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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:
A federal judge ruled Friday (Aug. 18) that U.S. copyright law does not cover creative works created by artificial intelligence, weighing in on an issue that’s being closely watched by the music industry.
In a 15-page written opinion, Judge Beryl Howell upheld a decision by the U.S. Copyright Office to deny a copyright registration to computer scientist Stephen Thaler for an image created solely by an AI model. The judge cited decades of legal precedent that such protection is only afforded to works created by humans.
“The act of human creation — and how to best encourage human individuals to engage in that creation, and thereby promote science and the useful arts — was … central to American copyright from its very inception,” the judge wrote. “Non-human actors need no incentivization with the promise of exclusive rights under United States law, and copyright was therefore not designed to reach them.”
In a statement Friday, Thaler’s attorney Ryan Abbot said he and his client “disagree with the district court’s judgment” and vowed to appeal: “In our view, copyright law is clear that the public is the main beneficiary of the law and this is best achieved by promoting the generation and dissemination of new works, regardless of how they are created.”
Though novel, the decision was not entirely surprising. Federal courts have long strictly limited to content created by humans, rejecting it for works created by animals, by forces of nature, and even those claimed to have been authored by divine spirits, like religious texts.
But the ruling was nonetheless important because it came amid growing interest in the future role that could be played in the creation of music and other content by so-called generative AI tools, similar to the much-discussed ChatGPT. The question of copyright protection is crucial to the future role of AI since works that are not protected would be difficult to monetize.
“Undoubtedly, we are approaching new frontiers in copyright as artists put AI in their toolbox to be used in the generation of new visual and other artistic works,” the judge wrote. “The increased attenuation of human creativity from the actual generation of the final work will prompt challenging questions.”
The current case, however — dealing with a work that was admittedly created solely by a computer — “is not nearly so complex,” the judge wrote. Given the lack of any human input at all, she said, Thaler’s case presented a “clear and straightforward answer.”
Though Friday’s ruling came with a clear answer, more challenging legal dilemmas will come in the future from more subtle uses of AI. What if an AI-powered tool is used in the studio to create parts of a song, but human artists add other elements to the final product? How much human direction on the use of those tools is needed for the output to count as “human authorship”?
Earlier this year, a report by the U.S. Copyright Office said that AI-assisted works could still be copyrighted, so long as the ultimate author remains a human being. The report avoided offering easy answers, saying that protection for AI works would be “necessarily a case-by-case inquiry,” and that the final outcome would always depend on individual circumstances.
Read the full opinion here:
French Montana is facing a copyright lawsuit claiming his 2022 song “Blue Chills” features an unlicensed sample from a singer-songwriter – who says the rapper tentatively agreed to pay her for the clip but then never actually did so.
Skylar Gudasz’s ghostly 2020 song “Femme Fatal” can be heard playing throughout French’s track, and she claims that the rapper’s reps offered to pay her for the sample – both in upfront fees and an ongoing payments, including a fifty-percent share of the publishing copyright.
But in a lawsuit filed Thursday in North Carolina federal court, the singer says French (whose real name is Karim Kharbouch) then dropped “Blue Chills” without ever actually signing that deal.
“Despite repeated promises from defendants …. no signed agreement, fees, royalties, licensing agreements or monies have ever been sent to plaintiff,” Gudasz’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.
A rep for French Montana did not immediately return a request for comment.
Gudasz says she was first contacted in May 2022 by Deborah Mannis-Gardner, a well-known industry exec who has been called the “queen” of sample clearance, about French using “Femme Fatal” in an upcoming song. Gudasz says she and her lawyer then negotiated a deal in which she would receive more than $7000 in upfront fees, an .08 percent cut on master royalties, and a fifty-percent share of the copyright for French’s new composition.
But a month later, she claims that French, without notice, released the song “prior to finalizing and signing a licensing agreement.” Gudasz says that her lawyer quickly alerted Mannis-Gardner about the problem.
“Oh jeez,” Mannis-Gardner allegedly wrote in a response email, saying she would reach out to French’s attorney about the issue. But Gudasz says the situation was never resolved: “DMG continued to maintain there would be a final agreement, sent emails finalizing the licensing agreement and requested invoices from plaintiff, which plaintiff timely sent … and even sent plaintiff a congratulatory email.”
Gudasz says the aborted negotiations show that French “knowingly infringed” the earlier song, because they show that he was aware that he needed a license but chose to proceed without one. She claims that French even posted comments to Instagram congratulating her, and acknowledged her role in “Blue Chills” on an episode of Apple Music’s Rap Life Radio.
“The unauthorized and infringing use by defendants of the song ‘Femme Fatale’ has caused irreparable harm, damage and injury,” Gudasz’s lawyers wrote. “Plaintiff has been deprived of the rightful experience of benefitting and enjoying the fruits of her labor.”
In addition to French Montana, the lawsuit also names producer Harry Fraud (real name Rory William Quigley) as a defendant, as well Sony Music Entertainment and several other companies involved in French’s song. Mannis-Gardner is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit and is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Representatives for Britney Spears’ estranged husband, Sam Asghari, are denying reports that the fitness instructor/actor has threatening to challenge the couple’s pre-nuptial agreement and release damaging information about the singer in the midst of their divorce proceedings. Asghari, 29, filed for divorce from the pop icon on Wednesday (Aug. 16) in Los Angeles Superior Court, per documents obtained by Billboard. […]