Legal
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UPDATE (Aug. 26): Shaboozey’s ex-record label sued him back after the singer filed his own lawsuit against the company, accusing him of “fraud” to avoid fulfilling his contractual obligations. You can read more here.
PREVIOUSLY (Aug. 23): Amid the chart-topping success of “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Shaboozey is now suing music publisher Warner Chappell — claiming the company is stonewalling his efforts to exercise a contractual provision that would give him an early exit from his deal.
In a case filed Wednesday (Aug. 21) in Los Angeles, the country star (born Collins Obinna Chibueze) claims his publishing administration deal with Warner-Tamerlane (a unit of Warner Chappell) contained an acceleration clause — meaning he could repay 110% of advances to speed up the expiration of the deal.
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Shaboozey’s lawyers say he invoked that clause last month — perhaps unsurprisingly, given the massive success of “Bar Song.” But they claim Warner has, thus far, declined to even tell him how much is owed.
“To date, Warner has refused to disclose to plaintiff the total amount of the unrecouped balance of prior advances it made,” writes Todd Bonder, the star’s attorney. “Warner’s conduct violates the administration agreement signed between the parties.”
The lawsuit comes amid a breakout year for Shaboozey. “A Bar Song,” a genre-blending hit that interpolates J-KWON‘s 2004 rap hit “Tipsy” into a bouncy pop country track, has spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, tying the longest chart-topping stint for a song in 2024.
In his complaint, Shaboozey also names his former record label, Kreshendo Entertainment, as a defendant. He claims the company — which he left in 2019 before signing a new record deal with Empire — is the reason Warner is refusing to turn over the crucial information.
“Kreshendo and [others] have instructed Warner not to provide plaintiff the total unrecouped balance related to advances made with respect to the compositions or has refused to authorize Warner to provide such information,” his lawyers write.
The dispute appears to turn on Shaboozey’s argument that he personally took over Kreshendo’s role in the contract with Warner after he terminated his label. In his legal filings, he says that Warner “has not agreed” with such an interpretation.
The lawsuit also claims that Kreshendo released three separate Shaboozey songs in 2019 after he had already terminated the deal — “More,” “Joan Jett” and “Prosperity” — without his permission.
A spokesman for Warner Music Group did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesperson for Kreshendo could not immediately be located for comment. A publicist for Shaboozey did not return a request for comment.
Days after Shaboozey sued both Warner Chappell and his former record label, the label sued him right back — accusing the breakout country star of using “fraud” and “bad faith” to avoid his existing contractual obligations in the wake of the massive success of “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
In a complaint filed Friday (Aug. 23) in Los Angeles court, Kreshendo Entertainment claims that after it released Shaboozey (Collins Obinna Chibueze) from his record deal in 2019, the company retained key rights to his music. Rather than stick to those requirements, Kreshendo claims the star has instead “elected a strategy of fraud and misrepresentation to deprive plaintiffs of their contractual rights.”
“Notably, Shaboozey had no issue with any of these terms for years,” write the company’s attorneys, from the law firm Reed Smith. “It was only after he recently released the ‘Bar Song,’ which has become a huge hit, that he has taken sudden issue with the terms he expressly agreed to.”
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The new case was filed just two days after Shaboozey filed his own case on Wednesday (Aug. 21) against Kreshendo and Warner Chappell. In that lawsuit, Shaboozey claimed that Warner was blocking him from exiting a publishing administration deal and that it was doing so at the behest of Kreshendo even though he had terminated the label years earlier.
But in the new accusations, Kreshendo says it’s Shaboozey who’s in the wrong. The company admitted that it had released Shaboozey from his record deal in 2019 but argued that the move came with important stipulations — namely, that Kreshendo would continue to own a 50% stake in all of the singer’s compositions and retain a right to be paid a percentage of profits from his masters.
Those requirements were put in place, according to Kreshendo, to compensate the company for the support it had provided a then-undiscovered singer.
“Before Shaboozey became the well-known artist he is today, he was an unknown artist that plaintiffs believed in, and they agreed to invest their time and money to help him develop and reach success in the music industry,” the complaint reads.
The lawsuit claims that Shaboozey has repeatedly breached the termination agreement, including through failing to pay the required profits and also through the wrangling with Warner that was detailed in his own lawsuit earlier in the week. Kreshendo says Shaboozey’s statements to Warner, including directing the company to stop paying Kreshendo, have been “false” and “an attempt to circumvent his contractual obligations.”
An attorney for Shaboozey did not immediately return a request for comment from Billboard on Monday (Aug. 26). Warner Chappell, which was named as a defendant in Shaboozey’s case, is not a plaintiff in the newer lawsuit.
The dueling lawsuits come amid a breakout year for Shaboozey. “A Bar Song,” a genre-blending hit that interpolates J-KWON‘s 2004 rap hit “Tipsy” into a bouncy pop country track, has spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking the longest chart-topping stint for a song in 2024.
There’s a new front in the never-ending legal war between Joey Ramone’s brother and Johnny Ramone’s widow over control of the iconic punk band.
In a new lawsuit filed Friday (Aug. 23) in Manhattan federal court, Joey’s brother Mitchel Hyman (better known as Mickey Leigh) accused Johnny’s wife, Linda Cummings-Ramone, of violating federal trademark law by carrying out an “unrelenting quest” to associate herself with the Ramones.
As is typical of the nasty dispute between the two heirs (who each control exactly half of the band’s holding company), the lawsuit pulled no punches — calling Cummings-Ramone a former “groupie” with an “insatiable personal desire to shine a spotlight on herself.”
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“Ms. Cummings-Ramone has made and continues to make blatant attempts to exploit and personally capitalize on and benefit from the name, goodwill and legacy of the Ramones — that is, to try to push the false narrative that she is the heiress to … the Ramones’ legacy,” Leigh’s lawyers write. “She most certainly is not. She is nothing more than a blatant self-promoter and an infringer.”
Joey Ramone (Jeffrey Ross Hyman) and Johnny Ramone (John William Cummings) were not actually brothers, and they had a notoriously chilly relationship during their decades as bandmates. In the years since the two died in the 2000s, that feud has seemingly continued between Leigh and Cummings-Ramone.
As the executors of Joey’s and Johnny’s respective estates, Leigh and Cummings-Ramone each own half of Ramones Productions, the entity that controls the band’s music and other assets. But that partnership has not gone smoothly, featuring multiple lawsuits and arbitrations over the past decade.
The latest scuffle began in January, when Cummings-Ramone sued Leigh in New York state court over allegations that he had “covertly” developed an “unauthorized” biopic (believed to be Netflix’s announced Ramones movie starring Pete Davidson as Joey). In the lawsuit, Cummings-Ramone said that any “authoritative story of the Ramones” would require her sign-off: “To permit defendants alone to tell the authoritative story of the Ramones would be an injustice to the band and its legacy.”
Eight months later, with the earlier case still pending, Leigh is now on offense — claiming that Cummings-Ramone has infringed the band’s trademarks held by Ramones Productions by using them herself. His new case repeatedly takes aim at her use of the name “Linda Ramone” despite the fact that “Ramone” was not the legal surname of her late husband nor any other band member.
“Ramones are unique in many ways. One of which is that they are the only band of stature where all the members were not related but used the same last name as if they were,” Leigh’s lawyers write. “That made it easy for defendant to insert herself into the Ramones legacy as part of the family, the public spokesperson, and to associate her personal brand with Ramones, by using the name ‘Linda Ramone.’ Indeed, ‘Linda Ramone’ never existed while her husband, John Cummings was alive. Defendant increasingly adopted the name ‘Linda Ramone’ after Mr. Cummings died.”
The lawsuit claims that earlier legal proceedings and agreements have sharply restricted how Cummings-Ramone is allowed to use that name, but that she has repeatedly exceeded those limitations in her public persona because she is “unabashedly obsessed with portraying herself as the widow of Johnny Ramone” and as an “integral member” of the band.
“Ms. Cummings-Ramone presents herself to the world as ‘Linda Ramone’ and unilaterally adopts the mantle of designated Ramones spokesperson and ‘keeper of the legacy’,” Leigh’s lawyers write. “She intentionally gives the false impression that she is empowered to take the lead on, or unilaterally pursue, Ramones business.”
A representative for Cummings-Ramone did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday (Aug. 26).
A federal judge has ordered convicted pharma executive Martin Shkreli to hand over his copies of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, rejecting his claims that he had a right to retain duplicates of the one-of-a-kind album even after he forfeited it to federal prosecutors.
Following a hearing Friday in Manhattan federal court, Judge Pamela K. Chen granted a preliminary injunction to PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the album in 2021 after Shkreli was forced to forfeit it as part of his criminal case.
In addition to extending previous restrictions barring him from sharing the album, the judge ruled that Shkreli must hand over “all recordings of the Album’s contents that Defendant possesses or controls” to his own attorneys. He has until Friday to file written confirmation that he’s done so.
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By granting the motion, Judge Chen rejected Shkreli’s arguments about the copies. In court filings last month, his lawyers argued that making private copies had been legal when he owned the rare album — and that he had not been required to turn those copies over to prosecutors when he handed over the famous original CD.
Pleasr sued Shkreli in June over the potential leak of the album, accusing him of violating both their purchase agreement and the federal forfeiture order. They also accused him of violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. Though the group intended the bizarre trappings as a protest against the commodification of music, Shaolin later became the ultimate commodity. In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought it at auction for $2 million.
When it was initially sold, Shaolin came with much-discussed stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103. But Shkreli’s lawyers say the deal granted him the right to “duplicate or replicate the work for private use.”
After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited the album to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. Pleasr then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights to the album for another $750,000.
Pleasr, which has recently been attempting to monetize the album, sued Shkreli on the grounds that had been threatening to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased.
In a statement following Friday’s ruling, Pleasr’s attorney, Steven Cooper of the law firm Reed Smith, called the ruling “an important victory” for his client: “We are pleased that Judge Chen recognized that immediate relief was necessary to thwart the continuing bad acts of Mr. Shrkeli.”
An attorney for Shkreli did not immediately return a request for comment.
Following Friday’s ruling, the injunction against Shkreli will be in place until a final ruling is reached at the end of the case. Barring a settlement, the lawsuit will now proceed to full litigation – including discovery, dueling motions from each side, and an eventual jury trial.
The Isaac Hayes estate is taking Donald Trump to court.
On Friday (Aug. 23), the late soul singer’s son Isaac Hayes III announced on social media that a federal judge had granted his father’s estate an emergency hearing in their lawsuit against the former president, who has been using “Hold On, I’m Coming” without authorization during multiple campaign rallies.
“The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” Hayes III wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Donald Trump, the RNC, Trump, Trump for President Inc. 2024, Turning Point and The NRA are required to appear in court September 3rd, 2024 at the Northern U.S. District Federal Court in Atlanta. See you in court.”
On Aug. 11, lawyers for Isaac Hayes Enterprises filed a notice of copyright infringement and threatened further legal action against the Trump campaign over its use of the Sam & Dave classic at multiple Trump rallies without authorization from 2022-2024.
“Today, on the anniversary of my father Isaac Hayes’ death we have repeatedly asked Donald Trump, the RNC and his representatives not to use ‘Hold on I’m Coming’ written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter during campaign rallies but yet again, in Montana they used it,” Hayes III wrote on X on Aug. 10.
He added the following day, “We demand the cessation of use, removal of all related videos, a public disclaimer, and payment of $3 million in licensing fees by August 16, 2024. Failure to comply will result in further legal action.”
Hayes died Aug. 10, 2008, at the age of 65. He and David Porter wrote “Hold On, I’m Coming,” which was recorded by soul duo Sam & Dave, and issued on the Stax label in 1966, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has had numerous run-ins with other musical acts. Scores of top artists and songwriters have objected to his campaign’s use of their songs at political rallies since he first ran for president in 2015, among them The Rolling Stones, Adele, Rihanna, Sinead O’Connor‘s estate and Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler.
“It is most unfortunate that these artists have publicly posted on their social media and asked Team Trump and other candidates not to use their music — and yet their candidates keep using their music,” James L. Walker Jr., an attorney for Hayes Enterprises, previously stated.
On Friday, Foo Fighters joined the list of artists who are opposed to Trump using their music during his events. The Dave Grohl-fronted group’s 1997 anthem “My Hero” was played while Trump welcomed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the stage Glendale, Ariz., after the independent presidential candidate suspended his campaign and endorsed the Republican nominee.
“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it,” a spokesperson tells Billboard of the unauthorized usage. Furthermore, “appropriate actions are being taken” against the campaign, the spokesperson continues, and any royalties received as a result of this usage will be donated to the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz campaign.
The move marked the second time in the week — and third time in August — Trump’s campaign had run afoul of a superstar for using music without permission. On Tuesday (Aug. 22), Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung posted a 13-second video on his X account of footage of Trump stepping off a plane as Beyoncé’s “Freedom” played. The video arrived long after his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Harris, had been using the song (with permission) for weeks.
Beyoncé’s record label and music publisher sent a cease-and-desist notice on Wednesday (Aug. 21) to Trump’s campaign over its use of “Freedom.” Later that evening, the video was deleted from Cheung’s X account.
See Isaac Hayes III’s posts on X below.
🚨Breaking 🚨The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief.Donald Trump, @realdonaldtrump, the RNC, Trump, Trump for President Inc. 2024, Turning Point and The NRA are required to appear in court September 3rd, 2024 at the…— Isaac Hayes III (@IsaacHayes3) August 23, 2024
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.