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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: Lizzo wins a key ruling in her efforts to secure trademark protection for ‘100% That B-tch,” Taylor Swift calls a lawsuit over her Lovers companion book “legally and factually baseless,” Kanye’s lawyers finally track him down long enough to drop him as a client, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Lizzo Is Now – Legally Speaking – ‘100% That B-tch’
A Grammy for record of the year wasn’t all Lizzo won last week.
Just days before her big Grammy win Sunday night, a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sided with the superstar in her quest to secure a federal trademark registration for “100% That B-tch” – the iconic lyric from her breakout single “Truth Hurts.”
Last year, the agency had rejected Lizzo’s application for the trademark on the grounds that it was merely a commonplace “motivational phrase” aimed at “female empowerment,” not the kind of unique brand name that’s eligible for trademark protection.
But the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) overturned that ruling last week, saying that consumers who see the phrase on apparel would likely “associate the term with Lizzo and her music.”
For a full breakdown of Lizzo’s legal victory, including access to all the actual court documents, go read our story here.
Other top stories this week…
SWIFT RIPS COPYRIGHT SUIT – Taylor Swift‘s attorneys asked a federal judge to toss out a copyright case claiming the star stole aspects of a self-published book of poetry when she created a companion book for her album Lover, calling it “a lawsuit that never should have been filed.”
LAW FIRM FINDS KANYE – After months of searching, attorneys from the law firm Greenberg Traurig said they had finally tracked down Kanye West and formally notified him that he’s no longer a client of the firm, ending a bizarre ordeal in which the lawyers said they’d be willing to run newspaper ads to be rid of the disgraced rapper.
COGNAC UNDER THE BRIDGE – Jay-Z and Bacardi reached an agreement to end bitter litigation over their D’Ussé Cognac brand. Under the deal, Bacardi will take over a “majority interest” in the company, which was previously split 50-50 between the two sides.
COACHELLA v. MOECHELLA – The organizers of Coachella filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the operators of a Washington D.C.-based music event called “Moechella,” accusing the smaller group of confusing consumers with the similar name.
RAPHY PINA LOSES APPEAL – A federal appeals court upheld a federal gun conviction against Daddy Yankee’s manager Raphy Pina, citing “overwhelming” evidence. The court overturned a separate conviction over an illegal automatic weapon, but it’s unclear if the ruling will reduce Pina’s 41 month sentence.
NICK CARTER STRIKES BACK – Two months after Nick Carter was hit with a civil lawsuit claiming he raped a 17-year-old girl on his tour bus in 2001, the Backstreet Boys member filed a countersuit claiming the allegations were the product of a “five-year conspiracy,” designed to extort him by coopting the #MeToo movement.
The long ordeal for Kanye West’s former lawyers is finally over — and they didn’t need to run those newspaper ads after all.
A month after attorneys from the law firm Greenberg Traurig asked a judge to let them to run notices in Los Angeles newspapers announcing they had dropped Ye as a client because they had “exhausted all methods” of contacting him, they told a federal judge Friday (Feb. 3) that they had finally gotten a hold of him.
“The address at which Ye was personally served is not one that is publicly affiliated with Ye or his businesses, but one that Ye nonetheless frequents,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing. “The location also appears to be primarily used by persons and entities not affiliated with Ye or his businesses.”
According to court papers, the notification process was finally accomplished after the firm was contacted by an unnamed attorney who said he would be representing Ye “on some of his legal matters.” A signed document shows that West was formally served on Jan. 27.
Greenberg, one of many law firms to cut ties with Ye in the wake of his antisemitic statements last year, had been trying for months to legally notify the rapper that its lawyers will no longer be representing him. The firm had previously repped West in a copyright lawsuit filed over one of the tracks off his album Donda 2.
Judge Analisa Torres already approved the firm’s withdrawal last year, but federal litigation rules and legal ethics require lawyers to personally serve clients with formal notice that they’ve been dropped as a client. And last month, the Greenberg lawyers notified Judge Torres that West was making it impossible for them to do so. They said he had engaged in “deliberate avoidance and obstruction,” including ditching his previous representatives and changing his phone number.
Faced with that obstinance, the firm asked the judge to permit an extraordinary alternative: printing a formal public notice in Los Angeles newspapers.
“Given Ye’s public status, publication of the Withdrawal Order will likely garner significant media attention, resulting in broader publication and provide an even greater likelihood of apprising Ye of the Order,” the Greenberg lawyers wrote at the time.
Such steps will now not be necessary. In a declaration, Greenberg attorney Nina D. Boyajian detailed how the firm finally got the formal notification to their disgraced former client.
“On January 18, 2023, an attorney based in California contacted my firm advising that he would be representing ‘Ye on some of his legal matters,’” she wrote. “During the course of several emails and a phone call with this attorney, I requested that he coordinate personal service of the Order on Ye. On February 1, 2023, the attorney referenced above emailed me the executed Certificate of Service.”
The name of Kanye’s new attorney and the location where the star was finally located were not disclosed in public documents. Kanye could not immediately be located for comment.
Taylor Swift‘s attorneys are asking a federal judge to dismiss a copyright lawsuit claiming the star stole aspects of a self-published book of poetry when she created a companion book for her album Lover, calling the case “legally and factually baseless.”
A woman named Teresa La Dart sued Swift last year, claiming that “a number of creative elements” from her 2010 book (also called Lover) were copied into Swift’s book. But in a motion filed Friday in Tennessee federal court, Swift’s lawyers said the copyright lawsuit should be dismissed immediately because it failed in every way possible.
“This is a lawsuit that never should have been filed,” attorney Doug Baldridge wrote for the superstar.
La Dart sued Swift in August over the star’s Lover book – an extra bundled with the special-edition of her Lover CD that the New York Times called a “must-read companion” for Swifties. Released in four different versions, Swift’s book included a total of 120 pages of personal diary entries, accompanied by photos selected by the singer.
La Dart’s lawsuit claims the book’s outer design borrowed a number of visual elements, including its “pastel pinks and blues” and an image of the author “photographed in a downward pose,” as well as the book’s overall format: “a recollection of past years memorialized in a combination of written and pictorial components.” La Dart also says the inner book design – specifically that it’s composed of “interspersed photographs and writings” – infringed her copyrights.
But in Friday’s response, Swift’s lawyers said those elements were just commonplace features of almost any book, meaning they fall well-short of being unique enough to qualify for copyright protection.
“These allegedly-infringing elements, each a generic design format, are not subject to copyright protection,” Baldridge wrote. “Thus, defendants could not possibly have infringed plaintiff’s copyright.”
And even if La Dart had valid copyrights to her book, Swift’s lawyers argued that the accuser has no proof that Swift ever even saw the earlier book, nor that the two books are legally similar to constitute copyright infringement.
“When compared, it is undeniable that the book formats and inner book designs are not similar in the slightest,” Baldridge wrote.
Friday’s arguments closely track what legal experts have told Billboard about the potential weaknesses of La Dart’s case. In an interview last year, copyright expert Aaron Moss said that such a simple book format cannot not be monopolized by any one author: “If it were, this person might as well sue anyone who’s ever written a diary or made a scrap book.”
At the time, La Dart’s attorney William S. Parks defended bringing the case: “My client feels strongly about her position and the full comparison of both books side-by-side would provide a clearer view. This filing was not taken lightly.”
Parks did not return a request for comment on Swift’s motion to dismiss the case.
Former pop star Gary Glitter was released from prison in England on Friday (Feb. 3) after serving half of a 16-year prison sentence for sexually abusing three young girls in the 1970s.
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The 79-year-old singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, was freed from a prison in Dorset, in southwest England. It is common for offenders in the U.K. to be freed halfway through their sentences and then be placed on probation.
“Sex offenders like Paul Gadd are closely monitored by the police and Probation Service and face some of the strictest license conditions, including being fitted with a GPS tag,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement. “If the offender breaches these conditions at any point, they can go back behind bars.”
The singer was found guilty of one count of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13.
Glitter was arrested in October 2012 under Operation Yewtree, the national investigation launched in the wake of the child abuse scandal surrounding the late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile.
Glitter is best known for the hit “Rock & Roll (Part 2),” released in 1972, but he fell into disgrace after being convicted on child abuse charges in Vietnam.
After months of fighting in court, Jay-Z and Bacardi have decided it’s all cognac — er — water under the bridge.
The superstar rapper and the spirits giant said Friday they had reached an agreement to end bitter litigation over their D’Ussé Cognac brand. Under the deal, Bacardi will take over a “majority interest” in the company, which was previously split 50-50 between the two stakeholders.
The exact terms — what percentage Bacardi bought and how much Jay-Z was paid for it — were not disclosed, beyond a statement that the star would “retain a significant ownership stake” after the deal. Earlier filings in the case suggested the privately-held company could be worth as much as $5 billion.
In a statement, Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) said he was “excited to renew this partnership with Bacardi.”
“Growing D’Ussé over the past decade from an idea to one of the fastest-selling spirits in history has been a blessing,” the rapper wrote. “The next phase of this journey will further cement D’Ussé’s legacy as one of the world’s most respected brands.”
Until recently, Jay-Z was not at all excited to renew his D’Ussé deal with Bacardi. The rapper has spent the last year in a sprawling legal battle aimed at exiting the partnership, spanning at least four lawsuits in two states as well as private arbitration cases.
The dispute centered on Jay-Z’s exercise of a so-called “put option” — a legal mechanism in the joint venture’s operating agreement that, when triggered, required Bacardi to buy out his half of the business. Once invoked, the two sides were supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price for Bacardi to pay.
The rapper triggered the put option in September 2021, but the two sides quickly came to loggerheads over how much his half of the company was worth. The rapper suggested his half of the business was worth $2.5 billion; Bacardi said the number was just $460 million.
That core dispute eventually led to two private arbitrations, as well as lawsuits in both New York and Delaware courts. The two sides battled over what information should be used to fairly value Jay-Z’s stake, and he later accused Bacardi of “lowballing” and “stonewalling” him to get a cheaper price.
In November, unsealed court documents revealed key details of the months that had led up to the dispute.
For instance, when Bacardi offered $460 million for Jay’s half of the business, the hip-hop magnate’s attorneys said he responded by flipping the script. Rather than continue to invoke his put option requiring Bacardi to buy him out, they said he offered to go vice-versa and buy out Bacardi’s share for $1.5 billion — far more than the figure Bacardi had just cited as the fair value of half the company.
When Bacardi turned down that offer, the legal battle kicked off.
The organizers of Coachella are suing the creator of a Washington D.C.-based music event called “Moechella,” accusing the smaller group of violating the trademark rights to the giant yearly festival.
Filed after months of public dispute with Justin Johnson over the name of his go-go music events, Coachella’s lawsuit says he’s continued to use the allegedly infringing name unabated — even announcing last month that he’s planning 10 new events in the coming year.
“Despite plaintiffs’ repeated efforts to avoid litigation, defendants have made clear that they have no intent of ceasing their infringing activities, forcing Plaintiffs to file this action,” wrote lawyers for Goldenvoice LLC, the AEG subsidiary that operates the California festival, in a complaint filed Tuesday (Jan. 31) in D.C. federal court.
In an interview with Billboard on Friday, Johnson said he’d been surprised to learn of Coachella’s lawsuit because he said he’d already agreed with the company’s lawyers that he would “pivot away” from the “Moechella” name and had been continuing to do so.
“These events are protests that have spawned out of the gentrification of D.C. and the erasure of the culture in this city, not festivals for monetary gain,” Johnson said. “It’s surprising that a multi-billion dollar company is approaching a non-profit organization like this.”
The new case is just the latest trademark clash for Coachella. In 2021, the festival sued Live Nation for selling tickets to an event called “Coachella Day One 22.” Last year, Coachella sued a West African company over an event called “Afrochella,” then later sued a California business park that has been using the name “Coachillin.”
An attorney for Coachella did not immediately return a request for comment on the new case.
According to Washington City Paper, Moechella started in 2019 as musical protests organized by Johnson and others after residents of a luxury apartment building complained about go-go music that was being played outside. The name, according to that article, is a portmanteau of “moe” — D.C.-area slang for a friend — and Coachella.
The dispute with Coachella first became public last summer, when the festival filed legal documents seeking to block Johnson from registering the name as a federal trademark. In response, Johnson quickly dropped his trademark application, but publicly vowed that he was “not going to stop using the name” even after Coachella’s complaints.
In the new lawsuit, Coachella’s attorneys said the company had no problem with the Moechella event itself — only with the use of a title that seems to clearly play on the better-known festival’s name.
“Plaintiffs have no objection to Defendants’ lawful activities, including the hosting of live music and entertainment events,” the company wrote. “Plaintiffs’ only objection is to the Defendants’ infringing and confusing use of the term ‘Moechella.’”
The new case also named Kelsye Adams, a woman who appears to be the executive director of the group that organizes Moechella. She could not immediately be located for comment on Friday.
In an effort to underscore the argument that Coachella doesn’t want to be confused with the smaller event, the festival’s lawyers took the notable step of citing a recent tragedy.
In June, a 15-year-old boy was killed and three others shot when gunfire erupted at Moechella. In a statement to the media at the time, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser criticized the fact that the event “did not have any proper planning for the number of people who were here and with guns involved.”
In Tuesday’s lawsuit, Coachella said the shooting was an example of the kind of “reputational harm” that can be caused if consumers think the bigger festival has somehow approved of Moechella.
“Plaintiffs contend that incidents such as the shooting death and melee cause harm to Plaintiffs, particularly given Defendants’ infringing use of similar looking and sounding ‘Moechella’ marks,” Coachella’s lawyers wrote.
In speaking with Billboard on Friday, Johnson said he viewed the linking of the shooting directly to Moechella as “unfair,” arguing it had actually occurred after the event ended. But he reiterated that he would adopt a new name, which he says he’ll use in the future to continue drawing attention to gentrification, gun violence and other issues facing D.C.
“This name was something that was chosen by the people, so we’re going to do a call to action to change the name, just like a sports team would do,” Johnson said, alluding to the recent high-profile name change for Washington D.C.’s professional football team.
“They named it once, so they can name it again,” Johnson said.
Nick Carter is hitting back against a lawsuit that claims he raped a 17-year-old girl on his tour bus in 2001 following a Backstreet Boys concert in Tacoma, Wash.
In a countersuit filed in Nevada court Thursday (Feb. 2), the singer claims he’s the victim of a “five-year conspiracy” orchestrated by three individuals “to harass, defame and extort” him by latching onto the #MeToo movement. Among other allegations, Carter says the alleged victim of the assault, Shannon “Shay” Ruth, was manipulated into filing her lawsuit by Melissa Schuman Henschel — a former member of the teen-pop group Dream, who previously accused Carter of assaulting her in 2003 when she was 18 years old — and Schuman’s father, Jerome Schuman.
“Ruth was a vulnerable and highly impressionable individual, craving attention and desperate to fit in,” the lawsuit reads. “Schuman and Jerome groomed and coached Ruth, coaxing her to inflate her initial claim of being abused at the hands of a third-party, to being physically abused at the specific hands of Carter, and, finally, to being sexually assaulted by Carter.” The countersuit goes on to highlight the evolving nature of Ruth’s claims against Carter in social media posts as well as “numerous factual changes and amendments” made to her initial police report against him over a period of 12 months.
In addition to claims that the co-defendants illegally conspired against him, Carter accuses the defendants of defamation owing to various social media posts and a podcast appearance in which they variously accused him of being “a rapist,” an “abuser,” a “#SerialPredator” and more.
Also named as a defendant is the holder of the @ElaineModo Twitter handle (under the name Olay Elaine Mcintosh) — though the countersuit alleges that the account is likely orchestrated by the Schumans and Ruth to spread false information about him from a source designed to appear independent.
Carter is asking for damages of no less than $2.35 million — the amount he claims he lost in various career opportunities — as well as emotional distress damages, punitive damages and more.
In an emailed statement sent to Billboard, Ruth’s attorney, Mike Boskovich of Corsiglia McMahon & Allard, said: “Why should Nick Carter be believed with his long history of abusing females. A jury will weigh the evidence and decide.”
One particularly eyebrow-raising allegation in the countersuit involves Carter’s late brother, singer Aaron Carter, whom Nick alleges the Schumans and Ruth used as a pawn to try to “legitimize” their claims against his older brother. “The Schumans’ timing couldn’t have been better since, at the time, Aaron was addicted to drugs, battling serious mental health issues, and engaged in a misguided campaign of retaliation against Carter and other members of his family who were worried about Aaron and pushing him to seek professional help,” the complaint reads. It adds that the Schumans went so far as to accompany Aaron to a court hearing after a restraining order application was filed against him by Nick and his wife following a series of threatening social media posts by the younger Carter.
The countersuit notes that Aaron later recanted his previous statements backing up the women’s claims on Instagram and during a subsequent podcast appearance, but that the Schumans and Ruth continue to use those earlier statements to try to lend credibility to their claims.
In the wake of Melissa Schuman’s initial allegations against Carter in November 2017, the singer claims that, in addition to career and financial blowback, he has become the target of death threats and been forced to hire private security for himself and his family. He alleges that he and the Backstreet Boys were dealt an even costlier financial blow after Ruth filed her lawsuit last December, losing at least $2.35 million due to the cancellation of promotional events, contracts and endorsement deals with companies including MeUndies, VRBO, Roblox and ABC, which scrapped the group’s A Very Backstreet Christmas Special due to air on the network after Ruth’s lawsuit was filed.
Though named as a co-defendant, throughout the filing Ruth is depicted as little more than a pawn in a game designed to bring the Schumans wealth and attention. The countersuit paints Melissa specifically as a desperate fame-seeker who is using the allegations against Carter to revive her dormant career as a singer and actress. Jerome, meanwhile, is characterized as akin to an attack dog, regularly making “aggressive, nasty, and, often, threatening” statements on social media against Carter and his fans.
The lengthy countersuit includes a detailed account of Ruth and Melissa Schuman’s inconsistent statements since making their accusations and attempts to discredit them by noting that they waited 19 and 14 years, respectively, before going public about the alleged assaults. “Upon information and belief, Schuman and Ruth deliberately waited for the applicable limitation periods to run so as to allow evidence to spoil, witnesses to die or disappear, and memories to fade in an effort to evade any thorough investigation into their false claims,” the countersuit reads.
With respect to Ruth’s claims, the countersuit alleges that no autograph signing event was held outside Carter’s tour bus on the night in question, as she claimed in her lawsuit, and includes evidence that after going to the Tacoma police nearly 20 years later, Ruth continually contradicted important details in her account — including an initial claim that Carter had only “injured her arm.”
In further denying Melissa Schuman’s claims, Carter alleges that, far from a rape, the two engaged in consensual sex on the night in question. After highlighting Schuman’s prior statements that she tried to avoid the singer in the wake of the alleged rape, the countersuit adds that she not only completed work on the movie they were filming together after the alleged assault but recorded a duet with Carter and later performed it live with him. It also points to various supportive social media posts Schuman made about Carter as recently as May 2017.
You can read the full lawsuit below.
Lizzo is now — legally speaking — 100% that b-tch.
In a decision issued Thursday (Feb. 2), a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the superstar could register “100% That B-tch” as a federal trademark for clothing — meaning Lizzo now has exclusive rights to use the phrase on apparel.
Last year, the agency rejected Lizzo’s application for the trademark on the grounds that it was merely a commonplace “motivational phrase” aimed at “female empowerment,” not the kind of unique brand name that’s eligible for trademark protection.
But the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) overturned that ruling Thursday, saying that people who see the phrase on a t-shirt would immediately think of Lizzo.
“Consumers encountering ‘100% That B-tch’ on the specific types of clothing identified in the application ― even when offered by third parties ― associate the term with Lizzo and her music,” the appeals board wrote in its ruling.
Lizzo included the famed lyric — “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that b-tch” — in her breakout smash hit “Truth Hurts,” but she didn’t actually didn’t come up with it herself. Instead, the singer pulled it from a popular internet meme, and she has since given its creator — Mina Lioness — songwriting credit on the hit track.
In refusing to give Lizzo the trademark, the USPTO had pointed out that backstory, arguing that even if the singer “popularized” the phrase, she was still not entitled to legally “appropriate” it for her own exclusive use on consumer goods.
But in Thursday’s decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board disagreed — ruling that Lizzo had clearly “popularized the lyric” and elevated “a lesser known phrase” into “more memorable status.”
“Lizzo did not originate the expression she encountered as a Twitter meme,” the board wrote. “Nonetheless, lyrics from songs are more likely to be attributed to the artists who sing, rap or otherwise utter them, rather than the songwriters.”
An attorney for Lizzo did not immediately return a request for comment. The USPTO does not comment on rulings by the TTAB.
Read the entire decision here:
A federal appeals court has upheld Raphy Pina’s conviction on a federal gun charge, ruling that prosecutors had “overwhelming” evidence that the star music manager illegally owned firearms despite a previous felony conviction that barred him from doing so.
Lawyers for Pina (full name Rafael Antonio Pina-Nieves) had challenged the 2021 guilty verdict by arguing that the judge who oversaw the trial had allowed inadmissible testimony that had a “devastating impact” on the jury’s ability to fairly decide the case.
But in a decision Monday (Jan. 30), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said the government had provided “overwhelming” evidence that Pina owned guns. The unfair testimony might have been “highly prejudicial,” the court said, but added it was ultimately harmless because Pina likely would have been convicted without it.
Crucially, the appeals court cited a tapped phone call in which Pina himself was caught talking to an associate about a safe holding “my guns, rifles, bullets.” In that recorded call, the court said Pina “left no doubt” that the safe “contained guns and bullets that were his.”
A representative for Pina, a 44-year-old veteran music executive who manages Daddy Yankee, did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.
Though it upheld one of Pina’s convictions, the appeals court overturned another one — ruling that prosecutors failed to prove that he had illegally owned an automatic weapon. The court said there was clear evidence that Pina owned the gun, but not that he had been aware that it had been illegally modified into a fully automatic weapon — a key requirement under the law.
“While Pina-Nieves does not dispute that the evidence suffices to show that he constructively possessed the weapon … we do not see how a rational juror could make the requisite inference that Pina-Nieves knew that this weapon had the characteristics of a machinegun,” the appeals court wrote, using Pina’s full surname.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Puerto Rico did not return a request for comment on Wednesday.
Pina was indicted in August 2020, accused of possessing two handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition despite the fact that he was barred from doing so because of his 2016 conviction on federal fraud and money laundering charges. Prosecutors separately alleged that one of those guns was a Glock pistol that had been “modified to fire fully automatically with a single pull of the trigger” — making it an illegal automatic weapon.
Following a December trial in San Juan, Pina was convicted on both charges. In May, he was sentenced to 41 months (3 years and five months) in prison and ordered to pay a $150,000 sanction.
Despite Monday’s partial reversal, it’s unclear if Pina’s prison sentence will be reduced. When he was sentenced in May, the judge ruled that he was sentenced to the full 41 months “as to each count 1 and 2” but that the two sentences would be “served concurrently with each other.”
Read the entire decision here:
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Rick Astley makes waves by suing an artist who impersonated his voice; an explanation of why Miley Cyrus doesn’t owe Bruno Mars a writing credit on her super-smash “Flowers”; UMG wins a big ruling in a proposed class action over termination rights; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Will Rick Astley Dampen Pop’s Nostalgia Kick?
Popular culture is always cyclical, but we’re living though a particularly nostalgic age of pop music. Just look at the Hot 100 over the past year: Jack Harlow pulled from Fergie, David Guetta riffed on Eiffel 65, Latto made a song that sounded like Mariah Carey, and Beyonce heavily sampled from Robin S. But a new lawsuit could cast something of a pall on the throwback mania.
Rick Astley is suing Yung Gravy over the rapper’s breakout 2022 single “Betty (Get Money),” which borrowed from the singer’s iconic (and frequently-memed) “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The lawsuit claims the new track — an interpolation that sounded a whole lot like an outright sample — broke the law by impersonating Astley’s voice.
Filed by the same attorney (Richard Busch) who brought the blockbuster case over “Blurred Lines,” the new lawsuit has the potential to similarly scare producers about their current studio practices. As Billboard’s Kristin Robinson writes this week, re-recording classic tracks (rather than directly sampling them) has become more common for financial and creative reasons, but Astley’s accusations have some music executives questioning if it could “open the floodgates” to litigation when vocals are involved.
For a full breakdown of the Astley lawsuit, including access to all the actual court documents, go read our story here.
Other top stories this week…
MILEY DOESN’T OWE BRUNO ANYTHING – Miley Cyrus’ chart-topping new single, “Flowers,” includes clear references to Bruno Mars‘ own No. 1 hit from a decade earlier, “When I Was Your Man.” But as a copyright expert explained to me and Billboard‘s Andrew Unterberger this week, Miley doesn’t need to offer Bruno a credit for an “answer song” that merely riffs on a few lyrics but doesn’t borrow any musical elements.
ON TERMINATIONS, CLASS DISMISSED – A Manhattan federal judge ruled that hundreds of artists cannot join forces to sue Universal Music Group to regain control of their masters, saying the case raised big questions about “fairness” but that it was ill-suited for class-action litigation — a major blow to a closely-watched case over termination rights.
MANSON FACES NEW ABUSE CASE – Marilyn Manson reached a settlement with actress Esme Bianco to end one of the several sexual abuse lawsuits that he’s faced in recent years. But just days later, he was hit with a lawsuit from a new accuser who claims he groomed and sexually assaulted her during the early portion of his career when she was underage. Manson strongly denies the new allegations.
YE SAGA CONTINUES FOR GREENBERG – The Kanye West ordeal isn’t quite over for Greenberg Traurig, the prestigious law firm that’s so frustrated with their ex-client that it asked a judge to allow it to print newspaper ads announcing they’ve dropped him.
MISTRIAL IN T.I.’s TOY CASE – A high-profile intellectual property battle pitting T.I. and wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris against toymaker MGA over a line of dolls ended in a sudden mistrial after jurors heard “inflammatory” — and clearly inadmissible — video-taped testimony claiming the toy company “steals from African Americans.”
CARDI ACCUSER WANTS NEW TRIAL – Months after a jury rejected bizarre allegations that Cardi B “humiliated” a man by photoshopping his back tattoo onto the risqué cover of a 2016 mixtape, the guy wants a do-over. Kevin Brophy formally requested a new trial, arguing that the star “engaged in theatrics” on the witness stand and deprived him of a fair trial.
LIVE NATION WINS CASE OVER SHOOTING – A California appeals ruled that Live Nation is not legally responsible for a deadly 2014 shooting backstage at a Young Jeezy concert. The court said such an attack was not the kind of event that the concert giant should have seen coming — an important decision as Live Nation is facing similar claims over the backstage killing of Drakeo The Ruler in 2021.
BAD BUNNY COPYRIGHT SETTLEMENT – Bad Bunny reached a tentative agreement to end a lawsuit that accused the Puerto Rican superstar of lifting material for his 2020 track “Safaera” from three earlier songs by reggaeton pioneer DJ Playero.
R. KELLY STATE CHARGES DROPPED – Prosecutors in Illinois dropped all state-level sexual abuse charges against R. Kelly, citing “limited resources” and the fact that the disgraced singer has already been sentenced to 30 years in prison on federal convictions — and could soon be facing decades more in another federal case.