Legal
Page: 97
Lil Yachty has reached a settlement with a non-fungible token (NFT) seller called Opulous over allegations that the company used his name and likeness without permission to raise over $6.5 million in venture capital funds.
Yachty (real name Miles Parks McCollum) sued the company last year, claiming that Opulous launched an advertising blitz for a “Lil Yachty NFT Collection” that would give buyers access to new music from the rapper — without ever securing his approval.
But in a filing on Tuesday (April 11), attorneys for the company notified a federal judge that it had reached a settlement with Yachty to resolve the case. They said the case would be dismissed within 45 days, after the deal is finalized. Neither side offered additional details on the terms of the deal.
Yachty’s case against Opulous was one of several lawsuits filed last year over NFTs, a buzzy form of digital collectible that skyrocketed in popularity in 2021. But the market for NFTs largely collapsed last year, and the lawsuits filed over them are also beginning to drop off.
In his January 2022 complaint, Yachty called the Opulous project, which also included images of him, a “blatant and conscious disregard for plaintiff’s exclusive legal rights.” It additionally claimed that the company did press interviews about his alleged involvement in the project.
His lawyers said that Opulous had pitched his management team about a potential partnership, and that he joined a second call for a “a general introductory meeting,” but that the two sides never came close to signing a deal.
“There were no further communications between the parties, and accordingly no agreement or deal terms for plaintiff’s involvement in the defendants’ launch of the Opulous platform was ever reached,” the lawsuit read.
But even without his approval, Opulous then allegedly announced it would be launching a line of music NFTs and be “kicking things off with a series of unmissable NFT drops led by world-famous artists including Lil Yachty.” That was allegedly followed by numerous social media posts featuring similar claims, as well as images of the rapper, the suit said.
The suit, which also named Opulous founder Lee James Parson and his Ditto Music as defendants, claimed a slew of specific violations, including trademark infringement, unfair competition and a violation of Lil Yachty’s so-called right of publicity — the right to control how your name and likeness are commercially exploited.
Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter is facing another sexual abuse lawsuit, this time from Melissa Schuman – a former member of teen-pop group Dream who has long claimed that she was assaulted by the singer.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Schuman formalized her longstanding accusation that Carter sexually assaulted her in 2003 when she was 18 years old, while the two were starring in the teen horror movie The Hollow.
Schuman says that during a party, Carter fed her drug-laced alcohol, led her away from the group, and then repeatedly assaulted her despite clear statements that she did not consent.
“Plaintiff was too terrified to say anything,” Schuman’s lawyers wrote. “Defendant Carter exerted his control over plaintiff, despite knowing she did not consent, for his own sexual gratification.”
The lawsuit claims that the assault left Schuman infected with HPV, and that he had continued to “harass and manipulate” her after the alleged attack.
The new case came months after Carter was hit with a similar lawsuit from Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a woman who says he raped her on a tour bus when she was 17 years old following a 2001 concert in Washington state.
But it also came two weeks after a Nevada judge ruled that Carter could continue to sue both Ruth and Schuman for defamation over their accusations. Carter’s lawsuit claims the accusations from the two women are a “conspiracy” that aims to “to harass, defame and extort” him by exploiting the #MeToo movement.
In a statement to Billboard, Carter’s attorney Liane K. Wakayama called Schuman’s allegations “false” and noted the recent ruling in Nevada, saying it proved there were “strong grounds” for Carter to “proceed with his lawsuit against Ms. Schuman for plotting to damage, defame and extort Nick.”
“In light of our progress in Nevada, this kind of response is at once both predictable and pathetic,” Wakayama wrote. “But this PR stunt won’t shake Nick from his determination to hold Ms. Schuman and her co-conspirators to account for the immeasurable pain and suffering their extortionate conduct has caused.”
Like the case filed by Ruth, the new lawsuit against Carter contains explicit and disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault.
After giving her a drink that contained “some form of flunitrazepam or a similar drug,” Schuman’s attorneys say, he led her to a bathroom, where he began to perform non-consensual oral sex on her. The lawsuit says he then demanded that she perform oral sex on him, before he took her to a bedroom and “climbed on top of her.”
“Again and again, plaintiff said NO!” her lawyers wrote in the complaint. “She told him over and over that she was a virgin, that she was saving herself for her future husband, and that she did not want to have sex. Defendant Carter continued to force himself on her, whispering in her ear that he could be her husband. Plaintiff could not get away from him, he was too heavy.”
Following the alleged assault, Schuman says she quickly told her parents, her manager, a therapist and others about the incident, but did not formally report the incident because her manager warned her that doing so could “ruin her career.”
Schuman first publicly accused Carter in 2017, saying that the music industry had “enabled abusers forever” and detailing why she had failed to come forward earlier.
“I didn’t have the money, the clout or access to an attorney who was powerful enough to stand up against my abuser’s legal counsel,” she wrote on her blog at the time. “I was told I would likely be buried in humiliation, accused of being fame hungry, and it would ultimately hurt me professionally as well as publicly.”
Carter denied the allegations at the time, saying Schuman had “never expressed” to him that “anything we did was not consensual.”
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: Mötley Crüe faces a lawsuit claiming the band unceremoniously terminated its longtime guitarist; Kanye West’s Donda Academy is hit with a wrongful termination suit packed with bizarre details; Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler responds to a sexual abuse case; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Mötley Crüe Heads To Court
A private feud between longtime members of the legendary rock band Mötley Crüe has burst into public view.
Crüe co-founder Mick Mars filed a lawsuit last week demanding access to the band’s books — and thus also disclosing for the first time that he and his former bandmates have been locked in private arbitration proceedings for months over the legal mechanics of his exit from the band.
According to Mars, his former “brothers” tossed him to the curb after he said he could no longer tour due to a “tragic” disability called ankylosing spondylitis. The rest of Crüe, on the other hand, says they offered Mars “generous compensation” as a courtesy, but that he instead chose to file an “ugly public lawsuit.”
The case is technically about dry issues like LLC operating agreements. Mars says the band did not have cause to terminate his 25% stake in Crüe’s corporate entities; the band says they all signed an agreement in 2008 that clearly states they owe Mars nothing after he resigned. But each side has also already made much splashier allegations, too.
In his complaint, Mars claimed that Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx “did not play a single note” during a recent tour, and instead essentially mimed along to recorded tracks. In response, the band released sworn statements from touring staffers claiming that it was Mars who had needed backing tracks during concerts: “There were times when he played a completely different song than the rest of the band. This happened at almost every show.”
For a full breakdown of the case against Crüe — including access to the actual complaint Mars filed against the band — go read the entire story here.
Other top stories…
TROUBLE AT SCHOOL – Two former teachers at Kanye West’s Donda Academy filed a lawsuit against the embattled star, alleging wrongful termination, discrimination and unpaid wages. The allegations included bizarre details about West’s controversial school, including that students were fed only sushi and that classes were restricted to the ground floor because West is afraid of stairs.
ROCHESTER CONCERT TRAGEDY – Ronisha Huston, an alleged victim of last month’s deadly stampede at a GloRilla concert in western New York, filed notice that she was formally preparing to sue over the incident. Saying she had suffered emotional distress, Huston’s lawyers need “pre-action discovery” to obtain video footage, emergency plans and other key information from the concert venue.
STEVEN TYLER DENIES ABUSE CLAIMS – The Aerosmith singer denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman named Julia Holcomb when she was a minor in the 1970s. The filing raised eyebrows because Tyler’s lawyers argued, among many possible defenses, that Holcomb had possibly consented to his conduct, or that he was immunized from her claims since he had been granted legal custody over her.
TRADEMARK ON A MANTRA? Insomniac Events, a major promoter of dance music events, made waves this week when fans noticed that it had recently filed an application to secure a federal trademark registration on the term “PLUR” — an acronym (peace, love, unity, respect) that has been heavily used in the dance scene since the early ‘90s.
LOVERS & FRIENDS LAWSUIT – Live Nation was hit with a lawsuit over injuries at last year’s Lovers & Friends festival during a stampede triggered by false reports of gunfire. The three fans who filed the case say the concert giant “failed to take basic, reasonable steps” to protect them from such an incident: “Plaintiffs screamed for emergency medical care for their injuries, but none came.”
PANDORA CLAIMS TOSSED – For a second and final time, a California federal judge rejected Pandora’s allegations that comedians have been illegally conspiring to extract unfair prices from the digital streaming service. Those accusations came as counterclaims after the comics sued Pandora, demanding to be paid the spoken-word equivalent of publishing royalties for their underlying jokes.
POP SMOKE KILLER SENTENCED – One of four men charged in the killing of rapper Pop Smoke during a robbery at a Hollywood Hills mansion pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The man, whose name has not been released because he was a minor when the killing occurred in early 2020, was sentenced to four years and two months in a juvenile facility.
Live Nation is facing a lawsuit from three people who say they were injured at last year’s Lovers & Friends Music Festival in Las Vegas, during a stampede triggered by false reports of gunfire.
In a complaint filed last week in Los Angeles, plaintiffs Carla Thomas, James Thomas and Aaliyah Aguilar claimed that Live Nation had “failed to take basic, reasonable steps” to protect them from such an incident.
“Plaintiffs screamed for help from the event organizers and security, but none came,” lawyers for the trio wrote. “Plaintiffs screamed for emergency medical care for their injuries, but none came.”
The two-day Lovers & Friends festival, held over a weekend last May, featured several R&B and rap artists, including Usher, Ludacris and Ne-Yo. But performances were briefly halted that Saturday when a large group of panicked attendees fled the venue over rumors of gun shots. Police later said that there was no evidence that a shooting took place.
Stampedes amid false reports of gunfire have cropped up several times in recent years. Fans suffered injuries during gunfire panics at a Future concert in Brooklyn in 2017, at Lil Wayne and Cardi B concerts in 2018, and at the 2019 Rolling Loud festival in Miami. Just last month, three fans were killed during a stampede at a GloRilla concert in western New York reportedly sparked by fears of a shooter.
In their lawsuit, Thomas, Thomas and Aguilar claimed that the rush at Lovers & Friends was triggered by a “loud noise,” causing a “sea of people” to surge toward them. They said they were “pushed, smashed, dragged, kicked, stepped on, trampled and crushed to the ground” during the incident, causing them “serious injuries” and emotional distress.
And their lawyers say that Live Nation is to blame – specifically, that the company was negligent in how it planned and operated the festival.
“Defendants failed to employ adequate, properly trained, monitored, and supervised reasonable security, safety and medical provision measures,” they wrote. “Defendants failed to provide a safe venue, one that provided adequate signs and warnings that would have guided the crowd into a particular emergency exit route in the event of an alarm or emergency.”
Such lawsuits are common after incidents in which fans are injured at concerts, but they’re not easy to win. Lawyers for the accusers will need to show that the incident was something Live Nation could have seen coming, and that it failed to take specific steps that would have prevented the injuries suffered by their clients.
A rep for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
One of four men charged in the killing of rapper Pop Smoke during a robbery at a Hollywood Hills mansion pleaded guilty Thursday (April 6) to voluntary manslaughter.
The 20-year-old man, who was 17 when the killing occurred, also pleaded guilty in Inglewood juvenile court to home invasion robbery. He was sentenced to four years and two months in a juvenile facility.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The judge has barred the public use of his name because he was a minor at the time of the shooting.
The 20-year-old New York rapper, whose legal name is Bashar Barakah Jackson, was killed on Feb. 19, 2020, at a rented home where he was staying while on a four-day trip to Los Angeles. A 911 call from a friend of someone in the house reported armed intruders inside the home, police said.
The robbers knew the address because a day earlier, Jackson had posted a photograph on social media of a gift bag he had received and the address was on a label, authorities said.
Jackson was in the shower when masked robbers confronted him. During a struggle, one attacker, who was 15, pistol-whipped the rapper and shot him three times in the back, according to court testimony cited by the Los Angeles Times.
The attackers stole Jackson’s diamond-studded Rolex watch and sold it for $2,000, a detective testified.
The teenager, whose name also is being withheld, was charged in the case along with Corey Walker, who was 19 at the time, and Keandre Rodgers, who was then 18. They are accused of murder during the commission of a robbery and burglary.
Pop Smoke arrived on the rap scene in 2018 and broke out with “Welcome to the Party” a gangsta anthem with boasts about shootings, killings and drugs that became a huge sensation, and prompted Nicki Minaj to drop a verse on a remix.
He had several other hits, including the album “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon,” which was released posthumously.
Mötley Crüe co-founder Mick Mars is suing his former bandmates, demanding access to the band’s books after he says he was unceremoniously terminated when he disclosed a chronic illness.
In a petition filed Thursday in Los Angeles court, attorneys for Mars say he’s a 25% shareholder in the Crüe’s corporate entities, but that the band tried to cut him out entirely after he said he could no longer tour due to an arthritic condition called ankylosing spondylitis.
“How did Mars’s brothers of 41 years respond to Mars’s tragic announcement?” his lawyers wrote. “They [held] an emergency shareholders’ meeting for the band’s main corporate entity in order to throw Mars out of the band, to fire him as a director of the corporation, to fire him as an officer of the corporation, and to take away his shares of the corporation.”
Mars stepped away as a touring member of Crüe last year, but his lawyers say he clearly still wanted to record with the band and play residencies — and that he certainly wasn’t handing away his lucrative shares in the band’s corporate entities.
But in Thursday’s petition, Mars’ attorneys say that the group moved to fire him under a clause in the band’s operating agreement that allows for removal of a member for “legal cause.” Mars cited an alleged email in which the band’s attorney said Mars was no longer able “to perform as a full-fledged band member,” claiming he had repeatedly made mistakes on stage.
Rather than the 25 percent he’s allegedly owed, Mars says Crüe co-founder Nikki Sixx and the rest of the band offered him just 5 percent to walk away – and said they were only doing so “as a courtesy.”
“Sixx made it clear to Mars that he believed that the offer was a generous one, and that Mars, after 41 consecutive years with the band, did not deserve anything going forward,” lawyers for Mars wrote in Thursday’s filing. “Sixx further ‘gaslighted’ Mars by severely criticizing his performances on the U.S. tour, and exclaimed that there is no way that the band could tour with Mars anymore.”
After he pushed back on the moves to remove him, attorneys for Mars say the band stopped responding and instead filed an arbitration case against him in February — “essentially suing him” to prove that they had the right to kick him out of the band.
“They clearly commenced an arbitration, rather than a public lawsuit, so that the public would not be aware of the deplorable manner in which they treated their ‘brother’ of 41 years,” lawyers for Mars wrote in the petition.
In technical terms, Wednesday’s filing was a petition asking a judge to rule that Mars can access the band’s financial records, operating agreements and other key information amid the dispute. While it included many details about his firing and his disability, Mars is not directly suing the band over his termination.
A rep for Mötley Crüe did not return a request for comment.
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler is denying allegations that he sexually assaulted a minor in the 1970s.
In his first response to the lawsuit, attorneys for Tyler denied all of the accusations from Julia Holcomb, who sued in December over allegations that she was the person referenced in the singer’s memoir as almost his “teen bride.”
The response, a filing called an “answer” that is the standard first step for a defendant in any lawsuit, listed a wide range of possible defenses Tyler might employ. They included that Holcomb had consented to Tyler’s alleged conduct, or that he was immunized from her claims since he had been granted legal custody over her.
Tyler’s new filing elicited a strongly-worded response from Holcomb’s lawyers, taking particular offense at the claims about consent and custody.
“Never have we encountered a legal defense as obnoxious and potentially dangerous as the one that Tyler and his lawyers launched this week,” attorney Jeff Anderson wrote in a press release responding to the filing. “We hope Tyler’s mean-spirited gaslighting will backfire on him.”
A representative for Tyler did not return a request for comment on the new filing or on Anderson’s statement.
Holcomb’s allegations against Tyler are not new. She made similar accusations in a 2011 article published by the anti-abortion website LifesiteNews, and she made the same claims in 2020 during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News.
But in December, she formalized those claims in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles court, claiming Tyler used his “power as a well-known musician and rock star” in order to “gain access to, groom, manipulate, exploit” and sexually assault her for three years starting in 1973, when she was just 16 years old.
The lawsuit repeatedly cited Tyler’s own memoir (Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?), in which he explicitly referenced a relationship with an underage girl. “She was 16, she knew how to nasty, and there wasn’t a hair on it,” Tyler wrote in the book passage that’s quoted in the lawsuit. “I was so in love I almost took a teen bride.”
The lawsuit alleges that Tyler convinced Holcomb’s parents to grant him guardianship over her — an accusation that also came with quotes from his memoir: “I went and slept at her parents’ house for a couple of nights and her parents fell in love with me, signed paper over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state.”
In technical terms, Holcomb accused Tyler of sexual battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotion distress. The case was filed just days before the expiration of California’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits to allow for such years-old claims.
Read Tyler’s entire legal answer here:
An alleged victim of last month’s deadly stampede at a GloRilla concert in western New York is formally preparing to sue over the incident, saying she suffered emotional distress and needs access to video footage, emergency plans, and other key information.
In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for Ronisha Huston said she was the sister of Rhondesia Belton, one of three people who died in the March 5 incident at Rochester’s Main Street Armory, which police believe may have been triggered by unfounded fears of gunfire.
“Petitioner Ronisha Huston and her now deceased sister, Rhondesia Belton, got caught up in the crowd surge,” her lawyers wrote. “Huston witnessed her sister getting crushed in the stampede.”
Tuesday’s court filing came in the form of a “petition for pre-action discovery” – a maneuver under New York state law that allows a potential plaintiff to seek a court order to obtain key information that might be important to the case. In it, Huston’s attorneys said they had been retained to “pursue claims for personal injuries and infliction of emotion[al] distress” and that she has a “meritorious” case.
The filing demanded that Main Street Armory hand over a wide range of potential information, including the security firms involved, video footage of the entire concert, fire exit and emergency plans, floor plans, regulatory permits, and “communications with private entities involved with the concert.”
The Main Street Armory did not return a request for comment on the filing. No other individuals or organizations involved in the show were named in the petition.
Last month’s deadly stampede came after GloRilla had concluded the concert. According to the city officials, people exiting the venue just after 11 p.m. began to surge dangerously after hearing what they believed to be gunshots; police have found no evidence of actual gunfire.
Belton, 33, and Brandy Miller, 35, died shortly after the incident; a third women, Aisha Stephens, 35, died a few days later. Several other people were injured in the stampede. The next day, GloRilla shared on social media that she was “devastated & heartbroken” over the incident: “My fans mean the world to me 😢praying for their families & for a speedy recovery of everyone affected.”
Investigations into the incident by local police and regulatory authorities are currently underway, and Rochester has effectively shuttered the Main Street Armory by refusing to renew the venue’s entertainment license.
If history is any guide, a case filed by Huston could be the first of several against the organizers of the GloRilla concert.
The deadly crowd surge incident during a Travis Scott concert at the Astroworld music festival in 2021 has spawned hundreds of such lawsuits, albeit over a tragedy that claimed far more victims. The lawsuits, which are still pending, claim the festival’s organizers (including Scott and Live Nation) were legally negligent in how they planned and operated the event.
Other lawsuits over the Rochester stampede already appear to be in the works. The family of Aisha Stephens, one of the women killed in the stampede, has hired well-known civil rights and wrongful death lawyer Benjamin Crump, who said last month that her death was “completely preventable” and vowed to “learn what happened and hold those responsible accountable.”
Beyond the references to “personal injuries” and emotional distress, it’s unclear exactly what legal claims Huston will eventually bring and against what defendants, or when a full lawsuit will be filed. Huston’s attorney, Richard A. Nicotra, did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday’s filing. A label representative for Glorilla, who was not named in the filing, did not return a request for comment.
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: Billboard reveals its yearly list of the top lawyers in the music industry; experts weigh in on the recent copyright infringement lawsuit against the Rolling Stones; Tory Lanez asks for a new trial following his conviction for shooting Megan Thee Stallion; and much more.
Want to get The Legal Beat newsletter in your email inbox every Tuesday? Subscribe here for free.
THE BIG STORY: The Lawyers Behind The Music Biz
Billboard revealed its yearly list of top attorneys in the music industry this week, breaking down not only the best dealmakers and litigators at the country’s elite law firms, but also the key players from in-house legal departments at record labels, streamers, concert promoters and more.
Among other things, we asked this year’s honorees to name the pressing concern facing the music business in 2023. One of the most common responses from the folks who get paid to worry about future legal problems? The rise of so-called generative artificial intelligence tools like the popular ChatGPT.
“Those of us representing human artists and songwriters will have to stay ahead of the curve to ensure our clients have the opportunity to evolve in tandem with technology,” said Farrah A. Usmani, an attorney at the firm Nixon Peabody.
To read this year’s full list of Top Music Lawyers – featuring dozens of names with short blurbs on why they matter in 2023’s music industry – go read the entire thing here.
Other top stories…
NO SATISFACTION LIKELY FOR STONES ACCUSER – I took a deep dive last week into the recent copyright lawsuit claiming that the Rolling Stones copied their 2020 song “Living In A Ghost Town” from two little-known tracks, chatting with musicologists and litigators to understand the allegations and whether they’re likely to succeed. Go read what they said here.
MORE ROLLING STONES LITIGATION – In unrelated news, a new trademark lawsuit was filed that centers on the famed “tongue and lips” logo used by the Stones since 1971. The case was filed by a clothing chain that says it was threatened by a UMG-owned merch company with “unfounded” infringement litigation after it featured a similar design on t-shirts. (The band itself is not involved in the litigation and is not accused of any wrongdoing.)
TORY LANEZ DEMANDS NEW TRIAL – Attorneys for the rapper asked a Los Angeles judge for a new trial after he was convicted in December in the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion, calling the guilty verdict a “miscarriage of justice.” Such requests are standard procedure for someone who has lost at trial, but they are very rarely granted.
NICK CARTER COUNTERSUIT MOVES AHEAD – A Las Vegas judge refused to dismiss a countersuit filed by Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter against Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a woman who has accused him of rape. Ruth claimed that Carter’s defamation case was a so-called SLAPP suit that aimed only to “harass and intimidate” her, but Judge Nancy Alff was not convinced.
COACHELLA SETTLES ‘COACHILLIN’ LAWSUIT – The organizers of the annual festival agreed to drop a trademark lawsuit against Coachillin Business Park, a development site located just a few miles to the north of the grounds. Under the terms of the settlement, Coachillin said it would “cease any and all use” of the name going forward.
Coachella has agreed to drop its trademark lawsuit against a nearby California business park that called itself “Coachillin,” after the group said it would “cease any and all use” of the name.
The festival’s organizers (owned by AEG and its subsidiary Goldenvoice) filed the case in October against Coachillin Business Park, a planned development site located just a few miles north of the Empire Polo Club. They claimed the project was trying to free-ride on the famous name of the nearby festival.
In settlement papers filed Friday, Coachillin agreed to drop all use of the name on the internet with 45 days, and to stop using it entirely within 90 days. That means not only the name of the overall site, but related names like a “Coachchill Inn” hotel.
Any monetary terms of the settlement were not disclosed in public filings. Neither side’s attorneys immediately returned requests for more information on the terms of the agreement.
The lawsuit was part of an aggressive recent campaign from Coachella to protect its name against would-be imitators. In 2021, the festival sued Live Nation for selling tickets to a nearby event called “Coachella Day One 22,” and last year it filed a similar trademark case against a West African company over an event called “Afrochella.” Then in February, Coachella sued the creator of “Moechella,” a Washington D.C.-based music event centered on go-go music.
On its website, Coachillin described itself as an “Industrial Cultivation & Ancillary Canna-Business Park,” a proposed 160-acre site aimed at businesses in the cannabis industry. In addition to cultivation spaces, the group said the site will also feature a hotel, an amphitheater and other amenities.
In its October lawsuit, Coachella said it had “no objection” with any of that – except for the name, which they say is commonly used on social media as slang term for spending time at the music festival.
“The public has come to associate the phrase ‘Coachillin’ to refer to the Coachella Festival and plaintiffs, not merely to refer to the Coachella Valley—and certainly not Coachillin Holdings or its Coachillin Business Park,” wrote attorneys for the festival. “Defendants must use a distinctive name that does not infringe or trade on the goodwill of plaintiffs’ reputation.”