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Rapper Lil Durk is no longer facing criminal charges in Georgia over a 2019 shooting in downtown Atlanta, after prosecutors said they were choosing not to pursue the case.
In a court filing reviewed by Billboard, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office told a state judge that it would exercise “prosecutorial discretion” to drop the charges against the Chicago rapper, whose real name is Durk Derrick Banks.
“The facts of this case have been reviewed and, although it appears that probable cause existed for the defendant’s arrest, the decision of the District Attorney at this time is not to prosecute,” the DA’s office wrote in the filing, made Oct. 17 in Fulton County Superior Court.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard.
Durk, 30, surrendered to Fulton County authorities in May 2019 on charges that included attempted murder. Prosecutors said Durk and the late rapper King Von were involved in a shooting that February near the popular Atlanta restaurant The Varsity, which left a victim with a non-fatal gunshot wound to the thigh.
At the time, the Chicago rapper declared his innocence. “Once I heard, I immediately came back,” he told local outlet WSB-TV. “I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to run from.” Durk also released a track in an attempt to clear his name: “Look up at the judge, can’t look, stay makin’ up lies for sure/ I’m a innocent man for sure, it is what it is for sure/ Nobody gon’ ride, had a warrant so I can’t hide.”
Von (real name Dayvon Daquan Bennett) was later killed in a shooting at an Atlanta nightclub. He was 26 at the time.
Durk’s attorney, Manny Arora, did not return a request for comment from Billboard on Monday (Oct. 24), but in a statement told WSB-TV, “While it took three years for the State to make the right decision, in the end the right decision was made and Mr. Banks can finally put this event behind him.”
A Turkish pop singer accused of “inciting hatred and enmity” with a joke about Turkey’s religious schools rejected the charge Friday (Oct. 21) during her first court appearance.
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Singer-songwriter Gulsen was charged and briefly jailed over the joke she made during a concert in April, when she quipped that the “perversion” of one of her musicians came from attending a religious school.
The 46-year-old singer, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken away from her Istanbul home in August after a video from the concert began circulating on social media, with a hashtag calling for her arrest.
She was jailed for five days and later spent 15 days under house arrest despite having apologized for any offense she caused religious school graduates. She now faces up to three years in prison if found guilty of the incitement charge.
In her testimony Friday, Gulsen said she had teased a band member who was nicknamed “Imam” but had not attended a religious school.
“It was just a joke between two people. It was not a statement,” Milliyet newspaper quoted the singer as telling the court. “I did not display an attitude that would incite the people to hatred and enmity.”
“I did not target a third person, a social class or section of society,” she said, requesting an acquittal.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and many members of his Islam-based ruling party are graduates of religious schools called Imam Hatip, which were originally established to train imams.
A 48-page indictment against Gulsen had 702 complainants, including from individuals, a pro-government women’s rights organization and a religious school association. Some of them withdrew their complaints on Friday, Milliyet reported.
Turkey’s penal code criminalizes incitement of hatred and enmity against different groups in society based on class, race, religion or sect, requiring a prison sentence in cases that lead to threats against public safety.
Gulsen previously become a target in Islamic circles due to her revealing stage outfits and for unfurling an LGBTQ flag at a concert.
The court on Friday lifted an obligation for her to register at a police station every week but retained a ban on her leaving Turkey. It adjourned the proceedings until Dec. 21.
A federal jury on Friday (Oct. 21) said Cardi B was not legally liable in a lawsuit filed by a California man whose back tattoos were unwittingly photoshopped onto an album cover, making it look like — he claimed — he was the one performing oral sex on her, according to Law360. The verdict allows the superstar to avoid millions of dollars in requested damages.
Following a four-day trial, the jurors said that Cardi (real name Belcalis Almánzar) did not violate Kevin Brophy’s rights with the bawdy cover of her 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1, which accidentally featured a large image of Brophy’s back tattoo.
The actual man in the image was a model who had consented to the shoot, but a giant tattoo on the man’s back belonged to Brophy. Unbeknownst to Cardi, a freelance graphic designer had typed “back tattoos” into Google Image, found one that fit (Brophy’s), and Photoshopped it onto the model’s body. It apparently didn’t occur to him that he would need anyone’s approval to do so.
Brophy testified that the “raunchy” cover had been a “complete slap in the face” that had caused him “hurt and shame,” but jurors were clearly swayed by Cardi’s defenses — like the idea that nobody could even recognize him from the image of his back.
Brophy sued in 2017 for millions in damages, claiming he was “devastated, humiliated and embarrassed” by the cover. He claimed Cardi and others violated his so-called right of publicity by using his likeness without his consent, and also violated his right to privacy by casting him in a “false light” that was “highly offensive.”
Ahead of the trial, Cardi’s legal team argued those accusations were “sheer fantasy” and “vastly overblown” — and that Brophy was just suing her in an effort to “cash in the legal equivalent of a lotto ticket.” Her team says nobody would have recognized a relatively unknown man based merely on his back, and that he has little proof anyone did.
Friday’s verdict came after four heated days of trial. Cardi took the witness stand on Wednesday, repeatedly sparring with an opposing attorney, demanding “receipts” to support Brophy’s claims, and accusing him and his lawyers of “harassing” her in hopes of scoring a settlement.
Brophy has options to appeal the verdict, if he so chooses: First by asking the judge to overturn the verdict, and then by taking the case to a federal appeals court.
Jay-Z wants to sell his stake in D’Usse Cognac, and says that Bacardi – which owns the other half of the business – is legally required to buy it. But in a new lawsuit, the superstar claims the liquor giant is “lowballing” and “stonewalling” him to get a cheaper price.
In a complaint filed in Delaware court, Jay-Z’s SCLiquor LLC says that it exercised a contractual option to sell its 50 percent stake in D’Usse to Empire Investments, the Bacardi unit that owns the other half and runs the company’s day-to-day operations. Hov’s company claims the move came after years of “mismanagement and underperformance” by Bacardi.
But according to the lawsuit, which was made public on Thursday (Oct. 20), Bacardi and Empire responded to the move not by following the rules, but by refusing to hand over key information and scheming to “artificially depress” the price it would pay.
“Empire sought to stall and stonewall SC’s efforts in an attempt to wrest SC’s 50% membership interest in D’Usse at a cheaper price by, among other things, refusing to provide necessary information,” SCLiquor’s lawyers wrote.
According to the lawsuit, SCLiquor holds a so-called “put option” on D’Usse’s corporate entity, a legal mechanism that, when triggered, requires Bacardi to buy out Jay-Z’s half of the business. The two sides are supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price.
But Jay-Z’s lawyers say that when they exercised the put option last year, Empire and Bacardi did anything but operate in good faith.
“Instead, Empire has abused its day-to-day control of D’Usse to deprive SC of information necessary to … assess D’Usse’s value,” SCLiquor’s lawyers wrote. “Empire has done so by engaging in an apparent shell-game with its parent company Bacardi.”
They say the move to sell off Hov’s stake came amid “growing concern” about how Empire was running the company, including its “blatant conflict of interest” with Bacardi. Jay-Z’s lawyers say Empire has relied on Bacardi to provide key services, even though the parent company has had repeated failures that hurt D’Usse, including supply chain failures and an unwillingness to change prices.
In its current form, the lawsuit is only seeking to force Empire to turn over more information about D’Usse. But the complaint says that information will also be used to “investigate potential future actions for damages.”
A rep for Bacardi did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit.
A computer hacker who stole unreleased songs from British pop star Ed Sheeran and American rap artist Lil Uzi Vert has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, U.K. prosecutors said Friday.
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Adrian Kwiatkowski, 23, of Ipswich in southern England, hacked the artists’ cloud-based accounts and sold their songs on the dark web in exchange for cryptocurrency. City of London Police, which investigated the case, said Kwiatkowski made 131,000 pounds ($147,000) on the transactions.
“Kwiatkowski had complete disregard for the musicians’ creativity and hard work producing original songs and the subsequent loss of earnings,” said Joanne Jakymec of the Crown Prosecution Service. “He selfishly stole their music to make money for himself.”
In August, Kwiatkowski pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, including 14 copyright offenses and three counts of computer misuse. He was sentenced Friday (Oct. 21) in Ipswich Crown Court.
City of London Police worked with authorities in the United States to investigate the case after the management companies of several musicians reported that an individual, known online as Spirdark, had gained access to their clients’ cloud-based accounts and was selling their content.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation in 2019, and linked the email address used for Spirdark’s cryptocurrency account to Kwiatkowski. It then identified the IP address of the device used to hack one of the accounts as his home address.
After further investigation, Kwiatkowski was arrested by the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit in September 2019.
“Cybercrime knows no borders, and this individual executed a complex scheme to steal unreleased music in order to line his own pockets,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr. said.
Travis Scott, Live Nation and other organizers of last year’s deadly Astroworld music festival in Houston appear to have reached their first settlements with victims in the sprawling litigation over the disaster.
Nearly a year after a crowd-crush during Scott’s Nov. 5 performance left 10 dead and hundreds injured, attorneys for the family of Axel Acosta, a 21-year-old killed in the incident, confirmed Thursday that they had reached a settlement with the organizers. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Victim Axel Acosta was a beloved son, brother, and student,” said Tony Buzbee, who also represents scores of other victims. “He was kind and loving. He is greatly missed. Please keep his family in your prayers.”
Separately, Houston’s ABC affiliate reported late Wednesday that the family of Brianna Rodriguez, a 16-year-old who died at Astroworld, had also settled their claims. Neither settlement is yet posted to the court’s public docket.
Live Nation and a rep for Scott did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday.
The agreements represent two of the first known settlements in the sprawling litigation over the Astroworld disaster, in which thousands of victims are seeking billions of dollars in damages from Live Nation, Scott and others. The lawsuits, consolidated before a single judge earlier this year, claim the organizers were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event, resulting in one of the deadliest concert disasters in history.
The defendants, which also include venue manager ASM Global and the municipal Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation, strongly deny the allegations and have assembled a formidable team of lawyers to fight the litigation.
According to a legal filing in May, more than 4,900 people have filed legal claims stating they were injured in some capacity at Astroworld. In addition to the 10 people who died, 732 claims have been filed by people who needed “extensive medical treatment” and 1,649 who needed less extensive care. Another 2,540 were listed as “other,” meaning the extent of their injuries was still being reviewed. It’s unclear how many people claim physical harm versus mental and emotional harm, like post-traumatic stress.
The individual settlements announced this week are likely only a precursor to a larger deal. Similar litigation over previous concert disasters, like the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 60 dead or the 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100, were ultimately resolved with large settlements covering hundreds of victims.
Cardi B didn’t hold back when she took the witness stand Wednesday (Oct. 19) in a lawsuit claiming her sexually-suggestive album cover left a man “humiliated,” repeatedly sparring with an opposing attorney, requesting “receipts” and claiming her accuser is “harassing” her in hopes of scoring a settlement.
The rapper’s testimony came in an unusual case filed by Kevin Brophy, a California man who claims parts of his back tattoo was unwittingly photoshopped onto the cover of Cardi’s 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1 to make it look like he was performing oral sex on the now-superstar.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Cardi and Brophy’s attorney, A. Barry Cappello, battled repeatedly. At two different points during their sparring, the judge dismissed the jurors from the courtroom to calm the bickering down. On the second dismissal, things got so heated that the judge told Cappello he had “totally crossed the line,” and even threatened to declare a mistrial after jurors had left the courtroom.
Earlier in the day, Brophy’s attorneys said they had sent the star a cease-and-desist seeking to have the image removed – prompting Cardi to fire back that the case was really about money, not changes to an album cover.
“This is not about taking anything down. Y’all have been harassing me for $5 million,” the star said to Cappello. Cardi later noted that the mixtape did not even earn that much, and her cut was even less.
The star also took exception to the suggestion that Brophy’s image on the cover had somehow contributed to her meteoric success over the past decade – a key part of his legal case against her. She said she had been “working my ass off [for] two kids” and that it’s “really insulting to me as a woman that a man is claiming responsibility.”
Released in 2016, the cover image of Gangsta Bitch certainly raised eyebrows. In it, the then-rising star is seen taking a swig of a large beer, staring directly into the camera with her legs spread wide and holding a man’s head while he appears to perform oral sex on her.
The actual man in the image was a model who had consented to the shoot, but a giant tattoo on the man’s back belonged to Brophy. Unbeknownst to Cardi, a freelance graphic designer had typed “back tattoos” into Google Image, found one that fit (Brophy’s), and Photoshopped it onto the model’s body. It apparently didn’t occur to him that he would need anyone’s approval to do so.
Brophy sued in 2017 for millions in damages, claiming he was “devastated, humiliated and embarrassed” by the cover. He says Cardi and others violated his so-called right of publicity by using his likeness without his consent, and also violated his right to privacy by casting him in a “false light” that was “highly offensive.”
Cardi’s legal team has argued those accusations are “sheer fantasy” and “vastly overblown” – and that Brophy is just suing her in an effort to “cash in the legal equivalent of a lotto ticket.” Her legal team says nobody would have recognized a relatively unknown man based merely on his back, and that he has little proof anyone did.
The trial kicked off on Tuesday, when Brophy testified that Cardi’s “raunchy” image had caused severe stress on his life. He called it a “complete slap in the face” that had caused him “hurt and shame.”
But at Wednesday’s hearing, Cardi pointed out from the witness stand that the model in the image was “a Black man that’s fit” who has hair. Brophy is white with a shaved head.
“It’s not Mr. Brophy’s back. It doesn’t look like Mr. Brophy at all,” she told Cappello. “There has been not one receipt he has provided in the court claiming, ‘Hey, that’s you on Cardi’s mixtape.’”
Wednesday’s proceedings also featured testimony by Brophy himself and his wife, as well as Cardi’s former manager Klenord “Shaft” Raphael. Testimony will continue on Thursday, with a verdict expected on Friday or Monday.re
Miley Cyrus has settled a copyright lawsuit a month after she was sued for posting a paparazzi photo of herself to Instagram, according to court documents filed Wednesday (Oct. 18) and obtained by Billboard.
In the original complaint, filed on Sept. 12 in Los Angeles federal court, photographer Robert Barbera claimed that Cyrus reposted his 2020 image of her without a license or permission to do so. In the snap, the “Midnight Sky” singer is seen waving to fans as she exits a building.
In his complaint, Barbera claimed Cyrus has an “immense presence” due to her millions of followers on Instagram, and that posting the image “crippled if not destroyed” his ability to make money licensing it.
According to court documents, the lawsuit was subsequently dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning Barbera cannot refile the same claim again in that court.
The lawsuit against Cyrus is not the first Barbera has filed. The New York-based photographer previously filed copyright complaints against Ariana Grande in May 2019 and January 2020, and Justin Bieber in October 2019, though both cases were later settled on confidential terms. Earlier this summer, he filed another lawsuit against Dua Lipa that at the time of publication is still pending in court.
Though these cases may seem unfair, the law is on the side of photographers like Barbera, as they own the copyrights to the images that they take — and using those photos without a license constitutes infringement. Simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free.
Had the court found that Cyrus had infringed Barbera’s copyright, the singer could have faced damages totaling as much as $150,000. For that reason, most celebrities accused of infringement by photographers opt to settle out of court, likely for a smaller sum, in order to avoid the time and expense that come with continued litigation. Though the terms of these settlement deals are nearly always private, for a single photo, amounts likely range in the tens of thousands of dollars.
R. Kelly’s former business manager asked a federal judge to award him $850,000 in attorneys fees after a jury acquitted him during the same trial in Chicago at which the R&B singer was convicted of child pornography charges.
Derrel McDavid’s attorney wrote that deserves to recoup the legal fees after enduring a “frivolous, vexatious and bad faith prosecution over which he prevailed.” Attorney Beau Brindley filed the 18-page request with U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber late Monday (Oct. 17), the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
A federal jury last month convicted Kelly of producing child pornography and enticing minor girls for sex, but found Kelly and McDavid not guilty of conspiring to rig a 2008 trial in which Kelly was acquitted on state child pornography charges. A third co-defendant, Milton Brown, was acquitted of receiving child pornography.
Such motions are exceedingly rare and do not often succeed, in large part because defendants who are acquitted of criminal charges do not have a right to compensation. In his motion, Brindley said prosecutors knew the testimony of two key witnesses was “necessarily incoherent.”
“This is, by definition, a reckless disregard for the truth, which constitutes a frivolous and vexatious position by the government,” he wrote. “This entitles Mr. McDavid to reasonable attorney’s fees.”
During the trial, prosecutors maintained there was compelling evidence that McDavid was aware that Kelly was producing child pornography and that he sought for years to conceal evidence of what Kelly was doing.
Brindley said McDavid still owes $600,000 in legal fees and “must now liquidate real property and other assets in an attempt to pay.” Brindley also wrote that he and others spent at least 1,220 hours working on the case and that adds up to about $65,000 less than what a “reasonable market rate” of $750 an hour would cost a client.
Kelly has not yet been sentenced in the Chicago federal case, but he was sentenced earlier this year to 30 years in prison for a federal conviction in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly column about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Cardi B goes to trial in a weird case over a bawdy album cover, Gunna is again refused bond in Atlanta, Ed Sheeran warns that a copyright ruling might “strangle” future songwriters and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Cardi Heads to Trial Over Bawdy Album Cover
In one of the weirder cases you’ll ever hear about, Cardi B is headed to a federal courthouse today to defend against claims that the cover of her debut mixtape “humiliated” a man named Kevin Brophy, who alleges he was unwittingly photoshopped into the artwork to make it look like he was performing oral sex on the now-superstar.Yes, you read that right. And I didn’t even tell you yet that the entire thing hinges on a giant back tattoo featuring “a tiger battling a snake.”As Cardi’s star was rising in 2016, she released Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1 with a provocative cover – an image of her swigging a beer, staring into the camera … with a man’s head between her legs. The actual guy in the image was a model (who consented to the whole thing), but the giant tattoo on his back belonged to Brophy (who didn’t). Unbeknownst to Cardi, a freelance graphic designer had typed “back tattoos” into Google Image, found one that fit, and Photoshopped it onto the model’s body. It apparently didn’t occur to him that he would need anyone’s approval to do so.Years later, the two will now square off before a jury over whether the image broke the law, and whether Cardi herself is to blame.Brophy claims the star and others violated his right of publicity by using his likeness without his consent, and also invasion of his privacy by casting him in a “false light” that was “highly offensive” to a reasonable person. He claims he was “devastated, humiliated and embarrassed” by the cover.Cardi says those accusations are “sheer fantasy” and “vastly overblown.” Her legal team says Cardi had no idea Brophy’s image was being used, and that he’s just suing her in an effort to “cash in the legal equivalent of a lotto ticket.” But their chief argument is even simpler: That nobody would have ever recognized a relatively unknown person based on a cropped image of his back tattoo.“No matter how much plaintiff may be obsessed with the notion, the fact remains that it is not ‘him,’ or a ‘likeness of him,’ or ‘his identity’ in the cover image,” Cardi’s lawyers wrote.Cardi is expected to testify at some point, with a verdict expected by the end of the week or early next week. We’ll keep you posted over at Billboard.com when the news drops.
Other top stories this week…
VLOGGER BETTER HAVE MY MONEY – Elsewhere in Cardi-world, a federal judge ruled that Tasha K – a gossip blogger who made salacious claims about the star – must either immediately pay up on an almost $4 million defamation verdict or secure a bond covering the entire amount. Tasha is currently appealing the verdict and wanted to pause the judgement while she does so, but Cardi’s lawyers warned last month that the YouTuber had bragged about taking steps to “insulate herself” from the huge damages award, and might use the delay to avoid paying entirely.GUNNA DENIED BOND YET AGAIN – For a third time, a Georgia judge refused to release Gunna from jail ahead of his January trial in the sweeping case against Young Thug and others accused of operating a violent gang in the Atlanta area. The order came after prosecutors claimed to have text messages in which a co-defendant in the sprawling case offered to “whack someone” on the rapper’s behalf, prompting the judge to say that he had the “same concerns” about the potential for witness tampering. But just a day later, Gunna’s lawyers cried foul, claiming the alleged smoking gun text actually had “nothing to do with witness intimidation” and had been used to mislead the court.SHOTS FIRED OVER POWERHOUSE MUSIC LAWYER – In an exclusive interview with Billboard’s Frank DiGiacomo, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner blasted the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for its upcoming induction of powerhouse music lawyer Allen Grubman, saying it was “about money and bending to the ego of a music business power broker.” Grubman is one of the most powerful attorneys in the industry, counting Bruce Springsteen, Lizzo, The Weeknd, Lil Nas X, Lady Gaga and other stars as clients, as well as major music companies and digital streamers. But Wenner said he decided to speak out because he believes Grubman clearly doesn’t fit the criteria: “Grubman has made no contribution of any kind, by any definition, to the creative development or the history of rock & roll.”WARHOL & PRINCE AT SCOTUS – More than three decades after Andy Warhol‘s death and six years after Prince‘s sudden passing, the two pop culture icons took center stage at U.S. Supreme Court , as the justices heard arguments in a major copyright case. At issue in the dispute is whether the late Warhol made a legal “fair use” of a photograph of Prince when he used it as the basis for a set of his distinctive screen prints – or merely infringed the copyrights of Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who snapped it. During the proceedings, the justices grappled with tough questions, like what exactly is necessary to “transform” a copyrighted work into a fair use. In a lighter moment, Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed that he had been a fan of Prince’s music “in the ’80s,” to which Justice Elena Kagan asked “no longer?” As the room erupted in laughter, Thomas replied enigmatically: “Only on Thursday night.”ED SHEERAN WARNS OF ‘STRANGLED’ SONGWRITERS – The pop star’s lawyers asked a federal judge to rethink a recent decision that said the singer must face a trial over whether “Thinking Out Loud” infringes Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On.” The decision came two weeks after Judge Louis Stanton refused to toss the case out, ruling that a jury would have to decide Sheeran’s argument that he only borrowed basic, unprotectable musical “building blocks.” In the new filing, the star’s lawyers warned the judge that forcing musicians to face trials over such material would have a chilling effect on the industry and threaten to “strangle creation” by future songwriters. In technical terms, Sheeran’s attorneys want the judge to either undo the ruling entirely, or allow them to immediately appeal it before he faces trial.SLACKER HIT WITH HUGE UNPAID ROYALTY BILL – A federal judge ruled that streaming platform Slacker owes nearly $10 million in unpaid performance royalties to record labels and artists. SoundExchange, which collects streaming royalties for sound recordings, sued Slacker and parent company LiveOne in June, claiming they had refused to pay millions over a five-year period. This week, Judge André Birotte Jr. made it official, ordering that Slacker pay $9,765,396 in unpaid royalties and late fees. Importantly, he also banned the company from using the so-called statutory license – a key copyright provision that allows radio-like streamers to get easy access to licenses at a fixed rate. Now, Slacker will presumably need to negotiate direct licenses from rights holders for sound recordings, similar to what on-demand streaming services like Spotify must do.