Legal
Page: 87
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a copyright lawsuit claiming Nickelback ripped off its 2006 hit “Rockstar” from an earlier song called “Rock Star.”
Adopting recommendations from a lower judge, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled that there was zero evidence that Chad Kroeger and the other members of the 2000s rock band ever heard Kirk Johnston’s earlier song – and that the two songs also just didn’t share much overlap.
“Stated simply, they do not sound alike,” the judge wrote in the order adopted Thursday. “Where both songs evoke similar themes, they are rendered dissimilar through the vivid detail of the original expression in Nickelback’s lyrics.”
Johnston, the lead singer of a Texas band called Snowblind Revival, claimed the two songs shared many closely-related lyrics, about rock star lifestyles, making huge amounts of money, and having famous friends. But Thursday’s ruling said that after a review of the lyrics, that accusation at times “borders on the absurd.”
“This includes, for example, any suggestion that the two baseball analogies in Nickelback’s work are evidence that the band copied Johnston’s lyric ‘might buy the Cowboys’ professional football team simply because both are ‘references to sports’,” Judge Pitman wrote.
The only real similarities between the two songs, the judge wrote, were basic cliches — “outlandish stereotypes and images associated with being a huge, famous, rock star” – that cannot be monopolized by any one songwriter.
The judge specifically pointed to a study that reported 17 other popular songs that had shared similar themes about rock stars, ranging from “So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star” by The Byrds in 1966 to “Rockstar” by Poison in 2001.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on the decision.
Released on Nickelback’s 2005 album All the Right Reasons, “Rockstar” has not aged well with critics. In 2008, the Guardian said the song “makes literally no sense and is the worst thing of all time.” In 2012, Buzzfeed listed it as the second-worst song ever written, citing it as an example of “why everyone hates Nickelback so much.” But the song was a commercial hit, eventually reaching No. 6 on the Hot 100 in September 2007 and ultimately spending nearly a year on the chart.
Johnston sued in May 2020, claiming the hit song had stolen “substantial portions” of his own “Rock Star,” including the “tempo, song form, melodic structure, harmonic structures, and lyrical themes.”
But in Thursday’s ruling, Judge Pitman said Johnson had failed to show that Nickelback had “access” to his song in order to copy it – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit. He argued that his band Snowblind Revival had performed at the same venue as Nickelback, but the judge said that was not enough.
“Johnston has presented no probative evidence that defendants had a reasonable opportunity to hear plaintiff’s work.
Without proof that Kroeger or anyone else heard the song, Johnston would have needed to prove that the songs were almost identical – “strikingly similar” in copyright law parlance. And Judge Pitman said he fell very far short of that.
“The Court has conducted a side-by-side examination of the works, carefully listening to and considering all versions of the songs of record,” the judge wrote. “As an ‘ordinary listener,’ the court concludes that a layman would not consider the songs or even their ‘hooks’ to be strikingly similar.”
A new policy report from the U.S. Copyright Office says that songs and other artistic works created with the assistance of artificial intelligence can sometimes be eligible for copyright registration, but only if the ultimate author remains a human being.
The report, released by the federal agency on Wednesday (March 15), comes amid growing interest in the future role that could be played in the creation of music by so-called generative AI tools — similar to the much-discussed ChatGPT.
Copyright protection is strictly limited to content created by humans, leading to heated debate over the status of AI-generated works. In a closely-watched case last month, the Copyright Office decided that a graphic novel featuring AI-generated images was eligible for protection, but that the individual images couldn’t be protected.
In Wednesday’s report, the agency said that the use of AI tools was not an automatic ban on copyright registration, but that it would be closely scrutinized and could not play a dominant role in the creative process.
“If a work’s traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it,” the agency wrote. “For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the traditional elements of authorship are determined and executed by the technology — not the human user.”
The report listed examples of AI-aided works that might still be worthy of protection, like one that creatively combined AI-generated elements into something new, or a work that was AI-generated that an artist then heavily modified after the fact. And it stressed that other technological tools were still fair game.
“A visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image, and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording,” the report said. “In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression and ‘actually formed’ the traditional elements of authorship.”
Under the rules laid out in the report, the Copyright Office said that anyone submitting such works must disclose which elements were created by AI and which were created by a human. The agency said that any AI-inclusive work that was previously registered without such a disclosure must be updated — and that failure to do so could result in the cancellation of the copyright registration.
Though aimed at providing guidance, Wednesday’s report avoided hard-and-fast rules. It stressed that analyzing copyright protection for AI-assisted works would be “necessarily a case-by-case inquiry,” and that the final outcome would always depend on individual circumstances, including “how the AI tool operates” and “how it was used to create the final work.”
And the report didn’t even touch on a potentially thornier legal question: whether the creators of AI platforms infringe the copyrights of the vast number of earlier works that are used to “train” the platforms to spit out new works. In October, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned that such providers were violating copyrights en masse by using existing music to train their machines.
“To the extent these services, or their partners, are training their AI models using our members’ music, that use is unauthorized and infringes our members’ rights by making unauthorized copies of our members works,” the RIAA said at the time.
Though Wednesday’s report did not offer guidance on that question, the Copyright Office said it had plans to weigh in soon.
“[The Office] has launched an agency-wide initiative to delve into a wide range of these issues,” the agency wrote. “Among other things, the Office intends to publish a notice of inquiry later this year seeking public input on additional legal and policy topics, including how the law should apply to the use of copyrighted works in AI training and the resulting treatment of outputs.”
Read the entire report here:
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: A song-theft copyright lawsuit against the Rolling Stones over a rare release of new music in 2020; a one-year-later update on Morris Day’s dispute with the Prince estate over his band name and music rights; a ruling for the Offspring against an ex-drummer who wanted a bigger cut of the band’s $35 million catalog sale; and much more.
Want to get The Legal Beat newsletter in your email inbox every Tuesday? Subscribe here for free.
THE BIG STORY: Rolling Stones Headed To Court
More than 60 years into their legendary history, the Rolling Stones are facing a new copyright lawsuit claiming their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” — a rare new song from the band — lifted material from a pair of little-known earlier tracks.
The case was filed by songwriter Sergio Garcia Fernandez (stage name Angelslang), who claims that Mick Jagger and Keith 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.”
In any copyright lawsuit, an accuser needs to show that the alleged infringer had “access” to their work in order to copy it. Oftentimes, they can show that a song was simply so widely-available – millions of streams, constant airplay, etc. – that the defendant obviously heard it.
But in Angelslang’s case, the two songs each list fewer than 1000 listens on Spotify. So what does he claim? That he directly gave a demo CD to “an immediate family member” of Jagger, who then allegedly confirmed in writing that the songs had “a sound The Rolling Stones would be interested in using.”
To get Billboard’s entire breakdown of the new lawsuit – including the actual legal complaint filed in court against the Stones – read the full story here.
Other top stories this week…
PRINCE ESTATE v. MORRIS DAY UPDATE – One year after Morris Day accused the Prince estate of trying to “rewrite history” by “taking my name away,” I took a deep dive into the current status of the dispute. The results: The trademark dispute over “Morris Day & The Time” has seemingly been worked out, but key issues about Day’s copyrights in two of The Time’s biggest songs remain unresolved.
OFFSPRING OFF THE HOOK – A Los Angeles judge handed The Offspring a victory in its long legal battle with former drummer Ron Welty, who claimed he was owed millions more in profits from the veteran punk band’s $35 million catalog sale.
EARTH, WIND, FIRE & LITIGATION – The famed R&B act filed a trademark lawsuit against a rival group that’s been performing under the name “Earth Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion,” calling them imposters who are infringing the band’s trademarks to “mislead the ticket-buying public.”
SHEERAN SHOWDOWN LOOMS – With a trial set for next month over whether Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” a federal judge weighed in on two key pre-trial questions – whether a live performance of Gaye’s song will occur in the courtroom, and whether an infamous YouTube clip could be played for jurors.
FALLOUT FROM ROCHESTER DISASTER – Authorities in Rochester revoked the operating license from the Main Street Armory, the western New York concert venue in which a deadly stampede occurred last week after a performance by GloRilla and Finesse2tymes. No civil lawsuits have yet been filed by victims or their families, but criminal and regulatory investigations are already under way.
XXXTENTACION VERDICT WATCH – Jury deliberations are continuing in the trial of three men accused of murdering rising rap star XXXTentacion during a 2018 robbery outside a Florida motorcycle shop. The trial, which wrapped up on March 10, was sometimes overshadowed by efforts by defense attorneys to involve Drake in the proceedings. All three defendants face mandatory life sentences if convicted.
A federal judge says Ed Sheeran‘s copyright accusers can’t stage a live performance of Marvin Gaye’s iconic “Let’s Get It On” in the courtroom during an upcoming trial over Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” calling such evidence “unreliable and inadmissible.”
With a trial looming next month over whether Sheeran’s hit infringed Gaye‘s song, the star’s lawyers had warned that the proposed rendition would “intentionally misrepresent” the song in question in the case and, if performed in front of jurors, would constitute “grounds for a mistrial.”
In a decision Friday (March 10), U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton seemingly agreed. In a brief ruling that came without a lengthy written explanation, the judge ruled that “omissions, additions and errors” in the proposed performance of Gaye’s song made it “unreliable and inadmissible as evidence.”
But Judge Stanton declined to issue a similar ruling on a separate key question: Whether Sheeran’s accusers will be allowed to play a YouTube clip of a 2014 concert in which the star seamlessly transitioned between “Thinking” and “Let’s Get It On.”
In seeking to introduce the clip into the trial, lawyers for the accusers have argued that the mash-up video is “among the most important and critical evidence” in their case against Sheeran. The star’s attorneys have argued back that it’s falsely incriminating and will confuse jurors into ruling against the pop star.
In Friday’s decision, Judge Stanton denied Sheeran’s request to ban the video from the proceedings, meaning that the clip is fair game for now. But the judge also explicitly noted that Sheeran’s attorneys could re-raise their objections to the video at trial — meaning the infamous YouTube video might ultimately still be barred from the courtroom.
In a statement to Billboard, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs praised Judge Stanton’s ruling on the concert video: “We are very gratified that the court recognizes the significance of the fact that Mr. Sheeran elected to play ‘Let’s Get It On’ in his medley with ‘Thinking Out Loud,’” says Patrick R. Frank. “It proves the point we have asserted all along — ‘Thinking Out Loud’ would not exist but for ‘Let’s Get It On.’”
An attorney for Sheeran declined to comment on Friday’s orders.
The case against Sheeran was filed way back in 2017 by heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On.” Gaye’s heirs, who once famously sued Robin Thicke over accusations that his “Blurred Lines” was stolen from the legendary singer, are not involved in the case.
Sheeran’s lawyers have long argued that the star did nothing wrong, claiming that “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” share only “unprotectable and commonplace elements” that are not covered by copyright law. But Judge Stanton has repeatedly refused to decide the case in their favor, ruling that the dispute is close enough that it must be decided by a jury.
Since the start, the case has been dominated by technical legal questions about the scope of the actual copyright that Townsend’s heirs own and about what audio could be played for jurors. Could they hear the famous version of “Let’s Get It On” performed by Gaye? Or only the more bare-bones “deposit copy” featuring basic musical notation that the heirs actually own?
Back in 2020, Stanton ruled that it was the latter. He pointed out that Gaye’s famous 1973 sound recording includes many musical elements that aren’t covered in the stripped-down copyright that’s owned by Townsend’s heirs.
Faced with that ruling, both sides have prepared special audio versions to play for jurors at the upcoming trial, aiming to include only the elements from the more basic version of “Let’s Get It On.” Sheeran’s lawyers hired a musicologist from New York University to create a computer-generated recording; attorneys for his accusers hired their own musician, who created two different recordings of the song.
Last month, Sheeran’s lawyers called foul. They said the accusers’ versions were a “distortion” of the deposit copy, containing musical elements from Gaye’s famous version that don’t appear in the deposit copy. And they warned that the Townsend heirs were planning not just to play their version, but to call the musician as a witness and stage a “purported live performance” of it during the trial.
“Allowing plaintiffs’ proposed performance to be played to the jury would be irremediably prejudicial, constituting grounds for a mistrial because, once LGO is performed for the jury containing elements nowhere found in the deposit copy, it cannot be unheard by the jurors,” Sheeran’s attorneys wrote.
In Friday’s order, Judge Stanton granted that motion, excluding the accusers’ versions from the trial and barring them from performing them live. He offered little detail on his reasoning, other than the statement about “omissions, additions and errors” he said would make the versions unreliable as evidence.
Barring a delay, the upcoming trial is set to kick off on April 24.
Jurors in the trial of three men accused of murdering rapper XXXTentacion outside a motorcycle dealership nearly five years ago failed to reach a verdict Friday (March 10), meaning they will resume next week.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The jury deliberated for about five hours Friday, bringing the total to about 10 hours since getting the case late Wednesday. The panel of 12 will return to court Monday.
They made their first request of Circuit Judge Michael Usan on Friday, asking to see a transcript of the statement alleged ringleader Dedrick Williams gave detectives after his arrest. None was presented at trial, so they were told to rely on their recollection of what detectives testified about it.
Accused shooter Michael Boatwright, 28, Williams, 26, and accused second gunman Trayvon Newsome, 24, are all charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery. They all face mandatory life sentences if convicted. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.
A fourth man, 26-year-old Robert Allen, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder and testified against his former friends.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale with a friend on June 18, 2018, when his BMW was blocked by an SUV that swerved in front.
Surveillance video showed that two masked gunmen emerged and confronted the 20-year-old singer at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing $50,000 that XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank, got back into the SUV and sped away. The friend was not harmed.
Allen testified that the men set out that day to commit robberies and went to the motorcycle shop to buy Williams a mask. There they spotted the rapper and decided to make him their target. Allen and Williams went inside the shop to confirm it was him.
They then went back to the SUV they had rented, waited for XXXTentacion to emerge and ambushed him, according to testimony. Prosecutors say surveillance video from the dealership and cellphone data ties the men to the scene. They also showed jurors videos the men allegedly posted on social media that night of themselves flashing fistfuls of $100 bills.
The men’s attorneys said Allen is lying and that their DNA was not found on the artist. Attorneys for some of the men said that while the money-flashing videos were “stupid,” they don’t prove their clients were actually involved in the shooting and robbery.
The rapper, who pronounced his name “Ex ex ex ten-ta-see-YAWN,” was a platinum-selling rising star who tackled issues including prejudice and depression in his songs. He also drew criticism over bad behavior and multiple arrests, including charges that he severely beat and abused his girlfriend.
The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were hit with a copyright lawsuit on Friday (March 10) claiming their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” — a rare new song from the rock legends — lifted material from a pair of little-known earlier tracks.
In a lawsuit filed in New Orleans federal court, songwriter Sergio Garcia Fernandez (stage name Angelslang) is claiming 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.”
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 in Friday’s complaint.
A copy of the alleged email from Jagger’s relative was not included in public filings.
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.
But Fernandez says the new song was created by borrowing key features from his songs, including the “vocal melodies, the chord progressions, the drum beat patterns, the harmonica parts, the electric bass line parts, the tempos, and other key signatures” from “So Sorry” and the “harmonic and chord progression and melody” from “Seed of God.”
“Defendants never paid plaintiff, nor secured the authorization for the use of ‘So Sorry’ and ‘Seed of God,’ his lawyers wrote.
A rep for The Rolling Stones did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday evening.
A year after Morris Day accused the Prince estate of trying to “rewrite history” by “taking my name away,” it appears that the ugly dispute over his band name has been worked out. But Day’s attorney tells Billboard that other key issues with the estate remain unresolved.
Last year’s outcry was prompted by a threat letter in which attorneys for the estate complained about Day’s efforts to own the trademark registration “Morris Day and The Time” — the name of the Prince-affiliated band he’s led for years. In it, they told him he had “no right” to use the name “in any form.”
That dispute now appears to be in the rearview mirror. In December, the federal trademark office formally published Day’s application for such a trademark registration. At that point, the Prince estate had 30 days to file an opposition case against him, but records show it did not do so.
The progress is perhaps unsurprising, given the change in the control of the Prince estate that has taken place in the year since Day’s complaints.
Last year’s threat letter came from Comerica, a court-appointed bank that administered the estate during a years-long legal battle. With that case finally closed, the Prince estate is now in the hands of its permanent stewards: industry bigwig Primary Wave on the one hand, and a group of heirs and advisors led by longtime Prince attorney Londell McMillan on the other in what amounts to a 50-50 split. And during last year’s fracas, both Primary Wave and McMillan voiced public support for Day.
Day and Prince were frequent collaborators in the early 1980s. Day was the lead singer of The Time, a group known for their high-octane funk; Prince wrote and produced much of their music under an alias. They toured together, and The Time appeared prominently as Prince’s rival band in the 1984 film Purple Rain. In a 1990 interview, Prince said The Time was “the only band I’ve ever been afraid of.”
In December 2021, attorneys for the estate sent a letter to Day over the trademark registration on “Morris Day and The Time,” a name he had continued to use on tours for decades. They warned him that it violated a 1982 written agreement in which Day allegedly agreed that Prince’s company would retain all rights to the band’s name. Unless Day reached a deal with the estate, the attorneys said they would file a formal case against him at the federal trademark office.
A few months later, Day spoke out publicly about the dispute, saying he had “spent 40 years of my life” building the name and that Prince had had “no problem” with him using it. “Now that Prince is no longer with us, suddenly, the people who control his multi million dollar estate want to rewrite history by taking my name away from me, thus impacting how I feed my family,” Day wrote in a social media post.
Day’s post quickly sparked outrage against Comerica. Former Prince bassist Nik West took to Instagram to complain: “I don’t see how ‘randoms’ can tell you this! Morris Day and the Time forever … we ALL know what time it is!” Primary Wave, which at that point was not yet in control of the estate, quickly joined the chorus of critics, telling Comerica to “do the right thing here.”
Now, a year later, Day’s trademark application is advancing, and his attorney Richard Jefferson tells Billboard that he and his client are optimistic that “things will be amicable moving forward.” But despite the headway on the “Time” name, Jefferson says they’re still working to resolve broader issues with the Prince estate.
“All I can say at this point is that we are making progress,” he said in an email. “The trademark is only one of a few issues at play.”
Case in point: Public records show that Day is also currently seeking to regain his ownership rights to two of The Time’s biggest songs using copyright law’s so-called termination right — a provision that allows creators to win back control of works that they sold away decades earlier.
In June, Day’s attorneys submitted formal notice that he planned to terminate the estate’s control over his songwriting stakes in “Jungle Love,” which hit No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, and “The Bird,” which reached No. 36 on the chart. Both songs also appeared prominently in Purple Rain.
If the termination process is completed, Day would recover a 50% share of the “Jungle Love” composition and a 33 percent stake in “The Bird” composition, according to the filings. The remaining shares of those songs, originally owned by Prince, would still be owned by the estate. But in practice, such filings are often simply a starting point, leading to a renegotiation of rights deals rather than an outright termination.
Representatives for both halves of the Prince estate did not return requests for comment.
Jury deliberations began Wednesday (March 8) in the trial of three men accused of murdering rising rap star XXXTentacion during a 2018 robbery outside a Florida motorcycle shop after the alleged gunman’s attorney argued that DNA evidence proves his client and another man are innocent.
Attorney Joseph Kimok gave the final defense closing argument in the trial of three men accused of first-degree murder, telling jurors that while the artist struggled with his killers before being shot and DNA was found on the body and on a stolen necklace, it wasn’t from his client, 28-year-old Michael Boatwright. Nor was it from accused second gunman Trayvon Newsome, 24, or accused getaway driver and ringleader Dedrick Williams, 26.
“Whoever (XXXTentacion) struggled with is not in this courtroom,” Kimok told jurors as the four-week trial neared its conclusion. “The DNA proves that someone not named Michael Boatwright or Trayvon Newsome participated in this murder.”
A fourth man, Robert Allen, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder and testified against his former friends. Attorneys for all three men say he is lying about their clients’ involvement in the slaying and robbery, which netted $50,000. They also say Broward County sheriff’s detectives botched the investigation, failing to consider other possible suspects including Canadian rap star Drake, with whom XXXTentacion had an online feud.
Lead prosecutor Pascale Achille in her rebuttal argument Wednesday admitted that Allen is not a perfect witness, that he has previous felony convictions, but co-conspirators in murders rarely are.
“Plans hatched in hell do not have angels for witnesses,” she said.
Achille said that while detectives never found the guns, masks and money, only Williams was arrested within days of the shooting, giving the others time to hide any evidence. She said the lack of DNA evidence linking the defendants to the killing is irrelevant — that fact does not exclude them. She said much more importantly, cellphone data shows the defendants were together near the motorcycle shop at the time of the slaying and that Bluetooth data puts them in the SUV used by the shooters at that same time.
During her primary closing argument Tuesday, Achille played surveillance video from the motorcycle shop and elsewhere that she says backs up Allen’s testimony. She also played cellphone videos the defendants allegedly took hours after the killing that showed them smiling and dancing as they flashed handfuls of $100 bills.
Boatwright, Williams and Newsome all face mandatory life sentences if convicted. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. While the three are being tried together, the jury has to decide separately on each and could convict just one or two. The jurors deliberated for about an hour Wednesday before adjourning. They will resume Thursday.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale on June 18, 2018, with a friend when his BMW was blocked by an SUV that swerved in front.
Surveillance video showed that two masked gunmen emerged and confronted the 20-year-old rapper at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly after a 45-second struggle. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing the $50,000, which XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank. They then got back into the SUV and sped away. The friend was not harmed.
Prosecutors say the three defendants and Allen set out that day to commit robberies and went to the motorcycle shop to buy Williams a mask. There they spotted the rapper and decided to make him their target.
Prosecutors say Allen and Williams went inside the motorcycle shop to confirm it was him. They then went back to the SUV they had rented, waited for XXXTentacion to emerge and ambushed him, according to prosecutors.
The rapper was a platinum-selling rising star who tackled issues including prejudice and depression in his songs. He also drew criticism over bad behavior and multiple arrests, including charges that he severely beat and abused his girlfriend.
The license of a Rochester, New York, concert venue was revoked Wednesday (March 8) while authorities investigate the circumstances of a stampede after a rap concert that left two women dead and injured several other concertgoers.
“It is one step we can immediately take to ensure that the events of Sunday night are not repeated,” Police Chief David M. Smith said at a news conference. He said he denied the Main Street Armory’s application to renew its one-year entertainment license after the venue’s owner did not attend a scheduled meeting with police and other city officials.
Rhondesia Belton, 33, of Buffalo and Brandy Miller, 35, of Rochester were fatally injured when audience members surged dangerously toward the exits following a Sunday evening performance by Memphis, Tennessee, rap stars GloRilla and Finesse2tymes. Police on Monday said the stampede may have been triggered by unfounded fears of gunfire. But police found no immediate evidence of gunshots.
One woman remained hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday.
Smith said the city planned to meet with the venue’s owner Wednesday to ask him to choose between voluntarily halting events or having the pending renewal of the entertainment license denied. When the owner did not attend, the chief signed an order prohibiting the armory from hosting “any public entertainment, which includes concerts, amplified music, and athletic events or games, including volleyball or cheerleading.”
There was no response to an email requesting comment sent to the Main Street Armory.
“Your contracted event security guards were unable to control the crowd as they were running, which in turn caused a human stampede,” according to the city’s letter to Scott Donaldson, which said he had violated a licensing requirement to maintain order at the site.
The city’s deputy corporation counsel, Patrick Beath, said criminal and regulatory investigations are under way.
“In addition to the police investigation, the Rochester Fire Department and code enforcement teams are inspecting the building and reviewing photographic and video evidence of the concert to determine if there were any fire code or building code violations at the property,” Beath said at the news conference.
The fortress-like armory was built from 1905 to 1907 and was initially used by the U.S. Army. It hosted sporting events throughout the 20th century before being shut down for several years starting in the late 1990s, partly because it lacked a fire-suppression system at the time. It began hosting concerts and other events in 2005 after undergoing extensive renovations.
Smith said its main arena is meant to have a capacity of about 5,000 people.
“The bottom line is, lives were lost, and we need to take steps to make sure that no lives are lost in the future if this was indeed something that was preventable,” he said.
Fatal crowd surges at large events have turned deadly before, including one at a 2021 concert by rapper Travis Scott in which 10 people died.
Famed funk act Earth, Wind & Fire is suing a rival group that’s been performing under the name “Earth Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion,” calling them imposters who are infringing the band’s trademarks to “mislead the ticket-buying public.”
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday (March 7) in Florida federal court, the company that owns the band’s intellectual property argued that Legacy Reunion’s only claim to the name is a few “side musicians” who briefly played with Earth, Wind & Fire many years ago.
Despite that allegedly spurious link, the lawsuit says the rival group’s organizers “hatched a scheme to falsely imply in advertising that this new group was the real Earth, Wind & Fire.”
“Defendants did this to benefit from the commercial magnetism and immense goodwill the public has for plaintiff’s ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ marks and logos, thereby misleading consumers and selling more tickets at higher prices,” the group’s lawyers wrote.
According to the lawsuit, the allegedly phony group is directly competing with the “real” Earth Wind & Fire, which has continued to tour since founder Maurice White died in 2016. Led by longtime members Philip Bailey, White’s brother Verdine and Ralph Johnson, the band operates under a license from Earth Wind & Fire IP LLC, a holding company owned by White’s sons.
In its lawsuit on Tuesday, attorneys for that company claimed that the organizers of Legacy Reunion (Substantial Music Group LLC and Stellar Communications, Inc.) have misled not only ticket buyers but resale websites like StubHub.
“The [Stubhub] ticket listing combines concerts by the real Earth, Wind & Fire with the band defendants’ promote, and the tickets offered for concerts by the band Defendants promote have nothing to do with the real Earth, Wind & Fire.”
Tribute acts – groups that exclusively cover the music of a particular band — are legally allowed to operate, and they often adopt names that allude to the original. But they can get into legal hot water if they make it appear that they are affiliated with the original. In 2021, ABBA filed a similar trademark lawsuit against a band that had been touring under the name ABBA Mania, calling it “parasitic.”
In the current case, Substantial Music Group allegedly used “Legacy Reunion” in listings (seemingly a reference to the former EWF members) but often in a separate font or in a different part of a logo. The group later allegedly changed the name to “Legacy Reunion of Earth Wind & Fire Alumni,” but the lawsuit claims the changes weren’t enough to avoid confusion.
Among other things, the lawsuit cited alleged examples of angry consumers who mistakenly bought tickets for the wrong band, including one that read, “This was not Earth Wind and Fire. NO Philip Bailey or Verdine White. It was just a band playing Earth Wind and Fire music. I purchased 3 tickets and I was very disappointed. It was truly false advertisement. I want my money back!!!!!”
In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday in response to the lawsuit, Substantial Music Group founder Richard Smith called the trademark complaint “disappointing.”
“It is sad that a greedy corporation has chosen to use trademark law to attempt to pass judgment on which historic members of Earth, Wind & Fire are worthy of being called alumni of the band,” Smith said. “I was personally a member of the band for five years and performed on two tours and one album. I’m proud to be an alumnus of the musical group and the corporation’s dismissiveness of my and others’ contributions Earth, Wind & Fire is hurtful. We will not be erased.”
Read the entire lawsuit here: