Legal
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Kelsea Ballerini has reached a settlement to end her lawsuit against a superfan she had accused of leaking her unreleased album, agreeing to drop the case after the alleged hacker promised to never again share the materials.
Ballerini sued Bo Ewing in April over accusations that he hacked her unfinished album and shared it with a fan club. The country star claimed Ewing — allegedly an ex-fan who had become disillusioned with her — had gained illegal “back-door access” to song still in production.
But Ewing’s lawyers quickly promised to stop sharing her songs and to name names of any people he’d already sent them to, suggesting he was unwilling to fight Ballerini’s lawsuit. And in a Monday filing signed by both sides, Ewing agreed to permanently be barred from leaking the star’s songs.
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“Defendant is enjoined from knowingly or purposefully accessing any unreleased recordings, unreleased performances, unreleased videos, or any other unreleased content created by, believed to have been created by, or otherwise associated with plaintiffs in any form,” the two sides wrote in a joint filing. “Defendant is enjoined further accessing any of the recordings that are the subject of this litigation and which defendant has affirmatively declared are no longer in his possession.”
In return for such an agreement, Ballerini asked the judge overseeing the case to dismiss her lawsuit permanently. Any other specific terms of the settlement, including potential monetary payments, were not disclosed in court filings. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Tuesday.
Ballerini filed the case in April, claiming she had been the victim of a “nefarious digital attack” carried out by “unscrupulous individuals seeking attention.” The leak not only undercut “the most critical time” for an album’s commercial success, her attorneys said, but also deprived her of her artistic agency.
“Ms. Ballerini and her team are the only people who can say when the recordings are complete,” her lawyers wrote at the time. “Defendant’s actions have stripped plaintiffs of that right and caused the distribution of unfinished work that may not yet be up to plaintiffs’ high professional standards.”
Almost immediately, though, Ewing agreed to play ball with Ballerini’s attorneys. In a filing just days after he was sued, he agreed to be bound by a preliminary injunction that required him divulge who he has already shared them with and how he came into possession of her music.
“Defendant shall, within thirty days of entry of this order, provide plaintiffs with the names and contact information for all people to whom defendant disseminated the recordings,” the agreement reads. “Defendant shall use his best efforts to disclose to Plaintiffs from whom and by what means he obtained the recordings.”
The names of any alleged co-leakers were not disclosed in court filings, and it’s unclear if Ballerini will take further legal action against any others who may have been involved the alleged hack.
Keefe D, the prime suspect in the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, is making bail. Born Duane Davis, Keefe D has informed the Clark County District Court in Nevada that he can now post his $750,000 bail, according to the bail bond document filed Thursday (June 20) obtained by Billboard. Explore See latest videos, charts […]
A filmmaker is suing Warner Music over the 2021 Tom Petty documentary Somewhere You Feel Free, calling the movie a “brazen exploitation” that used nearly an hour of his copyrighted film footage without permission.
In a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles federal court, Martyn Atkins says he never gave the Somewhere producers consent to use hours of footage he filmed of the music legend during the 1990s but that the movie nonetheless contained “a shocking 45 minutes” of his materials.
“Atkins did not provide consent, did not otherwise license any of the footage, and was not compensated in any manner for the Film’s unauthorized, brazen exploitation of the works Atkins created and owns,” his attorneys wrote in a June 18 complaint.
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Released in March 2021, Somewhere You Feel Free promised viewers “never-before-seen footage” of Petty as he worked on his 1994 album Wildflowers. Much of the footage was filmed by Atkins, who served as art director for the album and says he often documented the proceedings with a 16mm camera. Later, Atkins says he and the music legend watched the footage and discussed eventually using it to create such a documentary.
But after Petty’s tragic death in 2017, the project didn’t come together until 2020, when Atkins says he was invited to a meeting with Petty’s daughter and other reps from his estate. After they promised him the job of directing the upcoming documentary, Atkins says, he provided them with a detailed breakdown of where he had stored the original footage at Warner Music’s storage facility.
But after that first encounter, he says he was “never asked to another meeting.”
“Atkins had been conned into believing he would produce and direct the film so that Atkins would reveal the location of his footage to defendants,” his lawyers write. “He was then cut out completely — in every imaginable respect. He was not even told as a courtesy that his works would be misappropriated and featured, let alone asked his consent.”
When he saw the movie, Atkins says he says he was shocked at what he saw: Roughly half of the movie’s 90-minute runtime was composed of his footage, including some of the “most compelling and iconic shots of Petty” in the movie. “Atkins simply could not believe it.”
A likely defense argument from Warner Music is that Atkins produced the footage as a so-called work-for-hire — a legal term meaning he created it at the request of someone else. If true, that would mean that even though Atkins filmed the footage, the rights to it were retained by Petty or the label. After all, he was the art director on Petty’s album and stored the film in Warner’s facilities.
But in his lawsuit, Atkins specifically aimed to preempt that argument: “The footage Atkins shot … was not subject to a work-for-hire or other such agreement. Atkins did not license the footage to Petty, Warner Records, any Warner Records affiliate, or anybody else. He was not acting as an employee of Petty or Warner Records, or any other party [and] here is no agreement in existence relating to any of the film footage.”
Beyond simply using the footage, the lawsuit claims that Somewhere‘s producers have “repeatedly misrepresented” that the footage was “magically and unexpectedly discovered” before the documentary was shot. “The film’s producers have systematically implemented this false narrative to manipulate the viewing public and bolster the marketing of the film,” the complaint reads.
In technical terms, the lawsuit names Warner Music unit WMG Productions LLC, as well as the film’s production company, Girl On LSD LLC. The lawsuit includes counts of direct and secondary copyright infringement and a claim that the defendants effectively stole his property.
Read the entire lawsuit here:
Justin Timberlake is speaking out for the first time following his arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated.
On Friday (June 21), the 43-year-old singer and actor broke his silence about the incident during his concert at Chicago’s United Center amid his Forget Tomorrow world tour.
“It’s been a tough week,” Timberlake told the cheering crowd in fan-captured clip posted on X (formerly Twitter). “I know I’m hard to love sometimes but you keep loving me right back.”
He added in the short speech, “We’ve been together through ups and downs and lefts and rights … but you’re here and I’m here, and nothing can change this moment right now.”
With an acoustic guitar strapped around his shoulder, the former *NSYNC member then bowed to the roaring audience before before performing “Selfish.”
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Timberlake was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in Sag Harbor, N.Y. on June 17. He was arraigned on one count of “driving while intoxicated” the following day.
According to a statement released by the Sag Harbor Police Department, a traffic stop was initiated after the “SexyBack” singer “was observed operating a 2025 BMW southbound on Madison Street, failing to stop at a duly posted stop sign and failing to maintain his lane of travel.”
“It was ascertained that the defendant was operating said vehicle in an intoxicated condition in that his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot, and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” according to the police report filed by officer Michael Arkinson.
“I had one martini and I followed my friends home,” Arkinson also quoted the 10-time Grammy winner as saying in his report.
Earlier in the week, JT’s lawyer Edward Burke Jr. spoke out about the incident. “[We] look forward to vigorously defending Mr. Timberlake against these allegations. He will have a lot to say at the appropriate time. He is currently awaiting full discovery from the DA’s office,” Burke said in the statement, shared with TMZ.
Timberlake’s next court hearing is scheduled for July 26, the same day he is scheduled to perform at Tauron Arena Krakow in Poland.
Ye (formerly Kanye West) has finalized a settlement with the estate of Donna Summer to resolve a copyright lawsuit that accused him of “shamelessly” using her 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission in his song “Good (Don’t Die).”
In court filings on Thursday, attorneys for both sides said they had “entered into a settlement agreement that is a full and final settlement of all of the claims in the action” and that each side would pay its own legal bills from the dispute. Neither side immediately returned requests for more information on the specific terms of the agreement.
The final settlement, first announced in court filings last month, comes less than four months after Summer’s estate sued the rapper for allegedly interpolating her track in “Good,” which he released on his chart-topping Vultures 1 album.
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Making good on threats to sue issued publicly weeks earlier, the estate’s attorneys claimed at the time that the rapper had “shamelessly used instantly recognizable portions” of her song in his track, despite the fact that her estate had already “explicitly denied” him authorization to do so.
“Summer’s estate … wanted no association with West’s controversial history and specifically rejected West’s proposed use,” her attorneys write. “In the face of this rejection, defendants arrogantly and unilaterally decided they would simply steal ‘I Feel Love’ and use it without permission.”
The Summer estate’s lawyers say Ye re-recorded “almost verbatim” the key portions of her song and then used them as the hook for his own. The estate claims the songs were so similar that fans and critics “instantly recognized” his track as a “blatant rip-off.” The lawsuit also named album collaborator Ty Dolla $ign (Tyrone William Griffin Jr.) as a defendant.
Before the case was even filed, “Good” had been pulled from streaming platforms and removed from digital download versions of the album. As of Friday, the song is still not included on Vultures 1 on Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, though it’s available on YouTube from unofficial accounts.
It is unclear if Thursday’s settlement will allow Ye’s song to return to official circulation, or merely resolve the allegations of past copyright infringement over its initial use of Summer’s song. Attorneys for Ye, Ty Dolla and the estate did not respond to messages asking about the status of the song.
But at least in their initial lawsuit, the Summer estate did not seem to open to collecting an ongoing royalty from the controversial rapper.
“This lawsuit is about more than Defendants’ mere failure to pay the appropriate licensing fee for using another’s musical property. It is also about the rights of artists to decide how their works are used and presented to the public, and the need to prevent anyone from simply stealing creative works when they cannot secure the right to use them legally.”
Ye has been sued repeatedly for uncleared samples and interpolations in his music.
In 2022, he was hit with a lawsuit claiming his song “Life of the Party” illegally sampled a song by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions; accused in another case over allegations that he used an uncleared snippet of Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 house track “Move Your Body” in the song “Flowers”; and sued in a different case by a Texas pastor for allegedly sampling from his recorded sermon in “Come to Life.”
Before that, West and Pusha T were sued in 2019 for sampling George Jackson‘s “I Can’t Do Without You” on the track “Come Back Baby.” That same year, he was sued for allegedly using an audio snippet of a young girl praying in his 2016 song “Ultralight Beam.” Further back, West was hit with similar cases over allegedly unlicensed samples used in “New Slaves,” “Bound 2” and “My Joy.”
One of Young Thug’s co-defendants is asking the Georgia Supreme Court to force the judge overseeing the rapper’s high-profile gang trial to recuse himself, arguing that a secret meeting with prosecutors and a witness was a serious violation of judicial ethics.
Judge Ural Glanville himself has already repeatedly refused requests from Thug’s attorney Brian Steel and other defense lawyers that he step aside over allegations about the so-called ex parte meeting – and instead ordered Steel jailed after he refused to divulge how he learned of it.
So on Thursday, lawyers for fellow rapper and co-defendant Yak Gotti (Deamonte Kendrick) filed an emergency petition asking the state’s high court to force Glanville to do so.
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“Glanville’s actions offend public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary,” wrote Yak Gotti’s attorney Doug Weinstein. “An appearance of impropriety and bias hangs over the present trial due to Glanville’s failure to follow the law.”
If the petition is granted, it would be the second time Georgia’s Supreme Court has jumped into the YSL trial. Last week, the high court hit pause on Steel’s jail sentence and agreed to review the judge’s decision to hold the lawyer in contempt.
Thug (Jeffery Williams) and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that his “YSL” was not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life” but rather a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life.” Prosecutors claim the group committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade. After kicking off in January 2023, the trial is already the longest in Georgia state history and is expected to run until early next year.
In an extraordinary courtroom episode last week, Steel revealed that he had learned of an ex parte meeting between Glanville, prosecutors and a witness named Kenneth Copeland. Steel argued that such a meeting, without defense counsel present, was clear grounds for a mistrial. He claimed Glanville had helped prosecutors coerce the uncooperative Copeland into testifying with threats of extended jail time.
Copeland is a central witness for the entire racketeering case against Thug and the other alleged YSL members, but he’s particularly important for the case against Yak Gotti. His testimony pertains to the 2015 murder of Donovan “Nut” Thomas Jr., which Gotti and fellow defendant Shannon Stillwell are directly charged with committing.
Rather than address Steel’s complaints, Glanville instead demanded to know how he had learned of the meeting, suggesting that it had been the result of an illegal leak. The judge eventually held Steel in contempt of court when the lawyer refused to name names, sentencing him to serve 20 days in county jail as punishment.
Earlier this week, Steel and other defense attorneys later demanded that the judge step aside from the case over the incident. In his motion, Thug’s attorney argued that Glanville had “forfeited [his] role as an impartial judge and has become a member of the prosecution team.” But the judge quickly denied the request, saying it was based on “bare assertions and legal conclusions.”
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Yak Gotti’s attorney Weinstein echoed Steel’s arguments. He said the allegations against the judge “casts a pall” over the ongoing case and represents “obstruction of defendant’s right to a fair and impartial trial.”
“Defense counsel should have been afforded an opportunity to attend any hearing where a sworn witness in a critical stage of the trial is being coerced to testify,” Weinstein wrote. “The only logical conclusion for the secret nature of the proceeding was to give Glanville in conjunction with the State the unfettered ability to harass and intimidate the sworn witness into testifying.”
A federal judge says Megan Thee Stallion didn’t copy her chart-topping “Savage” from an earlier song, ruling there’s no evidence the superstar has ever even heard the little-known instrumental track.
In a decision issued Tuesday (June 18), Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by producer James A. Greene, who claimed that Megan’s mega-hit infringed the copyrights to his own song “It’s About To Be On.”
Green claimed he had “no doubt” that “Savage” infringed his rights, but Judge Failla ruled that the two songs were clearly different.
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“Plaintiff’s work is an instrumental piece, with little variety in sounds and instruments used throughout,” the judge wrote. “By contrast, ‘Savage’ is a pop song, featuring lyrics as well as a more upbeat tempo. Plaintiff’s work is qualitatively different from ‘Savage,’ and any similarities implicate common, non-copyrightable elements of any song.”
The judge also ruled that the case was flawed for a simpler reason: That it was unlikely Megan and her co-writers had “access” to his song to copy it — a key element in any copyright lawsuit. Green had argued that he passed along CDs in the early 2000s to someone who might have later given them to “Savage” producer J. White Did It.
But Judge Failla said that wasn’t enough: “Plaintiff is unable to allege any chain of events that creates anything more than the ‘bare possibility’ that defendants gained access to plaintiff’s work.”
The judge also ruled that Green’s song was not popular enough that Megan might have heard it on her own: “At best, plaintiff alleges that he undertook his own efforts to distribute the work throughout the music industry to A&R’s, management teams, etc.,” Judge Failla wrote. “Yet such efforts alone fall short of widespread distribution.”
Greene sued Megan (Megan Pete), J. White (Anthony White) and Warner Music Group last year, claiming “Savage” had borrowed material from his “It’s About To Be On,” a three-minute instrumental track he says he released in 1999. He claimed that the two songs shared the same drum pattern and piano note pattern as well as similar siren sounds.
But in Thursday’s ruling, Judge Failla said each of those elements was different in Megan’s song, including the siren sounds.
“In [Green’s song], the siren sound is an atonal chord that appears to be created using a synthesizer,” the judge said. “By contrast, in ‘Savage,’ the alleged siren sound is not a siren at all, but rather is a distorted vocal sample. Put simply, no reasonable listener would discern any similarity.”
Neither side immediately returned a request for comment on Thursday (June 20).
Two Madonna fans have now dropped their lawsuit complaining about delayed starts to her concerts, but the star’s lawyers are emphatic that the move was “not the result of any settlement” and are warning they might even seek penalties over the “frivolous” case.
In a motion filed in federal court Wednesday (June 19), lawyers for the aggrieved fans said they would permanently drop the case, in which they accused Madonna and Live Nation of breaking laws by making fans wait for hours at December concerts in Brooklyn on her Celebration Tour.
But later that same day, Madonna and Live Nation’s lawyers fired off a letter to the judge advising him that the move to drop the case had been made “unilaterally” by the other side — and that they had not reached any kind of agreement to end a case they say should never have been filed.
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“Defendants believe that this action was a frivolous strike suit designed to force them to incur legal expenses,” the star’s lawyers write. “Plaintiffs have now abandoned this lawsuit when it became clear that this approach would not result in a settlement payment and that they would need to oppose defendants’ motion.”
The motion to drop the case said that each side would “bear its own fees and costs,” but Madonna’s lawyers said in their letter that they had never agreed to that — and that they might still demand that the plaintiffs repay the money they were forced to spend litigating the short-lived lawsuit.
“Given the legal expenses that defendants were forced to incur to defend this action … defendants reserve the right to move for sanctions, attorneys’ fees, and costs,” lawyers for Madonna and Live Nation write.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Michael Fellows and Jason Alvarez, did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday (June 20).
Madonna and Live Nation were first sued in January over the Brooklyn shows — a case that made headlines because it claimed the fans “had to get up early to go to work” the next day. She was later hit with a similar case in Washington, D.C., that claimed fans had waited in an “uncomfortably hot” arena and that she had lip-synched portions of the show. A third case, filed last month, echoed those claims but also alleged that Madonna’s show in Los Angeles had been unexpectedly “pornographic.”
All three cases have been filed as class actions, seeking to represent potentially thousands of other fans who also endured the alleged delays. By starting the concerts later than expected, the cases claim Madonna and Live Nation breached their contracts with fans and violated state consumer protection laws.
Madonna’s attorneys have strongly rejected those accusations. In a request to dismiss the New York case earlier this year, her lawyers argued that simply needing to wake up early was not the kind of “cognizable injury” that can form the basis for a lawsuit. And they say that anyone buying a concert ticket is well aware that a show likely won’t start at the exact time printed on the ticket.
“No reasonable concertgoer — and certainly no Madonna fan — would expect the headline act at a major arena concert to take the stage at the ticketed event time,” her legal team wrote in April.
While Wednesday’s dismissal means that the New York case is now closed, the D.C. and Los Angeles lawsuits remain pending.
Travis Scott was arrested early Thursday morning (June 20) for disorderly intoxication and trespassing, CNN reports. Miami-Dade County Jail records show that Scott — born Jacques Webster — was arrested for trespassing of property after a warning.
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Billboard has reached out to the rapper’s attorney and reps, as well as the Miami-Dade police for comment.
According to the cable news network, Scott (born Jacques Webster) was booked into Miami-Dade County Jail at 4:35 a.m. ET after being arrested at 1:44 a.m. He’s facing trespassing of property charges along with disorderly intoxication. The outlet, citing jail records, reports that Scott has already submitted a $650 bond following his early morning arrest at the Miami Beach Marina.
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Scott was on a charter boat and allegedly got into a dispute with another crew, CNN reported, citing law enforcement. Police were called, and he was asked to leave the scene, which he did. According to the affidavit obtained by the cable news network, police — who were wearing body cameras — saw the rapper yell at the crew on the yacht, and were able to “sense a strong smell of alcohol” on his breath. But he returned minutes later and allegedly started yelling at the crew again despite police telling him to not approach the boat, which led to his arrest.
“The defendant later admitted that he had been drinking alcohol and stated, ‘It’s Miami,’” CNN quoted from the affidavit.
Scott appeared to have some fun with his mug shot after his release on Thursday morning. In an Instagram Story post, he added a pair of white headphones and brown shades to the photo.
It’s not the first time the 33-year-old has had run-ins with the law. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct following allegations of inciting a riot at a Northwest Arkansas concert the year prior. The rapper is also entrenched in a litany of lawsuits tied to the 2021 Astroworld Festival, which left 10 people dead and more than 700 injured.
The final wrongful death lawsuit from the festival was settled in May. Terms of the agreement remain unknown. The family of 9-year-old Ezra Blount, who was killed in the Houston festival crowd surge, sued Scott along with Live Nation, Apple and more entities connected to Astroworld.
Justin Timberlake‘s lawyer has shared a statement following the pop star’s arrest for driving while intoxicated. On Wednesday (June 19), the office of attorney Edward Burke Jr. spoke out about the incident, saying that he will “vigorously” defend the 43-year-old singer and actor. “[We] look forward to vigorously defending Mr. Timberlake against these allegations. He […]