Legal
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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 “rapist and abuser” 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 “secretly 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 ‘realize’ their consensual relationships with Warner were supposedly abusive.”
But Manson’s 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 California’s 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 Manson’s 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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“Marilyn Manson — whose real name is Brian Warner — 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,” Wood’s lawyer Michael J. Kump said in a statement sent to Billboard. “But his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms. Wood failed. As the trial court correctly found, Warner’s claims were meritless. Warner’s decision to finally abandon his lawsuit and pay Ms. Wood her full fee award of almost $327,000 only confirms as much.”
In his own statement, Manson’s attorney Howard King said, “After 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.”
The public battle between Manson and Wood kicked off in February 2021, when Wood claimed in an Instagram post that Manson “started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.” In addition to Wood’s 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 Walters’ 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 “manipulated” 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 Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us”; Miley Cyrus strikes back at a copyright lawsuit over her chart-topping “Flowers”; Universal Music Group responds to Limp Bizkit’s $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 he’d really do it. As I wrote at the time, “An 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.”
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 “Not Like Us” — 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, Drake’s attorneys accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of launching an illegal “scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to artificially pump up Lamar’s 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 “falsely” accused him of being a “pedophile,” but instead “chose to do the opposite.”
“UMG designed, financed and then executed a plan to turn ‘Not Like Us’ 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,” his lawyers write. “That plan succeeded, likely beyond UMG’s wildest expectations.”
It’s worth noting that neither action is quite a lawsuit. Both were “pre-action” filings, seeking discovery and depositions that might yield evidence supporting such claims. But in seeking that info, Drake’s 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 “offensive and untrue” and stressing that it employs the “highest ethical practices” in promotion: “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.”
Drake’s 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 he’s repped in these cases by top partners at an elite BigLaw firm. It’s hard to imagine they’d file entirely baseless actions based purely on hurt feelings. But in a hip-hop world that prizes authenticity above all else, it’s 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 — we’ll 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 “Flowers,” her attorneys fired back with an interesting response.
Raised eyebrows, you say? The case, which claims “Flowers” infringes the copyright to Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man,” targets an “answer song” — 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 didn’t 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 “would not exist” without Mars’ 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 “fatal flaw” that required the outright dismissal of the lawsuit.
For more, go read our full story on Miley’s response, which includes access to the full motion filed by her attorneys.
Other top stories this week…
JUST ONE OF THOSE SUITS – 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 “fiction” and demanding they be thrown out of court. Durst alleged last month he had “not seen a dime in royalties” over the decades, but UMG said in its first response that it had paid the band millions and that the lawsuit is “based on a fallacy.”
ST. LUNATICS DROP OUT – Three of Nelly’s former St. Lunatics bandmates (childhood friends Murphy Lee, Kyjuan and City Spud) formally dropped out of a lawsuit seeking royalties from the rapper’s breakout album Country Grammar — two months after they said they hadn’t wanted to sue him in the first place.
YOUNG THUG LAWSUIT – Now that he’s home from jail, attorneys for concert giant AEG said they’re 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 he’s 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 – Guitar manufacturer Gibson sent a cease-and-desist letter to the branding agency behind a line “Trump Guitars” endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump, alleging the design of the instrument infringes the company’s trademark rights to the shape of the famed Les Paul guitar.
TORY LANEZ UPDATE – California prosecutors flatly rejected recent claims made by Tory Lanez’s legal team that the gun he allegedly used to shoot Megan Thee Stallion has gone “missing,” calling the accusations about vanished evidence “demonstrably false” and “troubling.” Those arguments were made as part of Lanez’s appeal seeking to overturn his felony convictions over the 2020 shooting.
‘ELECTRIC AVENUE’ SETTLEMENT – Donald Trump reached an agreement with Eddy Grant to resolve a long-running lawsuit over his use of “Electric Avenue” 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 – 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 “contradictory and false” 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 York’s attorney general, who accused the company of subjecting canceling subscribers to a “burdensome endurance contest” that required phone conversations with a live agent and extended time spent on hold.
PIRACY AT SCOTUS – 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 Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC alleges in the filing that the two parties conducted an “illegal scheme” that involved paid bots and other methods to “pump up” Lamar’s track that viciously disses him and accuses him of pedophilia, among other claims. UMG has denied the allegations, calling them “offensive and untrue” in a statement to Billboard. (Spotify declined to comment.)
The legal procedure — and the second action against UMG that Drake filed Tuesday (Nov. 26) — 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. “Drake Stan’s acting like Drake suing in order to fight the good fight against capitalism is soooooo funny bro LMFAOOOOOOO,” 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. “Kendrick: F the whole industry. Drake: F the whole industry. Cole: F the whole industry. Fans: actually, I’m on the industry’s side here,” he added.
Kendrick: F the whole industry. Drake: F the whole industry. Cole: F the whole industry. Fans: actually, I’m on the industry’s side here. pic.twitter.com/l96ouJWN8P— Kazeem Famuyide 🇳🇬 🍎 (@Kazeem) November 26, 2024
No Jumper‘s Adam22 agreed this could have major implications on the music industry. “Anyone acting like Drake is just a bad loser hasn’t read this s–t yet,” he tweeted. “If half of this gets proven, Drake will look like a hero for exposing the corrupt music industry.”
Former NFL star Arian Foster took a different approach and jokingly compared Drake’s legal action to this being his version of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
“One thing that’s funny to me about Drake suing his label is I’ve never seen so many fans be on the label’s side before lmao,” another fan chimed in. “This the first time where the artist isn’t automatically right to the public.”
In its statement to Billboard, UMG noted: “We 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.”
Kendrick’s “Not Like Us” 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 hasn’t departed from the top 20 since its arrival in May.
Find more fan reactions to Drake’s legal actions below.
Drake the type of nigga you find in hide & go seek and then he cry and say he wasn’t even playing 😭😭😭 Fuck was you in the dryer for???— I LOVE YOU, PINK!🦋 (@Pinkthepimp) November 25, 2024
Drake reporting Kendrick to the HR department is crazy work— 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 911— Trav (@travaunt) November 25, 2024
Guitar manufacturer Gibson has issued a cease-and-desist against the branding agency behind a line of guitars endorsed by President-elect Donald Trump, alleging the design infringes the company’s trademarks, Billboard has confirmed. The cease-and-desist against 16 Creative alleges the guitar line infringes on its trademark for the “iconic Les Paul body shape,” a Gibson spokesperson tells […]
Universal Music Group (UMG) has responded to allegations by UMG artist Drake that it conspired with Spotify to artificially boost the popularity of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” in a blockbuster legal filing on Monday (Nov. 25). “The suggestion that UMG would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue,” to […]
Drake has initiated legal action against Universal Music Group and Spotify over allegations that the two companies conspired to artificially inflate the popularity of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
In a filing Monday (Nov. 25) in Manhattan court, Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG of launching an illegal “scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to pump up Lamar’s song — a track that savagely attacked Drake amid an ongoing feud between the two stars.
“UMG did not rely on chance, or even ordinary business practices,” attorneys for Drake’s company write. “It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”
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Drake’s attorneys accuse UMG of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal “RICO” statute often used in criminal cases against organized crime. They also allege deceptive business practices and false advertising under New York state law.
The court filings are a remarkable twist in the high-profile beef between the two stars, which saw Drake and Kendrick exchange stinging diss tracks over a period of months earlier this year. That such a dispute would spill into business litigation seemed almost unthinkable in the world of hip-hop.
It also represents a stunning rift between Drake and UMG, where the star has spent his entire career, first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, and then signing directly to Republic.
Lamar, meanwhile, has also spent his entire career associated with UMG, first through the TDE imprint, which was distributed by Interscope, and more recently through his own company pgLang, which he licenses through Interscope.
In technical terms, Monday’s filing is not yet a full lawsuit, but a so-called “pre-action” petition — a procedure under New York law that aims to secure information before filing a lawsuit. Spotify declined to comment. UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.
This is a developing story, and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Nearly five years after the major labels won a $1 billion music piracy verdict against Cox Communications, the U.S. Supreme Court is signaling that it might jump into the long-running copyright case.
In an order issued Monday (Nov. 25), the justices asked the Justice Department to weigh in on whether the high court should tackle the huge penalty, which Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Warner Music Group (WMG) won back in 2019 over allegations of widespread piracy by Cox’s users.
After an appeals court ordered the award recalculated earlier this year, both sides have asked the Supreme Court to take the case. The labels want the justices to reinstate the original verdict; Cox wants the high court to overturn it entirely.
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Such petitions are always a long shot, as the Supreme Court takes less than 2% of the more than 7,000 cases it receives each year. But Monday’s order — a “call for the view of the Solicitor General,” or CVSG, in SCOTUS parlance — is a relatively rare step that indicates that the justices think the issues in the case might be significant enough for the court to tackle.
UMG, SME and WMG all sued Cox in 2018, seeking to hold the internet giant itself liable for alleged wrongdoing committed by its users. The labels said Cox had ignored hundreds of thousands of infringement notices and had never permanently terminated a single subscriber accused of stealing music.
ISPs like Cox are often shielded from lawsuits over illegal downloading by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. But a judge ruled that Cox had forfeited that protection by failing to terminate people who were repeatedly accused of violating copyright law. Stripped of that immunity, jurors held Cox liable in December 2019 for the infringement of 10,017 separate songs and awarded the labels more than $99,000 for each song, adding up to $1 billion.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court overturned that award, ruling that aspects of the verdict weren’t supported by the law. But the appeals court also upheld other parts, and Cox is still facing the potential of a very large penalty when damages are recalculated.
In taking the case to the Supreme Court, Cox has urged the justices to undo the entire verdict. The company has issued dire warnings, arguing that the “draconian” approach applied in the case “threatens mass disruption” by potentially forcing ISPs to terminate internet service to thousands of Americans.
“The stakes are immense,” Cox’s attorneys wrote. “This court should grant certiorari to prevent these cases from creating confusion, disruption, and chaos on the internet. Innovation, privacy, and competition depend on it.”
Firing back, the labels have called those arguments “disingenuous” and instead urged the court to take up their own separate petition seeking to reinstate the entire verdict.
“This court should take Cox’s concerns about terminating internet access with a healthy serving of salt,” attorneys for UMG, SME and WMG wrote. “During the time period at issue here, Cox terminated over 600,000 subscribers for not paying their bills. When Cox’s money is on the line, Cox clearly has no problem ‘irreparably cutting’ its customers ‘off from society.’”
Universal Music Group (UMG) is firing back at a lawsuit from Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst claiming the label owes the band more than $200 million, calling the allegations “fiction” and demanding they be thrown out of court.
The blockbuster lawsuit, filed last month in Los Angeles federal court, claimed that Durst had “not seen a dime in royalties” over the decades — and that hundreds of other artists may have been treated similarly under “systemic” and “fraudulent” policies.
But in UMG’s first response on Friday, attorneys for the label said the lawsuit must be dismissed immediately because it is “based on a fallacy.”
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“Plaintiffs’ entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is a fiction,” writes Rollin A. Ransom, an attorney with the law firm Sidley Austin who represents UMG in the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs’ complaint fails as a matter of law and should be dismissed with prejudice.”
The key problem with Durst’s claims? According to UMG’s attorneys, it’s that documents included in his own lawsuit “eviscerate” his allegations. They specifically cite emails in which a UMG exec appears to have reached out to get royalties flowing, but was rebuffed by the band’s own business manager.
“Over a year before plaintiffs’ ‘discovery’ of allegedly ‘concealed’ royalties, UMG affirmatively and unilaterally reached out to Limp Bizkit’s representative so that it could begin making royalty payments to the band, and was instead informed by him that all members of Limp Bizkit but one (including plaintiff Durst) had assigned their royalty shares to others, and were therefore not entitled to any royalty payments from UMG,” the company wrote in Friday’s filing.
Durst’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday. They will have a chance to file a formal response in court opposing UMG’s motion to end the case.
Durst and Limp Bizkit sued UMG in October, claiming the band had “never received any royalties from UMG,” despite its huge success over the years: “The band had still not been paid a single cent by UMG in any royalties until taking action.”
That claim was something of a stunner. How had one of the biggest bands of its era, which sold millions of records during the music industry’s MTV-fueled, turn-of-the-century glory days, still never have been paid any royalties nearly three decades later?
According to Durst, the answer was an “appalling and unsettling” scheme to conceal royalties from artists and “keep those profits for itself.” He claimed the company essentially kept Limp Bizkit in the red with shady bookkeeping, allowing it to falsely claim the band remained unrecouped — meaning its royalties still had not surpassed the amount the group had been paid in upfront advances.
But in Friday’s response, UMG said such claims of “concealment” were undercut by those emails. UMG says the message show a senior royalties director reaching out on his own initiative to Paul Ta, the band’s business manager, to “start making royalty payments,” but being rebuffed.
“Mr. Ta rejected that proposition, responding that all the Limp Bizkit members but one (including Plaintiff Durst) ‘have … sold/assigned their share [of the royalties] to various companies,’ such that no royalty payments were owing to any of those individuals (including Plaintiff Durst),” UMG wrote in Friday’s motion.
UMG says Ta later emailed back that his statements had been incorrect, at which point the label paid out roughly $3.4 million to the band and its companies – a fact that contradicts the lawsuit’s claims of “never received any royalties.”
“Plaintiffs concede thereafter receiving millions of dollars in payments from UMG,” the label wrote Friday. “Plaintiffs nevertheless brought this suit alleging breach of contract and fraud on their ‘suspicion’ that they are owed more royalties, and seeking rescission of the parties’ agreements.”
Three of Nelly’s former St. Lunatics bandmates have now formally dropped out of a lawsuit seeking royalties from the rapper’s breakout album Country Grammar – two months after they said they hadn’t wanted to sue him in the first place.
The lawsuit, which claims the Lunatics contributed to the album but that Nelly cut them out of the credits, was first filed in September by Ali (Ali Jones), Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan) and City Spud (Lavell Webb). But Lee, Kyjuan and Spud quickly rebelled — saying they never consented to the lawsuit and demanded that they be removed from the case immediately.
In an updated version filed Friday, the lawyers behind the lawsuit finally did so – meaning the case is now a dispute between Ali and Nelly alone. In a statement to Billboard, Ali’s attorney who filed the case, Precious Felder Gates, said her client would “continue to pursue the unpaid royalties he is entitled to.”
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“Our client, Mr. Jones, is deeply committed to protecting his creative contributions and ensuring rightful compensation for his work,” Felder Gates said. “While others may have chosen to withdraw, his dedication to his artistic legacy and his rights as a creator remains unwavering.”
A group of high school friends from St. Louis, the St. Lunatics rose to prominence in the late 1990s with “Gimme What U Got”, and their debut album Free City — released a year after Country Grammar — was a hit of its own, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
In their Sept. 18 complaint, the bandmates claimed that Nelly had repeatedly “manipulated” them into falsely thinking they’d be paid for their work on the 2000 album, which spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200. But they said he never made good on the promises.
“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
But in early October, Lee, Kyjuan and Spud joined Nelly on stage for his performance at the American Music Awards – a seemingly strange move for jilted bandmates engaged in active litigation. Days later, it made more sense: They never wanted to sue Nelly.
As Billboard reported at the time, a lawyer representing the trio had privately sent a letter just a week after the case was filed, warning the attorneys behind the case that Lee, Kyjuan and Spud had “informed me that they did not authorize you to include them as plaintiffs.”
“They are hereby demanding you remove their names forthwith,” N. Scott Rosenblum wrote in the Sept. 24 letter, which was obtained by Billboard. “Failure to do so will cause them to explore any and all legal remedies available to them.”
In Friday’s updated lawsuit, the attorneys for Ali did just that, removing Lee, Kyjuan and Spud from the list of plaintiffs. But they also included new substantive allegations as part of their amended complaint.
In one major change, they added HarbourView Equity Partners to the list of defendants, citing Nelly’s $50 million catalog sale to the company last summer. Calling it a “substantial transaction,” Ali’s attorneys suggested that the big deal helped spark the lawsuit.
“At this juncture, it became apparent that, notwithstanding defendant Haynes’ repeated assurances … defendant would not fulfill his longstanding promises to compensate plaintiff,” Ali’s attorneys wrote.
A representative for HarbourView did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
SiriusXM violated federal consumer protection law by making it too difficult for listeners to cancel their subscriptions, a New York judge says.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed last year by Attorney General Letitia James, who accused the satellite radio company of subjecting cancelling subscribers to a “burdensome endurance contest” that required phone conversations with a live agent and extended time spent on hold.
In a decision issued Thursday, Jude Lyle Frank said that SiriusXM’s policies didn’t rise to the level of fraud or deception, but had still violated the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act – a federal law requiring such services to provide a “simple” cancellation process.
In doing so, the judge ruled that SiriusXM had made it far harder to cancel a subscription than it was to sign up for one in the first place. He cited “inevitable wait times” before customers speak to agents who SiriusXM had instructed to “think of every ‘no’ simply as a request for more information.”
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“Respondents allow for a customer to sign up to a subscription without interacting with a live agent but require that a customer do just that in order to cancel,” the judge wrote. “The policies may not rise to the level of fraud … but they do fail the simple mechanism requirement of ROSCA.”
Though the court sided with New York on that question, he also dismissed four of the lawsuit’s five counts, including the attorney general’s allegations that SiriusXM’s practices violated New York state laws barring fraudulent conduct or deceptive practices.
Judge Frank said the company had “taken repeated steps” to prevent its cancellation process from crossing the line from “aggravating” into outright fraud. He cited other training materials in which the company told agents to be “fast, friendly, and efficient” and that “it’s ok to let a customer leave.”
“That Sirius, when contacted by customers requesting a cancellation, then engages in a conversation that offers some customers a different or better deal on their subscription before proceeding to cancellation is not deceptive or misleading,” the judge wrote. “It may be frustrating, but it is not deceptive.”
In a statement to Billboard on Friday, SiriusXM stressed those aspects of the decision, saying the court had “dismissed almost all of the charges” and found the company’s process to be “neither misleading nor deceptive.”
“While the court found some technical violations of a federal statute, it did not find that SiriusXM ever deceived anyone or committed any fraud,” the company wrote. “SiriusXM intends to appeal the court’s ruling as to those technical violations.”
In her own statement, the attorney general said the ruling would force to Sirius to “change its cancellation procedures in New York” and ensure the company’s customers are “no longer required to speak or chat with a live agent in order to cancel.”
“No one should have to endure a lengthy and frustrating process to cancel a subscription, and any company that forces customers to jump through unnecessary hoops to end their subscriptions is breaking the law,” James said. “My office sued SiriusXM to protect consumers, and as a result of our actions, they will have to simplify their cancellation process to stop taking advantage of New Yorkers.”
Thursday’s written decision says New York is entitled to an injunction against SiriusXM forcing the company to alter its practices to adhere to the federal statute. He also ordered an “an assessment of damages against respondent Sirius XM,” but did not say how large of a monetary penalty it might be.