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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: Eminem invokes special political licensing rules to block a Republican presidential candidate from using his music at rallies; a federal judge cites Biggie & Wu-Tang to dismiss a copyright case; the messy Isley Brothers lawsuit has no quick end in sight; and much more.
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THE BIG STORY: Eminem Pulls Music From GOP Candidate
Eminem is demanding that a Republican presidential candidate stop using “Lose Yourself” on campaign stops — and, lucky for him, licensing groups like ASCAP and BMI have made it easy for him to do so.
In a letter obtained by Billboard, a rep for BMI formally asked Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign last week to stop using Eminem’s music, saying the star himself had requested that they do so. The move came less than two weeks after the candidate was captured in a viral video rapping the lyrics to the smash hit song at an event in Iowa.
“This letter serves as notice that the Eminem Works are excluded from the Agreement effective immediately,” the group wrote in the letter. “BMI will consider any performance of the Eminem Works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies.”
A spokeswoman for the campaign quickly announced that Ramaswamy would comply, saying they would “leave the rapping to the real Slim Shady.”
And that’s because they pretty much had to under the terms of BMI’s special “political entities” license – a unique legal solution crafted to address the problem of music stars who want to freely license their songs to stadiums, bars and other public spaces, but not to certain politicians.
To learn more about Eminem’s letter to Ramaswamy – and the history of top artists complaining about their music being used at political rallies – go read our full story over at Billboard.
Other top stories…
JUDGE KNOWS HER HIP HOP – It’s not every day that you see a federal judge cite Biggie, Wu-Tang, Kanye, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Neil Young in a single ruling. But that’s what Judge Martha Pacold did when she tossed out a copyright lawsuit against Future claiming he ripped off his 2018 song “When I Think About It” from an earlier track by a little-known Virginia rapper.
TRUMP HIRES GUNNA’S LAWYER – Facing a sweeping racketeering case in Atlanta, former President Donald Trump hired attorney Steven Sadow, a veteran Georgia criminal defense attorney who just represented Gunna in the high-profile criminal case against Young Thug and other rappers. Sadow, who has also represented Rick Ross, T.I. and Usher, will take over for Drew Findling, another lawyer with close ties to Atlanta’s hip hop community.
ISLEY BATTLE CONTINUES – A federal judge refused to quickly end a nasty lawsuit pitting members of the Isley Brothers against each other over the trademark rights to the band’s name. The ruling means more litigation over Rudolph Isley’s accusation that brother Ronald Isley of improperly is trying to secure sole ownership over a name that’s supposed to be jointly owned.
R. KELLY’S UMG ROYALTIES – More than $500,000 in R. Kelly’s royalties held by Universal Music Group must be handed over to Brooklyn federal prosecutors to help pay his victims, a federal judge ruled last week. The decision covers most of Kelly’s money held by Universal, but leaves unresolved questions about his funds held by Sony, Kelly’s former label, and about millions in additional money he owes to victims and debtors in other cases.
NAME CHANGE ENDS ‘FEST’ SUIT – Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins agreed to change the name of an upstart “TC Summer Fest” concert series in Minneapolis, a month after they were sued for trademark infringement by the organizers of Milwaukee’s decades-old Summerfest. The lawsuit accused the Twins of picking the name to “piggy-back” on the success of the existing event.
LIVE NATION SUED OVER INJURY – A stagehand hired to prepare a recent concert by The Weeknd in Texas is suing Live Nation, claiming that the company is liable for negligence after his leg was run over by a forklift while the stage was being built.
Eminem is demanding that Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stop using “Lose Yourself” on campaign stops — and he’s invoking the unique rules of BMI’s special “political entities” license to do so.
In a letter obtained by Billboard, BMI formally asked Ramaswamy’s campaign last week to stop using Eminem’s music, less than two weeks after the candidate was captured in a viral video rapping the lyrics to the smash hit song at an event in Iowa.
The letter alerted the campaign that Eminem had invoked his rights under BMI’s Political Entities License, which allows an artist to immediately withdraw their music from the more than 20 million songs made available to political campaigns under the blanket license.
“This letter serves as notice that the Eminem Works are excluded from the Agreement effective immediately,” the group wrote in the letter. “BMI will consider any performance of the Eminem Works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach of the agreement for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies.”
A spokesman for the Ramaswamy campaign could not immediately be reached for comment.
Top artists have long chafed at the use of their music by politicians, particularly conservatives. Foo Fighters and John Mellencamp blasted John McCain for using their music during the 2008 presidential election, while Neil Young, Guns N’ Roses, Pharrell, Rihanna and the estate of Tom Petty have all spoken out about their music being used at campaign events for Donald Trump.
Like any other group hosting large public gatherings, political campaigns pay ASCAP and BMI for blanket licenses to publicly perform copyrighted music — meaning candidates have automatic access to songs without ever directly contacting the musicians themselves. But, owing to repeated backlash, both ASCAP and BMI now offer special licenses for political entities, which allow artists to exclude individual songs from a particular campaign’s blanket deal.
It was this provision that was invoked by Eminem, according to BMI’s letter: “BMI has received a communication from Marshall B. Mathers, III, professionally known as Eminem, objecting to the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign’s use of Eminem’s musical compositions and requesting that BMI remove all Eminem Works from the Agreement.”
In the past, there had been some confusion about whether the existing ASCAP and BMI licenses held by venues themselves — hotels, convention centers, event spaces and so on — gave campaigns some legal cover to keep using disputed songs even after they had been withdrawn. Back in 2018, Axl Rose claimed that the Trump campaign was doing exactly that when it came to Guns N’ Roses songs.
“Unfortunately, the Trump campaign is using loopholes in the various venues’ blanket performance licenses, which were not intended for such craven political purposes without the songwriters’ consent,” Rose wrote in a tweet at the time.
But BMI’s rules now expressly avoid that problem, warning licensees that “a venue license does not cover events and functions hosted by political campaigns and organizations held at venues.”
“Political campaigns must obtain a BMI Political Entities License to authorize to use of the musical works, whether at a traditional location such as a hotel or convention center, or at a nontraditional location such as airport hangars or community fields, where political events take place,” BMI states on its website.
It’s not every day that you see a federal judge cite Biggie, Wu-Tang, Kanye, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Neil Young in a single ruling.
But that’s what Judge Martha Pacold did Friday, when she tossed out a copyright lawsuit claiming Future ripped off his 2018 song “When I Think About It” from an earlier track by a little-known Virginia rapper. The judge ruled the accuser was essentially trying to sue over basic lyrics that are ubiquitous in hip hop.
“The thematic elements that [the accusers] address—guns, money, and jewelry—are frequently present in hip-hop and rap music,” the judge wrote. “The commonality of these themes in hop-hop and rap place [them] outside the protections of copyright law.”
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To prove her point on each guns, money, and jewelry, Pacold actually pointed to specific sets of lyrics for each one: First to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Machine Gun Funk,” then to Wu-Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me), and finally to Kanye West’s “Diamonds From Sierra Leone.”
“Where elements of a work are indispensable, or at least standard, in the treatment of a given topic, they receive no protection,” the judge wrote.
Lawyers for DaQuan Robinson sued Future (real name Nayvadius Wilburn) in 2021, claiming “When I Think About It” infringed Robinson’s earlier song “When U Think About It.” They claimed he had emailed a draft of his song to Future’s producer a year before the infringing song was released.
But in Friday’s decision, Pacold ruled that it did not matter whether Future had copied Robinson’s song, because the material he allegedly borrowed – even if he did so — was not covered by copyrights in the first place: “None of the elements Robinson has identified in ‘When U Think About It’ is protectable.”
Future’s song features the lyric “when I think about it,” which the lawsuit claimed infringed Robinson’s use of the lyric “when you think about it.” But the judge ruled that such a short, simple phrase could not be monopolized by any one lyricist.
“It is a fragmentary expression that is commonplace in everyday speech and ubiquitous in popular music,” Pacold wrote. She cited an earlier decision by another court that dismissed a similar lawsuit against Kanye West over his allusion the “Nietzschean aphorism” about “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” in his 2007 hit “Stronger.”
Future’s song and Robinson’s song tell similar stories about overcoming adversity, the judge said, but this basic idea is “too common a narrative to be protectable.” Adding to her earlier musical references, she cited the plot F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby to prove the point.
“A story about a person proving to those around him that he is better, despite a past full of hardships is general enough that it could also describe the plot of famous works of American literature,” Pacold wrote.
Even then, the judge wasn’t quite done making artistic references. To reject another one of Robinson’s claims — that Future had copied his use of a “core lyric” to help convey his song’s overall message — she cited Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and their seminal 1970 song “Our House.”
“The core lyric, ‘our house is a very, very, very fine house,’ is used to support the entire rest of the song, which uses the house and its constituent elements as the setting for the narrator’s relationship,” Pacold wrote. “This songwriting technique is not unique to Robinson, nor mid-century Canadian-American bands that feature intricate vocal harmonies. The mere use of a ‘core lyric’ to support a song’s storyline is not a protectable element because it is a frequently utilized technique in popular songwriting.”
The ruling can be appealed to a federal appeals court. Often, judges will allow accusers like Robinson to file an updated version of their case, but Pacold refused to do so: “Amendment would be futile because the relevant songs and their lyrics cannot change.”
Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on the ruling.
Facing a sweeping racketeering case in Atlanta, former President Donald Trump has hired attorney Steven Sadow, a veteran Georgia criminal defense attorney who just represented Gunna in the high-profile criminal case against Young Thug and other rappers.
Sadow, who has also represented Rick Ross, T.I. and Usher in the past, filed legal papers Thursday morning (Aug. 24) in Fulton County Court stating that he was “lead counsel of record for Donald John Trump.” When reached by Billboard, Sadow confirmed that had been hired to represent the former president.
“The President should never have been indicted,” says Sadow. “He is innocent of all the charges brought against him. We look forward to the case being dismissed or, if necessary, an unbiased, open-minded jury finding the President not guilty. Prosecutions intended to advance or serve the ambitions and careers of political opponents of the President have no place in our justice system.”
Trump, who is expected to surrender to prosecutors on Thursday, is facing 13 felony counts as part of a massive racketeering case against 19 defendants accused of trying to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. Fulton County DA Fani Willis filed the charges under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a state-level version of the federal RICO law used to prosecute drug cartels and Mafia families.
That’s the same RICO statute that the same Fulton County prosecutor used in May 2022 to indict Young Thug, Gunna and dozens of others over their alleged involvement in a violent Atlanta street gang. The case claims that their “YSL” is not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but a criminal enterprise called “Young Slime Life” that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes.
Represented by Sadow, Gunna pleaded guilty in December to exit that case by taking a so-called Alford plea — a maneuver that allows a defendant to enter a formal admission of guilt while still maintaining their innocence.
At the time, Gunna insisted that the deal did not involve cooperation with prosecutors. But when he entered his plea, Gunna admitted in court that YSL was both “a music label and a gang,” and that he had “personal knowledge that members or associates of YSL have committed crimes in furtherance of the gang.”
Young Thug and many others are still facing those charges. A trial technically kicked off earlier this year but has faced long delays in selecting a jury to hear the case and has not substantively begun yet. Young Thug has repeatedly been denied pre-trial release on bond.
Sadow will take over representing Trump from Drew Findling, another Atlanta lawyer with an extensive history representing rappers in criminal matters, including Gucci Mane, the members of Migos and Cardi B in her recent microphone-throwing incident in Las Vegas.
Though Findling has not formally departed the case yet, a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Billboard that he will no longer be retained by the former president. Findling himself did not return a request for comment on Thursday.
Trump is expected to surrender Thursday evening at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, though he’ll only be there briefly before he is released on a negotiated bond. While some of the defendants in the YSL case are being held in the same building, Young Thug is detained in neighboring Cobb County Jail.
The organizers of Milwaukee’s decades-old Summerfest have dropped their trademark lawsuit against the Minnesota Twins over an upstart festival held in Minneapolis this summer under a similar name, after the team agreed to change the name.
Last month, the company behind the Milwaukee concert series accused the Twins of infringing its trademarks by launching TC Summer Fest, which kicked off July 14 with performances by Imagine Dragons and The Killers at the ball club’s Target Field in Minneapolis.
Summerfest, which launched in 1968 and calls itself “The World’s Largest Music Festival,” accused the Twins of picking the name to “piggy-back” on the success of the existing event. They pointed out that this year’s Summerfest in Milwaukee also featured a performance by Imagine Dragons.
But in a motion filed Wednesday in Wisconsin federal court, attorneys for Summerfest moved to voluntarily drop its lawsuit against the Twins. In a statement to Billboard, a spokesman for the Twins confirmed that a deal had been reached to end the case.
“The parties have reached an agreement that the Summer Fest name will not be used for the concert event in the future,” said Matt Hobson, a representative for the Twins. Lawyers for Summerfest did not return a request for comment.
Summerfest, which has featured performances by The Doors, Eric Clapton, Whitney Houston, Prince and many other legendary acts, typically draws hundreds of thousands of concertgoers. This year’s event, running over three weekends from late June to early July, drew a reported 600,000 attendees to see Imagine Dragons, Zac Brown Band, Sheryl Crow and others.
Announced in May, TC Summer Fest was billed by the Twins as “The Biggest Rock Weekend of the Year.” According to the Star Tribune, the two-night event was partially organized by local promoter Jerry Braam, who had previously spearheaded a similar festival in the area called “Twin Cities Summer Jam.”
In June, attorneys for Summerfest’s parent company (Milwaukee World Festival) sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Twins, warning the team that they believed the new name infringed trademarks. They said they were prepared to “take appropriate measures” against “a clear attempt” by the ballclub to capitalize on a “well-known brand.”
On July 13, a day before TC Summer Fest was set to star, Summerfest made good on those threats, filing a trademark infringement lawsuit against the Twins and seeking an immediate injunction. They said the name of the Minnesota event was already creating “public confusion,” citing multiple media outlets that had allegedly mixed up the two fests.
“These instances are just some of the confusion that is occurring in the marketplace, confusion that the Twins is hoping to benefit from as they launch their inaugural music festival building upon the goodwill and reputation of the ‘Summerfest’ trademarks,” the lawyers for Summerfest wrote at the time.
The dispute was hardly the first for Summerfest. The festival’s organizers say they have sent 32 cease and desist letters since April 2022 to rival events that feature “Summerfest” in their names, and that 27 have either agreed to stop or agreed to pay royalties to the Milwaukee event.
There won’t be a quick end to a nasty lawsuit pitting members of the Isley Brothers against each other over the trademark rights to the band’s name.
In a ruling Wednesday, Judge Thomas M. Durkin refused to dismiss Rudolph Isley’s lawsuit, which accuses brother Ronald Isley of improperly attempting to secure a federal trademark registration on the “The Isley Brothers” – a name Rudolph claims is supposed to be jointly owned.
Lawyers for Ronald had argued that the case should be tossed out because Rudolph surrendered any control over the name when he left the band. But in a ruling that noted the “unique circumstances” of band-name disputes, the judge said it could move forward toward trial: “Defendant’s motion is denied.”
Barring a settlement, the ruling means the case will head into discovery, in which both sides will gather evidence to support their arguments, and then to an eventual jury trial. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Thursday.
Band names are a constant source of trademark disputes, typically among various current and former members who disagree about who has the right to keep using a famous title. Who truly constitutes the band? Is it the members, or an LLC that owns the rights to the name? Is it the original lineup, or the one that produced the biggest hits?
Journey, Stone Temple Pilots, Jefferson Starship, the Rascals, the Ebonys, the Commodores and the Platters have all resorted to such litigation over the years. Members of the Beach Boys spent more than 10 years fighting over their name, before a settlement was reached in 2008. And Morris Day recently had an ugly fight with the Prince estate over the trademark rights to his band name, The Time.
In the case of the Isleys, Rudolph claims that since the 1986 death of their third brother O’Kelly Isley, he and Ronald have been the equal co-owners of the group’s intellectual property. Ronald sees things differently, claiming the “Isley Brothers” trademarks are the property of those who have actually been using a name – and that Rudolph has not performed with the band since 1986.
Rudolph sued Ronald in March, asking a judge to declare that the trademark rights to the name are “jointly owned by plaintiff and defendant equally.” He also wants a ruling that forces Ronald to explain how he has “exploited” the trademark and to share any revenue derived from it.
In Wednesday’s decision, Judge Durkin ruled that Rudolph’s allegations, if later proven true, would mean that he continued to have rights to the name. “Plaintiff’s contention is that when he ceased performing, he did not leave the group, but instead took on the sort of continuing managerial role that creates a continuing ownership right in the mark,” the judge wrote.
In doing so, Judge Durkin recounted many previous rulings on the “unique circumstances of individual members’ rights to a musical group’s trademark.” In one case among members of The Platters, a court ruled that bandmates typically “do not retain rights to use the group’s name when they leave the group.” But in another case, a court ruled that a singer from the doo-wop group Vito & the Salutations continued to hold rights to the name because he maintained a “behind-the-scenes role” after leaving the band.
Rudolph says he took a similar “active” role in the Isley Brothers after he stopped performing, including playing a key role in securing a multi-million dollar publishing deal in 2018 and helping to negotiate the use of the band’s iconic song “Shout” for a commercial during the Super Bowl in February.
“Plaintiff’s allegations regarding his activities on behalf of the group are more like those in [the Vito & the Salutations case] than [other musicians] who left their musical groups entirely and did not allege any continuing role,” Judge Durkin wrote.
The ruling means the case will head into discovery, in which both sides will gather evidence to support their arguments, and then to an eventual jury trial. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Thursday.
More than $500,000 in R. Kelly’s royalties held by Universal Music Group must be handed over to Brooklyn federal prosecutors to help pay his victims, a judge ruled Wednesday.
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Two years after a jury convicted the singer of sex trafficking and racketeering – and a year after she sentenced him to 30 years in prison — Judge Ann Donnelly signed a so-called writ of garnishment directing UMG to hand over $520,549 in his publishing royalties to pay restitution and criminal fines.
Prosecutors had moved to seize royalties held both by UMG and by Sony Music Entertainment, Kelly’s former label. But because UMG’s account held enough to cover the entire penalty (UMG disclosed to the judge it was holding $567,444) prosecutors said Wednesday they would drop their request to tap Sony’s account.
That doesn’t mean Sony will be keeping Kelly’s funds, though. The label, which held more than $1.5 million in Kelly royalties as of 2020, is facing other demands to access that money – to an abuse victim who won a $4 million civil judgment, as well as a Chicago landlord that’s owed $3.5 million.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago, who won a separate conviction against Kelly on child pornography charges, could also seek to collect money, either from Sony or from the remaining funds in UMG’s account. Kelly owes $42,000 in fines and restitution in that case.
A spokesman for UMG declined to comment. A spokesman for Sony did not return a request for comment.
After decades of accusations of sexual misconduct, Kelly was convicted in New York in 2021 on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges stemming from accusations that he orchestrated a long-running scheme to recruit and abuse women and underage girls. Last summer, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
In September 2022, he was convicted in Chicago on separate of federal charges of child pornography and enticement of minors for sex. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years on those convictions in February, but he will serve nearly all of the time simultaneously with the earlier 30-year sentence.
Two months after a New Jersey judge was hit with a misconduct investigation over TikTok videos in which he lip-synced to Rihanna’s “Jump” and other popular songs, he’s filed his first response — admitting “poor judgment” and “vulgar” lyrics but saying he intended only “silly, harmless, and innocent fun.”
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Gary N. Wilcox, a judge on New Jersey’s Superior Court, is facing potential discipline after it was revealed in June that he had posted pseudonymous lip-sync videos featuring sexually explicit and violent lyrics. One featured a Nas song about a courthouse shooting; another centered on Busta Rhymes lyrics about oral sex; several were filmed in his actual court chambers.
In his first formal response Friday (Aug. 18), Wilcox repeatedly owned up to the mistake — saying he’d intended the videos to be private but acknowledging that “the content of some of his posts was inappropriate and not becoming of a judge.”
“The respondent recognizes that now and with the benefit of hindsight would not have made and posted them,” Wilcox wrote. “Nor will he ever post again.”
But Wilcox also defended himself, saying the lyrics came from songs by “recognized commercial artists” that had been “played on the radio” and could be purchased by anyone — including some that had been “nominated for recognized music industry awards.” Notably, Wilcox also suggested that his use of hip-hop lyrics had been treated differently than it might have been for a different type of music.
“Other genres have generated popular songs by artists who have criminal backgrounds or lyrics about objectionable or even abhorrent conduct,” the judge wrote. “Yet, such artists and songs remain popular. Those who listen to them, sing them, or even lip-sync to them are not adopting any messaging or lifestyle of the artist or song.”
Wilcox was hit with a complaint on June 30 by New Jersey’s judicial conduct watchdog, claiming he had used the alias “Sal Tortorella” to create dozens of TikTok posts over the past two years.
The complaint cited 11 videos that were “inappropriate and brought disrepute to the Judiciary,” including those with “graphic sexual references to female and male body parts” or “racist terms.” Several were allegedly filmed in his personal chambers, and one was filmed walking through the courthouse in his robes.
“By his conduct in posting these and similar videos to TikTok, Respondent exhibited poor judgment and demonstrated disrespect for the Judiciary and an inability to conform to the high standards of conduct expected of judges,” judicial regulators wrote.
In one video, Wilcox mouthed lyrics from “Jump” by Rihanna: “If you want it let’s do it / Ride it, my pony / My saddle is waitin’ / Come and jump on it / If you want it, let’s do it.” In another, Wilcox appeared as “Touch It” by Busta Rhymes played in the background: “While she tryna touch see I was peepin’ it out / She turned around and was tryna put my dick in her mouth / I let her.”
One other video featured Nas’ “Get Down,” a 2002 track that features a lyric about a criminal trial in which a defendant “grabbed a court officer’s gun and started squeezing” and another in which gang members kill a doctor who treated a rival.
The complaint, lodged by the state’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, accused Wilcox of violating three different rules governing the New Jersey judiciary, including one requiring judges “to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.” Under state guidelines, his discipline could range from a light reprimand to his outright dismissal from the bench.
In Friday’s response, Wilcox urged the committee to impose only a reprimand. He cited his “unblemished record” prior to the videos, and said the TikTok clips, which had been viewed by only a small number of people, had not caused lasting damage to “the public’s perception of his integrity.” He also said he had faced enough punishment simply by the case being publicly filed against him.
“The public is clearly aware of the embarrassment and humiliation that respondent has been subjected to by the enormous press coverage resulting from the filing of the complaint for public discipline,” Wilcox wrote.
As for the lyrics themselves, Wilcox repeatedly stressed that he had not intended to “endorse any of the artists, their lifestyle or their views.” Referring to the sexually-explicit Rihanna lyrics, the judge said he chose it simply because he had “heard the song and liked the music.”
“The song was posted because of the music and to have fun lip syncing,” the judge wrote. “It was not posted because of any meaning, nor was the post directed anywhere, at anyone or anything.”
Wilcox will face a formal hearing on the allegations, but such a hearing has not yet been scheduled.
The rapper Gunplay is facing three felony charges over an alleged domestic violence incident involving his wife. The rapper, whose real name is Richard Morales, was arrested Sunday and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, and child abuse, according to court records reviewed by Billboard. According to a police report obtained […]
Two men who claim Michael Jackson sexually abused them as children can pursue their lawsuits against companies that were owned by the late singer, a California appeals court ruled Friday (Aug. 18).
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Wade Robson and James Safechuck filed their cases a decade ago, claiming that Jackson’s companies (MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc.) had a legal duty to protect them from the singer’s alleged abuse.
But Jackson’s companies argued — and a lower court agreed — that they had no such obligation to Robson and Safechuck since Jackson was the sole owner of the companies and they thus lacked the power to control him.
On Friday, the California Court of Appeal for Second District overturned that decision — ruling that the corporate structure did not automatically shield the companies from liability.
“We conclude a corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator of the abuse,” the court wrote.
“The corporations say these are ‘idiosyncratic circumstances,’ and perhaps they are. There is certainly no comparable case law to recite,” the court wrote. “But it would be perverse to find no duty based on the corporate defendant having only one shareholder.”
In a statement, Jonathan Steinsapir, lead counsel for MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc., said he and his clients were “disappointed” by the decision.
“We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money,” Steinsapir said. “We trust that the truth will ultimately prevail with Michael’s vindication yet again. Michael Jackson himself said, ‘Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.’
Vince Finaldi, an attorney for Robson and Safechuck, said he and his clients were “pleased but not surprised” that the court had chosen to overturn “incorrect rulings in these cases, which were against California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that endangered children throughout state and country. We eagerly look forward to a trial on the merits.”
Robson’s and Safechuck’s allegations were detailed in the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland. Safechuck claims that Jackson abused him “hundreds of times in various locations”; Robson says Jackson began molesting him in 1990, when he was seven, and continued to do so until he was 14.
Robson sued in May 2013, at the age of 30, and Safechuck followed suit a year later when he was 36. The pair argued that Jackson’s companies were negligent in failing to stop the alleged abuse, calling them “conspirators, collaborators, facilitators and alter egos” that were “specifically designed to locate, attract, lure and seduce child sexual abuse victims.”
In 2020, a trial court dismissed those claims, ruling that Jackson had “absolute legal control over the entities and everyone employed by them,” meaning those companies and their staffers had “no ability to control Jackson regarding his alleged sexual abuse of plaintiff.”
But in Friday’s decision reversing that ruling, the appeals court said Jackson’s companies were not as powerless as they had been made out to be.
“Any director, employee or other agent of defendants who knew of or suspected abuse could have done something to protect plaintiffs’ welfare: issued warnings, gone to police, confronted Jackson,” the court wrote. “Yes, the likely consequence of protecting plaintiffs would have been termination of employment or removal from the board of directors. But a director or employee’s risk of removal or termination if they acted to protect plaintiffs does not mean they could not act.”
Friday’s ruling revived Robson’s and Safechuck’s lawsuits, but it does not mean they have won the cases. The disputes will now return to a lower court for more litigation and an eventual trial, where the pair will need to prove their allegations against MJJ Productions Inc. and MJJ Ventures Inc.
Read the entire opinion here: