Legal
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Spotify is facing a class action lawsuit over its recent decision to kill its short-lived “Car Thing” device, filed by angry consumers who say the streaming company’s move left them “with nothing more than a paperweight that cost between $50 and $100.”
The case came just days after Spotify announced that the Car Thing – a device launched in 2021 for playing music in a car but discontinued just a year later – would be rendered fully non-usable in December. Spotify has offered no refunds or trade-in options.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, attorneys for the jilted customers accused Spotify violating state and federal laws by essentially of duping their clients into buying a “useless product.”
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“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 reads.
The lawsuit was filed by three Car Thing buyers — Hamza Mazumder, Anthony Bracarello and Luke Martin – but aims to represent thousands of other consumers who experienced “the forced obsolescence of their purchase.”
Spotify announced the 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 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.”
Last week, Spotify alerted users last week that it would stop supporting the devices. Then this week, the company confirmed that the move, set to take effect Dec. 9, would render the devices fully inoperable. The company told users it was “not offering any trade-in options” and urged them to consider “safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.”
“The goal of our Car Thing exploration in the U.S. was to learn more about how people listen in the car,” Spotify said in a statement. “In July 2022, we announced we’d stop further production and now it’s time to say goodbye to the devices entirely. Users will have until December 9, 2024 until all Car Thing devices will be deactivated.”
In the new lawsuit, Spotify’s customers say they couldn’t have expected that the company would shut down the devices just a few years after they were purchased. The decision to do so “unilaterally and without recourse” has left buyers nothing more than a paperweight that cost between $50 and $100.”
“Plaintiffs and class members would not have purchased a Car Thing if they knew that Spotify would stop supporting the product within just a few months or years of purchase,” attorneys for the users write.
In technical terms, the lawsuit includes allegations that Spotify violated state consumer protection and false advertising laws in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania, as well as the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and various other forms of civil wrongdoing.
A spokeswoman for Spotify did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations.
Read the entire complaint here:
A federal judge ruled Wednesday (May 29) that a sprawling copyright lawsuit can move forward with accusations that nearly 2,000 reggaeton songs — including hits by Bad Bunny, Karol G and dozens of others — all infringed a single 1989 song that allegedly spawned the so-called “dem bow” rhythm.
The huge infringement case, filed by Cleveland “Clevie” Browne and the heirs of Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson, claims that their 1989 song, “Fish Market,” was the source of dem bow — the boom-ch-boom-chick, boom-ch-boom-chick percussion featured in nearly every reggaeton song.
Demanding that the case be dismissed, Bad Bunny’s lawyers argued last year that Steely & Clevie’s massive case “seeks to monopolize practically the entire reggaetón musical genre for themselves” by claiming copyright control over “unprotectable” musical elements.
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But in the lawsuit’s first key decision, Judge André Birotte Jr. denied that motion on Wednesday, ruling that it was too early in the case to make those kinds of complex rulings and that Steely & Clevie had made a strong enough argument to move forward: “It is premature at this stage to find that the musical elements alleged are insufficiently original or indeed unprotectable.”
Notably, the judge also hinted that he might not be particularly receptive to such arguments when it’s time to rule on them. At one point, he warned that he “rejects” the idea that the massive success of a particular song could be used as a “double-edged sword” that would also void its copyrights.
“The court recognizes the practice of musical borrowing, and in doing so, cannot merely conclude that because the reggaeton genre (or artists) have purportedly borrowed significantly from attributes of plaintiffs’ work that those attributes are now in effect commonplace elements,” Judge Birotte wrote.
First filed in 2021 against just a handful of defendants, Steely & Clevie’s lawsuit has steadily grown to cover more and more artists and songs. In the latest iteration, the duo’s lawyers name more than 150 artists, also including Pitbull, Drake, Daddy Yankee, Luis Fonsi and Justin Bieber, plus units of all three major music companies.
Steely & Clevie’s lawyers claim that over 1,800 reggaetón songs featuring iterations of the dem bow rhythm were, at root, illegally copied from “Fish Market” — and that their clients deserve monetary compensation for them. Potentially damages are difficult to calculate, but could easily reach into the billions if the case is successful.
In Wednesday’s decision, Judge Birotte also rejected other arguments from the defendants beyond the core question of whether dem bow could be protected by copyright law.
For instance, in a June filing, attorneys for Daddy Yankee and the major labels argued that the case was so massive that it had become procedurally unfair. They called it a “shotgun pleading,” filled with so many vague accusations that it was “impossible for defendants to determine what each is alleged to have done.”
But in Wednesday’s decision, Judge Birotte said he was “unconvinced” by that argument — and that Steely & Clevie’s 228-page complaint had sufficiently laid out the case to satisfy procedural requirements.
Following Wednesday’s ruling, the case will proceed toward discovery, where both sides will exchange evidence, take depositions and seek expert testimony on complex questions relating to musicology. If the judge does not decide the case after discovery, the two sides will head to trial.
Neither side in the case immediately returned requests for comment.
Several of the people who have accused disgraced former music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual abuse have spoken out for the first time in a new Rolling Stone story in which they detail the alleged actions of the Bad Boy Records boss.
One of the women suing Combs for sexual assault, Joi Dickerson-Neal, told the magazine that she didn’t come forward for a payday, but rather to make sure “the world sees that this man who rose to the level of an ‘icon’ is actually sick and has left so many victims in [the wake of his] unpunished disgusting behavior for years.”
“One date with Sean Combs led to the trauma and pain of sexual assault and an ocean’s depth of shame,” she alleged to the publication, as well as “debilitating self-doubt and a lifetime of inner turmoil” after learning that Combs allegedly distributed an explicit video of her, as outlined in her lawsuit.
Combs is currently facing lawsuits from multiple people, all of whom accuse the disgraced music mogul of sexual abuse, with five of the women accusing Combs or rape or violent sexual assault in incidents that date back to 1990. After CNN recently obtained and surfaced a 2016 video of Combs assaulting then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura — who sued him for rape and assault in November, and settled soon after — the musician apologized and took responsibility for his actions in the video, but he has otherwise strongly denied all the other allegations.
Combs’ attorney told the magazine that he cannot comment on settled litigation and will not comment on pending legal action. Billboard has also reached out to his PR and legal teams for comment on the allegations in the Rolling Stone story.
Dickerson-Neal, who appeared opposite Combs in a 1990 music video, filed a sexual assault suit against Diddy in November. She told the magazine that she “reluctantly” agreed to a dinner date with Combs in January 1991 while attending college and working at a restaurant to pay her bills. After allegedly being warned to stay away from Combs because of his “infamous reputation,” Dickerson-Neal said she asked that they dine at the restaurant where she worked because she was afraid to be alone with him.
She alleges in her lawsuit that Combs “intentionally drugged” her, then allegedly sexually assaulted her. Dickerson-Neal also claims Diddy filmed the alleged attack and showed the video to others “like a trophy.” Combs’ lawyers deny the allegations and have moved to dismiss her lawsuit.
Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a music producer who has also sued Combs, accusing him of “groping and touching” his anus and repeatedly forcing Jones to “solicit sex workers and perform sex acts to the pleasure of Mr. Combs,” also spoke to RS. Jones told the publication, “He is a monster, nothing has changed … this guy got no soul. He has no duty to anyone, not even his kids.”
Model Crystal McKinney described taking part in a fashion show for Diddy’s Sean John clothing brand in February 2003, and in her lawsuit, claims that Combs pressured her to take a hit from a “laced” joint after saying she was acting “too uptight.” The suit claims Combs allegedly forced her to perform oral sex on him, an incident that she said sent her into a “tailspin of anxiety and depression” that resulted in a suicide attempt.
“I had a whole future [in modeling] mapped out that was stolen from me. Being sexually assaulted and having no recourse is so painful,” McKinney told RS. “I felt like I was dying every day because I did not yet have the strength to come forward. … I hope that by speaking out, I can help other survivors come forward and seek justice.”
A woman who filed a Jane Doe lawsuit against Diddy in December over claims that he and two other men drugged and raped her in 2003 when she was 17 years old — a suit Combs’ lawyer filed to dismiss, calling it a “decades-old tale” aimed at extracting “an undeserved financial recovery” — also spoke out. She told RS that she hopes her legal action will hold “not just Combs, but also all of those who acted with him, stood silent, and actively covered up his behavior” to account.
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
StubHub must pay more than $16 million in legal damages after a jury decided that the ticketing giant intentionally torpedoed a smaller company’s lucrative concierge partnership with American Express.
Following a month-long trial, a Los Angeles jury on Friday (May 24) sided with Spotlight Ticket Management — a tech startup that had sued over allegations that StubHub failed to pay Spotlight millions in commissions and then used false statements to “poison” the company’s relationship with Amex.
Leading up to the trial, StubHub had argued it paid Spotlight everything that was owed and that the smaller firm had killed its Amex deal itself by being an “unreasonable partner” to the financial giant: “The true cause of Spotlight’s demise was Spotlight itself.”
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But in Friday’s verdict, the jurors found for Spotlight on both issues. They ordered StubHub to pay $3 million over the commissions; $5.3 million over money lost from the terminated Amex partnership; and another $8.1 million that they said Spotlight would have earned from Amex in the future.
StubHub did not immediately return a request for comment. Amex was not named as a defendant in the case or accused of any wrongdoing. In a statement, Spotlight called the verdict “a victory for Spotlight, for affiliate partners more broadly, and for ticket purchasers across the country.”
Launched in 2007, Spotlight offers ticketing management software to help companies provide event access to their employees or customers. One of its major clients was Amex, which used Spotlight as part of its concierge system to buy concert and sports tickets for premium cardholders.
In its lawsuit, Spotlight claimed that it had successfully partnered with StubHub for years, sending as much as $85 million in ticket sales to the company’s platform and receiving a 7% commission on those sales.
But starting in 2016, Spotlight claimed that StubHub began underpaying those commissions. And when the smaller company raised the dispute, it claimed that StubHub retaliated by tanking its relationship with Amex with false and disparaging claims.
“StubHub gave Amex an ‘ultimatum’ that it could not work with Spotlight for these reasons and Amex would lose access to StubHub’s entire ticket inventory, crushing the availability of secondary market tickets to the Amex Concierge program overnight, unless Amex got rid of Spotlight,” the company’s attorneys wrote in a pre-trial briefing.
StubHub sharply disagreed. In its own filings, the company argued that it had paid Spotlight all the commissions that it was actually owed under its affiliate program. And it said that the smaller company had “destroyed its own relationship with Amex” through “erratic behavior.”
“Spotlight has taken a modest dispute about payment of affiliate commissions and morphed it into a conspiratorial web to support its claim for hundreds of millions of dollars,” StubHub’s attorneys wrote. “Amex witnesses have testified that they decided not to renew based on Spotlight’s unreasonable demands and that StubHub had nothing to do with Amex’s decision.”
But following a three-week trial, jurors believed Spotlight’s version of events, finding StubHub liable for breach of contract over the unpaid commissions as well as intentional interference with contract and intentional interference with prospective economic relations over the Amex partnership.
StubHub can appeal the verdict, first by asking the judge to order a new trial and then by taking the case to a California appeals court.
Cher has won her lawsuit against Sonny Bono’s widow over royalties to “I Got You Babe” and other hits after a federal judge ruled that Mary Bono must continue paying the superstar her cut under the couple’s decades-old divorce settlement.
More than 20 years after Sonny’s death, Mary argued that she no longer needed to pay royalties to Cher thanks to copyright law’s so-called termination right — a provision of federal law that allows songwriters and their heirs to win back control of their intellectual property rights decades after they gave them away.
But in a decision issued Wednesday (May 29), Judge John A. Kronstadt ruled that the federal termination rules do not trump Sonny and Cher’s 1978 divorce settlement, which gave the singer a permanent 50% cut of the publishing revenue from songs written before the couple split up.
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The ruling means that Cher will continue to receive publishing royalties for her catalog of songs created with Sonny, including “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” According to Wednesday’s ruling, more than $400,000 in royalties owed to Cher have piled up since the dispute began.
Neither side’s attorneys immediately returned requests for comment.
Sonny and Cher started performing together in 1964 and married in 1967, rising to fame with major hits like “I Got You Babe,” “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” But the pair split up in 1974, finalizing their divorce with a settlement in 1978. Under that deal, Sonny retained ownership of their music rights, but Cher was granted a half-share of all publishing royalties in perpetuity.
That agreement stayed in effect for years, including after Bono died in a 1998 skiing accident. But in 2016, Mary and other heirs invoked the termination right, seeking to take back control of Sonny’s copyrights from his publishers. And in 2021, they informed Cher that they would soon stop paying royalties under the earlier agreement.
Cher quickly sued, seeking a ruling that she was still owed her 50% cut regardless of who owns the copyrights since a federal copyright provision had no bearing on a state-law asset settlement. Mary fired back a few months later, claiming that termination rights could not be waived by contract and that Cher’s arguments would “subvert” the purpose of the law.
In Wednesday’s ruling, Judge Kronstadt sided with Cher’s arguments. He ruled that the divorce settlement with Sonny gave Cher a “contractual right to receive financial compensation,” rather than the kind of control over his copyrights that could be voided using the termination right: “A right to receive royalties is distinct from a grant of copyright,” the judge wrote.
Ryan Castro won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in an arbitration process against King Records, owned by fellow Colombian artist Kevin Roldán, for breach of contract. According to a resolution by a Colombian judge, the arbitration tribunal ruled that King Records must pay Castro an amount exceeding $2 million. In addition to this, the ruling grants the […]
Sean Kingston signed papers in California on Tuesday (May 28) waiving his right to fight extradition to Florida, where he and his mother are charged with committing more than $1 million worth of fraud. According to the Associated Press, the “Beautiful Girls” singer/rapper, 34, did not make a public court appearance, but representatives from the San Bernardino courts and sheriff’s office confirmed to AP that Kingston signed papers in which he agreed to skip extradition.
In singing the papers, Kingston agreed to be turned over to authorities in Florida, though as of Tuesday afternoon he reportedly remained in a Southern California jail while sheriff’s officials coordinate his transfer to Florida. Kingston was arrested last Thursday on the Army training base in Fort Irwin, Calif. in the Mojave Desert, where he was booked to perform. His mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, was also arrested on Thursday during a SWAT raid at Kingston’s rented mansion in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
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According to warrants from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, both son (born Kisean Paul Anderson) and mother have been charged with 10 counts, including conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, identity theft, issuing faulty checks, probation violation and related crimes alleging that the pair stole money, jewelry, a Cadillac Escalade and furniture; Kingston was already on two years’ probation for trafficking stolen property.
On Tuesday, Kingston’s attorney, Robert Rosenblatt, told NBC News that the singer was in the process of returning to Florida after his gig on the base. “We want him back asap so we can show this is merely a civil case and not criminal. We look forward to challenging this case in court,” said Rosenblatt.
The charges and arrests stem from a lawsuit reportedly filed by attorney Dennis Card, whose suit alleges that Kingston has allegedly displayed a pattern of not paying for items. “My client has a $150,000 television sound system that’s in there, there’s also about $1 million worth of watches that are in there, there’s a $80,000 custom bed that was ordered. This is an organized systematic fraud,” Card told NBC Miami. He added, that Kingston has “basically a script. He says that he works with Justin Bieber, and that he obviously puts on a big show here, this is a rental house, he doesn’t own it, and he lures people using his celebrity into having them release things without him paying for it and then he simply never pays.”
According to the AP, warrants in the case say that from October to March, Kingston and his mother allegedly stole nearly $500,000 in jewelry, more than $200,00 from Bank of America, $160,000 from an Escalade dealer, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank and $86,000 from the maker of customized beds.
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: The federal government files an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster aimed at breaking up the concert giant; Beyoncé faces a copyright lawsuit over a sample featured in “Break My Soul”; Elvis Presley’s heirs win a bizarre battle over Graceland; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: “It Is Time To Break It Up”
Fourteen years after federal regulators allowed Live Nation and Ticketmaster to merge into a concert behemoth, the U.S. Department of Justice and dozens of states filed a long-awaited antitrust lawsuit last week that aims to effectively reverse that decision.“Live Nation has illegally monopolized markets across the live concert industry in the United States for far too long,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference announcing the case. “It is time to break it up.”Ever since the merger was approved in 2010, Live Nation has faced criticism over its huge market share. But scrutiny increased dramatically following the disastrous 2022 rollout of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes. While the DOJ had already launched its probe prior to the Swift incident, the debacle sparked widespread public anger that led to Congressional hearings, private antitrust lawsuits, and repeated calls to break up the company.In a lawsuit aimed at doing just that, the DOJ focused on what it called Live Nation’s “flywheel model” — an alleged cycle of reaping revenue from ticketbuyers, using it to sign artists into promotion deals, and then leveraging that repertoire to lock venues into exclusive ticketing contracts. To bolster that model, the feds say Live Nation engaged in a wide range of anticompetitive conduct, including acquiring rivals and retaliating against venues that didn’t use Ticketmaster. In particular, the DOJ focused on emails between Live Nation chief executive Michael Rapino and venue management firm Oak View Group, a “potential competitor-turned-partner” that allegedly helped Live Nation stifle competition.For all the details, go read our full coverage on the Live Nation lawsuit — including our news story on the filing of the case (featuring the actual complaint filed by the DOJ) as well as a deep dive from Dave Brooks into those emails from Rapino. And stay tuned for more coverage from Billboard as the big case moves forward…
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Other top stories this week…
BEYONCÉ COPYRIGHT CASE – The superstar was hit with an infringement lawsuit over her chart-topping 2024 hit “Break My Soul,” filed by a little-known group that claims one of the song’s prominent samples — a clip taken from the New Orleans rapper Big Freedia — had itself illegally lifted lyrics from their earlier song.GRACELAND SNAFU ENDS – A bizarre legal battle over “fraudulent” efforts to sell Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion came to close after a Tennessee judge granted his granddaughter Riley Keough a court order blocking the looming foreclosure before the mysterious loan company that orchestrated the event reportedly withdrew its filings. But the story isn’t over, as Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti launched an investigation into potential “misconduct” by the shadowy creditors behind the incident: “My office has fought fraud against homeowners for decades and there is no home in Tennessee more beloved than Graceland.”DIDDY SUED FACES 7TH ACCUSER – Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing yet another sexual abuse lawsuit, this time filed by a woman named April Lampros who claims that he drugged and sexually assaulted her 30 years ago while she was a college student in New York City. Lampros is the seventh alleged victim to file a lawsuit accusing Combs of sexual abuse over the past six months, including one filed just days prior. He’s also facing an apparent federal criminal investigation.EARTH, WIND & DAMAGES – A tribute act that called itself “Earth, Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion” will pay the legendary R&B group $750,000 in damages for using its trademarked name in ways that a federal judge called “deceptive and misleading,” according to court documents filed last week. ASTROWORLD LITIGATION UPDATE – Attorneys for Travis Scott, Live Nation and others reached a settlement to resolve the last remaining wrongful death lawsuit stemming from the deadly crowd crush at the 2021 Astroworld music festival, which left 10 fans dead. But thousands of claims from injured fans remain pending, with a potential first trial set for October.APPLE APPEALS HUGE EU FINE – Apple launched a legal challenge in European Union court against the 1.8 billion euro ($1.95 billion) fine assessed by the European Commission earlier this year over allegations that the tech giant broke competition laws by unfairly favoring its own music streaming service over rivals like Spotify.KELLY CLARKSON SETTLES WITH EX – The singer reached a settlement to end her sprawling legal battle with ex-husband Brandon Blackstock over management commissions. The divorce itself was finalized in 2022, but the pair had continued to battle in court over tricky business entanglements with Blackstock’s father’s firm Starstruck Entertainment, which managed her career for years.
Darius Rucker is speaking out about his February arrest, which found the country star facing two misdemeanor charges related to an instance of alleged drug possession more than a year ago. While promoting his new memoir Life’s Too Short on TODAY Tuesday (May 28), Rucker recounted how he was initially pulled over in Tennessee in […]
Nicki Minaj was seemingly arrested in Amsterdam on Saturday (May 25) while on her way to perform a concert in the United Kingdom.
The “Super Bass” rapper captured the incident in an Instagram Live video that was later reposted by her fans on social media. In the clip, an Amsterdam official is heard saying he wants to take Minaj into custody for “carrying drugs,” despite her claim that she was not holding any contraband.
“I’m not going in there. I need a lawyer present,” Minaj, 41, replies to the authorities, who repeatedly ask her to step into a vehicle and stop recording.
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Minaj was scheduled to perform at Manchester’s Co-Op Live on Saturday night as part of her Pink Friday 2 Tour. Another officer in the video is heard referencing the concert, saying officials would “try to get [her] there” as soon as possible.
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“Oh, so I’m under arrest?” she asks as the officials, who responds with, “Yes.” He didn’t offer any further explanation.
The clip ends with Minaj voluntarily getting into the police van.
It was not clear at press time if Minaj had been booked at a police station. A spokesperson for Royal Netherlands Marechaussee military police told TMZ that an American woman had been arrested for possessing “soft drugs,” but declined to identify the individual by name or the specific type of alleged drugs.
Billboard has reached out to Minaj’s representatives for comment.
The “Super Freaky Girl” rapper shared another video on Saturday that appears to be an airport official telling her that authorities need to search her bags.
“Now they said they found weed & that another group of ppl have to come here to weigh the pre-rolls,” Minaj wrote on X (formerly Twitter), later noting that her plane was being delayed a couple hours.
“Keep in mind they took my bags without consent,” she added, pointing out that marijuana is legal in Amsterdam. “My security has already advised them those pre-rolls belong to him. Oh yea & the pilot wants me to take my ig post down.”
On Instagram, the rapper suggested that her Pink Friday 2 tour was being “sabotaged.” “They’ve been trying to stop me from coming to every show,” she wrote. “They took my bags before I could see them. Put it on the plane. Now saying they’re waiting on customs. This is what it looks like when ppl are paid big money to try to sabotage a tour after all else failed. Everything they’ve done is illegal.”
The incident prompted the Barbz to share their displeasure on social media, resulting in the hashtag “#FREENICKI” trending on X.
See Minaj’s post on Instagram below.