illegally having a gun at the time that rapper Takeoff was fatally shot last month following a private party at a downtown Houston bowling alley has been charged in connection with the case, authorities said Wednesday (Nov. 30).
But during a court hearing, prosecutors said the suspect, Cameron Joshua, 22, is not believed to have fired a weapon during Takeoff’s shooting. Joshua is facing a charge of unlawful carrying of a weapon for allegedly having a handgun when the rapper was killed around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1 as gunfire erupted outside of 810 Billiards & Bowling following a private party.
Takeoff, whose off-stage name was Kirsnick Khari Ball, formed one-third of the Grammy Award-nominated rap trio Migos with uncle Quavo and cousin Offset from suburban Atlanta.
“We believe Cameron Joshua has been appropriately charged in this case and we’re continuing our investigation into the death of Takeoff,” Matt Gilliam, a prosecutor with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, told reporters in a brief statement after Wednesday’s hearing.
Christopher Downey, Joshua’s attorney, told reporters that he has not seen anything to suggest that his client fired a weapon or had anything to do with Takeoff’s shooting; police have not named any suspects in the incident to date.
“The bottom line is … Cameron Joshua did not shoot Takeoff,” Downey said.
When asked if Joshua knows who shot Takeoff, Downey said, “We will discuss that with the DA’s office if we decide to. Right now, we’re charged with offenses and we’re not saying anything.”
During the hearing, a judge decided to keep Joshua in custody until a bond hearing set for next week.
Joshua is also facing a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon for allegedly having a weapon when he was arrested on Nov. 22. He had already been out on bond after being charged in Harris County with having a fake ID in September 2021 and with burglary of a vehicle in April. He had also been convicted in October in Los Angeles County of grand theft.
Houston police have said that least two people discharged firearms when Takeoff was killed. Takeoff’s primary cause of death was listed as “penetrating gunshot wounds of head and torso into arm,” according to an autopsy.
Two others were hit by gunfire but had non-life-threatening wounds.
After the shooting, investigators sought to speak with the 40 people who attended the party and fled after the gunfire.
Migos first broke through with the massive hit “Versace” in 2013. They had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Takeoff was not on their multi-week No. 1 hit “Bad and Boujee,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called Culture, Culture II and Culture III, with the first two hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
At a memorial service earlier this month in Atlanta, fans as well as recording artists such as Justin Bieber and Drake celebrated Takeoff’s musical legacy.
More than a year into litigation over the deadly Astroworld music festival, attorneys for the event’s organizers say that nearly 1,000 fans who sued over their alleged injuries have ignored deadlines and failed to hand over “critical evidence.”
In a filing last week, attorneys for the defendants in the case — Live Nation, Travis Scott, Apple and many others involved in the festival — alerted Judge Kristen Brauchle Hawkins that 956 alleged victims had “not provided any response whatsoever” to basic requests for information.
“There is no excuse for the non-responsive plaintiffs’ complete disregard of their discovery obligations,” the lawyers for the organizers wrote in the Nov. 23 filing. “They should be compelled to comply immediately.”
Some lawyers for victims quickly pushed back, though. In responses on Monday (Nov. 28), attorneys repping dozens of purported non-responders said many of their clients had in fact filed the necessary papers — or had been dropped from the case entirely. Others said their clients had “experienced serious trauma” and that lawyers were “working diligently with them to complete their discovery response.”
The dueling filings came in sprawling litigation over Astroworld, in which a crowd crush during Scott’s Nov. 5, 2021 performance left 10 dead and hundreds physically injured. Thousands of alleged victims are seeking billions in total damages, claiming the organizers were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event.
As of May, court filings said that more than 4,900 alleged victims had filed claims in the case. But the latest filings this week suggest that number has now been winnowed down to around 2,500.
The two sides are currently in the midst of what is known as discovery, the legal process in which each side hands over evidence to their opponents. Earlier this year, Live Nation, Scott and other defendants had sought a variety of information about each plaintiff, including details about their particular injury, documentary evidence that they attended the festival and any messages or other digital records related to the festival.
In the filing last week, attorneys for the Astroworld organizers said a huge number of alleged victims had “wholly failed to respond,” despite the fact that the questions had been heavily negotiated with the legal team for the concertgoers.
“It has now been more than six months since defendants served their original discovery requests and more than a month since all extensions have expired,” the Astroworld lawyers wrote. “Yet approximately 38% of the Plaintiffs … have provided absolutely zero response.”
Failing to hand over this “critical evidence” soon could hamper the litigation in ways that cannot be undone, the organizers warned.
“The longer the non-responsive plaintiffs delay, the higher the risk that critical evidence or information in their possession will be lost, destroyed, or forgotten,” they wrote. “Cell phones get lost or destroyed, and the photographs and videos on them get deleted.”
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek on Wednesday (Nov. 30) blasted Apple for “stifling innovation and hurting consumers,” publicly renewing his company’s longstanding grievance that the tech giant abuses its dominant position over the market for smartphone apps.
In a series of tweets, the Spotify founder said Apple was “shameless in their bullying” of app developers and called on lawmakers in both the U.S. and the European Union to take “action” against a company that he said “doesn’t seem to care about the law or courts.”
“Over and over again @Apple gives itself every advantage while at the same time stifling innovation and hurting consumers,” Ek wrote. “Apple offers consumers the illusion of choice and give[s] developers the illusion of control.”
A spokeswoman for Apple did not immediately return a request for comment on Ek’s tweets.
Spotify has long been an outspoken critic of the rules Apple imposes on its app store — namely a 30% surcharge on most transactions made within the platform, and provisions that restrict how apps steer customers toward outside payment systems.
Apple says tight rules for app developers are needed to protect users from payment fraud and privacy violations. But critics say the company — which currently controls more than half the U.S. smartphone market with the iPhone and iOS operating system — is merely exploiting its dominant position to extract more money. Those complaints are even stronger from Spotify, since it also directly competes with Apple Music for subscribers.
Google, which accounts for the vast majority of the rest of the market for smartphone apps, is facing similar criticism and litigation.
The arguments against Apple’s app policies won a powerful ally last week when new Twitter owner Elon Musk raised the issue amid his own messy dispute with the tech giant. After claiming Apple had pulled its advertising and had threatened to pull Twitter from its app store, the polarizing billionaire asked his 120 million followers if they were aware that Apple “puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy.”
In Wednesday’s thread, Ek directly quoted Musk’s tweet, as well as others who have voiced similar criticism. Citing “bipartisan support and global interest,” he said that “momentum” was building for some kind of action against Apple.
“So how much longer will we look away from this threat to the future of the internet?” Ek wrote. “How many more consumers will be denied choice? There’s been a lot of talk. Talk is helpful but we need action.”
Apple is already facing a high-profile lawsuit, filed by Fortnite creator Epic Games, that claims the app store policies violate federal antitrust laws. A trial court issued a split ruling on the case last year, and the battle is currently pending before a federal appeals court.
Though not directly involved in the Epic case, Spotify filed its own complaint against Apple in 2019 with the European Commission, the EU’s regulatory enforcement watchdog. Last year, EU regulators released preliminary findings that Apple had likely broken the law, saying the company “deprives users of cheaper music streaming choices and distorts competition.”
Even bigger changes could be coming via new legislation. In Washington, D.C., a bipartisan trio of senators are pushing a bill called the Open App Markets Act, which would impose strict new rules on both Apple and Google’s app stores. And lawmakers in the EU have already passed a new statute called the Digital Markets Act, which will place a raft of new restrictions on how app stores are run.
Though it will take time for the new EU law to fully go into effect, it was aimed directly at complaints like the one Ek voiced Wednesday against Apple. In an interview with Wired last month, one of the law’s architects said he expected “significant” consequences: “If you have an iPhone, you should be able to download apps not just from the App Store but from other app stores or from the internet.”
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: Live Nation faces potential legal fallout from Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift fiasco, Journey bandmates sue each other over an American Express account, Mariah Carey loses a bid for ‘Queen of Christmas’ trademarks, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift … Trust Buster?
A week removed from Ticketmaster’s disastrous presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour, criticism of parent company Live Nation isn’t getting any quieter – and the threat of legal repercussions is growing.Live Nation has apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” And whether or not the star really was forced to use Ticketmaster is a complicated question, as Billboard’s Dave Brooks writes.But the debacle, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried (and many failed) to buy tickets for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour, has nonetheless resurfaced some uncomfortable legal questions for the all-powerful concert giant.Since they merged in 2010, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have been dogged by accusations that they form a near-monopoly in the market for live concerts, potentially violating federal antitrust laws. Federal regulators at the U.S. Department of Justice approved that deal, but only after Live Nation signed a so-called consent decree that aimed to allay fears that they might abuse their dominant position. Among other things, the agreement prohibits the company from retaliating against venues or acts that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Those rules were set to expire in 2020, but were extended by five years in 2019 after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.In the wake of the Swift fiasco, those same monopoly questions are back in the spotlight – and some lawmakers want more than just another extension of the consent decree.On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted Live Nation as a “monopoly” and called for regulators to “break them up.” Two days later, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, warned that the company’s market share “insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services.”Then on Friday, the New York Times reported that DOJ had already been investigating Live Nation for months over potential antitrust violations, reaching out to venues across the country to ask about the company’s conduct. Reacting to that news, Klobuchar and two other Democratic senators on Monday urged the Justice Department to take hard action if they discover more violations, including “unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.”“This may be the only way to truly protect consumers, artists, and venue operators and to restore competition in the ticketing market,” the senators wrote.Such action might have been unthinkable just a few years ago, amid a decades-long period of relatively lax antitrust enforcement that saw airlines and mobile providers (and yes, music companies) merging into ever-larger conglomerations. But the Biden-era Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have embarked on an aggressive new effort to crack down on such mega-mergers, including successfully blocking book publisher Penguin Random House from buying up rival Simon & Schuster.Beyond the Justice Department probe, other legal threats also potentially loom for Live Nation. The attorneys general of Tennessee, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania have all launched investigations into whether state consumer protection and antitrust laws were violated, including a Tennessee state law that aims to fight the use of automated “bots” on ticketing websites.And don’t forget about class actions. Live Nation is already facing an existing case that accuses the company of “blatant, anti-consumer behavior,” and the rest of the plaintiffs bar could be eager to try similar cases in the wake of such a high-profile snafu. At least one group of Swift-loving lawyers is already brainstorming how to bring cases.Faced with all that, can Live Nation shake it off? Stay tuned…
Other top stories this week…
JOURNEY’S CREDIT CARD CLASH – Journey guitarist Neal Schon filed a lawsuit against bandmate Jonathan Cain over allegations that he’s blocking access to “critical” financial records for the band’s American Express account, through which “millions” in Journey money has allegedly flowed: “This action is brought to turn the lights on, so to speak, and obtain critical financial information Schon has been trying to obtain but has been denied.” The case is the third legal battle among Journey members in the past two years, but the first to divide Schon and Cain — the only core members remaining in the band from Journey’s heyday.I FEEL SUED – Primary Wave and the estate of James Brown were hit with a lawsuit claiming their $90 million catalog sale last year violated an agreement that the iconic singer had struck decades earlier with another company. The case was filed by David Pullman’s Pullman Group (best known for creating so-called Bowie Bonds in the 1990s) over allegations that the blockbuster sale breached a contract that Pullman company struck with Brown way back in 1999, which allegedly guaranteed the company the right to broker any such deal in the future.YOUNG THUG GANG TRIAL SET FOR JANUARY – A Georgia judge refused to delay the closely-watched criminal case against Young Thug, Gunna and others accused of participating in an Atlanta gang, meaning their trial is now locked in to start on January 9. Prosecutors wanted to move the trial back by nearly three months because a few defendants had not yet been appointed a lawyer. But with Young Thug, Gunna and many others stuck in jail until trial, defense lawyers strongly opposed the delay: “It is unjust that [Young Thug] rots in the county jail and … is being required to wait on the appointment of counsel for co-indictees.”DUA LIPA RIPS COPYRIGHT SUIT – Attorneys for Dua Lipa asked a federal judge to quickly toss out a lawsuit claiming she stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track called “Live Your Life.” Florida band Artikal Sound System sued the star for copyright infringement last year, arguing the songs were so similar it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” But in their response last week, Lipa’s attorneys said those allegations were full of “vague, boilerplate labels and conclusions” and “devoid of a shred of factual detail.”MARIAH CANT GET ‘CHRISTMAS’ TRADEMARKS – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Mariah Carey’s application to register “Queen of Christmas” as a federal trademark, siding instead with Elizabeth Chan, another singer who says she’s used the same name for years. Repped pro bono by BigLaw attorneys, Chan had argued that no single singer or company should be able to lock up the title. “It is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like ‘Queen of Christmas’ for the purposes of abject materialism,” Chan said in a statement after the ruling.R. KELLY MANAGER SENTENCED – Donnell Russell, R. Kelly’s friend and former manager, was sentenced to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he stalked one of Kelly’s sexual abuse victims in an effort to keep her silent. Prosecutors said Russell used “reprehensible” tactics against the unnamed victim after she filed a civil lawsuit against the disgraced singer in 2018, including threatening messages to her mother and leaking explicit photos online.SLACKER ON HOOK FOR HUGE ROYALTY JUDGMENT – A federal judge refused to undo his own earlier ruling that Slacker owes nearly $10 million in unpaid music royalties to SoundExchange, despite the steamer’s warnings that the huge judgment could trigger financial ruin for the company. SoundExchange urged the judge to ignore those pleas and last week he obliged – ruling that the seven-figure judgment was simply the result of an agreement that Slacker itself had signed.
Journey guitarist Neal Schon is suing bandmate Jonathan Cain over allegations that he’s blocking access to “critical” financial records — the latest in a string of legal clashes among members of the iconic ’80s rock band.
In a lawsuit filed last month in California state court, Schon accused Cain — the only other core band member remaining from Journey’s heyday — of refusing to give him access to records from an American Express account, through which he claims that “millions in Journey funds have flowed.”
As fifty-fifty co-owners of the band’s corporate entity, Schon says each of them has a right to inspect all financial records, but claims that Cain has “improperly restricted and blocked” him from seeing the Amex records for months.
“This action is brought to turn the lights on, so to speak, and obtain critical financial information Schon has been trying to obtain but has been denied,” his lawyers wrote in an Oct. 31 complaint. “Schon has tried to avoid legal action, repeatedly requesting that Cain grant him access to the AMEX account [but] Cain has not been forthcoming and cooperative, making this action necessary.”
The case is hardly the first legal battle among Journey members.
Back in 2020, Schon and Cain filed a lawsuit against former drummer Steven Smith and former bassist Ross Valory, accusing them of engaging in an “attempted corporate coup d’état” to improperly use the Journey band name. That case ended last year with an “amicable settlement” that saw Smith and Valory depart the band.
And in September, former lead singer Steve Perry took legal action to stop Schon and Cain from registering federal trademarks on the names of many of the band’s biggest hits, including “Anyway You Want It” and “Wheel In The Sky.” Perry, who left Journey in 1998, says his ex-mates cannot unilaterally use the song names because the trio signed a partnership agreement requiring unanimous consent. The case remains pending.
Unlike the earlier cases, the new lawsuit over the Amex account pits Schon and Cain against one another. Schon says each of them should have “unfettered access” to all financial records, but that Cain “set up the account so that only he is authorized to access the records and information.”
And from the wording of the complaint, it sounds like Schon’s gripes potentially go deeper than a single credit card.
“Cain is interfering with Journey, refusing to respond to booking opportunities, blocking payment to band members, crew, and vendors, refusing to execute necessary operating documents, and in other ways as well,” Schon’s lawyers wrote. “Cain has further refused to deal with critical, time-sensitive touring contracts for Journey’s 2023 tour and ensure payment for band members and crew, who Cain contends are ‘non-essential.’ Schon believes those band and crew who are crucial to the band’s success should be paid. Cain’s conduct is inexplicable.”
A rep for Cain did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
Read the entire complaint here:
In the wake of Ticketmaster’s disastrous sale of tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour, a report has surfaced that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether parent company Live Nation has abused its huge market share in the live music industry.
According to a story Friday in the New York Times, the DOJ’s antitrust division had already been scrutinizing Live Nation for months before Tuesday’s botched rollout, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried – and many failed – to buy tickets for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour.
The Times report said that antitrust investigators have been contacting music venues and others involved in the live music industry for months to ask about Live Nation’s practices, aiming to determine whether the company maintains an illegal monopoly over the sector. The story was sourced to “two people with knowledge of the matter”; a spokesperson for the DOJ did not immediately return a request for comment.
Though the DOJ probe reportedly predates the Swift debacle, it echoes criticism that has been leveled at Live Nation in the days since the messy Eras presale.
On Thursday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, wrote an open letter to Live Nation, complaining that the company’s market power “insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services.” Klobuchar said the results were the kind of “dramatic service failures” that took place during Swift’s presale.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), was even blunter, tweeting Tuesday: “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with Live Nation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.”
As alluded to by Ocasio-Cortez, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have long been dogged by accusations that they exert an unfair dominance over the market for live concerts, particularly since they merged in 2010 to create their current structure.
The combined entity has operated for its entire existence under a so-called consent decree imposed by the DOJ when it approved the merger. Under the decree, Live Nation is prohibited from retaliating against venues that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Those restrictions were set to expire in 2020 but were extended by five years in 2019 after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.
Ticketmaster has already tried to offer explanations for what went wrong on Tuesday, publishing a since-deleted in-depth blog post that said that it had misjudged demand for presale tickets and was ill-prepared for the millions of fans that tried to log in.
“I apologize to all our fans. We are working hard on this,” Liberty Media CEO and Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei said in an appearance on CNBC on Thursday. “Building capacity for peak demand is something we attempt to do, but this exceeded every expectation.”
Whether or not that explanation satisfies federal antitrust investigators, it does not appear to have been enough for Swift. In a statement issued Friday in which the star said the calamitous presale “really pisses me off,” Swift did not call out Ticketmaster explicitly, but laid the blame on an unnamed “outside entity.”
“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,” Swift wrote.