Legal
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OutKast has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against an electronic dance music duo called ATLiens – the same name as one of the iconic hip hop duo’s best-known songs.
In a lawsuit lodged Tuesday in Georgia federal court, lawyers for Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin) argue that the name (a combo of “aliens” and their hometown of Atlanta) is a novel linguistic term – and that the rival group is confusing music fans by using it.
“The word ATLiens was invented by OutKast. Before OutKast created it, it was not used in the cultural lexicon and did not exist,” the group wrote. “Defendant’s use of the ATLiens mark is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive the public.”
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Released in 1996, ATLiens is OutKast’s second studio album, featuring the same-name song as one of the singles from the LP. The album spent 33 weeks on the Billboard 200, while the song itself reached No. 35 on the Hot 100 and spent 17 weeks on the chart.
The track, well-received at the time, is “one of OutKast’s most well-known and well-regarded songs,” the lawsuit claims, and the duo “continues to perform ‘ATLiens’ at nearly all (if not every single one) of its full-length live performances.”
According to the group’s lawyers, the rival ATLiens started using their name in 2012 and later registered the name as a trademark. In the suit, Outkast appears to claim that they did not know about the other dance group until recently.
In accusing the EDM duo of infringement, OutKast says the two names are “identical” and used for largely the same thing – musical duos from Atlanta who perform in “related musical genres.” The lawsuit even claims that, thanks to the rival group’s stage costumes, fans might literally think they’re Big Boi and André 3000.
“The duo comprising defendant performs with masks on, thereby concealing their identities such that consumers will mistakenly believe that the members of Defendant are one and the same with – or at least somehow connected to – plaintiff,” lawyers for OutKast write.
OutKast says it attempted to “negotiate an amicable resolution to the dispute” but that ATLiens has continued to use the name in confusing ways – like a poster for an upcoming show in Atlanta that allegedly riffs on a similar poster used by OutKast.
“Management for OutKast has already received communications from third-parties querying whether OutKast was affiliated with defendant’s upcoming show,” the group’s lawyers write.
Reps for ATLiens did not immediately return a request for comment.
In technical terms, the case was filed by High Schoolers LLC, a holding company owned by Big Boi and André 3000 that controls OutKast’s trademarks.
Just a week before a court-ordered auction of Damon Dash’s one-third stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records, there’s a stunning new wrinkle: New York State says he owes more than $8.7 million in unpaid taxes and that the Roc-A-Fella proceeds must be used to pay down the huge debt.
In a motion filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, New York’s Department of Taxation & Finance asked to legally intervene in the proceedings ahead of the Aug. 29 auction, in which the United States Marshals Service will auction off Dash’s 33.3% interest in the storied record company.
The tax authorities claim that Dash owes more than $8.7 million in unpaid taxes and penalties from personal income he reported from 2005 and 2018 – and that the Roc-A-Fella auction might be their last shot at recouping a debt that has been “delinquent for far too long.”
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“To date, the Department has been unsuccessful in its efforts to collect the unpaid New York State tax debt owed by Dash,” attorneys for the state wrote. “Intervening in this matter may be the Department’s only opportunity to collect some of the unpaid taxes Dash owes to New York.”
The new wrinkle is sure to complicate an already-complex situation. The Roc-A-Fella auction is being held to satisfy an $823,000 judgment against Dash, won by movie producer Josh Webber in a civil lawsuit over a failed film partnership. But New York City’s Department of Social Services will actually have first dibs, since Dash also owes a total of $145,096 in unpaid child support.
In their filing on Wednesday, the tax department stressed that it does not seek to jump ahead of child services in pecking order for auction proceeds. But it offered no such promise to Webber – and pointedly noted that it had secured a lien against the Roc-A-Fella proceeds more a decade earlier than he had.
Set to take place next week at a Manhattan hotel, the Roc-A-Fella auction will have a minimum bid of $1.2 million. The sale will be for Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose primary asset is Jay-Z’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt. The rest of the catalog of music released by Roc-A-Fella, which dissolved in 2013, isn’t involved.
The owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella — label cofounders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company’s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February.
The auction will be coordinated by Webber’s attorney, Chris Brown, who told Billboard earlier this month that he had received numerous inquiries from potential bidders, including corporate investors, high-profile individuals and collectors. Brown not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the Department of Taxation & Finance’s request to access the proceeds.
Though the auction’s minimum bid has been set at $1.2 million, it’s entirely unclear how much a potential buyer is going to be willing to spend on Dash’s one-third stake.
The royalties from Reasonable Doubt would likely provide them a revenue stream; since its 1996 release, Reasonable Doubt has racked up 2.2 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate, including 21,500 units so far this year. But the eventual buyer also would be a minority owner in a company controlled by hostile partners, with little ability to perform typical due diligence on the asset they’re about to purchase. And Roc-A-Fella’s rights to Reasonable Doubt will potentially expire in 2031 thanks to copyright law’s termination right, which would allow Jay-Z himself to reclaim full control.
If any money from the auction is left over, it will go to Dash himself. In a statement to Billboard last month, his attorney Natraj Bhushan said that he and his client would be at the Aug. 29 event and “expect a robust auction with bids entering the several millions if not higher.” Bhushan did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the Department of Taxation & Finance’s request to access the proceeds.
Beyoncé‘s record label has sent a cease-and-desist to Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign over its use of the megastar’s song “Freedom” in a social media video, according to Rolling Stone, which reports that the campaign did not have permission to use the track. In the offending clip, which was posted to Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung‘s […]
A California appeals court has issued a final ruling that Michael Jackson’s estate can proceed with a $600 million sale of the singer’s catalog to Sony Music, rejecting objections from his mother that aimed to block the deal.
A month after the appeals court issued a tentative ruling against Katherine Jackson, the court finalized that decision on Wednesday – ruling that the estate’s executors (John Branca and John McClain) didn’t violate the terms of Michael’s will when they inked the gargantuan deal with Sony.
“The will gave the executors broad powers of sale, with no exception for the specific assets at issue in this case,” the court wrote. “As such, [a lower judge] did not err in concluding that it was Michael’s intent to allow the executors to sell any estate assets, including those at issue in the proposed transaction.”
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Beyond the merits of the deal, the court also rejected Katherine’s appeal for a simpler reason: that she had “forfeited” her arguments by failing to make them before a lower probate court.
Katherine’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment. She can still appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Court, though her odds of overturning the ruling are low.
As reported by Billboard earlier this year, the Jackson estate and Sony Music have reached a deal that will see the music giant buy half of the singer’s publishing and recorded masters catalog for more than $600 million.
But because the Jackson estate is still pending before a Los Angeles probate court more than 15 years after his 2009 death, his executors took the then-confidential deal to Judge Mitchell Beckloff for approval. When they did so, Katherine filed objections — among them that the sale “violated Michael’s wishes” and that the catalog would likely continue to gain value over time if retained.
In April 2023, Beckloff rejected those objections and ruled that the deal could move forward. Katherine then filed an appeal, resulting in Wednesday’s ruling.
In the new decision, the court rejected a number of key arguments from Katherine, including her claim that the sale would violate basic inheritance rules because it would prevent all of Michael’s assets from being transferred to his heirs. In doing so, the court said Michael’s will vested Branca and McClain with “full power and authority” to make such deals while in control of the estate.
“The proposed transaction is not a gift or distribution of estate assets—it is an asset sale, pursuant to which the estate receives a significant monetary payment and interest in a joint venture,” the court wrote. “While the proposed transaction will result in the estate exchanging assets for cash and other valuable rights, it neither diminishes the estate’s value nor impairs the executors’ future ability to transfer the estate’s assets to the trust.”
The wrangling over the Sony deal has exposed rifts among Jackson’s heirs. In March, Jackson’s son Blanket asked the judge to stop his grandmother from using estate money to fund her efforts to block the Sony deal. Though both had initially opposed the sale, Blanket and Jackson’s other children accepted the probate judge’s decision allowing it to move forward.
Later that same week, the estate responded to claims from Katherine’s attorneys that she needed estate money to pay for her legal battle, arguing she had received more than $55 million since the singer’s death. The estate’s executors argued that “virtually no request of Mrs. Jackson for her care or maintenance has been declined,” including more than $33 million in cash.
A rep for the estate’s executors declined to comment on Wednesday’s ruling.
Vans and a Brooklyn art collective have reached a settlement to end a long-running trademark lawsuit over Tyga‘s “Wavy Baby” sneakers – a parody of the company’s classic Old Skool.
Vans claimed the shoe, released in 2022 by a group called MSCHF, was “blatant” infringement. The creators argued it was legal parody protected by the First Amendment since it was designed to criticize “sneakerhead” consumerist culture. But federal courts repeatedly ruled for Vans.
On Tuesday, attorneys for both sides told a federal judge they had agreed to resolve the lawsuit. MSCHF agreed that the “Wavy Baby” had infringed Vans’ trademarks and agreed to never sell it again. Other terms of the “confidential settlement agreement,” including a potential monetary payment, were not disclosed in court filings. Neither side immediately returned request for comment.
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Tyga announced the Wavy Baby in April 2022, sparking plenty of buzz but also immediate comparisons to Vans. Footwear News said the shoe “appears to be loosely based on the classic Vans Old Skool” that had been altered with a “wave-like aesthetic.” The site HighSnobiety went with a bolder headline: “MSCHF & Tyga’s Insane Skate Shoes Look Like Liquified Vans.”
Three days before the shoes were set to drop, Vans filed a lawsuit – claiming MSCHF’s sneakers violated its trademark rights and demanding an immediate restraining order. The lawsuit targeted only MSCHF itself and did not name Tyga (real name: Micheal Stevenson) as a defendant.
Legal trouble was nothing new for MSCHF: the group had previously partnered with Lil Nas X to release a “Satan Shoe” that looked like a pair of Nikes – and had been promptly hit with a similar infringement lawsuit from that sneaker giant. They quickly reached a settlement that saw MSCHF issue voluntary recall on the shoes and offer a buy-back program.
In the case over Tyga’s sneaker, Vans argued that consumers would think Wavy Baby was an authorized product artist endorsement deal rather than a parody by a separate company. The company cited previous partnerships with A$AP Rocky, Metallica and Foo Fighters.
“Given Vans’ history of collaborations with musical artists, on information and belief, the collaboration between MSCHF and Michael Stevenson is intended to deceive consumers into believing they are purchasing a product made by, sponsored by, approved by, or otherwise associated with Vans,” the company’s lawyers wrote at the time.
Unlike the Nike case, MSCHF fought back against the case filed by Vans. It admitted that the Wavy Baby was based on the Old Skool, but said it had a legal right under the First Amendment to use the shoe as “the cultural and physical anchor when creating its art.” The company said it wanted to critique “consumerism inherent in sneakerhead culture” and “the phenomenon of sneaker companies collaborating with anyone to garner clout and shoe sales.”
But a federal judge quickly rejected those arguments and issued a restraining order banning MSCHF from selling any more Wavy Babys. In issuing his ruling, Judge William F. Kuntz said that he – and, more importantly, consumers – didn’t quite get the joke.
“Whatever the actual artistic merits of the Wavy Baby shoes, the shoes do not meet the requirements for a successful parody,” the judge wrote in his April 2022 decision. “While the manifesto accompanying the shoes may contain protected parodic expression, the Wavy Baby shoes and packaging in and of themselves fail to convey the satirical message.”
A federal appeals court later upheld that ruling.
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: Taylor Swift’s legal options after Donald Trump falsely claims she endorsed him; a guilty plea for YoungBoy Never Broke Again on a federal gun charge; Mariah Carey’s arguments to dismiss a copyright case over “All I Want For Christmas”; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Will Taylor Protect Her … Reputation?
When Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump posted AI-generated images to social media that falsely suggested Taylor Swift had endorsed him, many Swifties and Democrats asked the same question all at once: Can she sue him? After all, Taylor is no MAGA fan. In 2020, she urged her legions of fans to vote Trump out of office, blasting him for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” and endorsing then-candidate Joe Biden. The superstar hasn’t endorsed anybody yet in 2024, but you can be pretty certain that it’s not going to be Trump. But there it was: an AI-generated image of Swift herself, dressed up as Uncle Sam in the style of a World War II-era recruiting poster, bearing a clear message: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” At the top of the post, Trump himself responded to the apparent endorsement: “I accept!” Can Taylor file a lawsuit? On what grounds? And should she do so? Go read our full story here to find out.
Other top stories this week…
YOUNGBOY GUILTY PLEA – YoungBoy Never Broke Again (aka NBA YoungBoy) notified a judge that he would plead guilty to a federal gun charge that has seen him held under house arrest for more than two years while awaiting trial. But the deal won’t resolve dozens of newer charges in Utah over claims that he ran a “large scale prescription fraud ring” while living under house arrest. CLASS DISMISSED – Adidas AG won a ruling tossing out a class action that claimed the company violated U.S. securities laws by failing to warn shareholders about internal offensive behavior from Ye (formerly Kanye West) before the company split with him in 2022. Though the judge said she did not condone his “erratic, inappropriate, and antisemitic” behavior and said it was “troubling” that it had happened at Adidas, she ruled that the company’s actions didn’t rise to securities fraud: “The question before this court is not whether to admonish Ye or hold Adidas morally accountable for Ye’s conduct.” SAMPLE SETTLEMENT – Elsewhere in Kanye-world, the rapper reached a settlement in a copyright lawsuit that accused him of using an uncleared sample from the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions in his song “Life of the Party.” The case was one of more than a dozen such cases he’s faced during his career, including a high-profile battle with the estate of Donna Summer that settled earlier this year. GRACELAND SCAM – A Missouri woman named Lisa Jeanine Findley was arrested and charged with attempting to defraud the family of Elvis Presley and steal their ownership interest in Graceland. The alleged scheme is what led to the bizarre, largely unexplained incident that saw the famed Memphis mansion seemingly put up for auction earlier this summer. NO MORE YSL TRIAL? As Young Thug’s gang trial drags on in Atlanta, a Republican challenger to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis now says she will end the case if she’s elected. In a statement, Courtney Kramer said the trial against Thug’s YSL was designed to “bring fame” to Willis rather than “bring justice to the community,” and that it’s resulted in “endless amounts of taxpayer dollars” being spent “on a prosecution that is based almost entirely on witnesses with little to no credibility.” HIPGNOSIS SUES MANILOW – Hipgnosis Song Fund filed a lawsuit against Barry Manilow in U.K. court over bonus payments relating to its acquisition of the singer’s catalog four years ago, accusing the singer of breach of contract and other wrongdoing over a deal that saw the company buy the rights to 917 songs including “Mandy,” “Looks Like We Made It” and many others. CHRISTMAS CLASH – Mariah Carey asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit claiming she stole her perennial holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You” from an earlier song of the same name by songwriter Vince Vance. The star’s lawyers argued that the two songs share only “an unprotectable jumble of elements,” including “a title and hook phrase used by many earlier Christmas songs,” a series of “Christmas tropes” and other rudimental elements “scattered throughout these completely different songs.” RONDO DRUG PLEA – Rapper Quando Rondo pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to possess and distribute marijuana, resolving an indictment issued in December that saddled him with more extensive charges involving conspiracy to sell methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine. State gang and drug charges are still pending against him.
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Ye (formerly Kanye West) has reached a settlement in a copyright lawsuit that accused him of using an uncleared sample from the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions in his song “Life of the Party.”
In court documents filed Monday, attorneys for both sides agreed that Ye should be dismissed from the case, with each side to pay their own legal bills. No other terms of the agreement were disclosed publicly, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
The Boogie Down lawsuit was one of more than a dozen such cases that have been filed against Ye over claims of unlicensed sampling or interpolating during his prolific career. The controversial rapper has faced nine such infringement cases since 2019 alone, including a high-profile battle with estate of Donna Summer that settled earlier this year.
Filed in November 2022, the current lawsuit was lodged by Phase One Network, the group that owns Boogie Down’s copyrights, over allegations that Ye had used incorporated key aspects from the 1986 song “South Bronx” into “Life of the Party,” which was released on his 2021album Donda.
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Echoing several other sampling lawsuits against Ye, Phase One claimed that the rapper’s representatives had reached out to legally clear the use of the Boogie Down song – but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck.
“The communications confirmed that ‘South Bronx’ had been incorporated into the infringing track even though West had yet to obtain such license,” Phase One’s lawyers wrote. “Despite the fact that final clearance for use of ‘South Bronx’ in the infringing track was never authorized, the infringing track was nevertheless reproduced, sold, distributed, publicly performed and exploited.”
Last summer, attorneys for Ye fought back with an unusual argument: That Boogie Down founder KRS-One had publicly promised all future rappers that “you will not get sued” over sampling the group’s catalog. They cited a 2006 documentary called The Art of 16 Bars, in which KRS-One said “I give to all MCs my entire catalogue.”
Phase One later called that a “bizarre argument,” noting that, when the documentary was made, KRS-One didn’t actually own the music he was claiming to place in the public domain: “Movants cite to no law to support such a theory. KRS-One also could not have placed the Work in the public domain as he did not own it.”
Following Monday’s agreement, Ye and his Yeezy LLC will be dropped from the lawsuit but the case will continue against other several defendants, including the company behind the Stem Player platform on which the song was allegedly released.
The U.S. Department of Justice has refiled its historic anti-trust lawsuit against concert promoter Live Nation, with 10 additional states joining the effort to break up the company more than a decade after its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster.
The Attorneys General for Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Vermont were added to an amended complaint filed in New York’s Southern District on Monday (Aug. 19), bringing the total number of states participating in the lawsuit to 40 total, along with the District of Columbia.
“There is nothing new in the Amended Complaint,” a statement from Live Nation reads. “The lawsuit still won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows. We look forward to sharing more facts as the case progresses.”
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The amended lawsuit re-alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster acted like a monopoly and violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act by using illegal tactics to expand its concert promotion business and management of amphitheaters. The new complaint also includes new details about how Live Nation allegedly expanded its ticketing business after it merged with Ticketmaster in 2009, including information about the company’s controversial relationship with arena developer and operator Oak View Group (OVG). Founded in 2015 by Tim Leiweke and music manager Irving Azoff, Oak View Group manages nearly 200 venues and relies on Live Nation to bring major tours to its concert facilities, which includes such top U.S. venues as Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, the Moody Center in Austin and UBS Arena in Belmont, N.Y.
As the building manager’s main representative, OVG is supposed to manage the competitive process for selecting a venue’s ticketing contract, but the complaint alleges that OVG is obligated to “advocate for exclusive agreements with Ticketmaster for more than 100 venues Oak View Group manages” — which the lawsuit claims essentially “locks those venues into long-term exclusive Ticketmaster agreements.” The agreement, the government argues, unfairly prevents third-party competitors from entering the ticketing space while compensating OVG with a substantial “incentive payment” from Live Nation plus significant annual payments.
In fairness, OVG’s competitor AEG — which also competes with Live Nation for concert promotion and ticketing — also accepted payments for the buildings it managed under ASM Global, the building management firm it owned with Canadian private equity firm Onex and recently sold to Legends Hospitality.
The revised complaint does not include additional damaging exchanges between Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and potential competitors, or new damaging information that shows the company employing heavy-handed tactics. Instead, it contains more analysis of the concert market following the merger of Live Nation-Ticketmaster. On that front, according to the complaint, “Live Nation’s conduct has harmed fans because they have been left with fewer concerts, have had more limited choices among touring artists, have paid higher ticketing fees, and have experienced a lower-quality ticketing experience than they otherwise would have but for Live Nation’s anticompetitive conduct.”
YoungBoy Never Broke Again (aka NBA YoungBoy) will plead guilty to a federal gun charge that saw him held under house arrest for more than two years while awaiting trial, according to new court filings.
In a notice lodged in court Wednesday (Aug. 14), the rapper (real name Kentrell Gaulden) told a federal judge that “I wish to plead guilty to the offense charged” — referring to a single count of possession of firearms by a convicted felon.
It’s unclear whether the guilty plea is the result of an agreement with prosecutors or will result in a more lenient sentence. YoungBoy’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.
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The rapper was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2021 after he was allegedly found with two guns during a September 2020 incident in Baton Rouge, La. He was charged with violating a long-standing federal law that bans convicted felons from possessing guns — a rule that applied to him because he had previously been convicted in 2017 of aggravated assault with a firearm.
The rapper had finally been set for a trial on that charge this July. But in a March ruling, a federal judge paused the case to await a Supreme Court ruling on a major gun-control case that could play a key role in YoungBoy’s efforts to avoid a conviction. That ruling came out in June, but the case had yet to fully resume when Wednesday’s notice was filed.
While awaiting trial, YoungBoy has been confined to his Salt Lake City mansion — a house arrest that’s lasted more than two full years. In October, his attorneys pleaded that the “long period of social isolation” was harming his mental health and asked that the judge loosen restrictions, including allowing him to travel to a recording studio to create new music. But that request was largely denied in November.
While Wednesday’s plea will resolve the federal gun charge, YoungBoy is facing dozens of newer state charges in Utah after he was arrested in April for allegedly running a “large scale prescription fraud ring” while living under house arrest.
Those charges include identity fraud, obtaining a prescription under false pretenses, forgery, possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity and possession of a controlled substance.
YoungBoy was granted release on bond in May; it’s unclear when he might ultimately face trial on the prescription drug charges.
Adidas AG has won a court order dismissing a class-action lawsuit that claims the German sneaker giant violated securities laws by failing to warn its shareholders about Ye’s offensive behavior.
The case claimed that Adidas knew about serious problems with Ye (formerly Kanye West) as far back as 2018 but failed to disclose them, leaving investors facing losses when the company finally ended the partnership in 2022 over Ye’s antisemitic tirades and erratic behavior.
In a ruling Friday (Aug. 16), Judge Karin Immergut said she did not condone Ye’s conduct “erratic, inappropriate, and antisemitic” behavior and said it was “troubling” that it had happened at Adidas, but that it did not rise to the level of securities fraud.
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“The question before this court is not whether to admonish Ye or hold Adidas morally accountable for Ye’s conduct,” Immergut wrote. “Rather, this Court is faced with a precise legal question: has Plaintiff sufficiently pleaded facts showing that Adidas misled investors and thereby committed federal securities fraud? On the current record before this Court, the answer is no.”
Adidas ran a lucrative collaboration with Ye and his Yeezy apparel brand for nearly a decade. But the party ended in 2022, when the sneaker company (and many others) cut ties with the embattled rapper amid a wave of offensive statements he made about Jewish people. In an October 2022 statement announcing the split, Adidas said the rapper’s statements were “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.”
It’s been a messy breakup for Adidas. The split contributed to a loss of $655 million in sales for the last three months of 2022 and left Adidas holding $1.3 billion worth of unsold Yeezys and facing tricky questions about how to dispose of them responsibly. Adidas also battled Ye in court over millions in company funds and disclosed that it was litigating other aspects of the divorce in private arbitration.
In May 2023, a group of investors took Adidas to court over the breakup, arguing that Adidas executives had been aware for years of the potential harm that could come from the Ye partnership but had failed to publicly share such concerns with shareholders, as required by U.S. securities law.
In particular, the lawsuit cited a November 2022 Wall Street Journal article reporting that Adidas executives feared for years that the Yeezy relationship could “blow up at any moment.” The article reported that West had made antisemitic comments in front of Adidas staffers, including suggesting that an album be named after Adolf Hitler. The Journal story also highlighted a 2018 presentation to then-CEO Kasper Rørsted that detailed the risks of the arrangement and contemplated cutting ties with him.
But in Friday’s ruling, Judge Immergut sided with arguments from Adidas that the company’s disclosure statements had not misled investors about the risk posed by Ye. In one passage, she reminded the plaintiffs that Ye had shown signs of erratic behavior well before the split with Adidas — quoting statements in which he said that “racism is a dated concept” and that slavery was a “choice.”
“This court would be remiss not to note the very public nature of Ye’s behavior before Fall 2022,” the judge wrote. “After all, courts are not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free.”
The judge gave the investors one final chance to refile an updated version of their case against Adidas, but she cast doubt on whether they could overcome the problems she had identified in her ruling.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return a request for comment.