The Legal Beat
Page: 7
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: Gunna takes a plea deal to escape the sprawling case against Atlanta rap crew YSL, the Tory Lanez/Megan Thee Stallion trial continues with blockbuster testimony, Metallica loses a battle with its insurance company, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Gunna Pleads Guilty, But Says He Won’t Flip
With a trial looming in less than a month, the rapper Gunna bowed out this week from the closely-watched criminal case against members of the Atlanta rap crew YSL, reaching a deal with prosecutors that will allow him to end his “personal ordeal” while seemingly still not cooperating against Young Thug or the other defendants.The chart-topping, Grammy-nominated rapper (real name Sergio Kitchens) took a so-called Alford plea — a maneuver that allows a defendant to enter a formal admission of guilt while still maintaining their innocence. After pleading guilty to the single charge he was facing, he was sentenced to five years in prison but immediately released because he was credited with one year of time served, while the rest of the sentence was suspended.Gunna’s plea deal will allow him to exit a sweeping criminal case filed in May by Fulton County prosecutors, who claimed YSL was not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta street gang called “Young Slime Life.” Listing dozens of individual allegations (including murder, carjacking, armed robbery, drug dealing and illegal firearm possession), the case accused Young Thug (real name Jeffery Williams) and 27 others of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a state version of the more famous federal RICO statute that’s been used to target the mafia. Such laws make it easier for prosecutors to sweep up many members of an alleged criminal conspiracy based on smaller “predicate acts” that aren’t directly related.A plea deal for Gunna made sense. The rapper was facing only a single charge and was named in only nine of the 191 predicates that make up the YSL RICO case — and most of those were either problematic references to his music or linked to an earlier case in which he eventually pled guilty to having illegally tinted windows. By way of comparison, Young Thug is facing several other separate criminal charges over guns and drugs and is named in substantially more of the RICO predicates.But such a deal was always going to raise heated debate about the touchy subject of snitching — about whether Gunna had won his freedom by promising to cooperate with prosecutors against Young Thug and the other defendants. In his own statement announcing the deal, the rapper strongly denied any such arrangement.“While I have agreed to always be truthful, I want to make it perfectly clear that I have NOT made any statements, have NOT been interviewed, have NOT cooperated, have NOT agreed to testify or be a witness for or against any party in the case and have absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way,” Gunna wrote.The situation is a little more complicated. In footage of the plea hearing, Gunna acknowledged 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.” He also acknowledged that if called by any party in the case, he would be required to testify “truthfully.” But he also reserved his Fifth Amendment right to avoid incriminating himself and, in texts released on social media this week, Gunna’s lawyer made clear that if subpoenaed, the rapper would indeed “take the 5th and not testify.”The trial against Young Thug and the rest of the defendants is set to kick off Jan. 9, so stay tuned.
Other top stories this week…
TORY LANEZ TRIAL CONTINUES – The criminal trial over whether Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot ran all week long, featuring blockbuster testimony in which Megan herself recounted the alleged shooting and said, “I wish he had just shot and killed me.” Later in the week, the rapper’s former friend and assistant Kelsey Harris — expected to be a star witness for the prosecution — largely failed to re-affirm previous statements pinning the blame on Lanez. But then on Friday (Dec. 16), prosecutors played recordings of those earlier statements, in which Harris said Lanez had shot the Grammy-winning rapper and then tried to buy both women’s silence with million-dollar bribes. The trial continues and, though a verdict was expected this week, it’s unclear if the case is moving fast enough to get there.LIVESTREAM FIASCO – Nearly two years after Marc Anthony was forced to cancel his highly-anticipated “Una Noche” livestream concert at the last minute, event promoter Loud and Live Entertainment filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Maestro, the streaming platform that hosted the show. Loud and Live says Maestro assured them its technology could “automatically scale” to accommodate over 100,000 ticketholders, but had suffered a “complete collapse” when users tried to log on, causing “significant economic losses.”METALLICA LOSES INSURANCE BATTLE – A California judge ruled that Metallica’s insurance company (a unit of Lloyd’s of London) doesn’t need to pay for six South American concerts that were canceled when COVID-19 struck, thanks to an exclusion in the policy for “communicable diseases.” The case is one of many that have been filed by music venues, bars and other businesses seeking insurance coverage for harm caused by COVID-19 — and one of many that have been decided in favor of insurance companies.DEVIL IN THE DETAILS FOR MGK – Citing the name of Machine Gun Kelly’s 2019 album Hotel Diablo, lawyers for the superstar last week quietly launched a legal battle to block the television network Fox from securing a trademark registration on the term “Diablo” — the name of an anthropomorphic dog character on Fox’s animated sitcom HouseBroken. Kelly’s attorneys, who are currently seeking to trademark a wide range of terms linked to the star, argued that Fox’s “Diablo” was “confusingly similar in overall commercial impression” to “Hotel Diablo” and must be refused.ULTRA V. ULTRA – Nearly a year after Ultra Records founder Patrick Moxey sold his 50% share of the lauded dance imprint to Sony Music, the major label sued him for trademark infringement over his continued use of the “Ultra” name. When Moxey parted ways with the imprint, which he founded in 1995, he held on to another company called Ultra International Music Publishing, but the new lawsuit from Sony claims he has no legal rights to use the “Ultra” name following the sale: “He has sought to perpetuate the falsehood that he remains involved with Ultra Records by wrongfully continuing to use Ultra Records’ ULTRA trademark.”
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: Taylor Swift ends a long-running copyright case over the lyrics to “Shake It Off,” Tory Lanez heads to trial over accusations that he shot Megan Thee Stallion, Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter is accused of sexually assault, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift’s Accusers Drop “Shake It Off” Case
It was the next big music copyright case – until it wasn’t.After five long years of litigation, and with just a month to go until a scheduled trial, attorneys for Taylor Swift reached an agreement Monday with songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler to end their copyright infringement lawsuit claiming the superstar stole some of the core lyrics to “Shake It Off” from an earlier song.The terms of the agreement were not publicly released. Billboard was first to report the settlement.Hall and Butler sued Swift way back in 2017, claiming she’d lifted the lyrics from “Playas Gon’ Play,” a 2001 song they wrote for the R&B group 3LW. In that song, the line was “playas, they gonna play, and haters, they gonna hate”; in Swift’s track, she sings, “‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” (The music itself was not in play.)The case was a big deal, if for no other reason than that “Shake It Off” was a big deal. Released in September 2014 off of Swift’s 1989, the song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and ultimately spent 50 weeks on the chart, making it a uniquely major hit even for one of music’s top stars.But it was also a big deal because of the legal issues at play. Like the earlier battles over Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse,” the case posed fundamental questions about the limits of copyright law — about where protection ends and the public domain begins. That question was explored in regard to various musical elements in those earlier cases; the “Shake It Off” case might have offered answers in relation to lyrics.Put simply: The words in both songs were clearly similar — everyone can see that. But were they creative or unique enough in the first place to merit giving particular songwriters a decades-long legal monopoly over them? Experts who chatted with Billboard thought the answer was no.But we’ll never know for sure. Swift’s lawyers spent years trying to make that case, arguing that many earlier songs (1997’s “Playa Hater” by Notorious B.I.G. and 1999’s “Don’t Hate the Player” by Ice-T, among others) had used the same words. A judge initially agreed, ruling that the lyrics were not novel enough for copyright protection. But a federal appeals court later overturned that ruling, and the last substantive decision in the case was a ruling last year that the question was simply too close to call and would need to be decided by a jury.With the “Shake It Off” case now officially in the rearview, what’s the next big music copyright case? Maybe it’s the lawsuits against Ed Sheeran over allegations that his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Or the dueling cases against Dua Lipa over her own mega-smash “Levitating.” Or maybe it’s something that hasn’t even been filed yet…
THE OTHER BIG STORY: Megan Thee Stallion Shooting Trial Begins
Tory Lanez and Los Angeles prosecutors headed to court this week to kick off a closely-watched jury trial over whether he shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot, with a potential 22-year prison sentence looming for Lanez if convicted.The trial, set to last for at least a week, will center on the early morning of July 12, 2020, when Stallion, Lanez and Stallion’s friend Kelsey Harris were driving in an SUV following a party at Kylie Jenner’s house. According to prosecutors, after an argument broke out, Megan got out of the vehicle and began walking away, when Lanez shouted, “Dance, bitch!” and began shooting at her feet.Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) has pleaded not guilty to all three charges (assault with a firearm, gun possession and discharging a firearm with gross negligence) and has steadfastly maintained his innocence.The upcoming trial will feature testimony from a number of high-profile witnesses, including Stallion herself and Harris. Also potentially taking the stand are Jenner and Corey Gamble, Kris Jenner’s boyfriend who was allegedly at the party. Lanez might also testify, but putting a defendant on the stand is always a gamble for defense attorneys.Billboard’s Heran Mamo will be in the building covering the trial all week, and she was there Monday (Dec. 13) when the case kicked off with opening statements. Some highlights from Day One:-Prosecutors have assembled a formidable case. They told jurors that Harris plans to testify that “her close friend was shot by the defendant,” and that they have texts from Harris just minutes after the shooting: “Help. Tory shot meg. 911.”-Lanez’s attorneys will present the theory that Harris may have actually been the one who discharged the gun. Lead attorney George Mgdesyan told jurors that “this case is about jealousy,” involving a love triangle between the three celebrities, and that there would be witness testimony about “a fist fight between the girls” leading up to the shooting.Stallion herself is set to testify on Tuesday, so check back in with Billboard for Heran’s dispatch…
Other top stories this week…
NICK CARTER SUED FOR RAPE – Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter was hit with a lawsuit alleging that he raped a 17-year-old fan on his tour bus following a 2001 concert in Washington. Shannon “Shay” Ruth claims that Carter invited her onboard as she sought an autograph, gave her alcohol, and then repeatedly assaulted her — but that she didn’t report it because he told her she would “go to jail if she told anyone what happened between them.” In response to the lawsuit, Carter’s attorney called the allegations “legally meritless” and “entirely untrue,” filed by someone “manipulated into making false allegations about Nick.”50 CENT ‘INSINUATION’ SUIT MOVES AHEAD – A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 50 Cent that accuses a Miami medical spa of using an innocent photo he snapped to falsely suggest that he’d had penis enhancement surgery. In seeking to boot the case, Angela Kogan and her Perfection Plastic Surgery & MedSpa argued that 50 actually was a client and had consented to the use of the image as payment for the work he received. But the judge said such arguments were premature — and that some of the company’s other defenses were “simply wrong.”OFT-SAMPLED, NOW INFRINGED? Roddy Ricch was sued for copyright infringement by songwriter Greg Perry, who says elements of Ricch’s chart-topping 2019 song “The Box” were lifted from a 1975 soul song called “Come On Down.” Perry says his track has become something of a mainstay sample in the world of hip-hop, featured in both Young Jeezy’s 2008 song “Wordplay” and in Yo Gotti’s 2016 song “I Remember.” But he says those earlier songs were fully licensed, unlike Ricch’s: “Other [artists] in the rap world that have chosen to copy elements of ‘Come On Down’ have done so legally and correctly,” Perry’s lawyers wrote. “Defendants chose not to.”BORED APE LAWSUIT CLUB – Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, The Weeknd and dozens of other celebrities were hit with a class action alleging they were secretly paid to “misleadingly” promote NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, leaving investors with “staggering losses.” The case claims that Bored Ape parent company Yuga Labs Inc. perpetrated a “vast scheme” in which they “discreetly” paid “highly influential celebrities” to pump up the value of the NFTs (non-fungible tokens). In response to the lawsuit, Yuga called the allegations “opportunistic and parasitic” and “without merit.”GENIUS V. GOOGLE AT SCOTUS – The Supreme Court suggested this week that it might be interested in tackling a lawsuit filed by the music database Genius against Google. The case, which claims Google illegally copied the site’s lyrics and posted them in search results, was dismissed in March. But with Genius currently asking the high court to hear the case, the justices asked the U.S. Solicitor General to file briefs “expressing the views of the United States” on whether it should do so. Genius has warned that the ruling in favor of Google threatens “a vast swath of internet businesses”; Google says that’s just “alarmist hyperbole” and the case does not deserve the high court’s time.
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: Atlantic Records faces decades-old sexual assault allegations under a new statute in New York allowing long-delayed abuse cases, Taylor Swift fans sue Live Nation over last month’s Ticketmaster debacle, Guns N’ Roses files a trademark infringement case against a site that sells literal guns and roses, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Atlantic Hit With Abuse Cases Over Founder
Atlantic Records is facing a pair of new lawsuits from women who say they were sexually assaulted by label co-founder Ahmet Ertegun in the 1980s and 1990s. And thanks to a newly-enacted statute in New York state, more such cases in the music industry could soon be on the way.Last week, former Atlantic talent scout Jan Roeg filed a case that claimed Ertegun (who died in 2006) assaulted her on their first meeting in 1983 and that his abuse then continued for “decades” after that. Naming both his estate and Atlantic itself (a unit of Warner Music Group), Roeg’s lawyers said company leadership knew about the problem but failed to take action to rein Ertegun in, thanks to a “boys will be boys” culture at the company at the time.Then on Sunday, former Atlantic A&R executive Dorothy Carvello filed a similar suit of her own, saying she had been “horrifically sexually assaulted” by Ertegun during her Atlantic tenure in the late 1980s. Carvello’s case cast a wider net, also claiming that former Atlantic co-CEO & co-chairman Doug Morris had assaulted her, and that former chairman and CEO Jason Flom had enabled the misconduct.“Executives at Atlantic Records … treated the company, its corporate headquarters, recording studios, and — even its corporate helicopter — as places to indulge their sexual desires,” Carvello’s lawyers wrote. “Employees like Ms. Carvello were the collateral damage of this toxic workplace culture.”Though the lawsuits are new, the allegations are not. In her memoir Anything for a Hit, Carvello made similar accusations against Ertegun and has since become a relentless voice calling for accountability in the music industry over what she alleges are longstanding patterns of abuse and attempts to silence victims. She’s even purchased stock in all three major record companies, aiming to use shareholder status “to bring more transparency to the music industry,” she told Billboard at the time.Both of the cases against Atlantic were filed under the New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a new statute enacted in May that created a one-year window for alleged abuse victims to file long-delayed lawsuits that would normally be barred by the statute of limitations. Advocates said the law was needed because the trauma of sexual assault and fear of retaliation often prevent abuse victims from seeking justice within traditional time limits.The ASA’s one-year window only went into effect on Nov. 24, and there’s reason to believe that many more cases could be coming before the law expires in a year. When New York passed a similar law in 2019 covering victims of childhood sexual abuse, CNN reported that nearly 11,000 suits were eventually filed during a 2-year window. And it seems unlikely those cases won’t include other decades-old allegations against former executives in the music industry.“The ‘sex, drugs, and Rock n’ Roll’ culture in the music industry at companies like Atlantic Records was taken as license by powerful men like Ahmet Ertegun to engage in sexual assault and other abuse of women,” said Lawrence M. Pearson, Roeg’s lawyer at the firm Wigdor LLP, in a statement when that case was filed. “Now, Ms. Roeg and other survivors of sexual assault who in past years were forced into silence due to the threat of retaliation or loss of their careers can get justice under the Adult Survivors Act.”
Other top stories this week…
TAYLOR FANS v. TICKETMASTER – More than two dozen Taylor Swift fans filed a lawsuit against Live Nation over Ticketmaster’s botched sale of tickets to her Eras Tour last month, the first known case filed over the fiasco. Mostly repeating existing gripes about the concert giant’s “anticompetitive” control of the live music industry, the case also alleged a veritable kitchen sink of other wrongdoing, including intentionally misleading fans about the amount of tickets that would be available and failing to take action against bots.CLASH OVER COVID CASH – Can you sue somebody for copying your “novel idea” that artists might be eligible for federal COVID relief funds? We’re about to find out. In a new lawsuit, a longtime music agent named Laurence Leader accused talent manager Michael Oppenheim of stealing his idea to help musical artists tap into Shuttered Venue Operators Grants — a COVID-era federal program designed primarily to help venues, not musicians. Leader says that after he disclosed the concept to Oppenheim in strict confidence, the rival used the same scheme to secure more than $200 million in SVOG funds for Vampire Weekend, Marshmello, Common, Lil Wayne and many others — something the lawsuit deemed “despicable” and an “outright betrayal.”BILLION DOLLAR BOOZE BATTLE – Jay-Z’s nasty dispute with Bacardi over their D’Usse Cognac brand might be bigger than we thought. In sealed filings made public last week, the rapper’s lawyers disclosed that Jay-Z previously demanded that Bacardi pay him $2.5 billion for his half of the business; that the rapper had offered to pay $1.5 billion to instead buy out Bacardi’s half; and that disputed internal forecasts showed D’Usse selling 2 million cases of cognac and earning $142.8 million annually by 2026. But it might be a while before we get a final outcome: The sprawling case is currently mired in procedural bickering between the two sides, spread across four lawsuits in two different states as well as a private arbitration proceeding.LITERAL GUNS AND ROSES – Guns N’ Roses filed a lawsuit against a gun retailer that’s using the name “Texas Guns and Roses,” arguing that the name infringes the band’s trademark rights — and that the band members especially don’t want to be associated with firearms or “polarizing” political views. The band said the Houston-based company “espouses political views related to the regulation and control of firearms and weapons on the website that may be polarizing to many U.S. consumers.” The site claims to sell literal roses, but GNR’s lawsuit called that a “contrivance” to justify the name theft.MAN WHO SHOT GAGA’S DOG WALKER GETS 21 YEARS – James Howard Jackson, the man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and stole her French bulldogs last year, took a plea deal and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Jackson, one of three men and two accomplices who participated in the violent robbery, pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder. Prosecutors said the connection to Gaga was entirely coincidental and that the perpetrators were simply seeking to steal valuable bulldogs, which can cost thousands of dollars.FREEPLAY SAYS MUSIC ISN’T, AH, FREE TO PLAY – Freeplay Music, a company that sells so-called production music for use with video content, filed a copyright lawsuit against CNN that claims the cable news giant used more than 100 different songs in international segments without paying for them. Calling it infringement on a “breathtaking scale,” the Freeplay demanded at least $17 million in damages – the maximum in so-called statutory damages for every song infringed. The case is one of dozens of infringement lawsuits Freeplay has filed over the years, drawing criticism that the company is more interested in “extracting settlements” than actually selling music.ASTROWORLD LITIGATION UPDATE – More than a year into litigation over the deadly Astroworld music festival, attorneys for the event’s organizers told the judge overseeing the case that nearly 1,000 fans who sued over their alleged injuries have ignored discovery deadlines and failed to hand over “critical evidence.” With roughly 2,500 alleged victims still in the case, attorneys for the defendants in the case — Live Nation, Travis Scott, Apple and many others involved in the festival – warned that 956 of them had “not provided any response whatsoever” to basic requests for information: “There is no excuse for the non-responsive plaintiffs’ complete disregard of their discovery obligations.”
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: Live Nation faces potential legal fallout from Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift fiasco, Journey bandmates sue each other over an American Express account, Mariah Carey loses a bid for ‘Queen of Christmas’ trademarks, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift … Trust Buster?
A week removed from Ticketmaster’s disastrous presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour, criticism of parent company Live Nation isn’t getting any quieter – and the threat of legal repercussions is growing.Live Nation has apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” And whether or not the star really was forced to use Ticketmaster is a complicated question, as Billboard’s Dave Brooks writes.But the debacle, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried (and many failed) to buy tickets for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour, has nonetheless resurfaced some uncomfortable legal questions for the all-powerful concert giant.Since they merged in 2010, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have been dogged by accusations that they form a near-monopoly in the market for live concerts, potentially violating federal antitrust laws. Federal regulators at the U.S. Department of Justice approved that deal, but only after Live Nation signed a so-called consent decree that aimed to allay fears that they might abuse their dominant position. Among other things, the agreement prohibits the company from retaliating against venues or acts that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Those rules were set to expire in 2020, but were extended by five years in 2019 after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.In the wake of the Swift fiasco, those same monopoly questions are back in the spotlight – and some lawmakers want more than just another extension of the consent decree.On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted Live Nation as a “monopoly” and called for regulators to “break them up.” Two days later, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, warned that the company’s market share “insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services.”Then on Friday, the New York Times reported that DOJ had already been investigating Live Nation for months over potential antitrust violations, reaching out to venues across the country to ask about the company’s conduct. Reacting to that news, Klobuchar and two other Democratic senators on Monday urged the Justice Department to take hard action if they discover more violations, including “unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.”“This may be the only way to truly protect consumers, artists, and venue operators and to restore competition in the ticketing market,” the senators wrote.Such action might have been unthinkable just a few years ago, amid a decades-long period of relatively lax antitrust enforcement that saw airlines and mobile providers (and yes, music companies) merging into ever-larger conglomerations. But the Biden-era Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have embarked on an aggressive new effort to crack down on such mega-mergers, including successfully blocking book publisher Penguin Random House from buying up rival Simon & Schuster.Beyond the Justice Department probe, other legal threats also potentially loom for Live Nation. The attorneys general of Tennessee, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania have all launched investigations into whether state consumer protection and antitrust laws were violated, including a Tennessee state law that aims to fight the use of automated “bots” on ticketing websites.And don’t forget about class actions. Live Nation is already facing an existing case that accuses the company of “blatant, anti-consumer behavior,” and the rest of the plaintiffs bar could be eager to try similar cases in the wake of such a high-profile snafu. At least one group of Swift-loving lawyers is already brainstorming how to bring cases.Faced with all that, can Live Nation shake it off? Stay tuned…
Other top stories this week…
JOURNEY’S CREDIT CARD CLASH – Journey guitarist Neal Schon filed a lawsuit against bandmate Jonathan Cain over allegations that he’s blocking access to “critical” financial records for the band’s American Express account, through which “millions” in Journey money has allegedly flowed: “This action is brought to turn the lights on, so to speak, and obtain critical financial information Schon has been trying to obtain but has been denied.” The case is the third legal battle among Journey members in the past two years, but the first to divide Schon and Cain — the only core members remaining in the band from Journey’s heyday.I FEEL SUED – Primary Wave and the estate of James Brown were hit with a lawsuit claiming their $90 million catalog sale last year violated an agreement that the iconic singer had struck decades earlier with another company. The case was filed by David Pullman’s Pullman Group (best known for creating so-called Bowie Bonds in the 1990s) over allegations that the blockbuster sale breached a contract that Pullman company struck with Brown way back in 1999, which allegedly guaranteed the company the right to broker any such deal in the future.YOUNG THUG GANG TRIAL SET FOR JANUARY – A Georgia judge refused to delay the closely-watched criminal case against Young Thug, Gunna and others accused of participating in an Atlanta gang, meaning their trial is now locked in to start on January 9. Prosecutors wanted to move the trial back by nearly three months because a few defendants had not yet been appointed a lawyer. But with Young Thug, Gunna and many others stuck in jail until trial, defense lawyers strongly opposed the delay: “It is unjust that [Young Thug] rots in the county jail and … is being required to wait on the appointment of counsel for co-indictees.”DUA LIPA RIPS COPYRIGHT SUIT – Attorneys for Dua Lipa asked a federal judge to quickly toss out a lawsuit claiming she stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track called “Live Your Life.” Florida band Artikal Sound System sued the star for copyright infringement last year, arguing the songs were so similar it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” But in their response last week, Lipa’s attorneys said those allegations were full of “vague, boilerplate labels and conclusions” and “devoid of a shred of factual detail.”MARIAH CANT GET ‘CHRISTMAS’ TRADEMARKS – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Mariah Carey’s application to register “Queen of Christmas” as a federal trademark, siding instead with Elizabeth Chan, another singer who says she’s used the same name for years. Repped pro bono by BigLaw attorneys, Chan had argued that no single singer or company should be able to lock up the title. “It is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like ‘Queen of Christmas’ for the purposes of abject materialism,” Chan said in a statement after the ruling.R. KELLY MANAGER SENTENCED – Donnell Russell, R. Kelly’s friend and former manager, was sentenced to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he stalked one of Kelly’s sexual abuse victims in an effort to keep her silent. Prosecutors said Russell used “reprehensible” tactics against the unnamed victim after she filed a civil lawsuit against the disgraced singer in 2018, including threatening messages to her mother and leaking explicit photos online.SLACKER ON HOOK FOR HUGE ROYALTY JUDGMENT – A federal judge refused to undo his own earlier ruling that Slacker owes nearly $10 million in unpaid music royalties to SoundExchange, despite the steamer’s warnings that the huge judgment could trigger financial ruin for the company. SoundExchange urged the judge to ignore those pleas and last week he obliged – ruling that the seven-figure judgment was simply the result of an agreement that Slacker itself had signed.
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 murder case against rapper YNW Melly turns into an appellate battle over the death penalty, Phoebe Bridgers defeats a producer’s defamation lawsuit, Megan Thee Stallion wins a restraining order against her label, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: YNW Melly Could Face Death Penalty
Three years after he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, YNW Melly has found himself at the center of a legal battle over the death penalty, with a trip to the Florida Supreme Court looming next.If you haven’t been following: Melly (real name Jamell Demons) faces two counts of murder over accusations that he and another rapper, YNW Bortlen, shot and killed Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams and Christopher “YNW Juvy” Thomas Jr. in 2018.A first-degree murder defendant in Florida would typically face the possibility of execution if convicted. But earlier this year, Melly’s attorneys argued that the state had forfeited the right to seek capital punishment by failing to comply with strict laws on how they must warn defendants that they’ll do so.Florida requires prosecutors to give notice 45 days after arraignment if they plan to seek capital punishment. In Melly’s case, the state attorney filed such notice when they originally indicted the rapper in 2019, but they then failed to do so when they re-charged him with a so-called superseding indictment earlier this year. In July, a state trial judge sided with Melly’s lawyers, taking the death penalty off the table.But in a ruling last week, a state appeals court overturned that decision. Since prosecutors gave notice that they might seek death when they first charged him, the court said they had complied with state rules – and more importantly, had avoided the due process problems the rules were designed to safeguard against.“Notice is notice,” the court wrote in its opinion. “The defendant has had nearly three years to start the preparation of his defense to the state seeking the death penalty [and] the record contains no evidence that the defendant was prejudiced in any way.”The ruling likely won’t be the last on Melly’s case. In handing down its decision, the appeals court certified that the case dealt with novel legal questions that are of “great public importance” to the state of Florida – meaning they should be decided by the state’s Supreme Court.In a statement to Billboard, Melly’s attorney Philip R. Horowitz said he and his client were “disappointed in the ruling” but “look forward to our opportunity to argue our position before the justices.”
Other top stories this week…
PHOEBE SLAPPS DOWN LAWSUIT – A Los Angeles judge tossed out a lawsuit against Phoebe Bridgers that accused her of defaming producer/studio owner Chris Nelson, citing California’s anti-SLAPP law that’s designed to protect free speech against questionable lawsuits. Nelson’s lawsuit claimed that Bridgers lied about him in a series of October 2020 Instagram posts, in which the singer amplified accusations of abuse made against him by another woman. Her lawyers then fired back that Nelson was just using the lawsuit to “chill Ms. Bridgers’ allegations of abusive conduct, which are protected by the First Amendment.” Though Judge Curtis A. Kin sided with that argument last week, he did not issue a written ruling explaining the decision. Nelson has already vowed to appeal; a rep for Bridgers said the star felt “vindicated that the court recognized this lawsuit as frivolous and without merit.”MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – A judge in Texas sided with Megan Thee Stallion and granted her a restraining order against her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, issued after she claimed that the company “unlawfully” took steps “to block or interfere” with her ability to use her music in the lead-up to the AMAs on Sunday. The order bars the company from “preventing or blocking the use and exploitation” of Megan’s music in promotional content for the AMAs. The tussle ahead of the awards show is the latest front in a years-long legal war between Megan and 1501. She claims the label duped her into signing an unfair contract and has retaliated against her for challenging it; the company claims Megan, with the help of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is using baseless litigation merely as a vehicle to escape a deal she “no longer likes.”YE SUED YET AGAIN – Kanye West is facing a new copyright lawsuit over allegations that his “Life of the Party” illegally sampled from 1986 song “South Bronx” by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions. The company that currently owns BDP’s copyrights says West’s people reached out to clear the sample, but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck. The case is the latest in a string of such infringement case against the embattled rapper, who (amid many, many other problems) has been repeatedly sued for failing to secure licenses for samples.THEIR LOSS? – Just days after Condé Nast sued Drake and 21 Savage for using a fake cover story in Vogue magazine to promote their new album Her Loss, a federal judge issued a restraining order forcing them to stop using it. The judge ruled that the cover – one of several fake promos for the album – was likely violating the publisher’s trademarks because Drake and 21 were “misleading consumers” and “deceiving the public.” DJ SUED FOR NFT PROFITS – 3LAU was hit with a lawsuit claiming the DJ refused to properly share the earnings from an $11 million NFT auction with Luna Aura, a musical collaborator who co-authored one of the songs involved. Aura claims she owns a 50% royalty stake in the song “Walk Away” from his album Ultraviolet — but that 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from the much-publicized NFT auction tied to the record: “Despite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment.” 3LAU’s reps said the case was “without merit” and came as a surprise after months of negotiations.BANKROLL FREDDIE ARRESTED – Rapper Bankroll Freddie (Freddie Gladney III) was arrested in Arkansas on federal gun and drug charges, part of a sweeping bust across the state that saw 80 defendants indicted and 45 arrested, including his father Freddie Gladney Jr. The rapper, signed to Quality Control, is facing 11 total charges, including various drug possessions and possession of a machine gun.
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: Drake is sued for using a fake Vogue cover story to promote his new album, the sprawling lawsuit over Astroworld passes the one-year mark with no quick end in sight, Mariah Carey beats a lawsuit over “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Vogue Isn’t Laughing About Drake’s PR Stunt
A publicity stunt is all fun and games until somebody gets sued.For the past week, Drake and 21 Savage have been on a media blitz to promote their new album Her Loss, which debuted Friday. The stars appeared on the cover of an issue of Vogue magazine, performed on Saturday Night Live, teased an appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk and sat for an interview on The Howard Stern Show.Just one problem: All of those appearances were fake. The Vogue covers were photoshopped onto fake issues distributed around the country (Jennifer Lawrence was on the real October issue); the SNL performance was a spoof, with a high-profile assist from Michael B. Jordan as the fake “host”; NPR quickly confirmed the Tiny Desk show wasn’t happening; and the Stern appearance was an elaborate deepfake.The whole thing appears to be a publicity stunt, carried out by an artist who doesn’t really need to do promo for his album releases and hasn’t done so in recent years — but would be eagerly invited to actually appear on those outlets if he wanted to go that route.Case in point: NPR used the stunt as an opportunity to tell the star he was “welcome anytime” on the beloved concert series: “Let’s do it forreal tho.” And Stern laughed the whole thing off, jokingly quipping about the convincing deepfake version of himself: “Whenever I have to visit my mother, I wish I could do this.” No word from SNL, but a show famous for parody is unlikely to be offended.The same cannot be said for Vogue publisher Condé Nast, which filed a lawsuit against Drake and 21 in New York federal court this week that called the stunt a “flagrant infringement” of the company’s trademark rights, aimed at exploiting the “tremendous value that a cover feature in Vogue magazine carries” without actually securing that honor.The publisher seemed particularly miffed by Drake’s Instagram post teasing the fake cover story, in which he personally thanked famed Vogue editor Anna Wintour. The infamous magazine editor “had no involvement” with Drake’s album and has “not endorsed it in any way,” Condé’s lawyers wrote.If the case doesn’t immediately settle with Drake pulling down the images (a strong possibility in any trademark case) Condé’s lawsuit could lead to an interesting debate over parody. Is Drake’s stunt a commentary on the way media outlets like Vogue or SNL (or Billboard, for that matter) team up with celebrities to help them promote their latest offerings? Or is he just exploiting their names to pump sales of his album without actually doing the hard work of a press tour?
The Other Big Story: Astroworld Update
A year on from the deadly disaster at Travis Scott‘s Astroworld festival, Billboard took a deep dive into the status of the sprawling lawsuit that’s been filed by victims.More than 4,900 legal claims have been filed against Live Nation, Scott and other festival organizers, accusing them of being legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event. Combined, the cases are seeking billions in damages over the disaster.With no quick ending in sight, we asked some of the country’s top experts in such cases: Where do things stand? What comes next? And how will it all end? Read the whole thing here.
Other top stories this week…
RECORD LABELS WIN BIG PIRACY VERDICT – A federal jury in Texas ordered internet service provider Grande Communications to pay more than $46 million in damages to the three major record labels and others over music illegally downloaded by the company’s subscribers. The case was one of several filed by music companies against ISPs, aimed at forcing them to take more proactive steps to eliminate piracy on their networks — the same kind of case that ended with a shocking $1 billion verdict against Cox Communications in 2019.OBSCURE RULE IS BIG WIN FOR SONGWRITERS – As first reported by Billboard last week, the U.S. Copyright Office is quietly proposing a new rule to make sure that songwriters who invoke their termination rights actually get paid their streaming royalties. The rule change would overturn a previous “erroneous” policy by the Mechanical Licensing Collective that critics worried could potentially have kept sending such money to former owners in perpetuity, even after a songwriter has reclaimed their rights. Groups like the Recording Academy and the Songwriters of North America, which lobbied for the rule change, praised it as a win for songwriters.MARIAH CAREY ‘CHRISTMAS’ ACCUSER DROPS CASE – Vince Vance, a songwriter who sued Mariah Carey over accusations that she stole her “All I Want for Christmas is You” from his earlier song of the same name, dropped his lawsuit over Carey’s 1994 holiday blockbuster. But he dismissed the case “without prejudice,” leaving open the possibility that he could refile the case at some point in the future. If you’re confused why Carey can be sued over a decades-old song, go read our explainer on the issue (spoiler: because the Supreme Court said so!) Though legally dubious, Vance’s case was a big deal simply because Carey’s song is a big deal: It has reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during each of the past three holiday seasons.KESHA & DR. LUKE GET A TRIAL DATE – A New York judge scheduled a July trial for Dr. Luke’s defamation lawsuit against Kesha, setting the stage for a courtroom showdown nearly nine years after the case was first filed. A trial had previously been scheduled to start in February, but with key issues in the case still awaiting rulings by a state appeals court, both sides saw that plan as unworkable (and blamed the other for the delay). If you’ve forgotten: Dr. Luke is accusing Kesha of defaming him with a “false and shocking” allegation that he drugged and raped her after a 2005 party.
The best of the rest…
–Kanye West paid a settlement to a former employee who alleged having witnessed more than one incident in which the once-beloved rapper praised Hitler or Nazis in business meetings. In the settlement agreement, West denied the claims made by the former employee. (NBC News)-The U.S. Supreme Court said it wouldn’t hear music producer Gary “G-Money” Frisby’s copyright suit against Sony Music and rapper Bryson Tiller over beats on Tiller’s album Trapsoul. (Law360)–Trey Songz won the dismissal of a $20 million sexual assault lawsuit that had been filed, dismissed and then re-filed by a Jane Doe accuser. A judge ruled that the accuser missed a key deadline to respond to Songz’s defense that the statute of limitations on her allegations had expired. (Rolling Stone)
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly column 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: Cardi B goes to trial in a weird case over a bawdy album cover, Gunna is again refused bond in Atlanta, Ed Sheeran warns that a copyright ruling might “strangle” future songwriters and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Cardi Heads to Trial Over Bawdy Album Cover
In one of the weirder cases you’ll ever hear about, Cardi B is headed to a federal courthouse today to defend against claims that the cover of her debut mixtape “humiliated” a man named Kevin Brophy, who alleges he was unwittingly photoshopped into the artwork to make it look like he was performing oral sex on the now-superstar.Yes, you read that right. And I didn’t even tell you yet that the entire thing hinges on a giant back tattoo featuring “a tiger battling a snake.”As Cardi’s star was rising in 2016, she released Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1 with a provocative cover – an image of her swigging a beer, staring into the camera … with a man’s head between her legs. The actual guy in the image was a model (who consented to the whole thing), but the giant tattoo on his back belonged to Brophy (who didn’t). Unbeknownst to Cardi, a freelance graphic designer had typed “back tattoos” into Google Image, found one that fit, and Photoshopped it onto the model’s body. It apparently didn’t occur to him that he would need anyone’s approval to do so.Years later, the two will now square off before a jury over whether the image broke the law, and whether Cardi herself is to blame.Brophy claims the star and others violated his right of publicity by using his likeness without his consent, and also invasion of his privacy by casting him in a “false light” that was “highly offensive” to a reasonable person. He claims he was “devastated, humiliated and embarrassed” by the cover.Cardi says those accusations are “sheer fantasy” and “vastly overblown.” Her legal team says Cardi had no idea Brophy’s image was being used, and that he’s just suing her in an effort to “cash in the legal equivalent of a lotto ticket.” But their chief argument is even simpler: That nobody would have ever recognized a relatively unknown person based on a cropped image of his back tattoo.“No matter how much plaintiff may be obsessed with the notion, the fact remains that it is not ‘him,’ or a ‘likeness of him,’ or ‘his identity’ in the cover image,” Cardi’s lawyers wrote.Cardi is expected to testify at some point, with a verdict expected by the end of the week or early next week. We’ll keep you posted over at Billboard.com when the news drops.
Other top stories this week…
VLOGGER BETTER HAVE MY MONEY – Elsewhere in Cardi-world, a federal judge ruled that Tasha K – a gossip blogger who made salacious claims about the star – must either immediately pay up on an almost $4 million defamation verdict or secure a bond covering the entire amount. Tasha is currently appealing the verdict and wanted to pause the judgement while she does so, but Cardi’s lawyers warned last month that the YouTuber had bragged about taking steps to “insulate herself” from the huge damages award, and might use the delay to avoid paying entirely.GUNNA DENIED BOND YET AGAIN – For a third time, a Georgia judge refused to release Gunna from jail ahead of his January trial in the sweeping case against Young Thug and others accused of operating a violent gang in the Atlanta area. The order came after prosecutors claimed to have text messages in which a co-defendant in the sprawling case offered to “whack someone” on the rapper’s behalf, prompting the judge to say that he had the “same concerns” about the potential for witness tampering. But just a day later, Gunna’s lawyers cried foul, claiming the alleged smoking gun text actually had “nothing to do with witness intimidation” and had been used to mislead the court.SHOTS FIRED OVER POWERHOUSE MUSIC LAWYER – In an exclusive interview with Billboard’s Frank DiGiacomo, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner blasted the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for its upcoming induction of powerhouse music lawyer Allen Grubman, saying it was “about money and bending to the ego of a music business power broker.” Grubman is one of the most powerful attorneys in the industry, counting Bruce Springsteen, Lizzo, The Weeknd, Lil Nas X, Lady Gaga and other stars as clients, as well as major music companies and digital streamers. But Wenner said he decided to speak out because he believes Grubman clearly doesn’t fit the criteria: “Grubman has made no contribution of any kind, by any definition, to the creative development or the history of rock & roll.”WARHOL & PRINCE AT SCOTUS – More than three decades after Andy Warhol‘s death and six years after Prince‘s sudden passing, the two pop culture icons took center stage at U.S. Supreme Court , as the justices heard arguments in a major copyright case. At issue in the dispute is whether the late Warhol made a legal “fair use” of a photograph of Prince when he used it as the basis for a set of his distinctive screen prints – or merely infringed the copyrights of Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who snapped it. During the proceedings, the justices grappled with tough questions, like what exactly is necessary to “transform” a copyrighted work into a fair use. In a lighter moment, Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed that he had been a fan of Prince’s music “in the ’80s,” to which Justice Elena Kagan asked “no longer?” As the room erupted in laughter, Thomas replied enigmatically: “Only on Thursday night.”ED SHEERAN WARNS OF ‘STRANGLED’ SONGWRITERS – The pop star’s lawyers asked a federal judge to rethink a recent decision that said the singer must face a trial over whether “Thinking Out Loud” infringes Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On.” The decision came two weeks after Judge Louis Stanton refused to toss the case out, ruling that a jury would have to decide Sheeran’s argument that he only borrowed basic, unprotectable musical “building blocks.” In the new filing, the star’s lawyers warned the judge that forcing musicians to face trials over such material would have a chilling effect on the industry and threaten to “strangle creation” by future songwriters. In technical terms, Sheeran’s attorneys want the judge to either undo the ruling entirely, or allow them to immediately appeal it before he faces trial.SLACKER HIT WITH HUGE UNPAID ROYALTY BILL – A federal judge ruled that streaming platform Slacker owes nearly $10 million in unpaid performance royalties to record labels and artists. SoundExchange, which collects streaming royalties for sound recordings, sued Slacker and parent company LiveOne in June, claiming they had refused to pay millions over a five-year period. This week, Judge André Birotte Jr. made it official, ordering that Slacker pay $9,765,396 in unpaid royalties and late fees. Importantly, he also banned the company from using the so-called statutory license – a key copyright provision that allows radio-like streamers to get easy access to licenses at a fixed rate. Now, Slacker will presumably need to negotiate direct licenses from rights holders for sound recordings, similar to what on-demand streaming services like Spotify must do.