Legal
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A federal judge says he won’t undo his ruling that Slacker owes nearly $10 million in unpaid music royalties to SoundExchange, seemingly unmoved by the streamer’s warning that the ruling will have a “devastating” impact on the company’s finances.
SoundExchange claims Slacker’s parent LiveOne has failed to pay royalties for years, and last month won a ruling requiring the streamer to hand over $9,765,396. Slacker said last month that the huge judgment could trigger financial ruin for the company – a warning SoundExchange urged the court to disregard.
In a decision issued Wednesday, Judge André Birotte Jr. did exactly that. He ruled that the seven-figure judgment was simply the result of an agreement that Slacker itself had signed – and noted that the streamer was not actually legally disputing the terms of that deal.
“Defendants cannot argue that the judgment is a result of ‘excusable neglect’ or that it is ‘without fault,’ when the judgment was entered pursuant to stipulation that defendants negotiated for and assented to,” Judge Birotte wrote. “Because Defendants signed the stipulation, and in fact do not dispute the amount of money Plaintiff is entitled to, the court finds the judgment is fair, adequate, and reasonable.”
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 off its debts. But in the June lawsuit, 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 so-called consent judgment, which had been inked and pre-signed 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 did so, 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.
A week later, Slacker asked the judge to overturn his own ruling, saying it had been procedurally improper. To support the request, Slacker warned the judge 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,” the streamer wrote.
SoundExchange urged the judge to deny the request, saying 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.”
In Wednesday’s decision, Judge Birotte sided with SoundExchange, ruling there was no legal wiggle room for Slacker to challenge an agreement signed by its own executives. The judge said that unless there is proof of “fraud or misconduct” – and there is none – there was no reason to undo the ruling. And he was unmoved by the company’s warnings of economic ruin.
“Defendants argue that the ‘repercussions will be devastating to LiveOne, its employees, and to its creditors,” the judge wrote. Defendants, however, have failed to explain what balance is actually due, whether defendants’ creditors have elected to require immediate payment, or how the repercussions will actually impact its business or livelihood.”
A representative for Slacker parent LiveOne did not immediately return a request for comment on the decision.
Read the entire decision here:
A man charged with arranging the killing of Young Dolph pleaded not guilty Thursday (Nov. 18) — one year after the rapper and record label owner was ambushed and shot to death while buying cookies at a bakery in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.
Hernandez Govan, 43, made a brief appearance in Shelby County Criminal Court in Memphis. He was arrested last week after he was indicted on charges including first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the killing of the rapper, who was 36 when he died. The judge scheduled Govan’s next hearing for Dec. 16.
Govan is the third man charged in the Nov. 17, 2021, slaying of Young Dolph, whose real name was Adolph Thornton Jr. The killing in broad daylight stunned Memphis and shocked the entertainment world. Police said two men exited a white Mercedes-Benz and fired shots into Makeda’s Homemade Cookies, which is near the rapper’s boyhood home in the Castalia neighborhood. Police released photos taken from surveillance video that captured the shooting, and authorities later found the car abandoned.
Justin Johnson and Cornelius Smith Jr., have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in the shooting and are being held in jail without bond. They are scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 20.
In a weekly newsletter, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Govan “solicited the murder and put it in motion.” But no evidence has been made public to support that statement, and a suspected motive has not been disclosed. The investigation is ongoing.
“I know that you all are wanting details, you’re wanting facts, you’re wanting sort of answers to some of these mysteries and things like that,” prosecutor Paul Hagerman told reporters after Thursday’s hearing. “Even if we knew them, we couldn’t tell you. As a matter of ethics and our requirements under the law, we’ve got to confine ourselves to what’s made public.”
Govan’s lawyer, Bill Massey, said he was seeking the prosecution’s evidence in the case, which Massey said may not go to trial until after next year due to the amount of evidence and the number of defendants.
Known for his depictions of tough street life and his independent approach to the music business, Young Dolph was admired for charitable works in Memphis. He organized Thanksgiving turkey giveaways, donated thousands of dollars to high schools, and paid rent and covered funeral costs for people in the Castalia Heights neighborhood where he was raised.
His work as a rapper, producer and owner of the independent label Paper Route Empire took him away from Memphis, but the father of two had returned to the city days before his killing to visit a sick relative and organize a turkey giveaway that took place without him.
After Young Dolph’s death, a section of a street near his boyhood home was renamed for him. A private funeral was held and he was honored during a public celebration at FedExForum, the home of the Memphis Grizzles of the NBA and the University of Memphis men’s basketball team.
City officials and community activists also pointed to the killing as a symbol of the scourge of gun violence in Memphis. Since the rapper’s death, Memphis has seen several other high-profile killings this year, including the shooting of a United Methodist Church pastor during a carjacking in her driveway; the kidnapping and shooting of an elementary school teacher who police said was abducted during an early morning run; and a man’s daylong shooting rampage that was partially livestreamed and led to the death of three people.
Young Dolph is one of several prominent hip-hop artists to be killed in recent years. His independent approach to the music business drew comparisons to Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle, who was fatally shot in 2019. Other rappers who have lost their lives to gun violence since 2018 include XXXTentacion, Pop Smoke and, most recently, Takeoff, who was killed outside of a bowling alley after a party in Houston on Nov. 1.
In an article in The Atlantic dated Tuesday, rappers Too Short and E-40 called for the hip-hop community to find ways to come together and support each other amid the spate of gun deaths in the industry.
Young Dolph was born in Chicago and moved to Memphis with his parents when he was 2. He released numerous mixtapes, starting with 2008′s Paper Route Campaign, and multiple studio albums, including his 2016 debut King of Memphis. He also collaborated on other mixtapes and albums with fellow rappers Key Glock, Megan Thee Stallion, T.I., Gucci Mane, 2 Chainz and others.
He had three albums reach the top 10 on the Billboard 200, with 2020′s “Rich Slave” peaking at No. 4. Makeda’s, the bakery where he was shot, was boarded up and closed before it reopened in September.
Drake and 21 Savage‘s fake Vogue cover is no more.
After publisher Condé Nast hit them with a lawsuit for promoting fake cover story in the heralded magazine to market their new album, Her Loss, the rappers have “voluntarily ceased and desisted” from all uses of the Vogue cover and trademark as well as the name, image or likeness of editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and any false or misleading statements concerning the magazine to promote the album. This includes taking down all public displays of the fake cover, including online and social media posts and any physical copies. Importantly, all of those actions were required under a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge on Nov. 10 backing up the publisher’s lawsuit.
The new document, filed in New York federal court on Thursday (Nov. 17), notes that Drake and 21 Savage agreed only to take down the image “to avoid unnecessary cost and expense” while they continue to fight the case. The filing explicitly noted they were not “conceding any liability” or “wrongdoing” in the matter.
The fake Vogue cover was one of several fake promos for Her Loss, which dropped Nov. 4. These so-called deepfakes also included sham appearances by the rappers on NPR’s Tiny Desk series and The Howard Stern Show.
Though Tiny Desk greeted the stunt with good humor — even inviting the rappers to appear on the show for real — and Stern joked about the incident on his SiriusXM series, Condé Nast was less than amused. In a complaint filed Nov. 9, the publisher’s lawyers characterized the stunt as a “flagrant infringement” of the company’s trademark rights, designed to exploit the “tremendous value that a cover feature in Vogue magazine carries” without actually being granted that privilege. The suit demanded an immediate injunction forcing the rappers, along with Drake’s PR agency Hiltzik Strategies, which was named as a co-defendant, to cease all uses of the “counterfeit cover.”
On Nov. 10, the Condé Nast lawsuit was followed by a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who ruled the fake cover was likely violating the publisher’s trademarks because Drake and 21 were “misleading consumers” and “deceiving the public.” Notably, such restraining orders are only granted to plaintiffs who are deemed likely to win their case.
One particular point of contention outlined in the complaint was an Instagram post by Drake teasing the fake cover story, in which the superstar personally thanked Wintour for the honor. In the suit, Condé Nast’s lawyers wrote that Vogue and Wintour in fact “had no involvement in Her Loss or its promotion, and have not endorsed it in any way” and that the publisher did not “authorize, much less support,” the release of “a counterfeit version of perhaps one of the most carefully curated covers in all of the publication business.”
The lawyers went on to write that the deep fake was so convincing that several media outlets reported that the cover was in fact real, adding, “The confusion among the public is unmistakable.”
As the legal drama continues to unfold, Drake and 21 Savage may argue that the fake media blitz was meant as a parody of the way media and artists work together to promote album launches; in some circumstances, laws allow for the proliferation of such spoofs without repercussion. That may be a difficult argument to make, however. As Condé Nast noted in its lawsuit, the fake Vogue issue disseminated both online and physically represented “a complete, professionally reprinted reproduction” of the magazine, with “no indication that it is anything other than the cover of an authentic Vogue issue.”
Condé Nast did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest filing.
A Georgia judge on Thursday (Nov. 17) refused to delay the closely-watched criminal case against Young Thug, Gunna and others accused of participating in an Atlanta gang, rejecting calls from prosecutors to move the start of the trial from January to March.
Prosecutors sought the delay — from Jan. 9 to Mar. 27 — on the grounds that some of the 28 defendants in the case still lacked court-appointed attorneys. But with Young Thug, Gunna and many others stuck in jail until trial, defense lawyers opposed efforts to push back the proceedings.
At a hearing on Thursday, Fulton County Judge Ural Glanville denied the government’s motion to delay the trial, court documents show, and set jury selection to begin on Jan. 5.
Both Young Thug (Jeffery Williams) and Gunna (real name Sergio Kitchens) were indicted in May, along with dozens of others, on accusations that their group YSL was not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta street gang called “Young Slime Life.” The charges include allegations of murder, carjacking, armed robbery, drug dealing and illegal firearm possession over the past decade.
The two stars, who strongly deny the charges, have both repeatedly sought to be released on bond ahead of their trials. But both have been refused on multiple occasions, largely because prosecutors have warned that they might threaten witnesses or otherwise obstruct the case. More than 20 other defendants have also been refused bond, meaning they’re also stuck in jail until trial.
The case is built around Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a state law based on the more famous federal RICO statute that’s been used to target the mafia, drug cartels and other forms of organized crime. Such laws make it easier for prosecutors to sweep up many members of an alleged criminal conspiracy (in this case, 28 total) based on many smaller acts that aren’t directly related.
But indicting that many people in a single case has apparently led to a shortage of court-appointed defense attorneys. In an Oct. 6 court filing, prosecutors asked to push the trial back by nearly three months, arguing that eight defendants still lacked lawyers and that any attorney retained after that point could not “properly prepare” for a January trial.
But that request did not sit well with Young Thug’s lawyers, who said it was prosecutors’ own fault for not preparing more public defense counsel before handing down such sweeping indictments – and “disingenuous” to now argue that a delay was needed.
“It is unjust that Mr. Williams rots in the county jail and … is being required to wait on the appointment of counsel for co-indictees,” the rapper’s lawyer, Brian Steel, wrote in an Oct. 10 filing that also renewed the rapper’s request to be released ahead of trial. “It has been too long to leave a human being in custody without trial, without discovery, without the statutory right to a speedy trial and without bond.”
Beyond indicting two of rap’s biggest stars and leaving them in prison to await trial, the YSL case has also made waves because it cited their lyrics as supposed evidence of their crimes — a controversial practice that critics say unfairly sways juries and injects racial bias into the courtroom. California recently banned the tactic in that state, but Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has strongly defended using it against Young Thug and Gunna.
R. Kelly’s former manager was sentenced Thursday 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.
Donnell Russell pleaded guilty in July to using threats, harassment and intimidation to silence one of the women abused by Kelly, who was convicted last year on sex trafficking and racketeering charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison in June.
Ahead of his sentencing, Russell’s lawyers argued he should receive only probation, arguing he’d led an “otherwise exemplary life” before “crossing the line in his attempts to curry favor with Robert Kelly.”
But prosecutors strongly disagreed, citing dozens of prior arrests and calling his conduct “abhorrent.” They asked for 24 to 30 months, saying it was needed to deter such behavior: “If victims are concerned that this type of conduct will not be adequately punished, it could chill victims from pursuing legal remedies and from cooperating with law enforcement investigations.”
Following Thursday’s sentencing, Russell’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard.
Prosecutors say Russell, a self-described manager, advisor and friend to Kelly, used “reprehensible” tactics against the unnamed victim after she filed a civil lawsuit against the singer in 2018. They included sending threatening messages to the woman and her mother, and then publishing explicit photos of her on the internet.
“Just a sample. We will seek criminal charges. You’ve been warned,” Russell wrote in a December 2018 message to the victim and her mother, referring to the nude images.
Separate from the stalking charges, Russell was also convicted in July of making a phone threat that gunfire was about to occur at a crowded Manhattan theater that was preparing for a premiere of Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly series. The phone threat prompted a call to police and an evacuation that forced the premier to be canceled.
Russell awaits sentencing next week on those charges.
Primary Wave and the estate of James Brown are facing a new lawsuit that claims their $90 million catalog sale last year violated an agreement that the iconic singer had struck decades earlier with another company.
Announced in December, the sale saw Primary Wave scoop up a portion of Brown’s publishing rights, master royalty income and name/likeness rights from the singer’s estate – adding the “Soul Brother No. 1” to the likes of Whitney Houston and Prince in the company’s growing catalog.
But in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday (Nov. 15) in Manhattan federal court, David Pullman’s Pullman Group says the blockbuster sale represents a breach of a contract it struck with Brown way back in 1999 that guaranteed the company the right to broker any such deal in the future.
And Pullman says the breach was no small error: It’s demanding more than $11 million in damages from the Brown estate, and a whopping $125 million from Primary Wave.
“The Primary Wave transaction violated The Pullman Group’s exclusive rights under the exclusive engagement letter to arrange such asset sales for Brown and his estate,” Pullman’s lawyers wrote in their complaint.
In response to the allegations, a rep for the Brown estate told Billboard on Wednesday that the lawsuit “has no merit and the Estate and Trust intend to vigorously defend the action.” A rep for Primary Wave did not immediately return a request for comment.
Pullman is best known for creating so-called Bowie Bonds – a novel financial vehicle that offered investors the right to collect future royalties in return for a lump payment to an artist. He pioneered the arrangement with a $55 million deal with David Bowie in 1997, hence the name.
In the new lawsuit, Pullman Group says it created such a bond offering for Brown in 1999 to help the late singer deal with “financial difficulties,” which were spurred by his “spending habits and legal problems.” Under the terms of the deal, Brown received an up-front payment of $26 million in exchange for future royalties over a set period of time.
But crucially, Pullman’s lawsuit says the deal also guaranteed the company “exclusive rights to arrange all future refinancing or asset sales of Brown’s assets.” It says the that contractual sweetener was included because the deal was risky for Pullman and the company had already agreed to waive its normal up-front fees in Brown’s case.
But in December 2021, Pullman says it learned from media reports that Brown’s estate had reached a deal with Primary Wave. The agreement had been struck “secretly and behind The Pullman Group’s back,” and the estate had instead used a company called Shot Tower Capital to arrange the deal.
“By working for years in secret on the Primary Wave transaction, Primary Wave and Shot Tower Capital intentionally and maliciously interfered with The Pullman Group’s exclusive contractual rights,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit says Pullman would have been entitled to a 12.5% fee from any rights deal struck by Brown’s estate – meaning the estate owes the company $11.3 million from Primary Wave’s $90 million payment.
Pullman wants far steeper damages from Primary Wave and Shot Tower Capital. Accusing them of so-called tortious interference with a contract – meaning an outside party essentially induced someone to break their word – Pullman is seeking at least $125 million in damages from each company.
A rep for Shot Tower Capital did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit’s accusations.
In a statement to Billboard, David Pullman said he and Brown had a “great mutually successful and beneficial relationship and friendship for years,” but that the current legal dispute had been caused by those running his estate.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: A murder case against rapper YNW Melly turns into an appellate battle over the death penalty, Phoebe Bridgers defeats a producer’s defamation lawsuit, Megan Thee Stallion wins a restraining order against her label, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: YNW Melly Could Face Death Penalty
Three years after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, YNW Melly has found himself at the center of a legal battle over the death penalty, with a trip to the Florida Supreme Court looming next.If you haven’t been following: Melly (real name Jamell Demons) faces two counts of murder over accusations that he and another rapper, YNW Bortlen, shot and killed Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas Jr. in 2018.A first-degree murder defendant in Florida would typically face the possibility of execution if convicted. But earlier this year, Melly’s attorneys argued that the state had forfeited the right to seek capital punishment by failing to comply with strict laws on how they must warn defendants that they’ll do so.Florida requires prosecutors to give notice 45 days after arraignment if they plan to seek capital punishment. In Melly’s case, the state attorney filed such notice when they originally indicted the rapper in 2019, but they then failed to do so when they re-charged him with a so-called superseding indictment earlier this year. In July, a state trial judge sided with Melly’s lawyers, taking the death penalty off the table.But in a ruling last week, a state appeals court overturned that decision. Since prosecutors gave notice that they might seek death when they first charged him, the court said they had complied with state rules – and more importantly, had avoided the due process problems the rules were designed to safeguard against.“Notice is notice,” the court wrote in its opinion. “The defendant has had nearly three years to start the preparation of his defense to the state seeking the death penalty [and] the record contains no evidence that the defendant was prejudiced in any way.”The ruling likely won’t be the last on Melly’s case. In handing down its decision, the appeals court certified that the case dealt with novel legal questions that are of “great public importance” to the state of Florida – meaning they should be decided by the state’s Supreme Court.In a statement to Billboard, Melly’s attorney Philip R. Horowitz said he and his client were “disappointed in the ruling” but “look forward to our opportunity to argue our position before the justices.”
Other top stories this week…
PHOEBE SLAPPS DOWN LAWSUIT – A Los Angeles judge tossed out a lawsuit against Phoebe Bridgers that accused her of defaming producer/studio owner Chris Nelson, citing California’s anti-SLAPP law that’s designed to protect free speech against questionable lawsuits. Nelson’s lawsuit claimed that Bridgers lied about him in a series of October 2020 Instagram posts, in which the singer amplified accusations of abuse made against him by another woman. Her lawyers then fired back that Nelson was just using the lawsuit to “chill Ms. Bridgers’ allegations of abusive conduct, which are protected by the First Amendment.” Though Judge Curtis A. Kin sided with that argument last week, he did not issue a written ruling explaining the decision. Nelson has already vowed to appeal; a rep for Bridgers said the star felt “vindicated that the court recognized this lawsuit as frivolous and without merit.”MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – A judge in Texas sided with Megan Thee Stallion and granted her a restraining order against her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, issued after she claimed that the company “unlawfully” took steps “to block or interfere” with her ability to use her music in the lead-up to the AMAs on Sunday. The order bars the company from “preventing or blocking the use and exploitation” of Megan’s music in promotional content for the AMAs. The tussle ahead of the awards show is the latest front in a years-long legal war between Megan and 1501. She claims the label duped her into signing an unfair contract and has retaliated against her for challenging it; the company claims Megan, with the help of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is using baseless litigation merely as a vehicle to escape a deal she “no longer likes.”YE SUED YET AGAIN – Kanye West is facing a new copyright lawsuit over allegations that his “Life of the Party” illegally sampled from 1986 song “South Bronx” by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions. The company that currently owns BDP’s copyrights says West’s people reached out to clear the sample, but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck. The case is the latest in a string of such infringement case against the embattled rapper, who (amid many, many other problems) has been repeatedly sued for failing to secure licenses for samples.THEIR LOSS? – Just days after Condé Nast sued Drake and 21 Savage for using a fake cover story in Vogue magazine to promote their new album Her Loss, a federal judge issued a restraining order forcing them to stop using it. The judge ruled that the cover – one of several fake promos for the album – was likely violating the publisher’s trademarks because Drake and 21 were “misleading consumers” and “deceiving the public.” DJ SUED FOR NFT PROFITS – 3LAU was hit with a lawsuit claiming the DJ refused to properly share the earnings from an $11 million NFT auction with Luna Aura, a musical collaborator who co-authored one of the songs involved. Aura claims she owns a 50% royalty stake in the song “Walk Away” from his album Ultraviolet — but that 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from the much-publicized NFT auction tied to the record: “Despite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment.” 3LAU’s reps said the case was “without merit” and came as a surprise after months of negotiations.BANKROLL FREDDIE ARRESTED – Rapper Bankroll Freddie (Freddie Gladney III) was arrested in Arkansas on federal gun and drug charges, part of a sweeping bust across the state that saw 80 defendants indicted and 45 arrested, including his father Freddie Gladney Jr. The rapper, signed to Quality Control, is facing 11 total charges, including various drug possessions and possession of a machine gun.
Attorneys for Dua Lipa are asking a federal judge to quickly toss out a lawsuit claiming she stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track, calling the allegations “speculative,” “vague” and supported by little real evidence.
Members of the Florida band Artikal Sound System sued Lipa earlier this year, claiming her 2020 smash hit – which spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart – borrowed its core hook from their 2017 song “Live Your Life.”
But in a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday (Nov. 14), Lipa’s lawyers said there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” ever even had access to the earlier song – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit. Artikal Sound System’s attempts to show such a connection, they said, were “tortured.”
“They amount to nothing more than a speculative, attenuated theory based on numerous degrees of separation, none of which establish any link — let alone a concrete link — between the writers of ‘Levitating’ and ‘Live Your Life,’” wrote Lipa’s lawyers from the firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP.
“Plaintiffs are essentially seeking to plead access,” the star’s legal team wrote, “by alleging that someone who knows someone who knows someone might have met one of the ‘Levitating’ writers.”
“Levitating,” released in 2020 on Lipa’s second studio album Future Nostalgia, was a massive hit, eventually peaking at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and securing the honor of being the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the chart.
Artikal Sound System is a reggae band based out of South Florida, founded in 2012 as a duo before later adding additional musicians and vocalist Logan Rex. The band released “Live Your Life” on its 2017 EP Smoke and Mirrors.
In their March lawsuit, the band said the songs sounded so similar that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” The lawsuit also named Warner Records, as well as others who helped create the hit track.
In Monday’s filing, beyond arguing that Lipa and other writers never heard the song, her lawyers also said Artikal Sound System failed to show that the songs were similar enough to constitute copyright infringement. The complaint is full of “vague, boilerplate labels and conclusions,” they said, but “devoid of a shred of factual detail”
“Plaintiffs fail to allege a single fact that identifies what material from ‘Live Your Life’ is copied in ‘Levitating’,” Lipa’s lawyers wrote. “Instead, Plaintiffs merely conclusorily allege purported similarities between the two works without any factual detail whatsoever.”
An attorney for Artikal Sound System did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The current case is one of two lawsuits Lipa is facing over “Levitating.” The other, filed just days later, claims she and the other writers lifted material from both a 1979 song called “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and a 1980 song called “Don Diablo.” That case is still pending in a different court.
Mariah Carey might be the “Queen of Christmas,” but a new legal ruling means she won’t be able to stop others from using the same name.
In a decision issued Tuesday, a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Carey’s application to register the royal title as a federal trademark. The decision went in favor of Elizabeth Chan, another singer who says she’s used the same name for years.
Chan filed a legal case against Carey in August, arguing that “Christmas is big enough for more than one Queen.” After that, Carey never responded to the case or defended her applications for the trademarks, prompting the Trademark Office to rule in favor of Chan by default.
“We are pleased with the victory, and delighted that we were able to help Elizabeth fight back against Carey’s overreaching trademark registrations,” said Tompros, an attorney at the law firm WilmerHale.
In the same statement, Chan herself added: “Christmas is a season of giving, not the season of taking, and it is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like Queen of Christmas for the purposes of abject materialism.”
Carey’s attorney did not return a request for comment on the decision.
In a statement, Chan’s lawyer Louis Tompros called Carey’s efforts to secure legal protection over the “Queen” name “a classic case of trademark bullying” – a term used to criticize overly-aggressive trademark protection by big brands.
Likely playing on her perennial smash hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Carey’s company (Lotion LLC) applied last year to register the “Queen” name as an exclusive brand name for a variety of different goods and services, ranging from music to alcohol to fragrances.
Trademarks are different than copyrights, and they do not give someone blanket ownership over particular words. If Carey had won the registrations and wanted to sue someone, she still would have needed to prove that consumers had confused the two brand names – not always an easy task, particularly with a fairly unoriginal name like “Queen of Christmas.”
But such registrations are still important, and would have empowered Carey’s company to start threatening litigation and crowding out others from using it in similar commercial contexts. That potentially would include Chan, who calls her self “pop music’s only full-time Christmas singer” and says she’s also been repeatedly dubbed the “Queen of Christmas.”
The risk of such litigation prompted Chan to file her August case at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, a court-like body within the USPTO that decides disputes over who is entitled to register particular trademarks. Repped by Tompros, she argued that no single singer or company should be able to lock up the title.
“Ms. Carey can call herself whatever she wants, but she shouldn’t have the ability to block others from doing the same,” Tompros said at the time.
It’s unclear exactly what motivated Carey and her lawyers (from the elite trademark law firm Fross Zelnick) to file the applications, particularly after she gave an interview in December in which she seemed to disclaim the title: “To me, Mary is the Queen of Christmas.”
The dispute over the “Queen” title prompted some fun wrangling among other Christmas “queens.” Darlene Love jokingly urged Carey to “call my lawyer,” noting that David Letterman had “officially declared me the Queen of Christmas 29 years ago.” And just last week, Dolly Parton quickly conceded the title to Carey after an interviewer suggested that Parton might be “the new Queen of Christmas.”
“Now, don’t you say that! I’m not going to compete with Mariah,” Parton said in the interview with Better Homes and Gardens. “I love her. You think of Christmas, you think of Mariah.”
“Is it true that Mariah Carey trademarked ‘Queen of Christmas?’ What does that mean that I can’t use that title?” Love asked in the post. “At 81 years of age I’m NOT changing anything. I’ve been in the business for 52 years, have earned it and can still hit those notes! If Mariah has a problem call David or my lawyer!!”