Legal
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As the legal battle over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us” gets underway, both sides have retained top attorneys – with Drake hiring a lawyer who battles conspiracy theories and Universal Music Group turning to one of its favorite law firms.
Filed last week, Drake’s case accuses UMG of defaming him by boosting Lamar’s track, which attacks Drake as a “certified pedophile” and has become a chart-topping hit in its own right. The star says his own label “waged a campaign against him,” spreading a “malicious narrative” that it knew was false.
The courtroom showdown has drawn intense publicity, and it’s not hard to see why: It pits one of the world’s biggest stars against the world’s biggest music company after a lucrative, decade-plus partnership, over a smash hit song by a critically-adored rapper – one who’s set to perform at the Super Bowl next month, by the way. It also represents something of an unprecedented move in the history of hip hop: A lawsuit over a rap beef that allegedly went too far.
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To handle that kind of high-profile case, Drake has hired Michael Gottlieb, a former federal prosecutor who once served as a former associate counsel in the Obama White House. Gottlieb is currently a partner at the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, a national firm with a well-known music industry practice that has repeatedly been featured on Billboard‘s yearly Top Music Lawyers.
Based on his recent work, Gottlieb is unlikely to be intimidated by the media attention surrounding Drake’s lawsuit. He’s currently representing two Georgia poll workers in efforts to collect a huge verdict against Rudy Guiliani over his lies about election fraud, a case that just settled last week after high-profile court hearings in New York. He’s also repping Blake Lively in her battles against “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni, including her harassment case as well as Baldoni’s libel countersuit – cases that have transcended the courtroom and crossed firmly into the messier world of public relations.
In Lively’s suit, she says she was the victim of a sophisticated “digital retaliation campaign” centered “manipulation” of social media designed to destroy her reputation across the internet. Those kinds of claims are nothing new for Gottlieb, who has made a name for himself in recent years filing defamation lawsuits on behalf of alleged victims of online disinformation.
In 2023, he won the $148 million defamation verdict against Giuliani. Before that, he represented the brother of Seth Rich, a Democratic staffer whose murder became grist for right-wing conspiracy theories, as well as the owners of the D.C. pizzeria at the center of Pizzagate — an infamous online hoax centered on false claims of child sex trafficking that later sparked a real-life shooting.
In bringing Drake’s case to court, Gottlieb has raised similar allegations against UMG. He argues that the label used secret payments and bot streams to help spread a “dangerous conspiracy theory” about his client on the internet, putting the rapper at risk of serious physical harm. He even cites the Pizzagate shooting by name, calling a shooting at Drake’s house the “2024 equivalent” of that earlier incident: “UMG’s greed yielded real world consequences.”
Defending against those claims, court records show that UMG has retained the law firm Sidley Austin — one of the largest of the country’s elite “BigLaw” firms, and one that has repeatedly repped the music giant in past legal battles.
Sidley attorneys represented UMG when the label was the named as a defendant in the copyright lawsuit filed by Marvin Gaye’s heirs over Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s chart-topper “Blurred Lines” – a case that transfixed the music industry for years. The firm also handled certain stages of a long-running copyright case filed by UMG’s Capitol Records against the video sharing site Vimeo over internet takedown rules.
More recently, Sidley defended UMG against a class action accusing the label of unfairly refusing to allow hundreds of artists win back control of their copyrights — eventually winning a key ruling that effectively gutted the case. The firm also won a decision last year killing another case filed by the hip hop duo Black Sheep, who accused UMG of securing its stake in Spotify by giving the streamer a “sweetheart” licensing rate that left artists underpaid by millions.
The firm has also handled numerous music matters outside the UMG orbit. Sidley attorneys have also repped Warner Music Group – including in transactional work like the label’s joint venture deal with Elliot Grainge’s label 10K Projects and its $400 million acquisition of 300 Entertainment, as well as defending the company against litigation like a copyright termination case filed by Dwight Yoakam.
As of Monday, the only Sidley attorney to formally appear in Drake’s case is Nicholas P. Crowell, a New York attorney focused on complex commercial litigation, though he’ll almost certainly be joined by other firm attorneys as the case progresses. Top members of the music team at Sidley include litigator Rollin A. Ransom and deals attorney Matthew C. Thompson – both of whom have also repeatedly been named to Billboard’s list of Top Music Lawyers.
If recent work is any indication, the attorneys at Sidley will take an aggressive approach to a lawsuit that UMG itself has already publicly blasted as “illogical” and “frivolous.”
Ransom and other Sidley attorneys are currently defending UMG against Limp Bizkit’s $200 million royalties lawsuit, a case filed in October that claims the band had “not seen a dime in royalties” because of “systemic” and “fraudulent” policies. The lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case just a month later, ripping the lawsuit’s “entire narrative” as “fiction” and “based on a fallacy.” Last week, a judge sided with those arguments and rejected core aspects of the band’s case.
The firm will file its first response to Drake’s lawsuit in March.
Evan Rachel Wood issued a strong statement supporting survivors of domestic and sexual assault following Los Angeles County DA Nathan J. Hochman’s announcement last week that his office would not file domestic abuse and sexual assault charges against her ex-fiancé, shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
“My lawyer and I were advised by the Deputy District Attorneys and the Sheriff deputies who investigated the case that there was compelling evidence to support our claims, but that the statute of limitations prevents many of those crimes from being prosecuted,” Wood wrote on her private Instagram on Friday, according to People magazine. “We always knew that the statute of limitations would be a barrier, which is why we created the Phoenix Act so that other victims wouldn’t have to experience this outcome.”
Working with legislators and domestic violence survivors, Wood helped write the 2019 Phoenix Act, a California law that extended the statute of limitations for domestic violence felony crimes from three to five years. She was among a number of women who accused Manson (born Brian Warner), 56, of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, allegations the musician has denied.
On Friday, Hochman said his office decided that that statute of limitations had expired on any domestic violence charges against Manson and that they could not prove a sexual assault charge in court. In a statement, Hochman said prosecutors, “recognize and applaud the courage and resilience of the women who came forward,” thanking them for their “cooperation and patience… While we are unable to bring charges in this matter, we recognize that the strong advocacy of the women involved has helped bring greater awareness to the challenges faced by survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault,” Hochman said.
In her statement, Wood — who had alleged that Manson “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years” — added, “Unfortunately, the Phoenix Act cannot help in cases which occurred before it was passed, but I hope this shines a light on why it’s so important to advocate for better laws. Evidence of violent crimes should not have an expiration date. I am grateful for the work law enforcement has done, and I am endlessly proud of all the survivors who risked everything to protect others by speaking the truth.”
Game of Thrones actress Bianco accused Manson of abuse in 2021 and reached an undisclosed settlement with the musician in 2023 after alleging that he had “used drugs, force and threats of force to coerce sexual acts” and had “locked Ms. Bianco in the bedroom, tied her to a prayer kneeler and beat her with a whip that Mr. Warner said was utilized by the Nazis.”
Bianco also issued a statement following Hochman’s ruling, writing on Instagram: “Whilst I am deeply disappointed by the decision of the District Attorney to not bring charges in the case against Brian Warner, I am sadly not surprised. Within our toxic culture of victim blaming; a lack of understanding of coercive control, the complex nature of sexual assault within intimate partnerships, and statutes of limitations that do not support the realities of healing; prosecutions face an oftentimes insurmountable hurdle.”
She added, “Once again, our justice system has failed survivors. Not the individual prosecutors and detectives who worked for years on this case, but the system that made them do so with one hand tied behind their collective backs. Seven years ago when I was faced for the first time with that failure, it set me out on a journey of advocacy and activism, but with that came a very clear directive. My healing and peace could not be reliant upon the outcome of a desperately broken system. I know the truth of what happened to me. It sits deeply rooted in my belly, unshakable, mine. No-one and nothing can take that away. And so to all the survivors reading this, who are being hit by yet another piece of stinging news and feeling hopeless or discouraged, let me remind you: you know your truth also. Let that be your anchor, for it is stronger than the bars of any prison.”
With truth as her guide, Bianco vowed to continue fighting for justice reform and to “shine our light onto dark realities of sexual violence and intimate partner abuse, so that we can not only understand it, but end it.” She also had a blunt personal message to Warner, writing, “By you dragging me through hell, I discovered the unstoppable force of my own power. I learnt how strong, and brave and bold I really am. I emerged as a Phoenix from the ashes that you left of my life. You also know the truth, and may you endeavor to find peace with that.”
Manson has strongly denied all the allegations, at one point filing a motion to dismiss the case filed by Bianco, in which he accused her of “cynically and dishonestly seeking to monetize and exploit the #MeToo movement.” He also filed a defamation lawsuit against Wood, claiming she had “secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously” with false allegations against the rocker. Wood denied the counter-allegations and Manson dropped the suit in November 2024, agreeing to pay $327,000 of her legal fees.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
Paul McCartney is speaking out against proposed changes to copyright laws, warning that artificial intelligence could harm artists.
The British government is currently considering a policy that would allow tech companies to use creators’ works to train AI models unless creators specifically opt out. In an interview with the BBC, set to air on Sunday (Jan. 26), the 82-year-old former Beatle cautioned that the proposal could “rip off” artists and lead to a “loss of creativity.”
“You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it, and they don’t have anything to do with it. And anyone who wants can just rip it off,” McCartney said. “The truth is, the money’s going somewhere… Somebody’s getting paid, so why shouldn’t it be the guy who sat down and wrote ‘Yesterday’?”
The U.K. Labour Party government has expressed its ambition to make Britain a global leader in AI. In December 2024, the government launched a consultation to explore how copyright law can “enable creators and right holders to exercise control over, and seek remuneration for, the use of their works for AI training” while also ensuring “AI developers have easy access to a broad range of high-quality creative content,” according to the Associated Press.
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“We’re the people, you’re the government. You’re supposed to protect us. That’s your job,” McCartney told the BBC. “So you know, if you’re putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists, or you’re not going to have them.”
The Beatles’ final song, “Now and Then,” released in 2023, utilized a form of AI called “stem separation” to help surviving members McCartney and Ringo Starr clean up a 60-year-old, low-fidelity demo recorded by John Lennon, making it suitable for a finished master recording.
As AI becomes more prevalent in entertainment, music and daily life, the debate around its impact continues to grow. In April 2024, Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam and Nicki Minaj were among 200 signatories of an open letter directed at tech companies, digital service providers and AI developers. The letter criticized irresponsible AI practices, calling it an “assault on human creativity” that “must be stopped.”
Marilyn Manson will not face criminal charges from Los Angeles prosecutors following a four-year investigation into allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault, the city’s District Attorney said Friday.
Nathan J. Hochman, elected in November, said his office had decided that the statute of limitations had expired for any domestic violence charges against the rocker (Brian Warner), and that they simply could not prove a sexual assault charge in court.
In a brief statement, Hochman said prosecutors “recognize and applaud the courage and resilience of the women who came forward” and thanked them for their “cooperation and patience.”
“While we are unable to bring charges in this matter, we recognize that the strong advocacy of the women involved has helped bring greater awareness to the challenges faced by survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault,” Hochman said.
In a statement to Billboard, Manson’s attorney Howard King said: “We are very pleased that, after a thorough and incredibly lengthy review of all of the actual evidence, the District Attorney has concluded what we knew and expressed from the start – Brian Warner is innocent.”
Manson has faced a slew of allegations of sexual wrongdoing over the past several years, including from his ex-fiance Evan Rachel Wood, who alleged that the rocker “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.” He also faced claims from former assistant Ashley Walters, model Ashley Morgan Smithline and two Jane Doe accusers.
Manson has denied all of the allegations, and many civil lawsuits filed against him have since been dropped, dismissed or settled. He later sued Wood for defamation over her accusations, but a judge dismissed much of the case in 2023. Manson eventually dropped the case in November and agreed to pay Wood $327,000 in legal fees.
In early 2021, Los Angeles County detectives said they were conducting a criminal investigation and eventually served a search warrant on Manson’s West Hollywood home. The identities of Manson’s accusers in the criminal case have not been disclosed, but Game of Thrones actor Esmé Bianco publicly shared last year that her allegations against him were part of the criminal probe.
In October, then-District Attorney George Gascón said that “new evidence has emerged within the last few weeks” and that his office was pursuing “new leads” that would add to the “already extensive” case file they had amassed. But just weeks later, Hochman was elected.
An upcoming Michael Jackson biopic is delayed due to a recently-revealed, decades-old legal agreement barring any portrayal of the family of one of his abuse accusers, according to a report by the news site Puck, requiring costly re-shoots of key scenes.
Michael – a musical biopic from director Antoine Fuqua starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson in the title role – was delayed in November by studio Lionsgate, pushing the movie’s 2025 release back from April to October. No explanation was offered at the time.
Now, according to the Thursday report by Puck, there’s an answer: Filmmakers have been forced to scrap key portions of the movie because they would potentially violate a legal contract reached with the family of Jordan Chandler, a then-13-year-old boy who accused the superstar singer of molestation in the 1990s.
In the agreement, Jackson’s team reportedly promised not to dramatize the Chandlers in any capacity. That’s a huge problem, according to the report, because the Michael script portrays Jackson as a “naïve victim of the money-grubbing Chandlers” and features a scene of the boy’s father “threatening to leverage his son’s accusations to ‘destroy’ his ex-wife and Jackson’s career.”
A representative for the Jackson estate did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
The existence of the agreement with the Chandlers was not disclosed to filmmakers until after shooting was completed on the $150 million film, according to Puck. Estate executor John Branca reportedly informed producers about the problem around the time that the Financial Times reported in September that the estate had paid out hush-money to other accusers in never-before-reported settlements.
The estate is reportedly funding the necessary re-shoots to the movie, and the filmmakers will seek Lionsgate’s approval for a revised script and shooting strategy for “as early as this week.” Lionsgate is reportedly “hopeful” about the October release date and producer Graham King is “confident that his team can fix the movie.”
A source with knowledge of the film’s production told Billboard on Friday that re-shoots are already scheduled and that the movie’s ultimate release is not in jeopardy, but declined to go further into details.
Jackson, who died suddenly in 2009, was never convicted or held legally liable on any accusation of child molestation, but is still dogged by such allegations. Two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, continue to claim Jackson sexually abused them as children, spending the last decade pursuing civil lawsuits. And their allegations were amplified in 2019 by HBO docuseries Leaving Neverland, which laid out their claims in disturbing detail.
The Jackson estate has always vehemently denied all such claims, pointing out that the singer was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial and arguing that his accusers are simply seeking monetary gain from an artist who cannot defend himself because defamation law does not extend to dead individuals.
The allegations have not dampened the value of Jackon’s legacy. Though the estate was nearly $500 million in debt at the time of his death, it has since generated billions from royalties, theatrical productions and other revenue streams – including a recent $600 million deal to sell half of his music catalog to Sony Music.
A teenager who stabbed three young girls to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England was sentenced Thursday to more than 50 years in prison for what a judge called “the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime.”
Judge Julian Goose said 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana “wanted to try and carry out mass murder of innocent, happy young girls.”
Goose said that he couldn’t impose a sentence of life without parole, because Rudakubana was under 18 when he committed the crime.
But the judge said he must serve 52 years, minus the six months he’s been in custody, before being considered for parole, and “it is likely he will never be released.”
Rudakubana was 17 when he attacked the children in the seaside town of Southport in July, killing Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. He wounded eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, along with teacher Leanne Lucas and John Hayes, a local businessman who intervened.
The attack shocked the country and set off both street violence and soul-searching. The government has announced a public inquiry into how the system failed to stop the killer, who had been referred to the authorities multiple times over his obsession with violence.
Defendant disrupts the hearing
Rudakubana faced three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder and additional charges of possessing a knife, the poison ricin and an al-Qaida manual. He unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty on all charges on Monday.
But he wasn’t in court to hear sentence passed on Thursday.
Hours earlier he had been led into the dock at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England, dressed in a gray prison tracksuit. But as prosecutors began outlining the evidence, Rudakubana interrupted by shouting that he felt ill and wanted to see a paramedic.
Goose ordered the accused to be removed when he continued shouting. A person in the courtroom shouted “Coward!” as Rudakubana was taken out.
The hearing continued without him.
Horror on a summer day
Prosecutor Deanna Heer described how the attack occurred on the first day of summer vacation when 26 little girls were “gathered around the tables making bracelets and singing along to Taylor Swift songs.”
Rudakubana, armed with a large knife, intruded and began stabbing the girls and their teacher.
The court was shown video of the suspect arriving at the Hart Space venue in a taxi and entering the building. Within seconds, screams erupted and children ran outside in panic, some of them wounded. One girl made it to the doorway, but was pulled back inside by the attacker. She was stabbed 32 times but survived.
Gasps and sobs could be heard in court as the videos played.
Heer said two of the dead children “suffered particularly horrific injuries which are difficult to explain as anything other than sadistic in nature.” One of the dead girls had 122 injuries, while another suffered 85 wounds.
A teenager obsessed with violence
The prosecutor said Rudakubana had “a longstanding obsession with violence, killing, genocide.”
“His only purpose was to kill. And he targeted the youngest and most vulnerable in society,” she said, as relatives of the victims watched on in the courtroom.
Heer said that when he was taken to a police station, Rudakubana was heard to say: “It’s a good thing those children are dead, I’m so glad, I’m so happy.”
The killings triggered days of anti-immigrant violence across the country after far-right activists seized on incorrect reports that the attacker was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the U.K. Some suggested the crime was a jihadi attack, and alleged that police and the government were withholding information.
Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Christian parents from Rwanda, and investigators haven’t been able to pin down his motivation. Police found documents about subjects including Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide and car bombs on his devices.
In the years before the attack, he had been reported to multiple authorities over his violent interests and actions. All of the agencies failed to spot the danger he posed.
In 2019, he phoned a children’s advice line to ask “What should I do if I want to kill somebody?” He said he had taken a knife to school because he wanted to kill someone who was bullying him. Two months later, he attacked a fellow student with a hockey stick and was convicted of assault.
The definition of terrorism
Prosecutors said Rudakubana was referred three times to the government’s anti-extremism program, Prevent, when he was 13 and 14 — once after researching school shootings in class, then for uploading pictures of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to Instagram and for researching a London terror attack.
But they concluded his crimes should not be classed as terrorism because Rudakubana had no discernable political or religious cause. Heer said “his purpose was the commission of mass murder, not for a particular end, but as an end in itself.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week the country must face up to a “new threat” from violent individuals whose mix of motivations test the traditional definition of terrorism.
“After one of the most harrowing moments in our country’s history, we owe it to these innocent young girls and all those affected to deliver the change that they deserve,” Starmer said after the sentencing.
Wrenching testimony from victims
Several relatives and survivors read emotional statements in court, describing how the attack had shattered their lives.
Lucas, 36, who ran the dance class, said that “the trauma of being both a victim and a witness has been horrendous.”
“I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died?” she said.
A 14-year-old survivor, who can’t be named because of a court order, said that while she was physically recovering. “we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.”
“I hope you spend the rest of your life knowing that we think you’re a coward,” she said.
The prosecutor read out a statement from the parents of Alice Da Silva Aguiar, who said their daughter’s killing had “shattered our souls.”
“We used to cook for three. Now we only cook for two. It doesn’t seem right,” they said. “Alice was our purpose for living, so what do we do now?”
This story was originally published by The Associated Press.
Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton has criticized the potential jury pool for rapper A$AP Rocky‘s upcoming gun trial, saying that from what he has been told it lacks diversity. In an Instagram post on Wednesday (Jan. 22) Sharpton wrote, “It has been brought to my attention, by the National Action Network Los Angeles office, that out of one hundred and six (106) people called to potentially sit as jurors in A$AP Rocky’s trial in Los Angeles, there are only 4 black people.”
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Rocky (born Rakim Mayers), 36, is facing 24 years in prison if convicted of all charges in the trial in which he is accused of firing a weapon at former affiliate A$AP Relli (born Terrell Ephron) at a Hollywood hotel in November 2021.
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Rocky has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and earlier this week the Harlem native rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors that would have had him plead guilty to one felony count of assault with a semiautomatic firearm in exchange for a six-month jail stint along with three years of probation and a seven-year suspended sentence. “I respectfully decline, thank you,” Rocky reportedly told the court in turning down the deal.
At press time spokespeople for Rocky and the Los Angeles Superior Court had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on Sharpton’s claims.
In his note, Sharpton said that although he is not privy to the particulars of the case, he’s been in close contact with Rocky’s friends. “I do know he deserves to be judged fairly by his peers, as is his Constitutional right,” Sharpton wrote. “It is absolutely ridiculous that the jury will be not fair and representative, so as to deprive A$AP Rocky of a fair trial. When we have four (4) black people in the city of Los Angeles, out of one hundred and six (106) — and exactly zero (0) within in the first thirty (30) possible candidates for the jury — something appears to be very wrong with the system.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, L.A. county has a population just north of 9.6 million, which is comprised of 69.6% white citizens and 9% Black residents.
At press time Billboard could not confirm the figures in Sharpton’s post. Sharpton said he will monitor the trial and challenged the L.A. district attorney to “ensure that fair and representative justice is afforded” to the rapper.
The A$AP Mob leader was arrested in April 2022 at LAX and posted a $550,000 bond shortly after; he entered his not guilty plea to all charges in August 2022. Relli testified that the bullets grazed his knuckles as the feud reached a boiling point with his childhood friend. This week, Rocky’s lawyer appeared to preview his strategy for the trial when he revealed a defense argument that his client was holding a prop “stater pistol,” which he said can clearly be seen on security camera footage from that night.
Assuming jury selection wraps up soon, the trial could begin by week’s end.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has sued a man he says defamed him by falsely alleging he possessed videos of the embattled hip-hop mogul committing sexual assault, causing him “profound reputational and economic injury and severe prejudice” ahead of his criminal trial.
In the complaint, filed in New York federal court on Wednesday (Jan. 22), Combs accuses Courtney Burgess, along with Burgess’ attorney Ariel Mitchell, of “pretending they have proof that Mr. Combs engaged in heinous acts, knowing that no such proof exists” — thereby leading “millions of people … to believe in the made-up ‘evidence’ that Defendants have falsely described and vouched for.”
Mitchell notably represents several of Combs’ accusers.
“Defendant Burgess falsely claimed that he possessed videos of Mr. Combs involved in the sexual assault of celebrities and minors,” write Combs’ attorneys Michael Termonte, Erica Wolff and Anna Estevao of the New York firm Sher Tremonte. They add that Mitchell then “repeated those lies” to media outlets while knowing all along that Burgess’ claims “were false, or at a minimum was utterly reckless in disregarding their falsity.” The complaint accuses both Burgess and Mitchell of seeking “to capitalize on the resulting publicity for financial gain” despite knowing that “no such tapes exist.”
Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit is cable network NewsNation, which the lawsuit claims “recklessly repeated and amplifed [Burgess’] lies as if they were true” without ever reaching out to Combs’ representatives for comment or verifying that the alleged videotapes existed in the first place.
To bolster their case, Combs’ attorneys attempt to discredit Burgess by referring to him as “a fringe character” who claims to have worked in the music industry “for decades” even though “there exists no public record of any professional achievements and he left no detectable footprint on the industry prior to his recent campaign to malign Mr. Combs.” They further allege that despite Burgess’ claims that he received the alleged videos from Combs’ late ex-girlfriend Kim Porter, he in fact had “no more than a passing acquaintance” with her.
Combs’ attorneys also claim that Burgess tried to capitalize on the highly publicized allegations swirling around Combs by posting a memoir allegedly written by Porter to Amazon, which they say later pulled the book after it “was denounced by Ms. Porter’s family and others as a fake,” according to the suit.
The lawsuit equally tries to discredit Mitchell — known for filing sexual assault cases against powerful men including Trey Songz, Chris Brown and Combs himself — by claiming her cases against Songz and Brown were disproven and that in “peddling false claims to media outlets” like NewsNation about the alleged videotapes of Combs, she “insisted on valuable benefits and payments in exchange for interviews, including first class air travel, four-star hotel accommodations, hair and makeup allowances, and a ‘materials fee’ for copies of, among other things, demand letters sent on behalf of one of her clients who sued Mr. Combs.”
They add that Mitchell spread her alleged lies about Combs far and wide, including in multiple NewsNation appearances and in a documentary about Combs titled The Making of a Bad Boy that aired on NBC’s Peacock streaming service earlier this month. (NBC is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.)
“Defendants made these false and defamatory statements in bad faith, as part of a deliberate effort to damage Mr. Combs’s reputation, undermine his businesses and, by painting him as debauched and a pedophile, to poison the public’s perception of him and deprive him of a fair trial,” Combs’ attorneys conclude.
Combs is asking for “not less” than $50 million in damages.
Burgess, Mitchell and NewsNation did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Combs is currently imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn ahead of his criminal trial, which is set to kick off on May 5. He is charged with running a multi-faceted criminal enterprise in order to satisfy his need for “sexual gratification.” Among other accusations, he is alleged to have held so-called “freak off” parties, during which he and others drugged victims and coerced them into having sex. He faces a potential life prison sentence if convicted on all charges.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wants a federal judge to toss out a copyright lawsuit over an image of Eddie Van Halen, arguing that it made legal fair use of the image by using it as part of a museum exhibit designed to “educate the public about the history of rock and roll music.”
The lawsuit, filed last year, claims the Rock Hall never paid to license Neil Zlozower’s image — a black-and-white photo of late-’70s Van Halen in the recording studio — before blowing it up into an eight-foot-tall display in the Cleveland museum.
But in a motion to dismiss the case filed Tuesday (Jan. 21), the Rock Hall says it didn’t need to. Attorneys for the museum say the offending exhibit was protected by “fair use”, a rule that allows copyrighted works to be reused legally in many contexts, including education and commentary.
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“RRHOF transformed plaintiff’s original band photograph by using it as a historical artifact to underscore the importance of Eddie Van Halen’s musical instruments,” the Hall’s attorneys write. “RRHOF operates a museum, and it displayed the image in service of its charitable mission to educate the public about the history of rock and roll music.”
Zlozower filed his case in October, claiming the Hall made an “exact copy of a critical portion of plaintiff’s original image” for the exhibit, which he claimed “did not include any photo credit or mentions as to the source of the image.”
The Rock Hall is just the latest company to face such a lawsuit from Zlozower, who also snapped images of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen over a decades-long career. Since 2016, court records show he’s filed nearly 60 copyright cases against a range of defendants over images of Elvis Costello, Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe and more.
In the current dispute, the Van Halen image was used in two exhibits: “Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll” and “Legends.” Focused on musical instruments used by famed rockers, the exhibits featured sections showing Van Halen’s guitars, amplifiers and other gear. In the display, the original photo of the band was cropped to show just Eddie holding one of the guitars, which was placed amid the exhibit’s objects and informational placards.
In their motion to dismiss the case, the Rock Hall’s attorneys say the museum made a “transformative use” of Zlozower’s original image — a key question when courts decide fair use. They say the Hall used it not simply as an image of the band, but “to contextualize Eddie Van Halen’s instruments on display in the museum as historical artifacts.”
“RRHOF incorporated a portion of plaintiff’s photograph displayed next to the exhibition object, as one piece of source material to document and represent the use of the guitar,” the museum’s lawyers write. “This proximal association between source material and exhibition object helps visitors connect information and delve more deeply into the exhibition objects.”
In making that argument, the Hall’s attorneys had a handy piece of legal precedent to cite: A 2021 ruling by a federal appeals court tossed out a copyright lawsuit against New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art over the use of another image of Van Halen in a different exhibit on the same famous set of guitars.
In making that ruling, the appeals court said the Met had clearly made “transformative” fair use of the image by displaying it alongside the exhibit: “Whereas [the photographer]’s stated purpose in creating the photo was to show ‘what Van Halen looks like in performance,’ the Met exhibition highlights the unique design of the Frankenstein guitar and its significance in the development of rock n’ roll instruments,” the appeals court wrote at the time.
That earlier ruling is not technically binding on the case against the Rock Hall, which takes place in another region of the federal court system. But such an uncannily on-point ruling could certainly be influential on the judge overseeing the current case.
An attorney for Zlozower did not immediately return a request for comment.
Jim Jones is defending Drake‘s divisive UMG defamation lawsuit. During an appearance on the Broke N’ Frontin podcast, the subject of the Toronto rapper’s controversial subject came up, and the Dipset member had an interesting perspective. “He’s not personally suing against Kendrick Lamar, which everybody seems to think that this lawsuit is about,” Jones said. […]