Legal
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The three major record labels are suing Verizon over allegations that the telecom giant effectively encouraged its internet subscribers to steal copyrighted music on a “staggering” scale.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan federal court, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment claim that Verizon has “buried its head in the sand” in the face of repeated warnings about piracy on its network, fostering a “safe haven” for illegal activity.
“While Verizon is famous for its ‘Can you hear me now?’ advertising campaign, it has intentionally chosen not to listen to complaints from copyright owners,” lawyers for the labels wrote. “Rather than taking any steps to address its customers’ illegal use of its network, Verizon deliberately chose to ignore plaintiffs’ notices, willfully blinding itself to that information and prioritizing its own profits over its legal obligations.”
The financial stakes for Verizon could be very large. The labels accuse the company of infringing more than 17,000 songs; if a judge awarded the maximum penalty for each of those songs, the damages could total more than $2.5 billion. The allegedly-infringed tracks include music by The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and hundreds of other top artists.
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The new case is the latest in a long line of major lawsuits aimed at forcing internet service providers to take more proactive steps to eliminate piracy on their networks. In one such case, the labels initially won a shocking $1 billion verdict against Cox Communications.
For years, internet service providers typically weren’t held liable for individual infringements by their millions of users, thanks to a “safe harbor” provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But starting in the mid-2010s, music companies began arguing that ISPs had forfeited that immunity by ignoring the DMCA’s requirement that they terminate “repeat infringers” from their network.
Beginning with a landmark case filed by BMG against Cox, those arguments have repeatedly proved successful. Major labels have filed similar cases against Cox, Charter, RCN and other ISPs in courts around the country, often winning huge judgments against them.
In the new lawsuit filed Friday, the labels turned those same arguments against Verizon. The company has allegedly received “hundreds of thousands” of notices of illegal file-sharing by specific subscribers, the lawsuit says, but “deliberately refused to take action” so that it could “continue to collect millions of dollars from them.”
“Verizon’s motivation for refusing to terminate or suspend the accounts of blatant infringing subscribers is simple: Verizon valued corporate profits over its legal responsibilities,” attorneys for the labels wrote.
Back in 2019, a federal jury in Virginia ordered Cox to pay $1 billion in a similar case, awarding the labels more than $99,000 for each of 10,017 separate songs. Though that verdict was later vacated on appeal, Cox could still face a similarly large fine when the total is recalculated in a future trial.
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Verizon of contributory infringement (meaning the company induced or authorized its customers to pirate the music) and vicarious infringement (meaning the ISP profited from illegal downloading it could have stopped).
A rep for Verizon did not return a request for comment on Monday.
Wiz Khalifa took an unexpected detour to a Romanian jail over the weekend when the 36-year-old rapper (born Cameron Jibril Thomaz) ran afoul of the country’s drug laws while lighting up one of his omnipresent joints on stage. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news According to a […]
AI music companies Suno and Udio have hired elite law firm Latham & Watkins to defend them against lawsuits filed by the three major labels in late June, according to court documents.
Filed by plaintiffs Sony Music, Warner Music Group (WMG) and Universal Music Group (UMG), the lawsuits claim that Suno and Udio have unlawfully copied the labels’ sound recordings to train their AI models to generate music that could “saturate the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, cheapen and ultimately drown out the genuine sound recordings on which [the services were] built.”
Latham & Watkins has already played a key role in defending top companies in the field of artificial intelligence. This includes the firm’s work to defend Anthropic against allegations of infringement levied by UMG, Concord Music Group and ABKCO last October. Latham represents OpenAI in all of its lawsuits filed by authors and other rights owners, including the case filed by the New York Times and a case filed by comedian Sarah Silverman and other writers.
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The Latham team is led by Andrew Gass, Steve Feldman, Sy Damle, Britt Lovejoy and Nate Taylor. Plaintiffs UMG, WMG and Sony Music are represented by Moez Kaba, Mariah Rivera, Alexander Perry and Robert Klieger of Hueston Hennigan as well as Daniel Cloherty of Cloherty & Steinberg.
It is common for AI companies to argue that training is protected by copyright’s fair use doctrine — an important rule that allows people to reuse protected works without breaking the law — and it is likely this will become a core part of Latham’s defense of Suno and Udio’s practices. Though fair use has historically allowed for things like news reporting and parody, AI firms say it applies equally to the “intermediate” use of millions of works to build a machine that spits out entirely new creations.
So far, both Suno and Udio have declined to comment on whether or not they have used unlicensed copyrights in their datasets. However, the music industry started to question what was in those datasets after a series of articles written by Ed Newton-Rex, founder of AI music safety nonprofit Fairly Trained, were published by Music Business Worldwide. In one of them, Newton-Rex said he was able to generate music from both Suno and Udio that “bears a striking resemblance to copyrighted music.”
The lawsuit cites circumstantial evidence to support the labels’ belief that their copyrighted material has been used by Suno and Udio in AI training. This includes generated songs by Suno and Udio that sound just like the voices of Bruce Springsteen, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Jackson and ABBA; outputs that parrot the producer tags of Cash Money AP and Jason Derulo; and outputs that sound nearly identical to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” The Beach Boys’ “I Get Around,” ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” The Temptations’ “My Girl,” Green Day’s “American Idiot” and more.
The Beastie Boys are suing the owner of Chilis over allegations that the restaurant chain used the rap trio’s iconic 1994 song “Sabotage” in a social media advertisement without permission.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday (July 10) in Manhattan federal court, the hip-hop legends accused Brinker International of infringing their copyrights by using the song without a license — an especially serious allegation from a trio that famously doesn’t allow its music to appear in ads.
“Use of the ‘Sabotage’ sound recording, music composition and video was all without permission,” the group’s attorneys write. “The plaintiffs do not license ‘Sabotage’ or any of their other intellectual property for third-party product advertising purposes, and deceased Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch included a provision in his will prohibiting such uses.”
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The Beastie Boys says the Chilis ad in question featured three men in “70s-style” wigs, fake mustaches, and sunglasses carrying out a “robbery” of food ingredients from a Chilis. The group says it clearly “intended to evoke” the music video to “Sabotage,” a parody of 1970s “crime drama” television programs that featured Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, Michael “Mike D” Diamond and the late Adam “MCA” Yauch in similar attire.
The band’s lawyers say using the song was bad enough, but that by recreating a video that featured “unauthorized video impersonations of Diamond, Horovitz and Yauch, Brinkers also violated federal trademark law by duping consumers with a false endorsement.
“The public was confused into believing that plaintiffs sponsored, endorsed and are associated with defendant Brinker in promoting defendant Brinker’s ‘Chili’s’ restaurants and products,” the lawsuit reads.
A spokesperson for Brinker did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Beastie Boys are infamously protective of their music when it comes to advertising, a stance underscored by the fact that Yauch’s will featured a provision prohibiting the use of his image, music and any art he created in advertising.
In 2013, the group sued a toy company called GoldieBlox after it released a viral parody of the group’s 1987 song “Girls” to promote its engineering and construction toys for girls, eventually winning a settlement in which the company apologized and donated a portion of its revenues to charities. And in 2015, the group won a $1.7 million verdict against Monster Energy over a video used by the energy drink company that used several of the group’s songs in a promotional video.
But they’ve also given certain uses of their music their blessing. In 2016, “Sabotage” appeared in a trailer for Star Trek Beyond; the next year, the group permitted the song to be used in an advertisement for the video game Destiny 2. Though those were advertisements, both of them were promoting artistic works rather than products.
Film composer Danny Elfman is facing a libel lawsuit over statements he made to the media last year defending himself from claims that he sexually abused a former friend and fellow composer.
In a case filed Wednesday (July 10) in Los Angeles court, Nomi Abadi accused Elfman of defaming her in his response to a July 2023 article in Rolling Stone, which detailed Abadi’s allegations that Elfman had repeatedly sexually harassed her, exposed himself and masturbated in front of her.
Her lawyers say that after Abadi “truthfully relayed facts” to Rolling Stone, Elfman attempted to “prop up his checkered reputation by destroying Nomi’s credibility” with “appalling lies” that branded her as a “liar, homewrecker, and an extortionist.”
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“Defamation law provides a remedy to those individuals who, because of wretched lies about their integrity, can no longer succeed on their merits in the marketplace,” her attorneys write in the lawsuit, obtained by Billboard. “It would be difficult to find an individual more meriting such a remedy than plaintiff Nomi Abadi.”
A representative for Elfman did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday (July 11).
Last year’s Rolling Stone article reported that Elfman and Abadi had entered into a previously unreported $830,000 settlement in 2018 to resolve her accusations. It also reported that Abadi had recently sued Elfman for breach of contract, claiming he had missed payments required by the earlier settlement.
The article detailed Abadi’s allegations against Elfman at length. In a police report cited in the story, she claimed that over the course of nearly a year, Elfman had exposed himself and masturbated multiple times in front of her without her consent. In one particularly graphic accusation from the police report, Elfman allegedly presented her with a martini glass that Abadi claimed Elfman said was filled with semen.
Elfman — a prolific film composer who has written more than 100 film scores and composed the famous intro to The Simpsons — responded in the article with an extensive statement. Calling the allegations “vicious and wholly false,” he described Abadi as having a “childhood crush” on him and intending to “break up my marriage and replace my wife.” Elfman said that when he attempted to distance himself from her, “she made it clear that I would pay for having rejected her.”
According to Abadi’s new case, those statements to Rolling Stone were clearly defamatory — falsely portraying her as “a scorned woman seeking revenge and money.”
“In so doing, Elfman and his agents left Nomi’s career ambitions in tatters, requiring the commencement of this action,” her lawyers write. “In publicly branding Nomi as a liar, and a failed temptress who lied about him for reasons of revenge and greed, Elfman and his representatives defamed Nomi.”
Rolling Stone (which is owned by the same parent company as Billboard) is not named in the lawsuit nor accused of any wrongdoing.
Beyond Elfman’s statement, the new case also takes aim at two more factual assertions relayed by an unnamed “rep for Elfman” to Rolling Stone. In one, the representative denied the martini glass allegation, claiming it had actually been filled with “moisturizing cream” and was intended as a joke. In another, the rep addressed a claim that Elfman had snapped nude images of Abadi, arguing that it had been her idea and that she had “disrobed almost immediately without any encouragement.”
In her new lawsuit, Abadi said those claims were also false and defamatory: “Nomi did not initiate the nude photography,” her lawyers write in their complaint. “Elfman coerced her into it. Elfman masturbated in front of Nomi, afterwards apologizing to her and promising not to do so again.”
The lawsuit does not specify how much money Abadi is seeking in damages.
Josh Klinghoffer, a former guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is facing a wrongful death lawsuit over allegations that he struck and killed a pedestrian near Los Angeles earlier this year due to “distracted driving.”
Filed in Los Angeles court Wednesday (July 10), the case claims that Klinghoffer was driving a black 2022 GMC Yukon with no license plates on March 18 in Alhambra, Calif., when he took a left turn and struck 47-year-old Israel Sanchez in a crosswalk. Sanchez later died of his injuries.
“Video of the incident shows that defendant Josh Adam Klinghoffer made no braking or slowing motion until after he fatally struck Israel Sanchez, indicating that defendant was likely driving while distracted,” lawyers for the victim’s daughter, Ashley, write in the complaint, obtained by Billboard. “This horrible outcome was foreseeable and demonstrates a willful disregard for the rights and safety of others.”
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Sanchez’s lawyers claim they have video evidence that shows that Klinghoffer was “using a device mere seconds before he crashed” into Sanchez.
The lawsuit claims that Klinghoffer was not arrested after the incident, left for a tour with his band, and has never reached out to Sanchez’s family: “He has shown no remorse for his behavior.”
In a statement to Billboard, Klinghoffer’s attorney Andrew Brettler said: “This was a tragic accident. After which, Josh immediately pulled over, stopped the vehicle, called 911, and waited until police and the ambulance arrived. He is fully cooperating with the traffic investigation.”
After serving as a touring guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the late 2000s, Klinghoffer joined the band as a full-time member in 2010 to replace longtime guitarist John Frusciante. But in 2019, after performing on two studio albums, he was fired by his bandmates after Frusciante chose to return to the group. He later served as a touring musician for Pearl Jam and has released solo material under the pseudonym Pluralone.
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Klinghoffer of wrongful death and negligence — meaning that he allegedly knew that what he was doing was dangerous but did it anyway.
“Klinghoffer … was more focused on his personal business than on acting as a responsible driver,” the lawsuit says. “These decisions culminated in the motor vehicle, inflicting fatal injuries on decedent, whodied a horrific and excruciating death.”
The complaint does not specify how much the family is seeking in monetary damages.
A group of consumers have dropped a class action lawsuit against Spotify over its recent decision to kill its short-lived “Car Thing” device, a case that claimed the streamer left users holding “a useless product.”
Filed in May, the case came just days after Spotify announced that the Car Thing — a device launched in 2021 for playing music in a car — would be bricked in December. The customers claimed the move left them “with nothing more than a paperweight that cost between $50 and $100.”
But less than two months later, attorneys for the jilted consumers said Tuesday (July 9) that they would drop the lawsuit. The move came without explanation and does not indicate that any kind of settlement with Spotify was reached.
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In their initial complaint, the aggrieved buyers claimed Spotify had refused to offer refunds and, at the time of the lawsuit’s filing, the company’s FAQ addressing the deactivation did not make any mention of refunds. It simply told users that Spotify was “not offering any trade-in options” and urged them to consider “safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.”
But after the news of the lawsuit had spread, Spotify’s website was updated to include a new section covering refunds. In the updated text, Spotify tells users: “Individuals seeking a refund can contact customer support with proof of purchase to discuss their options.”
It’s unclear if the move to more clearly offer refunds resulted in the withdrawal of the lawsuit, and neither side immediately returned requests for more information. But the voluntary dismissal was made “without prejudice,” meaning the accusers could refile the case at some point in the future if they choose to do so.
Spotify announced Car Thing in April 2021, saying it would provide users with a “seamless and personalized in-car listening experience.” The product — a touch screen with a physical dial that still requires access to a smartphone — rolled out in February 2022 at a price point of $89.99. But just months later, Spotify said it would cease production, telling investors that they “frankly haven’t seen the volume at the higher prices that would make the current product financially viable.”
Then in May, Spotify alerted users that it would stop supporting the devices entirely. The company told users that it was “not a decision we made lightly” and offered a link to customer service to “ensure that you have the right place to reach out if you have any questions.” A week later, the company confirmed in a public statement that the move, set to take effect Dec. 9, would render the devices fully inoperable.
On May 28, three Car Thing buyers — Hamza Mazumder, Anthony Bracarello and Luke Martin — filed their lawsuit, accusing Spotify of violating state and federal laws by essentially duping their clients into buying a “useless product.”
“Had plaintiffs and other members of the class known that Spotify manufactured the Car Thing with the ability to brick the product at any point after its introduction to the marketplace and in Spotify’s total discretion, they would not have bought a Car Thing, or would have paid substantially less for them,” the lawsuit read.
A legal battle over Nirvana‘s iconic smiley face logo will end in a settlement, resolving years of sprawling litigation between the band, fashion designer Marc Jacobs and a former Geffen Records art designer who claims he created it.
In a notice filed in Los Angeles federal court on Tuesday, attorneys for all three sides said they had accepted a mediator’s proposal to end the long-running case over the logo, which has appeared on countless t-shirts and other merch in the years since Kurt Cobain’s death.
Attorneys told Judge John A. Kronstadt that they would formalize the settlement within 21 days, and the judge later removed all upcoming hearings and other deadlines. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and each side did not return a request for comment.
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Nirvana’s logo – a yellow smiley face with X’d-out eyes — first appeared during promotion for 1991’s Nevermind. The design eventually became something of an unofficial emblem for the band, and has become particularly prominent again in recent years amid a wave of 90s nostalgia among younger music fans.
The band’s lawyers first sued Marc Jacobs in 2018, accusing the design house of using a look-alike image on a line of its own t-shirts and other apparel called “Bootleg Redux Grunge.” They said Jacobs had just replaced “Nirvana” with the word “Heaven” and replaced the two eyes with an “M” and a “J,” but had changed little else.
“Defendants’ use of Nirvana’s copyrighted image on and to promote its products is intentional, and is part and parcel of a wider campaign to associate [the Grunge line] with Nirvana, one of the founders of the ‘grunge’ musical genre,” the band’s attorneys wrote at the time.
In their initial complaint, Nirvana’s lawyers said the smiley face had been created by the late Cobain – the conventional wisdom for decades about the logo’s origins. But soon after the case was filed, a former Geffen art director named Robert Fisher jumped into the case: “It is, in fact, Mr. Fisher, who authored the Happy Face, not Mr. Kurt Cobain.”
“For 30 years now, Nirvana has reaped enormous profits from Mr. Fisher’s works through the sale of a wide range of products,” his lawyers wrote. “Assisted by a team of lawyers and managers, Nirvana was able to do so without any compensation to Mr. Fisher by falsely claiming authorship and ownership.”
Since Fisher entered the case, the band’s lawyers have staunchly maintained that it was Cobain who designed the image. At the very least, they’ve argued, if it was Fisher who created the image, he did so when he was employed by Geffen at the time – meaning it was a “work for hire” and the label retained all rights to the image.
In December, Judge Kronstadt largely agreed with Nirvana on that issue. Fisher later sought to appeal that ruling, but the judge denied that motion last month, saying he would need to wait until after Nirvana and Marc Jacobs went to trial to file an appeal.
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: A new copyright rule on streaming royalties and termination rights is hailed as a “landmark victory” for songwriters; a judge rules on the latest legal battle inside the Prince estate; a band called Jellyroll drops its trademark lawsuit against Jelly Roll; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: ‘Landmark Victory’ On Termination & Streaming
The U.S. Copyright Office has finalized a new rule to clear up uncertainty about who gets paid streaming royalties when songwriters take back their music rights – a wonky subject, but one that roused superstars and advocacy groups into action to secure a “landmark victory” for songwriters.The new rule addresses complicated issues about how the Music Modernization Act’s blanket license for streaming royalties interacts with so-called termination rights – a federal provision that empowers authors to reclaim the rights to their copyrighted works decades after selling them away.It seems straightforward that if a songwriter invokes termination to win back their songs, they should get paid for them. But due to complex legal questions (mind-meltingly complex, trust me on this), the Mechanical Licensing Collective had implemented a policy that critics warned might keep streaming royalties flowing – in perpetuity – to the companies that used to own the rights.Following a multi-year effort that included a push from artists like Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Bob Seger, Maren Morris, John Mayer and many others, the Copyright Office overturned that “erroneous” approach this week. For more, go read our full story, complete with an explainer of the legal issues, reactions from the industry, and access to the text of the new rule.
Other top stories this week…
PRINCE ESTATE FIGHT – A Delaware judge issued a key decision in the latest legal battle over the Prince estate, ruling that a group of the star’s heirs could not oust two of Prince’s former business advisors (L. Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer Jr.) from leadership roles. The judge said the advisors had been vested with “broad” authority and could not be removed after one heir “came to regret this decision.”JELLYROLL v. JELLY ROLL – The leader of a Philadelphia wedding band called “Jellyroll” agreed to drop a trademark lawsuit he filed earlier this year against rapper-turned-country singer Jelly Roll, claiming he had settled the case by reaching an “amicable agreement” with the superstar artist. But the move to drop the case was unilateral and the artists reps did not confirm that any kind of deal had been reached.CARDI B COPYRIGHT – The rapper was sued for copyright infringement by a pair of producers (Joshua Fraustro and Miguel Aguilar) who claim that Cardi used their earlier track without permission in her hit single “Enough (Miami).”DIDDY SUED AGAIN – Sean “Diddy” Combs was hit with another sexual abuse case, this time by an exotic dancer named Adria English who claims she was a victim of a sex trafficking operation. Like one of the many previous cases against Combs, the new lawsuit claims he and others violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, the federal “RICO” law that’s historically been used to target the mafia, drug cartels and other organized crime rings.LYRICAL PROBATION? Following an 11-year prison sentence on federal gun charges, New Orleans rapper B.G. will be required to provide the U.S. Probation Office with a copy of the lyrics to his upcoming songs before producing and promoting them. The arrangement – the product of an agreement between prosecutors and defense attorneys – came months after prosecutors arrested B.G. for violating his parole by performing at a Las Vegas concert alongside rapper Lil Boosie.
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GUITAR RULING SHREDDED – A federal appeals court overturned a jury verdict won by guitar maker Gibson against a smaller company that allegedly copied the trademarked shape of the Flying V and other iconic designs. The reason? The appeals court said the trial judge improperly excluded key evidence that might have helped show that the design was too “generic” for trademark protection.
The leader of a Philadelphia wedding band called Jellyroll has agreed to drop a trademark lawsuit he filed earlier this year against rapper-turned-country singer Jelly Roll.
The case accused Jelly Roll (Jason DeFord) of infringing the trademark to “Jellyroll” — a name Kurt Titchenell says he’s used for decades for an act the Philadelphia Inquirer has labeled as “Philly’s favorite wedding band.”
But in a court filing on Tuesday (July 9), Titchenell agreed to voluntarily drop his lawsuit permanently. In a statement, Titchenell said he had “settled” the case by reaching an “amicable agreement” with the superstar artist: “We look forward to our continued use of the name, Jellyroll Band, in connection with our party band business.”
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Court records do not confirm that such a settlement was reached. The filing dismissing the case was not signed by attorneys for Jelly Roll, and instead simply dropped the case against him unilaterally. A spokeswoman for the star did not immediately return a request for comment.
Titchenell sued in April, claiming that Jelly Roll’s increasing popularity — his “Need A Favor” reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November — has flooded the market with his name, making it difficult for prospective clients to find Titchenell’s band.
“Prior to the defendant’s recent rise in notoriety, a search of the name of Jellyroll … returned references to the plaintiff,” his lawyers write in their complaint, obtained by Billboard. “Now, any such search on Google returns multiple references to defendant, perhaps as many as 18-20 references, before any reference to plaintiff’s entertainment dance band known as Jellyroll can be found.”
Titchnell claimed he’s been using the name for his band since 1980. In a 2019 Inquirer article marking the band’s 40th anniversary, the newspaper described Jellyroll as a group that nearly every Philadelphian has likely heard at some point, at one of thousands of weddings, galas and other public events.
In media interviews, Jelly Roll has said that his mother gave him the nickname as a child. He used the name on a 2003 self-released mixtape called The Plain Shmear Tape, and then on dozens of subsequent releases over nearly two decades as a little-known Nashville rapper.
The two artists appear to have peacefully co-existed until recently when Jelly Roll climbed the charts and became a household name. Following his breakout 2021 hit “Son of a Sinner” and last year’s “Need A Favor,” he was nominated for Best New Artist at this year’s Grammy Awards and won a trio of major honors at this year’s Country Music Awards.
In the April lawsuit, Titchenell’s attorneys had asked for an immediate court order that would stop the star from using the name “Jelly Roll.” They specifically pointed to an upcoming concert at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center in October: “Despite his receipt of a demand to cease and desist using plaintiff’s registered service mark, defendant has ignored this demand.”