Legal
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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.
Former American Idol contestant Caleb Kennedy was sentenced to eight years in prison this week for a 2022 DUI car crash in South Carolina that killed 54-year-old Larry Duane Parris. According to WSPA, Kennedy, 20, plead guilty to driving under the influence resulting in death on Monday and was sentenced to 25 years in prison […]
Miley Cyrus has filed her first response to a lawsuit claiming her “Flowers” infringes the copyright to Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man,” arguing the case has a “fatal flaw”: That Mars and his other co-writers chose not to sue.
Filed in September, the lawsuit claims the chart-topping hit stole numerous elements from the earlier song and “would not exist” without it. But it wasn’t filed by Mars — the case was lodged by an entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought out the rights of one of his co-writers.
In her first response to the allegations on Wednesday, 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.
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“Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of that musical composition’s four co-authors,” write Cyrus’ attorneys. “That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”
Repped by Peter Anderson of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, Cyrus argues that Tempo’s acquisition of a “partial interest” from songwriter Philip Lawrence gave the company only “non-exclusive rights” to the song. Under federal copyright law, her lawyers say such limited rights don’t give him “standing” to sue – a crucial requirement for any lawsuit in the U.S. legal system.
“Plaintiff brings this copyright infringement action alone — without any of that musical composition’s co-authors or other owners,” Anderson writes. “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”
Responding those arguments from Cyrus, Tempo Music lead counsel Alex Weingarten told Billboard on Thursday that the motion from her attorneys was “intellectually dishonest” and that the group clearly had standing to pursue the lawsuit.
“They’re seeking to make bogus technical arguments because they don’t have an actual substantive defense to the case,” said Weingarten, an attorney at the firm Willkie Farr. “We’re not an assignee; we’re the owner of the copyright. The law is clear that we have the right to enforce our interest.”
“Flowers,” which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100, has been linked to “Your Man” since it was released in January 2023. Many fans immediately saw the Cyrus track as an “answer song,” with lyrics that clearly referenced those in the Mars song. The reason, according to internet sleuths, was that “Your Man” was a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth – and her allusions were a nod to their divorce.
When “Flowers” was first released, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song – a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” to countless rap diss records.
But Tempo sued in September, claiming “Flowers” had lifted numerous elements beyond the clap-back lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.” The case said it was “undeniable” that Cyrus’ hit “would not exist” if not for “Your Man.”
In Wednesday’s response, attorneys for Cyrus also take aim at the substance of those allegations, arguing that the two songs show “striking differences in melody, chords, other musical elements, and words.” They say the songs might share a “few” similarities but “none of which is protected by copyright.”
“The songwriter defendants categorically deny copying, and the allegedly copied elements are random, scattered, unprotected ideas and musical building blocks,” Anderson writes.
But the filing mostly left those arguments for another day, instead focusing on the requirement that only “exclusive” copyright owners can file infringement lawsuits – a rule that Cyrus’ lawyers exists for a “simple” reason.
“In the case of joint works, the co-authors are joint owners of the exclusive copyright rights, each owning a non-exclusive interest in the undivided whole,” they write. “As a result, a single co-author of a copyright interest, acting alone, cannot assign or license exclusive rights because those rights also are owned by the assignor’s or licensor’s co-authors.”
The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned Jussie Smollett’s 2021 conviction for allegedly staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself in 2019, ruling on Thursday (Nov. 21) that his rights had been violated when a special prosecutor stepped in to retry him despite the Cook County State’ Attorney’s Office initially dropping all charges against him.
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“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” the court wrote in its decision, according to The Chicago Tribune. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.”
The decision comes more than five years after the singer-actor first reported that two men had assaulted him, yelled racist and homophobic slurs and placed a noose around his neck in downtown Chicago. Two years later, a jury found Smollett — who is Black and gay — guilty of five of six counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly lying to police about the incident, with the prosecution accusing him of hiring the two men to attack him because he was unhappy with his employer’s response to hate mail he’d received, according to the Associated Press.
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In addition to 30 months of probation, Smollett — who has maintained his innocence — was ordered to pay $130,160 in restitution and sentenced to 150 days in jail, which he never served due to the lengthy appeals process that has played out in the years since. A lower court previously upheld the convictions in a split 2-1 decision, but the Supreme Court agreed to hear the actor’s appeal — and on Thursday, sided in his favor.
Billboard has reached out to Smollett’s lawyer and rep for comment.
The most crucial element of the Supreme Court’s ruling was the fact that Cook County had originally dropped the charges against him — despite brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo testifying that Smollett had indeed paid them to carry out the attack — citing that the star had forfeited his $10,000 bond and done community service. The move sparked national debate over State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s handling of the case, from which she’d recused herself.
As national outcry increased, former Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed former U.S. attorney Dan Webb as special prosecutor amid scrutiny around the decision. Webb eventually refiled the charges, which Smollett’s legal team has countered by arguing that double jeopardy was attached when he forfeited his $10,000 bail bond.
Again, Smollett has maintained that he was not behind the attack, testifying at his trial in 2021 that “there was no hoax.” In April 2022, he declared his innocence once again on his song “Thank You God…,” rapping, “Just remember this, this ain’t that situation/ You think I’m stupid enough to kill my reputation?/ Just to look like a victim, like it’s something fun/ Y’all better look at someone else, you got the wrong one.”
Donald Trump has reached a settlement with Eddy Grant over how much the president-elect must pay for using “Electric Avenue” without permission in a 2020 campaign video.
Two months after a federal judge ruled that Trump infringed the copyright to the 1982 hit by featuring it in the video, the same judge issued an order Wednesday saying the two sides had “settled this action” and that the case would be “discontinued.”
The settlement avoids the need for further litigation figure out how much Trump would need to pay Grant in damages, which had been left undecided by the September ruling. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in court filings, and neither side immediately responded to request for comment.
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Grant sued Trump in 2020 after the then-president used his 1982 hit in a social media video attacking Joe Biden. Grant said he reacted with “dismay” when he began receiving inquiries asking if he had approved the Republican candidate’s use of his music.
Trump’s lawyers argued back that the video was shielded under copyright’s fair use doctrine, which allows for the “transformative” re-use of protected works in certain situations. But in September’s ruling, Judge John G. Koeltl sharply rejected that argument.
“In this case, the video has a very low degree of transformativeness, if any at all,” the judge wrote. “The video is best described as a wholesale copying of music to accompany a political campaign ad.”
Trump repeatedly faced blowback during the 2024 election from artists who don’t want him to use their music. Beyoncé, Celine Dion, the Foo Fighters, ABBA and Sinead O’Connor‘s estate have all spoken out or threatened action, and the White Stripes and the estate of Isaac Hayes have both filed lawsuits against him and his campaign.
Four years earlier, Grant filed a similar case over Trump’s “wrongful and willful” use of “Electric Avenue,” a funky, reggae-infused track about the 1981 Brixton riot, named for a road running through that London neighborhood. The song reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in the summer of 1983 and ultimately spent 22 weeks on the chart.
The video at issue, shared by Trump on X, featured a red “Trump” train outrunning a handcar driven by Biden, as audio clips of Biden’s speeches played above Grant’s 1982 hit. Grant’s attorneys said the campaign had refused to remove the clip even after they were warned — meaning that Trump was acting as if he was “above the law.”
Trump’s attorneys argued that the video had “transformed Grant’s original conception of ‘Electric Avenue’ as a protest against social conditions into a colorful attack on the character and personality traits of a rival political figure.” But in September’s decision, the judge was entirely unswayed by that defense — saying that it would only count as fair use if Trump had used the song to attack Grant, not Biden.
“The animation does not use ‘Electric Avenue’ as a vehicle to deliver its satirical message, and it makes no effort to poke fun at the song or Grant,” Judge Koeltl wrote, quoting directly from his earlier decision.
The ruling in September held that Trump and his campaign were legally liable for copyright infringement, but it left undecided the amount he would ultimately need pay Grant in damages.
California prosecutors are flatly rejecting claims made by Tory Lanez’s legal team that the gun he allegedly used to shoot Megan Thee Stallion is “missing,” calling the accusations about vanished evidence “demonstrably false” and “troubling.”
In a brief filed Monday (Nov. 18) in a California appeals court, the state attorney general’s office fired back at a recent so-called habeas corpus petition filed by Lanez’s attorneys — one of several forms of appeal he has filed seeking to overturn his felony convictions over the 2020 shooting.
In their brief last month, Lanez’s lawyers claimed that key pieces of evidence — the gun used in the shooting and bullet fragments removed from Megan’s foot — had not been made available to defense attorneys, violating the singer’s constitutional right to due process.
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But in this week’s response, the government said that simply wasn’t true.
“Without providing any documentary evidence or a declaration from either habeas counsel or a custodian of evidence for the Los Angeles Police Department, petitioner simply asserts that the firearm and bullet fragments have not been preserved,” prosecutors wrote. “Petitioner’s failure … is especially troubling in this case because the factual assertions are demonstrably false.”
The filing cited a sworn declaration by an LAPD officer that the department “still has custody of the firearm and the firearm’s magazine, as well as the casings and fragments.”
Attorneys for Lanez did not immediately return a request for comment.
Lanez (Daystar Peterson) was convicted in December 2022 on three felony counts over the violent 2020 incident, in which he shot at the feet of Megan (real name Megan Pete) during an argument following a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house in the Hollywood Hills. According to prosecutors, when Megan got out of the vehicle and began walking away, Lanez shouted “Dance, bitch!” and fired a gun at her feet. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Lanez has appealed his convictions to California’s Court of Appeal, arguing that the judge allowed improper testimony and evidence, resulting in a “a miscarriage of justice.” He’s also filed two so-called habeas corpus petitions, a more drastic legal method for challenging a criminal conviction.
In the latest petition, Lanez’s attorney claimed his right to due process had been violated by the government’s “failure to produce and preserve evidence.” They claimed that because the gun and the fragments were missing, they were “unable to conduct further testing” that might help prove his innocence, like searching for fingerprints or DNA of other possible shooters.
In Monday’s response, prosecutors argued that not only was the evidence available for re-testing but that doing so would not help Lanez overturn his conviction.
“The prosecution did not even rely on the DNA results in arguing petitioner’s guilt,” the state wrote. “Under these circumstances, it is inconceivable that DNA testing could undermine the entire prosecution case and point unerringly to innocence or reduced culpability, as is required to establish a claim of actual innocence.”
Sony Music has 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.
In a filing Tuesday (Nov. 19), attorneys for both sides told a federal judge that they had “reached a settlement in principle” to resolve the lawsuit, in which Patria Paulino claimed she was told she could “only hire Black candidates.” Sony had called those accusations “contradictory and false” and was actively seeking to have the case dismissed when the settlement was reached.
The specific terms of the agreement, including whether any money exchanged hands, were not disclosed in court filings. A spokesperson for Sony declined to comment on Wednesday (Nov. 20); an attorney for Paulino did not return a request for comment.
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Paulino sued Sony and Perry in February, claiming she had been effectively terminated as retaliation because she pushed back on race-conscious hiring practices.
After being hired in late 2022, Paulino claimed that she was repeatedly told she could not hire white candidates for a vacant assistant role in Perry’s office. She says that Perry had been hit with “multiple racial discrimination complaints by former employees” and that he and the company wanted to “have more color in his office.”
Despite the directives to aim for diversity, Paulino’s lawsuit claimed she “continued to recommend qualified Caucasian applicants” for the role. At one point, when she advanced a particular white candidate, she says that another Sony employee told her in writing: “We can’t hire another white Jewish girl unfortunately.”
The lawsuit came in the wake of a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that outlawed the use of race-conscious admissions in higher education, commonly known as “affirmative action.” Though that ruling didn’t directly deal with hiring or with the state laws at issue in Paulino’s case, it has led to overall increased scrutiny of corporate practices aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion.
A week after Paulino filed her case, Sony asked the judge to toss it out of court. Far from being effectively terminated, Sony said she had instead “voluntarily resigned after receiving unfavorable performance feedback.” The label said she had filed her case simply “to harass her former employer and boss” with a “contradictory and false” lawsuit.
“She alleges … that defendants both discriminated against her because they preferred white employees but also constructively discharged her because she would not play along with their preference for non-white employees,” the label’s lawyers wrote, adding the italics themselves for emphasis. “In reality, plaintiff worked for Sony … for less than five months, performed poorly, and was a willing participant in the entirely legal hiring practices she now alleges were discriminatory.”
Young Thug might be home from jail, but he’s still facing a multi-million dollar legal battle with concert giant AEG over a touring partnership gone sour.
In new legal filings, attorneys for AEG say they’re pushing ahead with a civil lawsuit, first filed way back in 2020, accusing the rapper of violating a touring agreement. AEG says Thug owes more than $5 million under the deal — and that he’s now obligated to hand over some of his music to pay down the debt.
The lawsuit has been delayed by Thug’s years-long criminal drama, in which Atlanta prosecutors accused him of running a violent gang. But after the superstar pleaded guilty and was released from jail last month, AEG now says it wants its money.
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“Proceedings in this action have been hampered for more than two years by reason of Mr. Williams’ incarceration,” the company’s lawyers wrote in a Friday’s court filing. “So long as Mr. Williams does not violate the terms of his probation, his criminal proceedings should no longer affect the parties’ ability to complete discovery and motion practice, or to bring the case to trial.”
AEG sued Thug in December 2020, claiming he had breached a 2017 touring agreement that gave the company the exclusive right to promote his concerts. AEG alleged that Thug had “immediately failed and refused to honor” the deal after it had been signed, including by performing shows without the promoter’s involvement and pocketing the proceeds.
Under the terms of the deal, AEG claims Thug was paid a $5.3 million advance – a sum the company says was never paid back after he breached his deal. More significantly, AEG says that debt was secured with Thug’s copyrights to his songs as collateral – and that AEG can now claim an interest in the revenue generated by such intellectual property.
“Such copyrights constituted collateral that was subject to the security agreement,” the company wrote in its 2020 complaint. “AEG has the right, pursuant to [agreement], to require that [Thug’s publishing company] and Mr. Williams assemble such [copyrights] and turn them over to AEG.”
After nearly four years, such a case would typically have resulted in a trial or a settlement by now. But the lawsuit against Thug was put on indefinite hold in May 2022, when the rapper was arrested and charged in a sweeping racketeering indictment that claimed his YSL group was a violent gang that had wrought “havoc” on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade.
After sitting in jail for more than two years during the longest-running trial in Georgia history, Thug pleaded guilty last month and was sentenced to serve only probation — a stunning end to a legal saga that could have seen him face a lifetime prison sentence.
For AEG’s attorneys, however, the end of Thug’s criminal case is just the start of the re-booted civil lawsuit – and also a chance to proceed on new accusations that the rapper has attempted to hide his copyrights.
In a court filing this summer, AEG’s lawyers said they had recently learned that Thug had sold more than 400 copyrighted songs for more than $16 million to an unknown third-party in 2021 – meaning after AEG had already filed its lawsuit seeking access to some of those songs. As a result of the sale, AEG said it might file an updated version of the case claiming the sale was fraudulent.
Now, in Friday’s new court filings, AEG says that even after “extensive research,” it remains “unclear which specific entities now own interests in such copyrights.” The company says it has filed issued subpoenas to 15 different entities seeking more information, and is still waiting to hear back.
“Based on the documents to be produced by those entities, AEG will determine whether to proceed against some or all of the collateral in this action as against defendants, to seek leave of court to
include claims against new parties with regard to such collateral, or to take steps outside this lawsuit with regard to such collateral,” the company wrote.
In technical terms, Friday’s filing was an agreement between the two opposing sides to push back all deadlines in the case by six months. That will give Thug a necessary three months to “become reacclimated to life outside of prison” and connect with his lawyers so he can “participate meaningfully in the action.” It will also give AEG the necessary time to “determine whether and how to proceed with regard to the copyrights.”
Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Wednesday.