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In March, Tennessee became the first state to modernize its laws for the age of artificial intelligence. The ELVIS (Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security) Act â which updates the stateâs right of publicity and likeness rights to prevent AI companies from creating unauthorized deepfake vocal imitations â represented the culmination of efforts from across the industry, including those of record labels and music publishers. But it was Todd Dupler, Recording Academy vp of advocacy and public policy, who gave the law its distinctly rockânâroll name.
Coming up with catchy titles for laws is something of an extreme sport in legislative circles â think of the DREAM Act (for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors), or, in music, the CLASSICS (Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service, and Important Contributions to Society) Act, which became part of the Music Modernization Act. Like these subjects, AI is complicated, so getting positive attention helps. And âin Tennessee, thereâs no better way to capture attention than Elvis,â says Dupler, who has worked in the academyâs policy department since 2012 and was promoted to his current position in September 2023.
Duplerâs role in pushing for the Tennessee law is just one prominent example of how the Recording Academy is increasingly taking its lobbying work for music creators beyond Washington, D.C., to various state capitals. âThe ELVIS Act became a model that state legislators and members of Congress looked at,â Dupler says. (Sometimes state laws lead to change in D.C.) âOur focus is to be a high-impact organization, to be a thought leader on issues that matter.â
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Right now, AI is the biggest issue of all. âItâs the issue that most of the community feels the most concern about,â Dupler says. It also involves a range of laws, including both federal copyright law (under which the major labels are suing generative AI companies Suno and Udio for using their recordings to train their software) and state law likeness rights (the legality of creating a âFake Drakeâ or a similar vocal imitation). Thatâs why the academy, along with other music rights-holder organizations, is pushing for stronger statutes in statehouses, plus backing the federal NO FAKES (Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe) Act. (The bill, which has been introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, now has widespread support; there will be attempts to attach it to must-pass legislation in the current âlame duckâ session before Christmas, but it seems more likely that it will be reintroduced next year.)
By the beginning of this year, AI loomed so large that the House Judiciary Committee had a âfield hearingâ about it in Los Angeles two days before the 2024 Grammy Awards, where country singer Lainey Wilson and Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. testified. âWe wanted to use the spotlight of the show to draw attention to the issue,â Dupler says. âWe embraced this idea of protecting human creativity.â The hearing helped raise the visibility of the Tennessee law, which in turn became a model for other bills around the country.
In February, Mason spoke at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing in Los Angeles on artificial intelligence.
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The academyâs other two advocacy priorities are banning the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials and regulating the secondary ticketing market, especially to mandate transparency. Unlike copyright law, which is federal, both of these issues involve a mix of federal and state legislation. The admissibility of lyrics as evidence can be a matter of federal or state law, depending on the charges; ticketing laws have come from statehouses, as well as Washington, D.C.
The academy launched its advocacy division in the late â90s, and what began as a modest attempt to help shape policy for the digital age has grown into a significant operation that lobbies for creators, often along with the RIAA and the National Music Publishersâ Association, which represent the recording and publishing businesses, respectively. The academy now runs an annual Grammys on the Hill event to recognize artists and legislators (including, this past year, Sheryl Crow and Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas), and a Music Advocacy Day in which academy members visit the regional offices of national legislators to talk to them about their policy ideas. (This year drew 2,100 members.) In 2024, the academy also organized seven State Capitol Advocacy Days, twice as many as in past years, reflecting the importance of state law to its priorities.
Although the nature of procedural rules for criminal cases isnât a core issue for the music industry, the academy and other music organizations have pushed to limit the use of lyrics as evidence on free expression grounds. âWe engage in issues that affect the music business,â Dupler says, âand members and local chapters bring issues to us.â
In September 2022, California became the first state to limit the use of lyrics as evidence in its Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, after the practice gained attention in Young Thugâs RICO trial. But bills in other states have stalled, and the federal RAP (Restoring Artistic Protection) Act, which would apply to trials for federal offenses, has yet to pass. âThat has to be reintroduced,â Dupler says. âAnd weâll continue to focus on both AI and lyrics on a federal level.â
Ticketing â the other big issue for the academy â has become controversial and seems likely to remain so, especially now that Donald Trumpâs election has thrown into doubt the future of the Department of Justiceâs antitrust case against Live Nation. (The new attorney general will decide if and how to continue that case.) The state ticketing bills the academy is lobbying for are simpler and have more to do with requiring secondary sellers to disclose extra charges and refrain from offering tickets they do not yet own. Thereâs similar federal legislation, known as the Fans First Act in the Senate and the TICKET (Transparency In Charges for Key Events Ticketing) Act. Dupler didnât come up with that name â but heâs prepared to spread the word once the bill is reintroduced in 2025.
This story appears in the Dec. 7, 2024, issue of Billboard.
The creators of the hit Broadway play Stereophonic have reached a settlement to resolve a copyright lawsuit claiming they stole elements of the show from a memoir about the infamous recording of Fleetwood Macâs Rumours.
The deal will resolve a case, filed last month by music producer Ken Caillat, that called playwright David Adjmiâs Tony Award-winning show an âunauthorized adaptationâ and âwillful infringementâ of the 2012 book Making Rumours, a memoir detailing his work on the famed album.
In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for both Caillat and Adjmi said that they had âresolved the dispute in principle as to all claims and defendants, and are working to commit their agreement to writing.â And in a brief order, the judge seemed pleased that the case would not be moving forward.
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âI cannot say I am surprised by this news but it is the wisest resolution for all concerned,â Judge Colleen McMahon wrote. âFeel free to come in and (hopefully) memorialize the settlement [at a hearing later this month].â
Terms of the deal were not disclosed in court filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
Stereophonic debuted on Broadway last fall, eventually winning five Tony Awards including best play, best direction of a play and best featured actor in a play. Featuring the music of Arcade Fireâs Will Butler, it tells the story of a fictional rock band struggling to record an album in the mid-1970s.
Critics quickly noted the similarities to the difficult process behind Fleetwood Macâs Rumours, which featured high tensions and heavy drug usage. A reviewer for the Wall Street Journal said the play was âfictionalizing Fleetwood Macâ; another critic said the play âisnât literally about Fleetwood Mac, but câmon.â
In their Oct. 2 lawsuit, Caillat and co-author Steven Stiefel said the hit play âpresents a nearly identical story arc as Making Rumours,â told from the same perspective of a sound engineer in a recording studio, about five characters who are âundeniably analogous to the members of Fleetwood Mac.â
âStereophonic is undoubtedly a play based on plaintiffsâ memoir Making Rumours because substantial similarities exist between the two works, a reality that has been independently confirmed by those familiar with plaintiffsâ book who have also had the opportunity to review the play,â the duoâs lawyers wrote at the time.
If the case had gone to trial, it would have presented tricky legal questions. Under U.S. law, historical events cannot be monopolized under copyrights, and nobody can claim exclusive ownership over the real story behind the making of Rumours. But specific creative elements of how such a story is told can be protected by copyrights, and film, TV and stage producers often license non-fiction books as the basis for their works.
Caillat and Stiefel claimed that Adjmi copied those exact kinds of creative choices when he created his play, saying show depicted not just a historical event but did so âas it is described in Making Rumours.â
Maurene Ryan Comey, a lead prosecutor in the sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, has joined the prosecutorsâ team in the ongoing case against Sean âDiddyâ Combs. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Comey, who also happens to be the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, […]
The music industry’s lawyers were busy this year — from Diddy’s downfall to Live Nation’s antitrust case to Young Thug’s gang charges to novel questions about AI.
An Atlanta jury on Tuesday issued a verdict largely acquitting Young Thugâs two remaining co-defendants in the long-running trial of his alleged YSL gang.
After nearly a year of testimony, jurors found Deamonte âYak Gottiâ Kendrick not guilty on any of the slew of charges he was facing. They found Shannon Stillwell guilty on a single charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but not guilty on any others.
The verdict, which will allow both men to walk free on Tuesday, is a major loss for the Fulton County District Attorneyâs office, which had accused Kendrick and Stillwell of racketeering, murder, firearms and drug charges â accusations that exceeded those leveled against Thug himself.
After the verdict was read, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sentenced Stillwell to 10 years in prison but ordered him to serve only two, which were covered by time already served during the long-running trial. The remaining eight years of his sentence will be served on probation, the judge said.
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The verdict came a month after Thug himself escaped the case. After botched testimony from a stateâs witness sparked talk of a mistrial, Thugâs attorneys rejected a plea deal with prosecutors and instead opted to simply plead guilty â a gamble that paid off when Whitaker sentenced him to just 15 years probation with no time served in prison.
Combined with Thugâs exit, Tuesdayâs verdict marks the end of criminal trial that has captivated the music industry for nearly than two years. Pitting prosecutors in Americaâs rap capital against one of hip-hopâs biggest stars, the YSL case has raised big questions â about the fairness of the criminal justice system; about violent personas in modern hip-hop; and about prosecutors using rap lyrics as evidence.
Kendrick and Stillwell were two of the more than two dozen men indicted alongside Thug in May 2022. In a sweeping indictment, prosecutors alleged that his âYSLâ â nominally a record label standing for âYoung Stoner Lifeâ â was also a violent gang called âYoung Slime Lifeâ that had wrought âhavocâ on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade.
The case, built around Georgiaâs Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, claimed that YSL committed murders, carjackings, and many other crimes. Prosecutors said Thug was âKing Slime,â operating as a criminal boss amid his rise to fame, but accused Kendrick and Stillwell of some of the most serious crimes â including carrying out the 2015 murder of rival gang leader Donovan Thomas that played a central role in the prosecutionâs case.
From the start, the YSL case was beset by delays. Starting in January 2023, it took an unprecedented 10-month process just to pick a jury. After the trial itself got underway in November 2023, prosecutors meandered through a vast list of witnesses that included more than 100 names. Earlier this year, the case was delayed for weeks over a bizarre episode that resulted in the presiding judge being removed from the case.
Days before Thug pleaded guilty, several of his co-defendants either did the same or took plea deals. But Kendrick and Stillwell rejected offers and opted to continue to litigate the case, leading to Tuesdayâs verdict.
Thought he trial is over, the YSL case isnât quite over. Several other defendants were separated from the case early in the proceedings and could face similar trials in the future.
Britney Spears celebrated her 43rd birthday on Monday (Dec. 2), the same day a California court declared her officially single. According to People, the declaration came seven months after her divorce from ex-husband Sam Asghari was finalized in Los Angeles.
Spears and actor/model Asghari, 30, separated in July 2023, 13 months after their wedding and six years after they first began dating; Asghari filed for divorce in August 2023 citing irreconcilable differences.
Back in October, thrice-wed Spears celebrated that time she âmarriedâ herself in a throwback video that appeared to be similar to one from 2022, in which she wrote, âThe day I married myself ⌠Bringing it back because it might seem embarrassing or stupid, but I think itâs the most brilliant thing Iâve ever done !!!â
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Spears was also briefly married to childhood friend Jason Alexander in 2004 before tying the knot with dancer Kevin Federline that same year; she and Federline had two sons, Sean Preston, 19 and Jayden James, 18 before breaking up in 2007. In 2022, the singer married actor/personal trainer Asghari, with whom she split less than two years later.
While Spears did not address her new state-sanctioned singledom on her socials, she did post a video on Instagram in which she lashed out at one of her persistent tormentors: the paparazzi. âIt really hurts my feelings that the paparazzi make my face look like Iâm wearing a white Jason mask,â Spears said in the birthday selfie video post in which she referred to the iconic white hockey mask worn by teen terrorizer Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th horror movie series.
âIt doesnât even look like me. Theyâve always been incredibly cruel to me,â she added. âThe way theyâve illustrated me to be. Some of it I know Iâm not perfect at all by any means, but some of it is extremely mean and cruel and thatâs why Iâve moved to Mexico.â While Spears has often vacationed in Mexico, the clip appeared to be the first time she mentioned moving to the country.
In an earlier video, Spears again lashed the paps for how they make her look and noted that she is not, in fact turning 42 (as noted above, she turned 43 on Monday), but instead said âIâm turning five⌠Iâm turning five-years-old. I have to go to kindergarten tomorrow.â It was unclear at press time what the latter comment was referring to.
Watch Spearsâ videos below.
How did Fugees member Pras MichĂŠl go from being a former member of one of the most beloved hip-hop trios of the 1990s to facing two decades in prison? Slowly, then, it seems, all at once. In a new interview with Variety magazine â his first since a jury convicted him on 10 counts last April in an illegal lobbying case â the 52-year-old MC described his entanglement in one of the worldâs largest-ever financial scandals.
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âI donât know if subconsciously it was a bit exciting for me too. I like spy movies, but I never wanted to be a spy,â said MichĂŠl about his role in an influence peddling scandal that wound up with him convicted on charges of violating campaign finance laws during President Obamaâs 2012 re-election bid, as well as illegally lobbying the Trump administration in 2017; MichĂŠl is facing up to 22 years in federal prison at his January sentencing hearing.
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âI donât think thatâs sexy. But a part of it felt like that,â he said.
The article opens with a spy novel-worthy scene â based on firsthand accounts and court documents â in which the rapper is ordered to go to the front desk of the Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan and used the phrase âbanana peel.â That secret message prompted a concierge to hand him an envelope with orders to circle the block twice and await further instructions.
According to the scenario laid out in court, MichĂŠl then returned and was ushered into an elevator reserved just for visiting dignitaries facing possible assassination risks on his way to a penthouse suite, where a high-ranking Chinese official booted up an email from then Attorney General Jeff Sessions about three American hostages being held in Chinese prisons. After discussing one prisoner, who was pregnant, the man made a call and moments later showed MichĂŠl the itinerary for the woman who was to be flown back to the U.S.
A week after that meeting, federal agents swooped in on MichĂŠl, claiming that he was involved in a massive financial scandal that resulted in the siphoning of $4.5 billion from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fun referred to as 1MDB, with the U.S. government tagging the rapper as a Chinese spy.
Recalling the oddity of the hotel meeting, MichĂŠl said he noticed a red flag that night in the form of the secret elevator, which, even as a celebrity used to some necessary cloak-and-dagger maneuvers, he was not familiar with.
âIâm going to tell you what was weird to me: the fact that the Four Seasons has a private elevator. I never knew that,â said MichĂŠl, who was first charged in the case in 2019. He was accused of funneling money from fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low through straw donors to Obamaâs 2012 re-election campaign, a well as trying to help scuttle a Justice Department investigation into an extradition case on behalf of China during Trumpâs first term. âThey have a private elevator for just certain people. But my life leading up to that point felt surreal, so part of that night felt natural,â he said.
MichĂŠl was convicted in April on counts including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government in the long-running investigation and trial that featured testimony for the prosecution by stars including Leonardo DiCaprio and name-drops of Kim Kardashian and Martin Scorsese during testimony. In January, MichĂŠlâs former attorney, David Kenner, plead guilty to criminal contempt charges over allegations that he leaked grand jury materials to reporters ahead of the trial.
Low, a free-spending financier who backed the 2013 Scorsese-DiCaprio movie The Wolf of Wall Street, became the toast of Hollywood for a time, with many celebrities partying on his private jet and accepting lavish gifts from the still-missing businessman whom MichĂŠl met at a 2006 party after a promoter introduced them. Prosectors said that Low later offered Obama fundraiser MichĂŠl $20 million for a photo with the President, money MichĂŠl accepted and kept most of, assuming, he said, that was how the rich go about meeting famous people.
Facing decades in federal prison, Yale-educated MichĂŠl told the magazine, âtechnically, Iâm a foreign agent.â He said he was never friends with Low, but he connected the businessman to other VIPs and, to date, the rapper is the only in Lowâs orbit who has faced serious consequences in the fall-out from the scandal. âThe government needed a prize. They needed a head, and he was the low-hanging fruit,â said one of MichĂŠlâs attorneys, Robert Meloni.
For his part, MichĂŠl â who reportedly had nearly $80 million seized by the U.S. government as part of their sanctions, with prosecutors claiming he pulled in more than $100 million from his dealings with Low â told Variety that heâs going to fight and appeal his sentence, but realizes he might end up behind bars either way. âThereâs a possibility that Iâm going in while Iâm fighting,â he said. âItâs just the reality.â He added that as he awaits his fate, âevery aspect of my life has been disrupted. I canât bank anywhere, been kicked out of 13 banks⌠Without getting too philosophical about it, it was about me being at the right place at the wrong time. Or the wrong place at the right time.â
Given the cinematic scope of the story, Variety reported that there are at least three books on the subject in the works, with Idris Elba in talks with MichĂŠlâs reps about acquiring his life rights and an upcoming documentary about the rapperâs part in the scandal. Director Ben Patterson showed some footage from the in-process doc during a secret screening at the Toronto Film Festival in September, reportedly to stunned silence from the audience. Some of the footage was reportedly shot by MichĂŠl, who kept his camera rolling during a meeting with Chinese Communist Party official Lijun Sun â who was sentenced to death in 2022 for taking bribes â during that fateful hotel room meeting.
In the end, MichĂŠl said heâs been abandoned by publicists, friends and, without naming names, seemingly his former Fugees bandmates LaurynHill and Wyclef Jean. âIâm done with that. Theyâre going to Europe [to tour]. I canât go,â he said of the bail conditions that prevent him from leaving the U.S.
âItâs what it is. You canât give people that kind of energy. So you could be frustrated, you could be disappointed, but I really believe in my path and in my journey, and I believe whatâs mine, no oneâs going to be able to take it away from me,â he said. âSo itâs better that you have a small group of people who really believe in you and believe in what youâre doing than to have 100 people around you, and the minute something happens â boom. People just disappear.â
In the meantime, MichĂŠl filed a strongly worded lawsuit against Hill in October, claiming she defrauded him over proceeds from the groupâs foreshortened 2023 reunion tour and that her âgross mismanagementâ led to the abrupt cancellation of their planned follow-up 2024 tour; Hill responded, calling the lawsuit âbaselessâ and âfull of false claims and unwarranted attacks.â
Marilyn Manson has dropped his defamation lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood and agreed to pay her $327,000 in legal fees, according to legal documents obtained by Billboard, officially ending a case that the shock rocker first lodged against his former girlfriend more than two and a half years ago.
Filed in March 2022, the lawsuit accused Wood of conspiring with another woman, Ashley Gore, to falsely portray Manson (real name Brian Warner) as a ârapist and abuserâ in the public eye. Both women appeared in the 2022 documentary Phoenix Rising, in which Wood detailed her accusations of sexual abuse against the singer. The lawsuit claimed that both women âsecretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured prospective accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse against Manson, and brazenly claim that it took 10 or more years to ârealizeâ their consensual relationships with Warner were supposedly abusive.â
But Mansonâs lawsuit suffered a major blow in May 2023 after a judge largely sided with Wood in her move to have it thrown out by invoking Californiaâs anti-SLAPP statute, which makes it easier for judges to dismiss cases that threaten free speech. In that ruling, the judge struck down much of Mansonâs case after finding that the rocker had not shown he would ultimately be able to prove many of his accusations against Wood. Manson had appealed that decision this past August.
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âMarilyn Manson â whose real name is Brian Warner â filed a lawsuit against Ms. Wood as a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career,â Woodâs lawyer Michael J. Kump said in a statement sent to Billboard. âBut his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms. Wood failed. As the trial court correctly found, Warnerâs claims were meritless. Warnerâs decision to finally abandon his lawsuit and pay Ms. Wood her full fee award of almost $327,000 only confirms as much.â
In his own statement, Mansonâs attorney Howard King said, âAfter 4 years of fighting a battle where he was able to tell the truth, Brian is pleased to dismiss his still-pending claims and appeal in order to close the door on this chapter of his life.â
The public battle between Manson and Wood kicked off in February 2021, when Wood claimed in an Instagram post that Manson âstarted grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.â In addition to Woodâs accusations, Manson has been hit with multiple sexual misconduct lawsuits over the last several years from women including former assistant Ashley Walters, model Ashley Morgan Smithline, Game of Thrones actress Esme Bianco and two Jane Doe accusers.
The majority of these cases are no longer active. In May 2022, a judge dismissed Waltersâ lawsuit, citing the statute of limitations. Manson subsequently settled with both Bianco and one of the Jane Doe accusers, while Smithline recanted her allegations and claimed that Wood and others had âmanipulatedâ her into bringing them.
Manson has denied all of the allegations against him.
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: Drake goes to legal war over Kendrick Lamarâs diss track âNot Like Usâ; Miley Cyrus strikes back at a copyright lawsuit over her chart-topping âFlowersâ; Universal Music Group responds to Limp Bizkitâs $200 million royalties lawsuit; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Drake Takes UMG To Court
Back in May, as Kendrick Lamar and Drake exchanged scathing diss tracks, I wrote an entire story dismissing the idea that Drake would sue over the beef. Sure, these were very specific insults from Kendrick, and I talked to legal experts about what it might look like if he did. But it was almost unthinkable that heâd really do it. As I wrote at the time, âAn actual lawsuit seems unlikely, for the simple reason that any rapper responding to a diss track with a team of lawyers would be committing reputational suicide.â
Welp, here we are. In a pair of actions filed Monday (Nov. 25) in New York and Texas, Drake and his lawyers went to legal war over âNot Like Usâ â only not with Lamar himself, but with the label that both superstars have called home for the majority of their careers.
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In the New York petition, Drakeâs attorneys accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of launching an illegal âschemeâ involving bots, payola and other methods to artificially pump up Lamarâs song. In the Texas filing, he echoed those claims but went even further, complaining that UMG could have blocked the release of a song that âfalselyâ accused him of being a âpedophile,â but instead âchose to do the opposite.â
âUMG designed, financed and then executed a plan to turn âNot Like Usâ into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues,â his lawyers write. âThat plan succeeded, likely beyond UMGâs wildest expectations.â
Itâs worth noting that neither action is quite a lawsuit. Both were âpre-actionâ filings, seeking discovery and depositions that might yield evidence supporting such claims. But in seeking that info, Drakeâs lawyers leveled serious accusations: In New York, they accused UMG of racketeering, deceptive business practices and false advertising; in Texas, they said they had enough evidence to sue the company for defamation, and might also tack on civil fraud and racketeering claims.
UMG, for its part, quickly fired back, calling the allegations âoffensive and untrueâ and stressing that it employs the âhighest ethical practicesâ in promotion: âNo amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.â
Drakeâs allegations raise tricky questions about the line between litigation and public relations. The star is no dummy when it comes to the music business, and heâs repped in these cases by top partners at an elite BigLaw firm. Itâs hard to imagine theyâd file entirely baseless actions based purely on hurt feelings. But in a hip-hop world that prizes authenticity above all else, itâs also fair to wonder if the benefits of this approach can possibly outweigh the risk of reputational harm.
Stay with Billboard as this dispute moves forward â weâll keep you updated on every development.
THE OTHER TOP STORY: Miley Strikes Back
Two months after Miley Cyrus was hit with an eyebrow-raising copyright infringement lawsuit over her chart-topping âFlowers,â her attorneys fired back with an interesting response.
Raised eyebrows, you say? The case, which claims âFlowersâ infringes the copyright to Bruno Marsâ âWhen I Was Your Man,â targets an âanswer songâ â a track with lyrics that overtly respond to those of an earlier song. In this case, fans speculated that Cyrus was alluding to a song that her ex-husband had loved. Does that kind of lyrical riffing amount to infringement? Experts didnât think so at the time.
But in September, Miley was hit with a lawsuit seeking to prove that it does, arguing that her smash hit âwould not existâ without Marsâ song. Adding to the intrigue? The case was filed not by Mars himself, but by an investment firm that bought out the rights of one of his co-writers.
In her first response to the case this week, attorneys for Miley said that the total lack of involvement from Mars and two other co-writers was not some procedural quirk in the case, but rather a âfatal flawâ that required the outright dismissal of the lawsuit.
For more, go read our full story on Mileyâs response, which includes access to the full motion filed by her attorneys.
Other top stories this weekâŚ
JUST ONE OF THOSE SUITS â Universal Music Group (UMG) fired back at a lawsuit from Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst claiming the label owes the band more than $200 million, calling the allegations âfictionâ and demanding they be thrown out of court. Durst alleged last month he had ânot seen a dime in royaltiesâ over the decades, but UMG said in its first response that it had paid the band millions and that the lawsuit is âbased on a fallacy.â
ST. LUNATICS DROP OUT â Three of Nellyâs former St. Lunatics bandmates (childhood friends Murphy Lee, Kyjuan and City Spud) formally dropped out of a lawsuit seeking royalties from the rapperâs breakout album Country Grammar â two months after they said they hadnât wanted to sue him in the first place.
YOUNG THUG LAWSUIT â Now that heâs home from jail, attorneys for concert giant AEG said theyâre ready to push ahead with a civil lawsuit accusing the rapper of violating an exclusive touring agreement. Filed in 2020 but long delayed by his criminal case, the case claims Young Thug owes more than $5 million under the deal and that heâs obligated to hand over some of his music to pay down that debt. And in newer filings, AEG leveled new accusations that Thug improperly sold off some of those rights while the case was pending.
TRUMP GUITARS â Guitar manufacturer Gibson sent a cease-and-desist letter to the branding agency behind a line âTrump Guitarsâ endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump, alleging the design of the instrument infringes the companyâs trademark rights to the shape of the famed Les Paul guitar.
TORY LANEZ UPDATE â California prosecutors flatly rejected recent claims made by Tory Lanezâs legal team that the gun he allegedly used to shoot Megan Thee Stallion has gone âmissing,â calling the accusations about vanished evidence âdemonstrably falseâ and âtroubling.â Those arguments were made as part of Lanezâs appeal seeking to overturn his felony convictions over the 2020 shooting.
âELECTRIC AVENUEâ SETTLEMENT â Donald Trump reached an agreement with Eddy Grant to resolve a long-running lawsuit over his use of âElectric Avenueâ without permission in a 2020 campaign video. The deal came two months after a federal judge ruled that Trump infringed the copyright to the 1982 hit, and will resolve any need for further litigation to figure out how much the President-elect must pay in damages under that ruling.
SONY ENDS RACE CASE â Sony Music settled a lawsuit filed by a former assistant to Columbia Records chief executive Ron Perry who claimed she was forced to resign after pushing back on hiring practices that allegedly discriminated against white applicants. Sony had called those accusations âcontradictory and falseâ and was actively seeking to have the case dismissed when the settlement was reached.
SIRIUS TROUBLE? A New York state judge ruled that SiriusXM violated federal consumer protection law by making it too difficult for listeners to cancel their subscriptions. The ruling came from a lawsuit filed last year by New Yorkâs attorney general, who accused the company of subjecting canceling subscribers to a âburdensome endurance contestâ that required phone conversations with a live agent and extended time spent on hold.
PIRACY AT SCOTUS â Nearly five years after the major labels won a $1 billion music piracy verdict against Cox Communications, the U.S. Supreme Court signaled that it might jump into the case by asking the U.S. Department of Justice to weigh in.
Drake shocked the music industryon Monday (Nov. 25) when he accused his label, Univeral Music Group, and Spotify in a court filing of artificially inflating the popularity of Kendrick Lamarâs âNot Like Us.â
Drakeâs Frozen Moments LLC alleges in the filing that the two parties conducted an âillegal schemeâ that involved paid bots and other methods to âpump upâ Lamarâs track that viciously disses him and accuses him of pedophilia, among other claims. UMG has denied the allegations, calling them âoffensive and untrueâ in a statement to Billboard. (Spotify declined to comment.)
The legal procedure â and the second action against UMG that Drake filed Tuesday (Nov. 26) â essentially reignited the flame for the Kendrick and Drake beef, as fans continued to bicker back and forth on social media over his legal maneuvers. âDrake Stanâs acting like Drake suing in order to fight the good fight against capitalism is soooooo funny bro LMFAOOOOOOO,â one person tweeted.
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7PM in Brooklyn co-host Kazeem Famuyide took a different approach while examining the industry as a whole. âKendrick: F the whole industry. Drake: F the whole industry. Cole: F the whole industry. Fans: actually, Iâm on the industryâs side here,â he added.
Kendrick: F the whole industry. Drake: F the whole industry. Cole: F the whole industry. Fans: actually, Iâm on the industryâs side here. pic.twitter.com/l96ouJWN8Pâ Kazeem Famuyide đłđŹ đ (@Kazeem) November 26, 2024
No Jumperâs Adam22 agreed this could have major implications on the music industry. âAnyone acting like Drake is just a bad loser hasnât read this sât yet,â he tweeted. âIf half of this gets proven, Drake will look like a hero for exposing the corrupt music industry.â
Former NFL star Arian Foster took a different approach and jokingly compared Drakeâs legal action to this being his version of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
âOne thing thatâs funny to me about Drake suing his label is Iâve never seen so many fans be on the labelâs side before lmao,â another fan chimed in. âThis the first time where the artist isnât automatically right to the public.â
In its statement to Billboard, UMG noted: âWe employ the highest ethical practices in our marketing and promotional campaigns. No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.â
Kendrickâs âNot Like Usâ proved to be the knockout blow in his feud with Drake, and has remained a cultural staple as one of the biggest songs of the year. The Mustard-produced diss track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a pair of weeks and hasnât departed from the top 20 since its arrival in May.
Find more fan reactions to Drakeâs legal actions below.
Drake the type of nigga you find in hide & go seek and then he cry and say he wasnât even playing đđđ Fuck was you in the dryer for???â I LOVE YOU, PINK!đŚ (@Pinkthepimp) November 25, 2024
Drake reporting Kendrick to the HR department is crazy workâ DDOT. (@DDotOmen) November 26, 2024
Drake trolled and begged for Kendrick to get in the ring and got his ass handed to him now he went back in the house and dialed 911â Trav (@travaunt) November 25, 2024