Legal
Page: 58
Back in April 1988, when DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince released “A Nightmare on My Street,” the song was an immediate hit. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 was set for release a few months later, and the song – which made obvious allusions to Freddy Krueger from beginning to end – eventually climbed to No. 15 on the Hot 100.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“Now I have a story that I’d like to tell/ About this guy you all know him, he had me scared as hell!” rapped the Fresh Prince, who later became better known by his real name, Will Smith. “He comes to me at night after I crawl into bed/ He’s burnt up like a weenie and his name is Fred!”
Just one problem: New Line Cinema, the owners of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, had already commissioned their own officially licensed Freddy Krueger rap track (“Are You Ready for Freddy”) by the Fat Boys – and, more importantly, they had specifically rejected DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s version.
Like a formulaic horror movie, you know what happens next. In July 1988, New Line took Smith, Jazzy Jeff (Jeff Townes) and Jive Records to federal court, arguing that “My Street” infringed their copyrights and trademarks to the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise. New Line also demanded an immediate injunction to stop MTV from airing the song’s soon-to-be released music video, which featured a look-alike Krueger and many other references to the movies.
What’s the origin story of this legal monster? According to legal filings from the case, New Line started thinking about commissioning a licensed hip hop theme song for “Elm Street 4″ nearly a year before the movie was released. Eventually, they settled on The Fat Boys, a pioneering rap trio who had released their breakout Crushin’ earlier that year. In March 1988, the group released “Are You Ready for Freddy” on their third studio album, Coming Back Hard Again.
But behind the scenes, an executive at Jive had been doing his best to convince New Line to use a theme song by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince instead of the Fat Boys. According to legal filings, Smith and Townes recorded “My Street” in late 1987, and then Jive sent a copy of the track to the movie studio for consideration. Negotiations dragged on for months, but never culminated in a licensing deal.
In April, Jive released the song anyway, including it on DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s album “He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper.” The song told the story of the duo encountering the same haunting scenario as the movies, where Krueger kills people in real life by murdering his vicitms in their dreams
“It wasn’t a dream, man, this guy was for real,” Smith rapped. “I said, ‘Freddy, uh, pal, there’s been an awful mistake here’”
According to legal filings, as the August premiere of the movie got closer, Jive continued to get New Line to try to “change its mind” about licensing the song for the movie, including suggesting that MTV was interested in doing a music video for “My Street.” But the studio ultimately reached an official agreement with the Hot Boys to make their own licensed video for their song.
In July, New Line sent a cease-and-desist to Jive and owner Zomba Music, warning that the Fresh Prince song amounted to copyright infringement and demanding that the record be pulled from store shelves. Weeks later, New Line headed to court, accusing the Jive, Zomba, and the duo of a wide range of legal wrongdoing. Then in August, they went into overdrive after learning that Zomba had produced a music video for “My Street” and were planning to release it on MTV, demanding a preliminary injunction to block the video’s premiere.
In late August, a federal judge sided decisively with New Line. He ruled that the planned music video likely infringed the studio’s copyrights, citing the overwhelming similarities between them. And he rejected their argument that the video amounted to a legal “fair use,” saying it was instead simply an unauthorized competitor that was unfairly free-riding on New Line’s “massive promotional campaign.”
“The video exists solely as an vehicle to promote Zomba’s song,” the judge wrote, issuing the injunction banning the release of the video. “Thus, Zomba stands to profit financially by using Freddy without making the usual licensing arrangements, which in fact were made by the Fat Boys before they produced their video.”
Unlike the best horror franchises, there was no sequel to this legal fight. The case could have continued on to more litigation over the ultimate merits of the case, but after New Line won the injunction, the lawsuit quickly ended on a confidential settlement. The video was never released, and albums featured a sticker disclosing that the song was not affiliated with the movie.
But don’t forget, the killer is never quite dead: A version of “A Nightmare On My Street” is currently available on YouTube, where it now has 2.8 million views.
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Monday (Oct. 30) that artificial intelligence (AI) firm Stability AI could not dismiss a lawsuit claiming it had “trained” its platform on copyrighted images, though he also sided with AI companies on key questions.
In an early-stage order in a closely watched case, Judge William Orrick found many defects in the lawsuit’s allegations, and he dismissed some of the case’s claims. But he allowed the case to move forward on its core allegation: That Stability AI built its tools by exploiting vast numbers of copyrighted works.
“Plaintiffs have adequately alleged direct infringement based on the allegations that Stability downloaded or otherwise acquired copies of billions of copyrighted images without permission to create Stable Diffusion, and used those images to train Stable Diffusion,” the judge wrote.
The ruling came in one of many cases filed against AI companies over how they use copyrighted content to train their models. Authors, comedians and visual artists have all filed lawsuits against companies including Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI, alleging that such unauthorized use by the fast-growing industry amounts to a massive violation of copyright law.
Last week, Universal Music Group and others filed the first such case involving music, arguing that Anthropic PBC was infringing copyrights en masse by using “vast amounts” of music to teach its software how to spit out new lyrics.
Rulings in the earlier AI copyright cases could provide important guidance on how such legal questions will be handled by courts, potentially impacting how UMG’s lawsuit and others like it play out in the future.
Monday’s decision came in a class action filed by artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI Ltd. over its Stable Diffusion — an AI-powered image generator. The lawsuit also targeted Midjourney Inc. and DeviantArt Inc., two companies that use Stable Diffusion as the basis for their own image generators.
In his ruling, Judge Orrick dismissed many of the lawsuit’s claims. He booted McKernan and Ortiz from the case entirely and ordered the plaintiffs to re-file an amended version of their case with much more detail about the specific allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt.
The judge also cast doubt on the allegation that every “output” image produced by Stable Diffusion would itself be a copyright-infringing “derivative” of the images that were used to train the model — a ruling that could dramatically limit the scope of the lawsuit. The judge suggested that such images might only be infringing if they themselves looked “substantially similar” to a particular training image.
But Judge Orrick included no such critiques for the central accusation that Stability AI infringed Andersen’s copyrights by using them for training without permission — the basic allegation at the center of all of the AI copyright lawsuits, including the one filed by UMG. Andersen will still need to prove that such an accusation is true in future litigation, but the judge said she should be given the chance to do so.
“Even Stability recognizes that determination of the truth of these allegations — whether copying in violation of the Copyright Act occurred in the context of training Stable Diffusion or occurs when Stable Diffusion is run — cannot be resolved at this juncture,” Orrick wrote in his decision.
Attorneys for Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt did not return requests for comment. Attorneys for the artists praised the judge for allowing their “core claim” to move forward and onto “a path to trial.”
“As is common in a complex case, Judge Orrick granted the plaintiffs permission to amend most of their other claims,” said plaintiffs’ attorneys Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick after the ruling. “We’re confident that we can address the court’s concerns.”
While Taylor Swift has been racking up billions of streams with updated “Taylor’s Version” re-recordings of her original hits over the past couple years, making cultural moments out of old material and simultaneously driving down the value of those original recordings that were sold away from her, record companies have been working to prohibit this sort of thing from happening again.
The major labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, have recently overhauled contracts for new signees, according to top music attorneys, some demanding artists wait an unprecedented 10, 15 or even 30 years to re-record releases after departing their record companies. “The first time I saw it, I tried to get rid of it entirely,” says Josh Karp, a veteran attorney, who has viewed the new restrictions in UMG contracts. “I was just like, ‘What is this? This is strange. Why would we agree to further restrictions than we’ve agreed to in the past with the same label?’”
For decades, standard major-label recording contracts stated artists had to wait for the latter of two periods to expire before they could put out re-recorded versions, Swift-style: It could have been five to seven years from the release date of the original, or two years after the contract expired. Today, attorneys are receiving label contracts that expand that period to 10 or 15 years or more — and the attorneys are pushing back. “It becomes one of a multitude of items you’re fighting,” Karp says.
“I recently did a deal with a very big indie that had a 30-year re-record restriction in it. Which obviously is much longer than I’m used to seeing,” adds Gandhar Savur, attorney for Cigarettes After Sex, Built to Spill and Jeff Rosenstock. “I think the majors are also trying to expand their re-record restrictions but in a more measured way — they are generally not yet able to get away with making such extreme changes.”
Until June 2019, when Swift announced she would re-record her first six albums, the concept of drawing fans to new versions of old songs was a music-business niche. Frank Sinatra rerecorded a number of his biggest hits in the ’60s, but in recent years, new Def Leppard and Squeeze versions had minimal commercial success. But after venture capitalist and longtime Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun purchased Swift’s original label, Big Machine Music Group, she failed to re-obtain her original master recordings. The business transaction was personal to Swift — she has accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying” — and she encouraged her huge fanbase and sympathetic radio programmers to exclusively play new Taylor’s Versions of Fearless, Red and others.
Suddenly, the concept of re-recording masters has evolved from archaic fine print buried in record deals to a widely scrutinized cause celebre. “Obviously, this is a big headline topic — the Taylor Swift thing,” Savur says. “Labels, of course, are going to want to do whatever they can to address that and to prevent it. But there’s only so much they can do. Artist representatives are going to push back against that, and a certain standard is ingrained in our industry that is not easy to move away from.”
Adds Dina LaPolt, a music attorney with a long history of grappling with labels over contracts: “Now, because of all this Taylor Swift sh–, we have an even new negotiation. It’s awful. We’re seeing a lot of ‘perpetuity’ sh–. When we were negotiating deals with lawyers, before we would get the proposal,, we’d get the phone call from the head of business affairs. We literally would say, ‘If you send that to me, it will be on f—ing Twitter in 10 minutes.’ It never showed up.”
Swift has her own reasons — in addition to dominating the charts and racking up millions of dollars in streaming revenue — for emphasizing her re-recordings. Smaller artists have more modest goals. Alt-rock band Switchfoot recently put out an “Our Version” of its 2003 album The Beautiful Letdown, as frontman Jon Foreman said recently, “for everyone who’s supported us the last 23 years, for everyone who’s sung along with these songs.” After superstar pop-and-R&B trio TLC negotiated a separation agreement from its label, Sony Music, in the early 2000s, Bill Diggins, the band’s manager, negotiated a re-recording clause allowing the group to use hits such as “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs” for TV and movie synchs. “Anytime you negotiate with a label, it’s a difficult proposition,” he said.
Reps for Universal, Warner and Sony did not respond to requests for comment, but some music attorneys are sympathetic to labels’ concerns about re-recordings. Although “the contracts have gotten reasonably artist-friendly over time,” longtime music attorney Don Passman said recently, “they don’t want you to duplicate your recordings — like ever — and then they will limit the other types of recordings you can do.”
Josh Binder, an attorney who represents SZA, Gunna, Doechii, Marshmello and others, says the Taylor Swift scenario is rare, and most artists never have to exercise their re-recording rights. “It doesn’t offend me so much. Rarely does it come into play where the re-record treatment is even used,” he says. “[The labels’] position is, ‘Hey, if we’re going to spend a bunch of money creating this brand with you, then you should not try and create records to compete with us.’ We try and fight it. We try and make it as short as possible. But I don’t find it to be the most compelling issue to fight.”
Once artists get past the weeds of re-recording restrictions, Binder says, the bigger issue is controlling their master recordings — that was Swift’s primary concern in putting out her new versions, after Braun purchased her catalog from Big Machine. Artists and their attorneys have recently moved towards licensing deals — retaining ownership of their masters and signing with labels to distribute music for a limited period — rather than traditional recording contracts where the label owns everything.
But Ben McLane, an attorney who has worked with dozens of artists, from Donovan and DMX to new label signees such as the Toxhards and We the Commas, says traditional deals remain more common than licensing deals, so battles over new re-recording restrictions still come up.
“I always ask for less. Some labels, at a negotiating point, might be fine with it. It always depends on what your leverage is,” he says. “If you’re an unknown artist, and you really need the deal, the label doesn’t have a lot of motivation to give in on things like that. They’re strict.”
Lizzo’s attorneys are firing back at a bombshell sexual harassment lawsuit filed by three of her former dancers, calling the allegations a “fabricated sob story” launched by “opportunists” seeking “a quick payday.”
In a motion to dismiss the case filed Friday (Oct. 27) in Los Angeles court, Lizzo’s team argued that the lawsuit — claiming sexual harassment discrimination, and fat-shaming — came from three women with “an axe to grind” who had shown “a pattern of gross misconduct and failure to perform their job up to par.”
“Plaintiffs embarked on a press tour, vilifying defendants and pushing their fabricated sob story in the courts and in the media. That ends today,” wrote Martin D. Singer, a well-known Hollywood attorney. “Instead of taking any accountability for their own actions, plaintiffs filed this lawsuit against defendants out of spite and in pursuit of media attention, public sympathy and a quick payday with minimal effort.”
In support of their motion, Lizzo’s attorneys also filed sworn statements from 18 members of her touring company who dispute many of the lawsuit’s specific factual accusations. That included several who challenged the headline-grabbing claim that Lizzo fat-shamed some of her dancers — a particularly loaded allegation against a singer who has made body positivity a key part of her brand.
“I never saw anyone, including plaintiffs, being weight shamed or body shamed,” one dancer wrote in Friday’s legal filings. “Far from it. Lizzo inspired all of us to celebrate and love ourselves and our bodies as we are.”
In their motion, Lizzo’s lawyers argued that the case should be dismissed immediately under California’s so-called anti-SLAPP statute — a special type of law enacted in states around the country that makes it easier to quickly end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech.
It’s unusual to see an anti-SLAPP motion aimed at dismissing a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former employees against their employer. Such motions are more common in defamation cases, where a defendant argues that a powerful plaintiff is abusing the court system to silence them from speaking out.
But in Friday’s motion, Lizzo’s lawyers argued that the anti-SLAPP law could also apply to the current case because of the creative nature of the work in question.
“The complaint — and plaintiffs’ carefully choreographed media blitz surrounding its filing — is a brazen attempt to silence defendants’ creative voices and weaponize their creative expression against them,” Singer and Lizzo’s other lawyers wrote.
The case against Lizzo, filed in August by dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, accuses the singer (real name Melissa Jefferson) and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of creating a hostile work environment through a wide range of legal wrongdoing, including not just sexual harassment but also religious and racial discrimination. The alleged weight-shaming, the lawsuit claims, amounted to a form of disability discrimination.
In one particularly vivid allegation, Lizzo’s accusers claimed she pushed them to attend a live sex show at a venue in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District called Bananenbar, and then pressured them to engage with the performers, including “eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas.” After Lizzo herself led a chant “goading” Davis to touch one performer’s breasts, the lawsuit says, Davis eventually did so.
But in Friday’s filings, Lizzo tour manager Molly Gordon sharply called into question that version of the evening.
“When I was at Bananenbar, I spoke with Davis. She did not say that she felt uncomfortable, that she felt forced to be there, or that she wanted to leave but felt that she could not do so,” Gordon said in the filing. “There would have been no question about whether she could leave if she was uncomfortable. I did not witness her engaging with any of the Bananenbar performers.”
Another key allegation in the August complaint was that Shirlene Quigley, the captain of Lizzo’s dance team, forced her religious beliefs on the plaintiffs and took repeated actions that made them uncomfortable, including commenting about their sexual virginity and simulating oral sex on a banana in front of them.
In sworn statements filed Friday, several members of the touring company disputed those allegations. Chawnta Van, a dancer, said the lawsuit’s description of Quigley was “not an accurate portrayal of her at all.”
“Quigley never treated anyone differently because of their religious or spiritual beliefs or actions,” Van said. “I never witnessed her bullying anyone about Jesus or about not having the same religious beliefs as she does, and that is completely contrary to who she is.”
The August complaint also detailed alleged outbursts by Lizzo, including an “excruciating re-audition” during which one dancer claims she wet herself because she feared she would be fired if she left the stage. The case also claims Lizzo repeatedly told dancers “none of their jobs were safe” and, most notably, raised “thinly veiled concerns” about Davis’ weight gain.
But according to Asia Banks, a dancer who described herself in Friday’s filings as “the biggest dancer on the tour,” she never experienced anything like that. “Lizzo always went out of her way to make me feel secure and confident in my body, including by making sure I was comfortable in every single costume for the show.”
Other statements from tour members alleged behavior and performance issues with Lizzo’s accusers. Zuri Appleby, a bass player, claimed Davis had been “lax about her performances, her hygiene and her health.” Gordon, the tour manager, said Williams had been terminated because she was “frequently late for rehearsals” and had missed a flight.
A representative for the plaintiffs did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
Utopia Music is facing another lawsuit over an aborted deal to buy a U.S. music technology company called SourceAudio, this time over allegations that the Swiss company violated a $400,000 settlement that aimed end the dispute.
The two companies have been battling since February, when SourceAudio filed a lawsuit claiming that Utopia – a buzzy music fintech firm – had bailed on 2022 deal to buy the smaller company for $26.5 million. The case claimed that after a year of delays, Utopia owed more than $37 million on the deal.
That case, filed in Delaware, quickly settled on confidential terms. But in a new lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, SourceAudio says Utopia has now flaked on that agreement, too.
“Desperate to get the Delaware litigation out of the public eye, Utopia negotiated an agreement to pay SourceAudio $400,000 in exchange for a full release and dismissal of the lawsuit,” the company’s lawyers write. “But as with the underlying contract, Utopia has refused to pay what it owes.”
According to the new lawsuit, just days after signing the legal settlement, Utopia “failed to make the required settlement payment—with no explanation at all.”
“It now appears that the settlement was simply a ruse by Utopia to buy time and avoid paying its debts,” the smaller company’s lawyers write. “SourceAudio brings this action to collect what it is owed [or] to rescind the fraudulently procured settlement agreement. Utopia’s gameplaying must come to an end.”
A spokesman for Utopia did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
Utopia, a Swiss-based tech company that delivers financial services for labels, publishers and distributors, had been on a buying spree over 2021 and 2022. The company has acquired at least 15 companies, including music tech company Musimap, U.K. physical distributor Cinram Novum and Lyric Financial, a provider of royalty-backed cash advances.
But last fall, news broke that Utopia would restructure operations and lay off 20% of its workforce, representing about 230 jobs. In April, the company undertook a fresh round of job cuts, eliminating another 15% of its global workforce. Then in July, Utopia announced it was closing its research and development offices in the United Kingdom and Finland, resulting in the loss of another 5% of its global workforce.
SourceAudio — a tech platform for digital asset management and monetization — sued in February, claiming it had struck a deal in March 2022 to sell itself to Utopia for $26.5 million. Since almost immediately after the deal was reached, SourceAudio claimed, the bigger company had continually balked at actually completing the purchase.
“Despite repeated assurances that Utopia would be able to close…, Utopia engaged in a pattern of discontinuing discussions for an extended period of time, only to resurface immediately before the next intended closing date to indicate that it was unable to close by such date,” the complaint read.
In Wednesday’s new lawsuit, SourceAudio claims that Utopia quickly agreed to pay $400,000 to end the earlier case. Though Utopia made an initial $50,000 payment under the deal, the lawsuit claims, the remaining $350,000 – due this month – has not been paid.
“Defendants fraudulently represented through their attorney that they would perform the settlement agreement, while never intending to make any payment beyond the first installment of $50,000,” The company wrote. “Defendants’ objective with its false promise was to secure a release and dismissal of the Delaware action in exchange for a $50,000 payment and nothing further.”
Cesar Pina, a celebrity house-flipper accused of running a “Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme,” said Tuesday (Oct. 24) that New York City radio host DJ Envy had “nothing to do” with the real estate deals in question.
Critics have claimed that Envy, who hosts the popular hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club, played a key role in Pina’s alleged fraud by promoting him on the air. But in an Instagram livestream Tuesday, Pina said Envy was not directly involved in any of the investments that led to a wave of civil litigation and last week’s federal charges.
“DJ Envy was never in the room with me,” Pina said on the livestream. “DJ Envy has nothing to do with any of these 20 lawsuits of these people who are suing me. It f—ing sucks, bro. It pisses me off that all these people are bashing DJ Envy.”
But later in the same stream, Pina also rejected arguments, advanced by both Envy and his lawyer, that the radio host was actually a potential victim of the alleged scam. “That’s the dumbest s— I ever heard in my life,” Pina said. “He’s not a victim. He was my partner, he was an investor.”
For months, Pina has faced allegations that he promised dozens of investors big profits on real estate deals in Northern New Jersey, only to return little or nothing. Those accusations started on social media but quickly turned into at least 20 civil lawsuits; one victim attorney estimated that more than 30 investors have come forward, seeking over $40 million from Pina and his wife, Jennifer.
Many of those lawsuits, including one filed by music industry veteran Anthony Martini, name DJ Envy as a co-defendant, citing his close ties with Pina — including Pina’s frequent appearances on The Breakfast Club and a series of real estate seminars that the two men co-hosted. Envy has strongly denied the accusations, saying he knew nothing about any foul play and actually lost $500,000 that he invested with Pina.
The situation escalated last week when federal prosecutors charged Pina with running a “a multimillion-dollar Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme.” Though Envy was not charged, the feds specifically noted that Pina had “partnered with a celebrity disc jockey and radio personality” — listed in the charges as “Individual-1” — to boost his reputation as a real estate guru.
In addition to discussing Envy during Tuesday’s livestream, Pina spent more than 20 minutes offering at-times rambling opinions on the entire situation. At one point, he seemed to argue that jilted investors may be less likely to recoup their investments now that the legal process has begun.
“And guess what, you f—ing geniuses? Now the government is involved. Now the government is gonna come in and say, ‘We’re staying all these lawsuits until your criminal proceedings are done,” Pina said. “So guess what? From a year to two years to getting paid — now it could be three to five years! And you guys will be lucky if you see anything. This is the most r——d s— in the world.”
A female songwriter is suing Kobalt Music Group and former company executive Sam Taylor over allegations that he leveraged his position of power to demand sex from her – and that the company “ignored” and “gaslit” women who complained about him.
In a complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles court, lawyers for Nataliya Nikitenko say that Taylor exploited his control over her career to repeatedly pressure her to have sex with him — an allegation legally termed “quid pro quo sexual harassment.” After initially rebuffing him, she claims she eventually gave in and was “forced to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse.”
“Taylor’s actions were sexually predatorial, as defendant Taylor held a position of power over plaintiff,” Nikitenko’s lawyers write. “In fear of her physical safety and with the knowledge that defendant Taylor would withhold work opportunities, defame plaintiff, and ruin plaintiff’s reputation if plaintiff displeased defendant Taylor … plaintiff reluctantly submitted to defendant Taylor’s sexual advances.”
The lawsuit was filed by an unnamed woman identified only as Jane Doe, a common procedural step in cases where plaintiffs fear retaliation. But the allegations closely mirror public accusations from Nikitenko reported by Billboard last year, and the language of the lawsuit directly confirms Jane Doe is Nikitenko.
In addition to the accusations against Taylor, Nikitenko is also suing Kobalt and company executives Sas Metcalfe, Sue Drew and Lauren Hubert. The songwriter’s lawyers claim that Kobalt and the executives were aware of allegations of impropriety against Taylor, but “silenced” women who made them.
“Kobalt [and its executives] consistently ignored the complaints against [Taylor] throughout his entire employment further empowering him and encouraging to continue his scheme of threatening individuals, sexually assaulting them, sexually battering them, and leveraging his power and ability to advance their careers,” Nikitenko’s lawyers write. They say the company “valued profits over the safety of not only their employees but the artists, musicians, and singers they contracted with.”
Taylor did not return an emailed request for comment on the lawsuit’s allegations; a lawyer who represented him in relation to Nikitenko’s claims to Billboard last year also did not reply. But in the story last year, Taylor’s lawyer said the relationship had been “completely consensual at all times.”
“It is a shame that his efforts to genuinely help her career, unrelated to any relationship, are being turned on him in this manner,” Taylor’s lawyer told Billboard at the time. “We assume that she’s doing this with full knowledge of the complete lack of linkage between his efforts on her behalf and any relationship. That relationship has long since ceased.”
Kobalt, in a statement to Billboard on Wednesday, called the lawsuit’s allegations against the company and its employees “baseless.”
“The complaint contains materially false allegations, and we believe that the plaintiff knows them to be false,” the company spokesman said. “Kobalt has always had a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any sort, and neither Kobalt nor its executives condoned or aided any alleged wrongdoing by any Kobalt employee, including Sam Taylor. Kobalt will vigorously defend this case and pursue all of its available remedies.”
In her lawsuit, Nikitenko says she signed a publishing administration deal with Kobalt in May 2015, when she was 20 years old. She says she first met Taylor, then 39, at a “writers hang” in February 2016, when he “pulled plaintiff aside and asked for her cell phone number.”
Over the next year, she claims that Taylor (her “point person” within Kobalt) began to sexually harass her via text and in person, including repeatedly “flirting” with her and making inappropriate comments in front of others at Kobalt.
In one alleged incident, Nikitenko claims that she was in a “a very small recording booth” at the Kobalt offices when Taylor entered, shut the door and told her “show me your boobs.” She claims he then “touched, groped, and grabbed” her breasts, leaving her “shocked” and “embarrassed.”
“The fact that defendant Taylor did this in the middle of the office only further illustrated that defendant Taylor was given the latitude and power to do whatever he wanted without and care or concern,” her lawyers write in the lawsuit.
Nikitenko says that as the harassment from Taylor continued to escalate, she eventually succumbed and agreed to go on a date with him because she feared retaliation. When she asked where they should meet, Taylor allegedly responded “your house.” She says she then rebuffed him and they instead met at a Santa Monica restaurant, but that he “insisted and pressured” her to let him take her home.
“Due to plaintiff’s well-founded fear for her career and the power dynamic that defendant Taylor had over her career, plaintiff was forced to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse with defendant Taylor,” Nikitenko’s lawyer wrote. “As soon as defendant Taylor orgasmed, defendant Taylor quickly got dressed and left.”
Over the following two years, Nikitenko claims that Taylor repeatedly leveraged his position to coerce her into more sex, often alternating between sexually-charged texts — including “unwanted nude pictures” — with discussions of career advancement. In several texts quoted in the complaint, Taylor allegedly told her “you owe me.”
“Throughout plaintiff’s contract and business relationship, defendant Taylor required plaintiff to pay defendant Taylor with sexual favors for career opportunities defendant Taylor promised,” her lawyers write. “Defendant Taylor would often say that defendant Taylor needed a ‘fee’ after helping plaintiff. This ‘fee’ referred to sexual favors.”
After he allegedly became “frustrated” with her, the lawsuit claims that Taylor spread a false rumor that Nikitenko, who is white, had “made a racist comment” during a recording session with music producer J. White, who is Black. She claims the false rumor was a form of retaliation, and that it has “prevented plaintiff from working with many other producers and labels.”
According to the lawsuit, Taylor was “terminated” from Kobalt in October 2019; a Kobalt spokesman declined to comment when asked for the exact cause for his exit from the company.
Notably, Nikitenko’s lawsuit says she did not report Taylor’s behavior to anyone at Kobalt until July 2020, well after he had already been terminated. But she says the company and its executives were previously aware of his “history of inappropriate sexual behavior,” and that several other Kobalt employees had complained to HR about him.
“No corrective action was taken by defendant Kobalt which allowed for and encouraged defendant Taylor to continue to sexually harass, threaten, and retaliate against others, including but not limited to, plaintiff,” her lawyers write.
In March 2022, Nikitenko says she attempted to terminate her agreement with Kobalt, citing her alleged mistreatment by Taylor. She claims that the company offered to let her walk away, but only if she repaid her unrecouped balance and signed some form of non-disclosure agreement — an offer she says she refused.
In the time since she went public with her allegations last year, Nikitenko says that Kobalt has “retaliated” against her by “not placing plaintiff in sessions or introducing Plaintiff to other artists to work” and ignoring her direct requests for work.
Taylor joined Republic Records in October 2020, and was promoted to the head of the label’s hip-hop and R&B A&R department in December 2021. It’s unclear if he is currently still employed by Republic, and a label spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment on Taylor’s status. Republic, a unit of Universal Music Group, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit or accused of any wrongdoing.
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: Universal Music Group (UMG) and other music companies file a hotly-anticipated copyright lawsuit over how artificial intelligence (AI) models are trained; DJ Envy’s business partner Cesar Pina is hit with criminal charges claiming he ran a “Ponzi-like” fraud scheme; Megan Thee Stallion reaches a settlement with her former label to end a contentious legal battle; Fyre Fest fraudster Billy McFarland is hit with a civil lawsuit by a jilted investor in his new project; and more.
Want to get The Legal Beat newsletter in your email inbox every Tuesday? Subscribe here for free.
THE BIG STORY: AI Music Heads To Court
When UMG and several other music companies filed a lawsuit last week, accusing an artificial intelligence company called Anthropic PBC of violating its copyrights en masse to “train” its AI models, my initial reaction was: “What took so long?”
The creators of other forms of content had already been in court for months. A group of photographers and Getty Images sued Stability AI over its training practices in January, and a slew of book authors, including Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin and legal novelist John Grisham, sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI over the same thing in June and again in September. And music industry voices, like the RIAA and UMG itself, had repeatedly signaled that they viewed such training as illegal.
For months, we asked around, scanned dockets and waited for the music equivalent. Was the delay a deliberate litigation strategy, allowing the fast-changing market and the existing lawsuits to play out more before diving in? Was the music business focusing on legislative, regulatory or business solutions instead of the judicial warpath they chose during the file-sharing debacle of the early 2000s?
Maybe they were just waiting for the right defendant. In a complaint filed in Nashville federal court on Oct. 18, UMG claimed that Anthropic — a company that got a $4 billion investment from Amazon last month — “unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works” in the process of teaching its models to spit out new lyrics. The lengthy complaint, co-signed by Concord Music Group, ABKCO and other music publishers, echoed arguments made by many rightsholders in the wake of the AI boom: “Copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the internet.”
Like the previous cases filed by photographers and authors, the new lawsuit poses something of an existential question for AI companies. AI models are only as good as the “inputs” they ingest; if federal courts make all copyrighted material off-limits for such purposes, it would not only make current models illegal but would undoubtedly hamstring further development.
The battle ahead will center on fair use — the hugely important legal doctrine that allows for the free use of copyrighted material in certain situations. Fair use might make you think of parody or criticism, but more recently, it’s empowered new technologies: In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the VCR was protected by fair use; in 2007, a federal appeals court ruled that Google Image search was fair use.
Are AI models, which imbibe millions of copyrighted works to create something new, the next landmark fair use? Or are they just a new form of copyright piracy on a vast new scale? We’re about to find out.
More key details about the AI case:
– The timing of the lawsuit would suggest that UMG is aiming for a carrot-and-stick approach when it comes to AI. On the same day the new case was filed, UMG announced that it was partnering with a company called BandLab Technologies to forge an “an ethical approach to AI.” Hours later, news also broke that UMG and other labels were actively negotiating with YouTube on a new AI tool that would allow creators to make videos using the voices of popular (consenting) recording artists.
-The huge issue in the case is whether the use of training inputs amounts to infringement, but UMG’s lawyers also allege that Anthropic violates its copyrights with the outputs that its models spit out — that it sometimes simply presents verbatim lyrics to songs. That adds a different dimension to the case that’s not present in earlier AI cases filed by authors and photographers and could perhaps make it a bit easier for UMG to win.
-While it’s the first such case about music, it should be noted that the Anthropic lawsuit deals only with song lyrics — meaning not with sound recordings, written musical notation, or voice likeness rights. While a ruling in any of the AI training cases would likely set precedent across different areas of copyright, those specific issues will have to wait for a future lawsuit, or perhaps an act of Congress.
Go read the full story on UMG’s lawsuit, with access to the actual complaint filed in court.
Other top stories this week…
MEGAN THEE SETTLEMENT – Megan Thee Stallion reached an agreement with her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment to end more than three years of ugly litigation over a record deal that Megan calls “unconscionable.” After battling for more than a year over whether she owed another album under the contract, the two sides now say they will “amicably part ways.”
DJ ENVY SCANDAL DEEPENS – Cesar Pina, a celebrity house-flipper with close ties to New York City radio host DJ Envy, was arrested on federal charges that he perpetrated “a multimillion-dollar Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme.” Though Envy was not charged, federal prosecutors specifically noted that Pina had “partnered with a celebrity disc jockey and radio personality” — listed in the charges as “Individual-1” — to boost his reputation as a real estate guru. The charges came after months of criticism against Envy, who is named in a slew of civil lawsuits filed by alleged victims who say he helped promote the fraud.
FOOL ME ONCE… – Billy McFarland, the creator of the infamous Fyre Festival who served nearly four years in prison for fraud and lying to the FBI, is facing a new civil lawsuit claiming he ripped off an investor who gave him $740,000 for his new PYRT venture. The case was filed by Jonathan Taylor, a fellow felon who met McFarland in prison after pleading guilty to a single count of child sex trafficking.
AI-GENERATED CLOSING ARGS? – Months after ex-Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel was convicted on foreign lobbying charges, he demanded a new trial by making extraordinary accusations against his ex-lawyer David Kenner. Michel claims Kenner, a well-known L.A. criminal defense attorney, used an unproven artificial intelligence (AI) tool called EyeLevel.AI to craft closing arguments — and that he did so because he owned a stake in the tech platform. Kenner declined to comment, but EyeLevel has denied that Kenner has any equity in the company.
ROLLING STONES GET SATISFACTION – A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of copying their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” from a pair of little-known songs, ruling that the dispute — a Spanish artist suing two Brits — clearly didn’t belong in his Louisiana federal courthouse.
JUICE WRLD COPYRIGHT CASE – Dr. Luke and the estate of the late Juice WRLD were hit with a copyright lawsuit that claims they unfairly cut out one of the co-writers (an artist named PD Beats) from the profits of the rapper’s 2021 track “Not Enough.”
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of copying their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” from a pair of little-known songs, ruling that the case was clearly filed in the wrong court.
Filed in March by songwriter Sergio Garcia Fernandez (stage name Angelslang), the copyright infringement lawsuit claimed that Jagger and Richards “misappropriated many of the recognizable and key protected elements” from his 2006 song “So Sorry” as well as his 2007 tune “Seed of God.”
But in a decision Wednesday (Oct. 18), Judge Eldon E. Fallon ruled that his Louisiana federal court lacked jurisdiction over Fernandez’s case. In doing so, he pointed out that Jagger and Richards are Brits, Fernandez lives in Spain, and The Rolling Stones have “only performed in New Orleans four times.”
“The mere fact that people in this district listen to the Rolling Stones or the alleged work does not permit this court to wield specific jurisdiction over the defendants,” Judge Fallon wrote in dismissing the case.
The judge only tossed the case “without prejudice” — meaning Fernandez is free to re-file the lawsuit in a more appropriate location. In the lead-up to Wednesday’s ruling, lawyers for The Rolling Stones argued that the case should have been filed somewhere in Europe.
In a statement to Billboard, Fernandez’s lawyer said he’s “disappointed and stunned by the court’s ruling.” But he vowed to “refile the lawsuit in a different venue in addition to reviewing other legal options.”
Released at the peak of the COVID-19 shutdowns in April 2020, “Living in a Ghost Town” was the first original material released by the Stones since 2012. The song, a blues-rock tune with reggae influences accompanied by a COVID-themed video, reached No. 3 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart in May 2020.
In his lawsuit, Fernandez alleged that the new track was created by borrowing key features from his two earlier songs, including vocal melodies, chord progressions and other elements. “Defendants never paid plaintiff, nor secured the authorization for the use of ‘So Sorry’ and ‘Seed of God,’” his lawyers wrote at the time.
How would members of the iconic band have heard those songs, which have less than 1,000 spins on Spotify? Fernandez claims he gave a demo CD to “an immediate family member” of Jagger.
“The immediate family member … confirmed receipt … to the plaintiff via e-mail, and expressed that the musical works of the plaintiff and its style was a sound The Rolling Stones would be interested in using,” Fernandez’s lawyers wrote.
When the case was first filed, experts told Billboard that it was unlikely to succeed. Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and a professor at Berklee College of Music, said the songs shared only an overall vibe — based on mid-tempo rock grooves in the key of A minor — that’s been ubiquitous in rock and blues since the beginning.
“The Stones didn’t copy from Fernandez, because they didn’t need to,” Bennett said. “They’ve been playing grooves like this for a very long time, as have many others.”
Cesar Pina, a celebrity house-flipper with close ties to New York City radio host DJ Envy, was arrested Wednesday (Oct. 18) on federal charges that he perpetrated “a multimillion-dollar Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The charges come after months of social media accusations and civil litigation against Pina, who victims say stole their money with promises of big profits. DJ Envy (real name RaaShaun Casey) has been caught up in the scheme because critics say he helped promote Pina, including through appearances on his nationally syndicated hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club — accusations he denies.
In announcing the charges, federal authorities said Pina had “exploited celebrity status and social media to develop a devoted following of potential victims.”
“Promising returns that were too good to be true, Pina allegedly defrauded dozens of people of millions of dollars,” New Jersey U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said in a statement. “Our office is committed to protecting the public from these schemes and prosecuting those who lie to investors for their own personal gain.”
DJ Envy is not named in the charges and is not accused of any criminal wrongdoing. But federal prosecutors specifically noted that Pina “partnered with a celebrity disc jockey and radio personality” — listed in the charges as “Individual-1” — to boost his reputation as a real estate guru.
“Together, they used Individual-l’s celebrity to promote various real estate enterprises that Pina controlled,” prosecutors wrote in the criminal complaint. “Pina represented that he was a highly successful real estate investor, owned thousands of properties in multiple states, and had business relationships with numerous celebrities.”
Attorneys for both Pina and Envy did not return requests for comment.
The accusations against Pina first cropped up in May, when an Instagram account accused him of defrauding numerous investors — and accused Envy of playing a key role. That led to a flood of civil lawsuits from dozens of victims who say Pina owed them thousands or millions of dollars. One victim’s attorney estimated that more than 30 investors have already come forward, seeking over $40 million from Pina and his wife, Jennifer.
Many of those lawsuits, including one filed by music industry veteran Anthony Martini, name DJ Envy as a co-defendant, citing their close ties — including Pina’s frequent appearances on The Breakfast Club and a series of real estate seminars that the two men co-hosted. One case says Envy “aided and abetted” the fraudsters by “using his public likeness as a well-known radio disc jockey to promote their real estate scheme.”
Envy says those kinds of allegations are not only false — he says he himself is also a victim of Pina’s alleged scheme — but also defamatory. He’s suing the social media influencer who first publicized the allegations, claiming he “spewed” lies to promote his own real estate business, and he’s demanding to be dismissed from the investor lawsuits.
In an interview with Billboard last week, Envy’s lawyer, Massimo F. D’Angelo, said his client had nothing to do with the specific deals involved in Pina’s alleged scheme and was being targeted by lawyers and critics who were “sensationalizing” the case by involving a celebrity: “Envy had no involvement whatsoever. The only reason he’s being dragged into this is because he’s a public figure.”
Read the full complaint against Pina here.