Photo Credit: Jack White’s YouTube

The White Stripes have dropped their federal lawsuit against Donald Trump and his campaign, as well as his aide Margo Martin.

The White Stripes, Meg and Jack White, have dropped their federal lawsuit against Donald Trump, his campaign, and his aide Margo Martin. The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could choose to refile.

Jack White had openly threatened to sue Trump over his campaign’s use of the White Stripes’ hit “Seven Nation Army” in videos posted on social media. In September, he and his ex-wife and former bandmate Meg White made good on that threat, filing their lawsuit in New York federal court.

The lawsuit stated the pair “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.” Jack White threatened to sue on Instagram, alongside a copy of Trump aide Margo Martin’s post of a video including the White Stripes’ track, writing “Oh, don’t even think about using my music, you fascists.”

Many musicians have publicly expressed their disdain for the Trump campaign’s use of their music in rallies and videos posted to social media. These include ABBA, Celine Dion, and Foo Fighters.

Meanwhile, a long list of musicians have put their names to an open letter by the Artist Rights Alliance calling on US political parties to establish “clear policies requiring campaigns to seek consent” for the music they want to use in their events. Musicians who have signed so far include Aerosmith, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Green Day, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Courtney Love, Lionel Richie, and many more.

Jack White has long been an outspoken critic of Trump, and released a lengthy statement on Instagram following the outcome of the US presidential election. But whether he and Meg White will opt to refile their lawsuit against the Trump campaign remains to be seen.

Other musicians who have released statements expressing disdain for the results of the presidential election include Ariana Grande, Bruce Springsteen, Ethel Cain, Cardi B, Jack Antonoff, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

Photo Credit: Filipe Vicente / Setor VIP

Merry Christmas, Mariah Carey: A federal judge is reportedly partial to tossing a copyright infringement action centering on “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

That interesting development just recently entered the media spotlight, after one Andy Stone first sued back in 2022. DMN has tracked the courtroom confrontation every step of the way since then – including when the initial filing was dismissed and then followed by a substantially similar complaint (submitted this time in California) in November 2023.

According to the straightforward newer suit, Stone, a Louisiana-based artist known professionally as Vince Vance, co-wrote a work called “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Penned in 1988, recorded sometime thereafter, and released the following year, the country effort is, of course, distinct from Carey’s perennial holiday hit.

With the other songwriter on the less-famous “All I Want for Christmas Is You” also aboard as a plaintiff, the suit maintains that Carey’s 1994 release of the same name lifted several elements without authorization.

Among other things, this alleged infringement encompasses the “compositional structure of an extended comparison between a loved one and trappings of seasonal luxury, and further includes several of Plaintiffs’ lyrical phrases,” per the text.

Unsurprisingly, one of these lyrical phrases is “all I want for Christmas is you,” according to the appropriate track and the action, which explores the Carey release’s commercial prominence, the works’ purported technical overlap (“the songs share a similar syncopated chord pattern”), and a whole lot else.

Now, with the holiday season as well as the “All I Want for Christmas Is You” machine ramping up, the presiding judge could be preparing to toss the case altogether.

As laid out in the latest legal documents, both sides are seeking summary judgement, with the defendants urging the court to grant a sanctions motion to boot.

“Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is also frivolous because it makes arguments that could not plausibly satisfy the extrinsic test as a matter of law on the record here,” the sanctions push reads in part. “For example, Plaintiffs’ experts failed to analyze prior art and failed to distinguish between protectable and unprotectable elements of expression.”

Moving beyond the multifaceted particulars of these arguments, Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani is “inclined” to grant summary judgement and do away with the case, per Rolling Stone.

More interesting yet – stated bluntly, it’s hardly uncommon for infringement battles to come and go in the contemporary music space – the court is reportedly weighing in earnest the defendants’ sought sanctions over the allegedly “frivolous” suit.

At the time of this writing, a related order hadn’t made its way into the docket, and it remains to be seen whether sanctions are actually in the cards. However, against the backdrop of allegedly questionable copyright complaints – and, in some instances, related trials – empowering defendants to pursue damages for allegedly meritless actions could have far-reaching consequences.

Photo Credit: Universal Music Group

UMG’s $500 million lawsuit against Believe gets ready to move ahead with a pretrial conference set for January.

Universal Music Group’s massive $500 million copyright infringement lawsuit against Believe and TuneCore over “rampant piracy” is moving forward, with a pretrial conference set for January 8. The conference will be held in person in a New York courtroom.

“Counsel are directed to confer with each other prior to the conference regarding settlement and each of the other subjects to be considered,” the filing reads. “The parties are hereby ordered to file […] a joint letter, as well as a proposed Civil Case Management Plan and Scheduling Order […] no later than January 2.”

The pretrial conference follows Believe’s vow to fight the lawsuit in court. Universal alleges Believe and its TuneCore distributor failed to vet third parties’ infringing works and distributed them to DSPs like YouTube, wrongfully collecting their royalties in the process. The infringed works include those from Post Malone, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, and many more.

Attorneys for UMG argue that Believe has caused substantial harm to their client’s business, artists, and other contributors. They seek damages of at least $500 million, as well as a permanent injunction to stop Believe from infringing further.

UMG’s complaint outlines Believe’s practice of wrongfully collecting royalties and cites several examples of infringement, which include “sped up” or “remixed” versions of popular songs. Further, Believe is accused of exploiting YouTube’s content management system to claim ownership of recordings and thereby diverting royalty payments.

“Believe is well aware that such tracks are popular on certain digital services and more likely to evade the checks that digital music services use to detect infringing material on their platforms,” says UMG.

Believe and TuneCore responded to media requests for comment by simply stating they “do not comment on pending litigation.” A Believe spokesperson told Digital Music News, “As companies that work with artists and labels around the world, we take the respect of copyright very seriously. We strongly refute these claims, and the statements made by Universal Music Group, and will fight them.”

A Hot Girl Summer Tour performance from Megan Thee Stallion, who, along with GloRilla and others, is facing a copyright infringement suit centering on ‘Wanna Be.’ Photo Credit: Live Nation

Copyright infringement stemming from a sample within a sample? Rapper Plies is suing GloRilla, Megan Thee Stallion, Soulja Boy, and Cardi B for allegedly using his work in multiple tracks without authorization.

Plies (who owns Slip-N-Slide Records, per the complaint) and several others with credits on “Me & My Goons” (2008) submitted the action to a California federal court. Besides the noted artists, the long list of defendants includes Universal Music Group, its Interscope Records, and Megan Thee Stallion’s Hot Girl Productions, to name a few.

Diving straight into the claims, Plies dropped his third studio album, Da REAList, via Slip-N-Slide back in December 2008. Running 65 minutes, the project includes the mentioned “Me & My Goons” as its opening track.

As described in the firmly worded suit, Soulja Boy lifted without permission “substantial elements” of “Me & My Goons” in 2010’s “Pretty Boy Swag.” The relatively concise legal text doesn’t appear to dive into exactly why Plies and his team didn’t call out this alleged infringement at once.

However, it does maintain that the newer song, more than briefly sampling the older effort, “interpolated, replayed, and/or reproduced distinctive and protected elements of the underlying” creation at hand.

And while it perhaps goes without saying given the complaint, Plies is taking issue with the allegedly unapproved usage.

Contrasting most of the industry’s other unauthorized-sample lawsuits, though, that usage allegedly laid the groundwork for additional infringement yet. Earlier in 2024, Soulja Boy “authorized” Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla to sample “Pretty Boy Swag,” according to Plies.

Consequently, the situation became even more involved when Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla released the resulting song, “Wanna Be,” this past April. Like (or more specifically via) “Pretty Boy Swag,” that work features elements of “Me & My Goons” without permission, the filing parties allege – as does the “Wanna Be” remix from the same two artists as well as Cardi B, per Plies.

Predictably, pre-action discussions didn’t produce the desired resolution for the plaintiffs, who say the defendants have thus far “failed to take corrective actions, including offering compensation, credit, or otherwise resolving the matter.”

All told, Plies and his collaborators, suing for vicarious and contributory infringement alike, believe the alleged unauthorized usages have fueled lost payments, damage to Plies’ “reputation and goodwill in the music industry,” and more.

Closer to the top of 2024, Travis Scott was slapped with a sample-centered infringement complaint. Meanwhile, Daddy Yankee and the Black Eyed Peas are grappling with a separate sample-focused infringement suit, which is still in full swing after the defendants in September denied the allegations.

Photo Credit: Denise Jans

The argument over whether Diddy’s accusers can remain anonymous in civil and criminal sex abuse cases heats up as over 13 accusers may have to refile.

As Sean “Diddy” Combs faces numerous sexual assault accusations from anonymous defendants in civil and criminal court, his lawyers argue that such anonymity impedes his right to a fair trial.

In over half of the 27 sexual abuse civil suits filed against Combs, the plaintiffs filed under Jane Doe or John Doe pseudonyms. The defense in his criminal case with charges of racketeering and sex trafficking argues that prosecutors should be forced to reveal the names of the accusers.

“Without clarity from the government, Mr. Combs has no way of knowing which allegations the government is relying on for purposes of the indictment,” his lawyers wrote in a letter to the presiding judge.

Though sexual assault victims have long sought anonymity in court, securing anonymity in civil court can be a challenge. US civil courts are more likely to grant anonymity in sexual assault cases than in other litigation, particularly when minors are involved, but judges still often decide in favor of a defendant’s right to a fair and open trial.

“The norm is that people have to sue under their own name,” said Eugene Volokh, a law professor who studies anonymity in court. “And that’s true even when there’s a very good reason for them not to.”

At least two judges in the Federal District Court in Manhattan have rejected requests from plaintiffs to remain anonymous in lawsuits against Combs. Notably, in similar sexual assault cases against Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, courts have rejected bids to proceed anonymously. Plaintiffs in both the Weinstein and Spacey cases have decided to withdraw their claims rather than reveal their identities.

But in some cases, courts have taken into account the “mental anguish” plaintiffs say they will experience if forced to reveal their identities to the public. A recent case against actor Cuba Gooding Jr. saw the judge allow the plaintiff to proceed anonymously for three years, before ruling they would have to reveal their identity publicly when the trial began.

“Most of our clients still fear retribution and have conditioned moving forward on anonymity,” said attorney Tony Buzbee, with whom most of the anonymous suits have been filed.

But judges may find that fear of retribution isn’t a solid argument, given that Combs is in custody in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial next May. Combs and his team have denied any wrongdoing, with his lawyers referring to the lawsuits as “an onslaught of baseless allegations” focused on exacting a payoff.

Photo Credit: Fabebk | CC by 4.0

Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine has struck a deal for his release from prison following multiple parole violations. He will spent a month in jail before being sent home for three months of home incarceration subject to electronic monitoring.

Judge Paul A. Englemayer said he would sentence the rapper, real name Daniel Hernandez, immediately after he admits to the violations during a November 12 hearing. He will require each side to explain why a one-month jail sentence followed by three months of home incarceration, detention, or curfew are sufficient for a repeated parole violator.

The terms of the release also require Tekashi 6ix9ine to submit to supervision from the court’s Probation Department for a full year after release. The rapper was just a few months shy of being free from court supervision when he was arrested on October 29 for violating his parole. A parole officer complained to the court that the rapper was not following rules about obtaining permission in advance to travel and that he had failed mandated drug tests.

Judge Engelmayer sentenced the rapper to two years in prison back in 2019 on racketeering, weapon possesssion, and conspiracy to commit murder charges. That came after Tekashi 6ix9ine pleaded guilty to charges accusing him of joining a gang called the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods and directing its members to commit violence. After his two years in prison, the judge also imposed a $35,000 fine and five years of supervised release with 1,000 hours of community service.

In April 2020, the rapper was freed months early after complaining that his preexisting conditions (asthma and bronchitis) made him more susceptible to catching COVID.

Engelmayer made note of the compassionate release for the rapper, saying he was disappointed in the artists’ failure to follow the rules after doing so. Tekashi 6ix9ine apologized to the judge and told him he was not a bad person.

Photo Credit: Cox Enterprises

Cox Communications has filed a reply brief in the Supreme Court ahead of a November 22nd conference in Cox’s ongoing dispute with Sony Music Entertainment.

The legal dispute between internet provider Cox Communications and Sony Music Entertainment has culminated into Cox filing a reply brief in the Supreme Court yesterday (November 4). The brief is the final docket filing related to Cox’s petition to the court ahead of the scheduled November 22 conference to determine whether the Supreme Court will review the copyright infringement case.

“Plaintiffs do not dispute that the Fourth Circuit installed a copyright regime that requires ISPs to reflexively terminate the internet access of entire households and businesses upon a couple accusations of infringement, or that innocent users could lose their internet lifelines merely because a guest downloaded a couple of songs,” reads the filing.

“And they do not dispute that to avoid liability under the Fourth Circuit’s rule, ISPs must sever connections to hospitals, universities, and regional ISPs.”

However, Cox urges the Court to “resolve the confusion — and hold that ISPs are not required to police everything that happens online — before it is too late.”

“Plaintiffs cannot persuasively reconcile the three-way circuit conflict,” the filing continues. “And tellingly, they do not even address how the Fifth Circuit’s recent opinion in UMG Recordings v. Grande Communications […] deepens the morass.”

“Plaintiffs first claim that ‘a defendant acted willfully if he materially contributed to conduct the defendant knew was against the law,’ […] is logically wrong. If that defendant knew someone else was violating the law, but reasonably believed he was a bystander with no duty to stop that conduct, that is not ‘the definition of recklessness,’” Cox continues. “A defendant’s ‘good-faith, reasonable belief in the lawfulness of its own conduct’ forecloses recklessness, as Plaintiffs themselves admit.”

The ISP posits that Sony Music and other plaintiffs assert that “to avoid liability in this case, Cox needed to kick 57,000 homes and businesses off the internet over just a two-year period the moment each received a second infringement accusation.” To that end, “the music industry has brought or threatened the same claims against nearly every major ISP,” and yet “Plaintiffs dismiss the concern about ‘mass terminations’ as ‘overblown, misplaced, and hypocritical.”

The brief concludes, “This Court has neither the luxury nor the need for further ‘percolation.’ Sony was decided 40 years ago [and] since then, the lower courts have diverged on what those foundational precedents require, and how they should apply to the modern internet. Percolation will only make it worse. And in the meantime, ISPs will have to cut entire homes and businesses off the internet any time the music industry accuses some anonymous user of downloading a song or two. Review is urgently needed.”

The scheduled conference on November 22 will determine whether the Supreme Court will review the case at Cox’s behest, or whether the ISP will remain liable for copyright infringement across its network.

Photo Credit: Oasis by Will Fresch / CC by 2.0

Oasis announce the South American leg of their 2025 reunion tour with stops in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil in November.

Oasis continue to expand their blowout 2025 reunion tour with South American stops in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil in November. These follows shows across the UK, Ireland, North America, and Australia.

Fan demand for tickets to the band’s shows has been understandably high, resulting in ticketing issues for fans worldwide. Many tickets sold on resale sites have been cancelled due to price inflation. British financial institution Lloyds Banking Group estimates fans have lost a considerable amount of money on ticket reseller scams.

On their Instagram post announcing the additional dates, Oasis urged fans to be aware they must have a ticket purchase account registered in the specific country in which they plan to buy tickets.

Oasis Live 2025 Reunion Tour

July

• 04 | Principality Stadium — Cardiff, Wales
• 05 | Principality Stadium — Cardiff, Wales
• 11 | Heaton Park — Manchester, England
• 12 | Heaton Park — Manchester, England
• 16 | Heaton Park — Manchester, England
• 19 | Heaton Park — Manchester, England
• 20 | Heaton Park — Manchester, England
• 25 | Wembley Stadium — London, England
• 26 | Wembley Stadium — London, England
• 30 | Wembley Stadium — London, England

August

• 02 | Wembley Stadium — London, England
• 03 | Wembley Stadium — London, England
• 08 | Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium — Edinburgh, Scotland
• 09 | Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium — Edinburgh, Scotland
• 12 | Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium — Edinburgh, Scotland
• 16 | Croke Park — Dublin, Ireland
• 17 | Croke Park — Dublin, Ireland
• 24 | Rogers Stadium — Toronto, Ontario
• 25 | Rogers Stadium — Toronto, Ontario
• 28 | Soldier Field — Chicago, IL
• 31 | MetLife Stadium — East Rutherford, NJ

September

• 01 | MetLife Stadium — East Rutherford, NJ
• 06 | Rose Bowl Stadium — Pasadena, CA
• 07 | Rose Bowl Stadium — Pasadena, CA
• 12 | Estadio GNP Seguros — Mexico City, Mexico
• 13 | Estadio GNP Seguros — Mexico City, Mexico
• 27 | Wembley Stadium — London, England
• 28 | Wembley Stadium — London, England

October

• 31 | Marvel Stadium — Melbourne, Australia

November

• 01 | Marvel Stadium — Melbourne, Australia
• 04 | Marvel Stadium — Melbourne, Australia
• 07 | Accor Stadium — Sydney, Australia
• 08 | Accor Stadium — Sydney, Australia
• 15 | Estadio Mâs Monumental — Buenos Aires, Argentina | NEW DATE
• 16 | Estadio Mâs Monumental — Buenos Aires, Argentina | NEW DATE
• 19 | Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos — Santiago, Chile | NEW DATE
• 22 | Estádio MorumBIS — São Paulo, Brazil | NEW DATE
• 23 | Estádio MorumBIS — São Paulo, Brazil | NEW DATE

Photo Credit: Microsoft Copilot

A Canadian man who is the suspected Snowflake hacker that caused Ticketmaster huge headaches earlier this year has been arrested. The news comes just months after cybersecurity experts were hot on the trail of identifying the hacker.

AT&T, Ticketmaster, and LendingTree were among the companies impacted by this massive hack—more than 165 Snowflake instances were breached. 404 Media reports they last spoke to the hacker on October 27, with the hacker going by the name Judsiche saying they were afraid they would be arrested soon. “I’ve destroyed a lot of evidence and well poisoned the stuff I can’t destroy so when/if it does happen it’s just conspiracy which I can bond out and beat,” the hacker claimed.

404 Media reports a source shared the name Connor Moucka. Searching Canadian court records for upcoming hearings reveals an entry with the same name. Another source says the name belongs to the suspected Snowflake hacker.

“We can now confirm that, following a request by the United States, Alexander Moucka (AKA Connor Moucka) was arrested on a provisional arrest warrant on October 30, 2024,” the Canadian Department of Justice shared with 404 Media. “He appeared in court later that afternoon and his case was adjourned to November 5, 2024.”

Ticketmaster suffered several extortion attempts, with one attempt resulting in the release of several Taylor Swift tickets on the internet to prove the data they have. That ticket data included shows from Indianapolis to New Orleans, with hackers saying they could generate 30 million barcodes for other high-profile concerts and sporting events.

Tickets have gone missing from so many accounts that Ticketmaster temporarily suspended the re-sale of Taylor Swift tickets until right before the event date. On October 7, Digital Music News ran a story about tickets for football games, concerts, and more disappearing from accounts. At the time, a Ticketmaster representative confirmed they’d responded to thousands of customer complaints about missing tickets.

A performance from Post Malone, one of the many Universal Music artists whose works have allegedly been infringed upon by Believe. Photo Credit: Adam Bielawski

Yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) slapped Believe and its TuneCore subsidiary with a massive copyright infringement action. Here’s a closer look at the over $500 million complaint – and the defendants’ alleged “illegal actions.”

DMN first reported on the straightforward suit moments after its filing in a New York federal court. Just to recap, the 34-page complaint accuses Believe as well as its TuneCore distributor of failing to vet third parties’ allegedly infringing works, distributing them to DSPs such as YouTube anyway, and “wrongfully” collecting certain royalties to boot.

While it perhaps goes without saying given the half-billion-dollar damages payment sought by UMG, the alleged infringement encompasses all manner of commercially prominent works. The latter include but definitely aren’t limited to recordings from the Bee Gees, Daddy Yankee, Elton John, Lil Wayne, and Weezer.

Believe’s Alleged Infringement At a Glance: “Modified Versions,” Unauthorized “Remixes,” and More Distributed “Without Any Effective Review to Identify Infringing Copies”

Beginning on the core distribution side – adjacent allegations extend a bit further than that – Believe and TuneCore have “relentlessly pursued the goal of distributing as many tracks as possible,” per the plaintiffs.

For Paris-headquartered Believe, that refers to a purported practice of distributing “the tracks it receives (including those from questionable sources with no prior history of creating sound recordings)” sans infringement-related due diligence, according to the legal text.

“Many” of the “obviously infringing tracks” at hand “are ‘sped up’ versions of Plaintiffs’ popular recordings,” the suit indicates.

“Believe is well aware that such tracks are popular on certain digital services and are more likely to evade the checks that digital music services use to detect infringing material on their platforms,” according to UMG.

Nevertheless, Believe “has derived a direct financial benefit attributable to the infringement” when it comes to terms that “entitle it to retain a percentage of” the allegedly infringing songs’ streaming royalties.

All told, “the infringing tracks distributed and purportedly licensed by Believe have been streamed (i.e., publicly performed), downloaded or reproduced in videos hundreds of millions of times across the digital music ecosystem on a wide variety of digital music services,” UMG maintains.

Content ID Shenanigans? Believe “Compounded” Alleged “Unlawful Conduct” via False Claims on YouTube, Lawsuit Shows

Not stopping there, Universal Music is further accusing Believe of compounding alleged “unlawful” distribution conduct via “spurious assertions of copyright ownership” on YouTube.

“In numerous cases,” some of the relevant lines read, “Believe has used YouTube’s Content ID system to claim copyright ownership in Plaintiffs’ owned or distributed recordings embodied in tracks Believe distributed to YouTube.” That includes “numerous instances where” a work “was simply an infringing copy of” a UMG recording, per the plaintiffs.

Consequently, Believe has allegedly forced Universal Music “to incur the burden and expense of routinely contesting Believe’s incorrect claims of ownership.” And as described by Universal Music, “Believe did not even contest” the appropriate claims in many instances.

In those situations, however, the defendants did allegedly proceed “to distribute and purport to license the exact same tracks to other digital music services,” continuing “to collect royalties on those tracks from these other providers,” the suit spells out.

Believe Fires Back Against Universal Music’s Lawsuit: “We Strongly Refute These Claims”

DMN reached out to Believe – which, in the not-so-distant past, looked as though it might become a subsidiary of Warner Music Group – and received a to-the-point comment attributed to a company spokesperson.

“Believe and TuneCore do not comment on pending litigation,” said Believe spokesperson relayed. “As companies that work with artists and labels around the world, we take the respect of copyright very seriously. We strongly refute these claims, and the statements made by Universal Music Group and will fight them.

“We have developed robust tools and processes to tackle this industrywide challenge, working collaboratively with partners and peers and will continue to do so. We have been at the forefront of the digital music ecosystem for nearly 20 years, supporting the development of independent artists and labels, and have been awarded Tier 1 status and included in the Preferred Partner Program across all music stores,” the expansion-minded business concluded.

Photo Credit: Baptista Ime James

A second Jane Doe accusing Diddy of sexual assault could be forced out of anonymity as a separate federal judge weighs in.

After a federal judge determined that an anonymous Jane Doe accuser of Sean “Diddy” Combs can’t proceed under a pseudonym, another Jane Doe accuser might be forced out of anonymity as a result. Another judge has weighed in on the issue, allowing her to continue as filed as long as the defense does not object. The second Doe case was filed on October 20.

“In determining whether a plaintiff may remain anonymous, the Court must balance the plaintiff’s interest in anonymity […] against both the public interest in disclosure and any prejudice to the defendant,” wrote United States District Judge Vernon S. Broderick.

“Plaintiff’s interest in anonymity stems from her allegations that she was drugged and raped by Sean Combs — a celebrity now under indictment for sex trafficking — and possibly one or more of his associates,” the judge continues. “She argues that disclosing her identity will cause her to re-live the trauma of being raped, subject her to unwanted media attention, and expose her to potential retaliation.”

“The motion is unopposed at this time, so any objection Defendants may have to the motion, including the extent of any prejudice Defendants may claim to face, is unclear,” writes Judge Broderick. “Accordingly, it is hereby ordered that Plaintiff’s motion to proceed anonymously is granted pending Defendants’ appearance. No later than seven days following Defendants’ appearance, Plaintiff shall file a letter on the docket indicating whether she intends to either renew her motion on the papers already submitted or file new motion papers.”

“It is further ordered that Defendants shall file any opposition to the motion to proceed anonymously no later than 21 days after being served with the complaint.”

Federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ruled that the first Jane Doe could not continue under a pseudonym, and must refile under her real name by November 13. Despite arguing that the case should be permitted to go forward as-is due to the plaintiff’s fear that Combs would retaliate, Judge Vyskocil disagreed, given that Combs is currently detained pending his trial next year.

Both lawsuits are part of over a dozen similar filings against Combs since his arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in September. All are represented by attorney Tony Buzbee, who teased an onslaught of over 120 lawsuits to be filed in the coming weeks against Combs.

Photo Credit: Tunecore / Believe

Universal Music Group files a $500 million lawsuit against Believe and Tunecore for ‘rampant piracy’ and copyright infringement. Here’s the latest.

Universal Music Group (UMG), alongside its subsidiaries UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, and ABKCO Music & Records, with Concord Music Group, has filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Believe and its distribution platform Tunecore.

The filing, shared with Digital Music News late Monday (November 4th), alleges Believe has built its business by knowingly distributing infringing copies of popular copyrighted recordings, including those owned by the plaintiffs. These include blatantly altered versions of tracks from artists including Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga, from which Believe is accused of pilfering royalties.

Believe’s distribution network, which includes partnerships with platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify, has allegedly enabled it to profit significantly from this unauthorized distribution.

UMG attorneys argue that Believe’s actions have caused substantial harm to their client’s business, artists, and other contributors, and are seeking damages of at least $500 million, in addition to a permanent injunction to stop Believe’s infringing activities.

“Believe’s client list is overrun with fraudulent ‘artists’ and pirate record labels who rely on Believe and its distribution network to seed infringing copies of popular sound recordings throughout their digital music ecosystem,” the lawsuit reads.

“While Believe is fully aware that its business model is fueled by rampant piracy, it has eschewed basic measures to prevent copyright violations and turned a blind eye to the fact that its music catalog was rife with copyright infringing sound recordings.”

The complaint outlines Believe’s practice of wrongfully collecting royalties rightfully owed to the plaintiffs and other copyright owners, and cites several specific examples of alleged infringement. These include the distribution of “sped up” or “remixed” versions of popular songs, for which UMG is alleging direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement.

Believe is also accused of exploiting YouTube’s content management system to claim ownership of their recordings, thereby diverting or delaying royalty payments.

UMG is also claiming infringement of pre-1972 sound recordings, for which they are seeking statutory damages, injunctive relief to prevent future infringement, impoundment, and destruction of infringing copies, and recovery of attorneys’ fees and costs. They are also seeking a trial by jury.

Photo Credit: Sean “Diddy” Combs for Combs Global

Miami Beach takes back its key to the city from Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, as the city’s vice mayor says he is ‘disgusted’ by the allegations against him.

The City of Miami Beach has officially stripped Sean “Diddy” Combs of his key to the city that he was awarded back in 2015. The mayor still has to certify the resolution, which is forthcoming. Earlier this year, Miami canceled Diddy Day—which was supposed to be October 13.

CBS Miami spoke to Miami Beach’s Vice Mayor Alex Fernandez about the decision, to which he called allegations against the disgraced music mogul “disgusting,” “dirty,” and “inhumane.”

“Justice must be served, and this is a small way in which our city can grant some justice to the victims of the gross acts that have been committed,” said Fernandez.

Combs was awarded with the ceremonial key by then-mayor Philip Levine in 2015. Last month, it was reported that Miami Beach city officials were in the final stages in their negotiations to take back their key. Mayor Steven Weiner and the city commission unanimously voted on the revocation on October 30.

Meanwhile, New York Mayor Eric Adams rescinded Combs’ key to that city after the unearthed hotel surveillance footage of the rapper beating ex Casandra Ventura in 2016 showed up on CNN this past May. The footage coincided with Ventura’s November 2023 lawsuit against Combs in which she alleged sexual and physical assault throughout their relationship.

The two settled the lawsuit only one day after Ventura filed, but that lawsuit seemed to kick off a series of similar suits, many of which remain open.

The 54-year-old Combs is currently held in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center as he awaits his May 2025 trial. He was twice denied bail since his arrest and indictment for sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pled not guilty to the charges, and continues to deny allegations against him.

Photo Credit: Ed Sheeran by Stephen Lavoie / iRocktography

Ed Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ isn’t similar enough to Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ to enforce copyright protection, an appeals court rules.

Ed Sheeran is popping another champagne cork in his long-running battle against a copyright infringement lawsuit over “Thinking Out Loud.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled the song’s similarity to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” did not warrant enforcing copyright protection.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the copyright infringement lawsuit, filed by Structured Asset Sales (SAS), which owns a portion of the royalties from the Marvin Gaye classic.

In the three-judge panel’s decision, the Copyright Act of 1909 only protects the musical composition of “Let’s Get It On” as defined by the sheet music filed with the Copyright Office in 1973. Therefore, it does not protect elements present solely in the audio recording of the song.

Further, the court rejected SAS’ argument that the combination of a four-chord progression and a syncopated harmonic rhythm in Gaye’s track was sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection. Instead, it found this combination to be too commonplace to protect it without granting it an overly broad monopoly.

“Basic musical building blocks like notes, rhythms, and chords are generally not copyrightable,” the judges wrote.

The court also asserted that no reasonable jury would find the two songs substantially similar, with entirely different melodies and lyrics. As a result, SAS failed to raise a triable issue of fact regarding copyright infringement having taken place, and the district court affirmed summary judgment to Sheeran.

Their recent ruling helps tie up remaining loose ends following Sheeran’s court victory over the same song last year. That trial was brought about by descendants of Ed Townsend, Marvin Gaye’s co-writer.

A key dispute throughout that case was also whether the copyright of “Let’s Get It On” protected specific parts of the song. Ultimately, the protected parts were defined by the written deposit copy, and jurors could not consider additional elements from Gaye’s recording.

Madlib, who’s suing his manager for ‘pervasive mismanagement.’ Photo Credit: Gergely Csatari

Veteran producer and DJ Madlib is suing his manager for allegedly failing to perform a variety of duties while simultaneously “engaging in persistent and pervasive mismanagement.”

Madlib (real name Otis Jackson Jr.) fired off the brief-but-multifaceted complaint yesterday, about 14 years after exiting Stones Throw Records and setting out “to own and control his music.” The latter objective laid the groundwork for a tie-up with former (and allegedly “fired”) Stone’s Throw exec Eothen Alapatt.

Known professionally as Egon, Alapatt had already founded Now-Again Records and, per the legal text, agreed to form and run a distinct company owned by Madlib and dedicated to his “career and the production, recording and distribution of his recorded music,” with the resulting profits to “be shared between” the two individuals.

Enter Madicine Show, which purportedly focused on Madlib’s career and was unilaterally controlled by Egon. That control allegedly extended to “all of the entity’s bank accounts” as well as “all of the decisions regarding incoming and outgoing monies” – including payments to Madlib himself.

Moreover, distribution pacts, social media management, tax filings, personnel decisions, and a whole lot else allegedly fell under Egon’s exclusive purview at Madicine Show. A few years after Madicine’s inception, a second entity, Rapp Cats, was established to zero in on Madlib’s merch and physical releases, per the legal text.

According once again to the suit, Egon also had control of this company and handled the business-related decisions at hand.

Predictably, given the legal action, all was not well behind the scenes; Madlib “recently discovered” that Egon was “engaged in rank self-dealing,” referring in part to “concealing information from [Madlib] and repeatedly breaching his duties.”

First up on Madlib’s laundry list of qualms is Egon’s alleged decision to “improperly” insert the aforementioned Now-Again “as middleman between” Madicine’s primary distributor, Ingrooves.

Meanwhile, Egon, once again via Now-Again, allegedly took “and apparently continues to take a fee off the top of any income generated by the sale or other distribution of” Madicine projects, referring mainly to releases from Madlib.

A Madlib-commissioned “forensic accounting” of Madicine and Rapp Cats, spanning 2018 through 2022, is said to have uncovered “several accounting irregularities as well as a lack of any backup documentation for” hundreds of thousands of dollars in “consulting” and “reimbursement” payments to Egon and others.

The alleged irregularities and lack of backup documents encompassed as well “the majority of inbound deposits to the two entities’ bank accounts (totaling in the several millions of dollars),” on top of different areas yet, per the suit.

Additionally, Egon has allegedly “failed and refused to produce the full and complete books and records of” Madicine and Rapp Cats – besides allegedly failing to allow a distribution-focused audit of Now-Again’s Madicine relationship, refusing to provide Madlib’s “newly retained professional team” with documents, and preventing Madlib from accessing multiple social handles and platforms to boot.

Lastly, Egon allegedly “directed a single lawyer and single accountant to represent him” along with Madlib (who wasn’t consulted about the decision), Now-Again, Madicine, and Rapp Cats alike.

All told, he and the other defendants (also including Rapp Cats’ Jeff Jank and Now-Again itself) are facing a demand for “a judicially supervised wind up and dissolution” of Rapp Cats and Madicine.

Egon himself and Now-Again have been accused of breach of fiduciary duty – with Madlib further seeking a court declaration that he’s effectively terminated any rights (from recorded music to trademarks and various areas in between) granted to Madicine and Rapp Cats.

DMN reached out to Egon for comment but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

Photo Credit: Sean “Diddy” Combs by Shamsuddin Muhammad / CC by 2.0

A federal judge rules the Jane Doe who accused Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of sexual assault can’t proceed under a pseudonym.

Federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ruled that an anonymous woman who filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs must file under her real name by November 13, or the lawsuit will be dismissed. The Tennessee woman filed her suit as a Jane Doe against Combs earlier this month with allegations that he raped her in 2004 when she was 19 years old.

Lawyers representing the woman have argued that the case should be allowed to proceed as-is due to the plaintiff’s fear that Combs would harm her. But the judge disagreed.

“The fundamental question is whether Plaintiff has a ‘substantial privacy’ interest that ‘outweighs the customary and constitutionally embedded presumption of openness in judicial proceedings,’” wrote Judge Vyskocil on Wednesday. “Defendants have a right to defend themselves, including by investigating Plaintiff, and the people have a right to know who is using their courts.”

“As Plaintiff’s own submissions make clear, however, Combs has had no contact with Plaintiff for the approximately twenty years since the alleged rape and Combs is currently detained pending trial,” the judge continued. “As such, counsel has not identified any present threat of physical harm to Plaintiff.”

The lawsuit is one of over a dozen that have been filed by Jane or John Does since Combs was arrested on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in September. All are represented by the same attorneys, which includes Tony Buzbee, who promised an onslaught of over 120 similar lawsuits to be filed in the coming weeks.

“The Court appreciates that Combs is a public figure, and therefore, Plaintiff is likely to face public scrutiny if she proceeds in her own name,” Judge Vyskocil pointed out. “However, Plaintiff’s interest in avoiding public scrutiny, or even embarrassment, does not outweigh the interests of both Combs and the public in ‘the customary and constitutionally embedded presumption of openness in judicial proceedings.’”

Therefore, the judge said Combs is entitled to know the identity of his accuser so his defense can investigate her claims.

Photo Credit: Claire Anderson

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court has upheld a lower court ruling that denied Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s claim that customer antitrust complaints should be resolved through arbitration—based on the terms of service when purchasing tickets.

The 2023 ruling in Heckman v. Live Nation Entertainment ruled that Live Nation cannot enforce contract provisions that require ticket buyers to arbitrate their claims instead of suing them in federal court. The appeals panel called the arbitration rules unfair to consumers, while being overtly beneficial to the defendants (Live Nation/Ticketmaster).

U.S. District Judge George H. Wu called the forced arbitration clause “procedurally unconscionable” last year in his ruling after Ticketmaster changed its chosen arbitrator to New Era. He also called into question the ability to mass arbitrate cases grouped together, saying it would severely limit the Plaintiff’s ability to prove their cases in court.

“It is plain that it would be impossible for Plaintiffs to present their claims on equal footing to Live Nation,” 9th Circuit Judge William Fletcher writes in his decision. “Forced to accept terms that can be changed without notice, a Plaintiff then must arbitrate under New Era’s opaque and unfair rules.”

Both Judge Morgan Christen and Judge Lawrence VanDyke agreed with that ruling, stating that the Federal Arbitration Act does not apply to “mass arbitration contemplated by Live Nation’s agreements.” Live Nation says it disagrees with the 9th Circuit ruling, arguing that the change of arbitrator was not “unfair, unexpected, or otherwise unconscionable.”

“We hold that the delegation clause of the arbitration agreement, and the arbitration agreement as a whole, are unconscionable and unenforceable under California law. We hold further that the application of California’s unconscionability law to the facts of this case is not preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). Finally, we hold, as an alternate and independent ground, that the FAA does not preempt California’s prohibition of class action waivers contained in contracts of adhesion in large-scale small-stakes consumer cases,” the decision reads.

The district court observed that Live Nation “provided nearly all of New Era’s revenue during its first year” and that there “appears to be a remarkable degree of coordination between [Live Nation counsel] and New Era in terms of their interpretation and the evolution of New Era’s Rules.” Finding these facts to be concerning, the district court noted that this could “certainly create an inference of bias.”

“It seems to me that the circumstances in this case create more than merely an inference of bias—they create a strong and inescapable perception of bias,” the judge writes in his decision. “A dispute resolution procedure is not an arbitration unless there is a third-party decision maker. And a third-party decision maker “whose interests are so allied with those of the party” is “for all practical purposes, subject to the same disabilities which prevent the party himself from serving.”

“Not only is the line between Live Nation and New Era blurry, but more than that, this agreement would require a New Era arbitrator to decide the question of whether their employer’s invention—developed with the help of the party in front of them—is a failure. If the answer to that question is yes, goodbye New Era and the arbitrator’s job as an arbitrator—with any arbitration provider, forever.”

See the full judgment here.

Megan Thee Stallion, who’s suing a social media commentator for alleged harassment, kicking off her Hot Girl Summer Tour. Photo Credit: Live Nation

Megan Thee Stallion is suing social media commentator Milagro Cooper for allegedly acting on behalf of Tory Lanez “as an online rumor mill churning out falsehoods.”

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan-repped Megan Thee Stallion submitted the straightforward complaint to a Florida federal court, naming Cooper as the sole defendant. As laid out in the action, this defendant operates accounts on X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube alike.

A cursory glance at the appropriate profiles indicates that the host weighs in on a variety of pop-culture topics; in Cooper’s own words, the media at hand “fills you in on everything going on in urban culture.”

But as described by Megan Thee Stallion and her legal team, Cooper is only a “social media grifter who traffics in false and sensationalist narratives.” And the latter narratives include “a years-long campaign of harassment” against the plaintiff.

Furthermore, Cooper spearheaded this alleged campaign on behalf of Tory Lanez, per the action, which specifically attributes the alleged harassment to the defendant’s “close relationship with Mr. Peterson [Lanez] and his father.”

While the legal text doesn’t dive too far into this purported close relationship – by now, most know of Lanez’s decade-long prison sentence in connection with Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting – it does provide multiple examples allegedly supporting the harassment-campaign claims.

Earlier this week, for instance, Milagro Cooper “made the false and outlandish claim that the firearm” used to shoot Megan Thee Stallion “had gone missing.” Those remarks “recklessly disregarded the truth” about the weapon, which “remains in the custody of the Los Angeles Police Department,” per the suit.

Next, on top of allegedly attending the relevant trial and livestreaming “her falsehoods during hearings,” Cooper allegedly made a number of related remarks on the subject towards 2022’s end. (The main complaint features screenshots of these years-old tweets.)

And perhaps most seriously, the defendant allegedly directed her followers to “a deepfake video purporting to show an artificially created version of” Megan Thee Stallion “engaging in sexually explicit acts.”

Needless to say, the artist hadn’t approved of the AI-generated clip, and per the complaint, it’s unclear who actually made the deepfake video.

All told, the “disparaging remarks” allegedly harmed Megan Thee Stallion’s “mental and emotional state,” inflicted “significant personal and economic harm,” and damaged the plaintiff’s “reputation and standing as a professional musician” – with further economic harm stemming from efforts to remove various “bots” allegedly interacting with the media at hand.

Though questionable takes aren’t barred under U.S. law, Megan Thee Stallion (who, incidentally, joined Hybe’s Weverse yesterday) is suing specifically for “promotion of an altered sexual depiction,” cyberstalking, “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” and invasion of privacy.

Cooper today briefly addressed the suit during an X livestream (albeit while clarifying that the comments didn’t constitute an official statement, which will come from her attorneys) and in multiple tweets, one of which touched on plans to launch a countersuit.

Photo Credit: Metro Boomin’s Instagram

Metro Boomin is facing a lawsuit from a woman claiming sexual battery from an incident in 2016 in which she was allegedly raped and impregnated.

Metro Boomin has been sued by a woman named Vanessa LeMaistre, in a filing obtained by TMZ. LeMaistre claims she was suffering from depression after the death of her 9-month-old son in 2016, but “hit it off with Metro” during a trip to Las Vegas that spring. Ultimately, she alleges Metro sexually assaulted her and left her pregnant during their time together.

LeMaistre says Metro invited her to his studio in Los Angeles, where she observed the rapper abusing codeine, even as his friends warned him against it. In a later visit at his studio, LeMaistre says she took half a Xanax pill and “a shot of alcohol to cope with the sadness over her son’s passing,” and claims she blacked out on the couch.

When she regained consciousness, LeMaistre says Metro was on top of her “raping her and performing oral sex on her.” She then blacked out again, and awoke to Metro telling her she was in a Beverly Hills hotel room and it was time for her to leave, but she says she had no memory of arriving there.

Later, LeMaistre says she learned she was pregnant, and claims it had to be from Metro, as she hadn’t had sex with anyone else during that time. She ultimately terminated the pregnancy in November 2016.

Further, Vanessa LeMaistre believes Metro made light of her abuse the following year on his track “Rap Saved Me” with 21 Savage, Offset, and Quavo. The song features the lyrics, “She took a Xanny / Then she fainted / I’m from the gutter … ain’t no changing.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for mental pain and anguish, plus punitive damages.

Photo Credit: Chris Brown – No Guidance (Official Video) ft. Drake / Vevo

Chris Brown, Drake, Sony Music, and YouTube face a copyright infringement and defamation lawsuit over the track ‘No Guidance.’

Chris Brown has been slapped with a $5 million copyright infringement and defamation suit over his track “No Guidance,” featuring Drake, who is also named in the filing, alongside Sony Music and YouTube.

Filed by Tykeiya Dore and Marc A. Stephens, who allege that Chris Brown’s song infringes on Dore’s copyrighted track, “I Got It,” which they say they have tried to have addressed in the past. Stephens, acting on behalf of Dore, submitted multiple notices of copyright infringement with YouTube and Sony Music Entertainment, demanding the removal of Brown’s song.

Allegedly, Brown’s team responded, arguing that the claim “lacks merit” as it stands, based on unprotectable ideas, and asserting there is no substantial similarity between the two songs. Further, they argue Dore cannot prove Brown had access to her song, which is necessary to prove that purposeful infringement occurred.

YouTube initially suspended Stephens’ account and ultimately declined to remove Brown’s music video. The parties are still involved in an ongoing dispute, with YouTube denying Stephens’ takedown requests. “We’ve reviewed this matter and found that you haven’t identified a work that is subject to copyright,” YouTube wrote in an email to Stephens. “For this reason, we can’t process your request.”

YouTube is named in the lawsuit, alongside its parent companies, Alphabet Inc. and Google, for alleged defamations against Marc Stephens in the ongoing dispute over the takedown notice, when YouTube is said to have called Stephens’ claims “fraudulent.” The suit seeks damages amounting to at least $5 million.

Other issues outlined in the suit include exhibits involving copyright registrations, comparison videos, and email correspondence between litigants and YouTube. Chris Brown is also the subject of an upcoming documentary highlighted his abuse allegations with a new victim, who has finally come forward after years.

Photo Credit: -JvL- / CC by 2.0

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the latest complaint filed against him.

The newest lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs in the deluge of cases filed against him alleges that the mogul sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy. Attorney Tony Buzbee filed the suit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York — the latest in what Buzbee says will be around 120 new lawsuits announced earlier this month.

The suit, filed by a John Doe residing in California who wishes to remain anonymous, says the assault took place in 2005 when he was only 10 years old. The filing explains he was interested in becoming an actor or rapper, and his parents hired an industry consultant who eventually arranged for Combs to meet with him for what was described as an audition.

During the boy’s trip with his parents to New York to meet with Combs, the suit says he asked to meet with the boy alone before meeting with his family. The consultant took him to Combs’ hotel room and left him alone with the music mogul.

While alone with Combs in the hotel room, the boy was given a soda by another person, which he drank. Shortly thereafter, he says he began to feel “a little funny,” which is believed to have been because the drink was laced with drugs. He says Combs told him to move closer to him and then pushed him down, telling him that to make it in the music industry, “you have to do some stuff you don’t want to do sometimes.”

Combs allegedly exposed his genitals to the boy and told him to “kiss it,” before forcing him to perform oral sex when he refused. Shortly afterward, the boy lost consciousness. When he awoke, his “anus and buttocks hurt badly,” and Combs’ “pants were undone.” He cried and said he wanted to go back to his parents, to which Combs is said to have told him if he said anything to anyone, he would hurt his parents.

This suit is one of two new lawsuits filed in New York on Monday. The second comes from a man who claimed he was sexually assaulted by Combs in 2008 when he was 17 years old while auditioning for “Making the Band.” The accuser, also an anonymous John Doe, says Combs forced him to perform oral sex during three separate auditions for the show, as well as his bodyguard identified as “T.”

According to the suit, Combs told him the sex acts were “a test” to see how badly he wanted to make it in the music industry. When he visually expressed discomfort with the situation, Combs allegedly said he would be “keeping an eye” on him. He was ultimately eliminated from the competition.

Like other lawsuits filed by Tony Buzbee against Combs, the disgraced mogul’s attorneys have categorically denied the allegations. “The lawyer behind this lawsuit is interested in media attention rather than the truth, as is obvious from his constant press appearances and 1-800 number,” said representatives for Combs. “Mr. Combs cannot respond to every new publicity stunt, even in response to claims that are facially ridiculous or demonstrably false.”

Combs is currently held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, following his arrest on September 16 by Homeland Security on charges including racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been denied bail by two separate judges. His trial is set to begin in May 2025.

An overview of the GEMA licensing model for generative AI platforms. Photo Credit: GEMA

One month ago, GEMA announced a licensing framework for generative AI, complete with rightsholder payments for derivative audio creations. Now, the German society is providing additional details about the aggressive proposal.

GEMA reached out with new information pertaining to the model, after we asked about its specifics in late September. In more words, a representative explained the month-long response window by emphasizing the many moving parts associated with developing an approach to music licensing for generative AI.

“Involved” only begins to describe the undertaking, which GEMA touted in September as the first “licensing approach aiming to balance technological progress and the protection of creative work.”

That same month, the 91-year-old entity indicated that its model, not solely addressing once-off payments from AI developers that trained on protected music sans permission, would look to compel ongoing rightsholder payments for derivative audio creations.

As suggested by the available resources, derivative audio referred to all the music creations pumped out by generative AI platforms trained on copyrighted works without licensing pacts in place.

GEMA is now elaborating that its proposal centers on “one licensing model” featuring “two key components.”

The first of those components would apply to all generative AI players active in Germany, regardless of how, where, and when their training processes occurred, that utilized protected musical works at some point.

Far from subtle, the same component would then transfer to the relevant rightsholders “a 30% share of all net income generated by the generative AI model or system of the provider,” per GEMA, with a “minimum royalty” obligation in place to boot.

Of course, outlining the sizable payment is one thing, and actually getting AI companies to cough up is another challenge altogether. (OpenAI has already threatened to leave the EU over regulations, for instance.)

But it’s worth bearing in mind the EU’s enactment of the sweeping AI Act, which is still going into effect, and the unique regulatory environment in Germany itself. Running with these points, the second licensing component floated by GEMA will seemingly prove harder yet to make reality.

Payments should also be made for “all economic benefits that can arise from the subsequent use of AI-generated music,” including in public establishments and on streaming services, because this music resulted from an initial library of protected media, according to GEMA.

“In the future,” GEMA proceeded, “rights holders will so receive an appropriate share of the additional income generated by AI-produced songs. This share must be at least equivalent to what would have been provided for purely human-generated works.”

Though it looks as though many details still need to be ironed out – plus, the language barrier certainly isn’t helping given the highly complex subject at hand – it’ll be interesting to monitor GEMA’s push as well as the wider area of possible regulation on the AI-training side.

Meanwhile, high-stakes litigation is still plodding along in the space, with ongoing copyright cases against Anthropic, Suno, Perplexity, and Udio, to name a few.

Photo Credit: Perplexity

After being slapped with a lawsuit from Dow Jones & Company and NYP Holdings over copyright infringement, AI search engine Perplexity has responded.

That lawsuit alleges that Perplexity owes its success to a “brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously free-riding on the valuable content” produced by outlets like the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. Plaintiffs in the case said they reached out to Perplexity for a potential licensing agreement, but never received a response. Now, Perplexity is responding publicly.

Perplexity says the ‘common theme’ among lawsuits against generative AI companies is that these media companies “wish this technology didn’t exist.” “They prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll,” Perplexity says.

“We believe that tools like Perplexity provide a fundamentally transformative way for people to learn facts about the world. Perplexity not only does so in a way that the law has always recognized but is essential for the sound functioning of a cultural ecosystem in which people can efficiently and effectively obtain and engage with knowledge created by others,” the statement reads.

Perplexity lists sources for the information it provides as in-line citations for every part of the provided answer. Many other AI chatbots have copied this citation presentation wholesale—providing the source of information so it can be viewed by the person seeking knowledge.

“The lawsuit reflects an adversarial posture between media and tech that is fundamentally shortsighted, unnecessary, and self-defeating,” Perplexity writes. “Perplexity is proud to have launched a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing program with leading publishers like TIME, Fortune, and Der Spiegel, which have already signed on. And our door is always open if and when the Post and the Journal decide to work with us in good faith, just as numerous others already have.”

Perplexity calls the facts cited in the original 42-page complaint “misleading.” It says examples of the lawsuit alleging ‘regurgitated’ output mis-characterize the description of the source material. It also alleges that it did respond to News Corp. “They reached out; we responded the very same day; instead of continuing the dialogue, they filed this lawsuit,” says Perplexity. “AI-enhanced search engines are not going away.”

Photo Credit: Michael Rapino

Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino is being deposed in ongoing litigation surrounding the Astroworld case following the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling.

Despite Live Nation’s insistence that CEO Michael Rapino had no reason to be deposed over the deadly crowd crush event during Astroworld in 2021, the Texas Supreme Court sees things differently.

Rapino is being deposed in the ongoing litigation over the tragedy after the Texas Supreme Court agreed with the victims’ lawyers that the Live Nation CEO had direct involvement in key decisions. In a ruling last week, the court denied Live Nation’s petition seeking to block the deposition.

Live Nation’s attorneys argued Rapino was the sort of high-level “apex” executive who simply can’t be dragged into court cases, asserting that he was far removed from the actual decision-making surrounding the festival.

But the victims’ attorneys insisted that Rapino’s role in Astroworld was much more direct than the company would admit. Part of their evidence to that end included an email Rapino sent on the night of the disaster, instructing Live Nation’s festival director to wait for more information about the total death toll before canceling the rest of the festival. In that email, Rapino wrote, “If 5 died we would cancel.”

“Live Nation claims that Rapino was not the decision maker on whether to cancel the festival,” wrote the victims’ attorneys. “This email proves otherwise, and plaintiffs want an opportunity to examine Rapino about it.”

The ruling comes almost three years after the incident at the 2021 Astroworld festival during Travis Scott’s headlining set that left 10 dead and hundreds more injured. The tragedy led to hundreds of lawsuits against organizer Live Nation, Scott, and other key figures, seeking billions in damages altogether. Some of those cases have been settled privately, but some victims and their families are still moving toward a jury trial.

It’s as yet unknown when Rapino’s deposition will ultimately take place.

Photo Credit: Andrew Neel

OpenAI has been fraught with leadership changes as executives pour out of the company like water through a sieve. The latest departure is a former researcher who says the company broke copyright law and is destroying the internet. Here’s the latest.

The New York Times reports Suchir Balaji’s departure from OpenAI after spending four years as an artificial intelligence researcher with the company. He was instrumental in helping OpenAI hoover up enormous amounts of data, scraping the web for knowledge to build out its large language models (LLMs).

Balaji told The NY Times that while working for OpenAI, he did not consider whether the company had a legal right to build its products by scraping data from other sources. He assumed any data published on the internet and available freely was up for grabs—whether the data was copyrighted or not. So pirate sites that archive copyrighted books, paywalled news sites, and even reddit posts were fair game for the massive data machine.

Balaji says in 2022 he thought harder about how the company was approaching data collection and came to the conclusion that how OpenAI gathered data was a violation of copyright law and that technology like ChatGPT was damaging to the internet as a whole. In August 2024, Balaji departed the company because he believed OpenAI would cause more harm than societal benefit.

“If you believe what I believe, you have to just leave the company,” Balaji told The New York Times. Balaji joined Open AI in 2020 at just 25-years-old, drawn to the potential AI presents for problems like finding curs for diseases and stopping aging. Instead, he says he found himself at the helm of a technology that is “destroying the commercial viability of the individuals, businesses, and internet services that created the digital data used to train AI systems.”

Earlier this week, Balaji published an essay on his website detailing his concerns about the future of OpenAI. He believes that how AI companies gather data does not fall within the ‘fair use’ that AI data companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are arguing—saying regulation of AI is the only way out of this mess.

“While generative models rarely produce outputs that are substantially similar to any of their training inputs, the process of training a generative model involves making copies of copyrighted data,” Balaji writes. “If these copies are unauthorized, this could potentially be considered copyright infringement, depending on whether or not the specific use of the model qualifies as ‘fair use.’”

“Because ‘fair use’ is determined on a case-by-case basis, no broad statement can be made about when generative AI qualifies for fair use.” Balaji points to traffic drops for major sites like Stack Overflow as potentially destroying the internet as new users ask their questions to generative AI models rather than the human help resource that the model was trained on. While OpenAI has arranged for licensing agreements with several newspapers, it still faces lawsuits from authors who say they did not consent to an LLM being trained on their copyrighted works.

Photo Credit: Ryan Born

SESAC Music Group acquires HAAWK, a media software and services company specializing in copyright management and monetization for independent catalogs.

SESAC Music Group announces its acquisition of HAAWK, a media software and services company that specializes in copyright management and monetization for independent music, film, television, and video catalogs.

HAAWK (Helping All Assets With Knowledge) provides full-service administration of YouTube’s Content ID system and Facebook’s Rights Manager platforms (including Instagram), serving a broad range of record labels, publishers, and music rights holder clients. HAAWK will operate alongside Audio Salad as part of the artist and label distribution services segment of SESAC Music Group’s Music Services division.

“This is truly a dream come true,” says Ryan Born, Founder & CEO of HAAWK. “HAAWK already leads the way in providing unmatched opportunities and increased royalty revenue for our clients across YouTube, Facebook, and social video platforms. By partnering with SESAC Music Group, we’re opening the door to even greater possibilities, enabling us to scale globally and offer more advanced royalty collection and administration services to our clients.”

“HAAWK’s mission aligns with SESAC Music Group in delivering maximum value and transparency to music creators. Their leadership and technology strengthen our services for independent labels and publishers worldwide,” shared John Josephson, Chairman and CEO of SESAC Music Group.

“We’re thrilled to welcome HAAWK to our Music Services portfolio, enhancing our comprehensive asset management and royalty collection services for independent labels and publishers globally,” added Malcolm Hawker, EVP and COO of SESAC Music Group.

HAAWK’s headquarters will remain in Los Angeles under the leadership of Ryan Born, who founded the company in 2017. The company has earned repeated recognitions on the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Fast 500 rankings for its rapid growth in media and technology.

A global, multi-line music company, SESAC Music Group provides a wide range of data, technology, and services to publishers, songwriters, composers, and creators across every corner of the music industry. With its four divisions, including Performing Rights, Music Services, Audiovisual Music, and Church Resources, SESAC Music Group drives efficiency in licensing for music users and is home to a wide array of world-class music companies.

HAAWK provides copyright monitoring and monetization tools to assist creators in maximizing earnings on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more. Signature services include YouTube Content ID and Facebook Rights Manager administration, SaaS products for independent video creators to legally and affordably access micro-sync music, publishing administration, and digital music distribution.

SiriusXM has voluntarily dismissed its counterclaims against SoundExchange, though the underlying unpaid royalties battle is still in full swing. Photo Credit: SoundExchange

Less than three months later, SiriusXM has dropped its counterclaims against SoundExchange in their high-stakes legal battle over allegedly unpaid royalties.

That interesting move from SiriusXM emerged in a brief notice of dismissal, after the satellite radio giant fired off the counteraction in mid-August. Among other things, said counteraction sought the recoupment of certain allegedly overpaid royalties and accused the plaintiff of enlisting a biased accounting firm to audit SiriusXM financials.

Meanwhile, SoundExchange in the original complaint accused SiriusXM of failing to pay over $150 million in owed royalties due largely to alleged revenue misrepresentations in joint satellite and online radio packages. We broke down the suit in detail at the time of its filing last year; a venue change and additional factors have made for a plodding showdown thus far.

But in short, there are different royalty-calculation requirements in place for satellite and digital packages, with deductions available for satellite-digital bundles to prevent double-paying on one revenue source. In more words, SoundExchange accused the defendant of inflating the value of webcasting (or online listening) offerings so it could cough up smaller royalty payments on bundles.

Also as covered by DMN, SiriusXM refuted the allegations, urged the court to toss the suit, and even made a push for counterclaim damages.

As initially highlighted, however, SiriusXM’s months-old counterclaims are no more. SoundExchange has yet to respond, the dismissal notice reiterates before underscoring that the counterclaims “hereby are voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.”

Absent from the concise legal text is any mention of the reason(s) behind the abrupt dismissal. Though the obvious answer is that the involved parties are nearing some sort of resolution – albeit in a far different situation, SoundExchange recently came to a temporary agreement with AccuRadio – evidence suggests little progress has been made towards resolving the broader issues at hand.

For instance, it was only last week that the judge approved a jointly proposed briefing schedule for SiriusXM’s 12(c) motion to toss the complaint. Per the order, the defendant’s moving brief has an October 28th deadline, SoundExchange will have until November 26th to submit its opposition brief, and a SiriusXM reply brief will then be due back by December 18th.

Closer to the present, a status conference took place on the 17th and was added to the docket yesterday, with related letters to the court seemingly pointing to continued disagreements between SiriusXM and SoundExchange.

Separately, SiriusXM is also embroiled in a rate court dispute with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), as the two have apparently failed to reach an agreement on terms for 2022 through 2026.

The Minnesota Timberwolves warm up before a game. Photo Credit: Bobak Ha’Eri

NBA teams including the Minnesota Timberwolves are firing back against the copyright infringement actions they’re facing from music publishers.

The Timberwolves are among the more than dozen NBA teams grappling with the substantially similar suits, which were filed separately in July but, for the time being, remain unconsolidated. Now, in keeping with the cases’ overlap, teams are submitting largely matching answers.

We’ve covered the relatively straightforward cases from the get-go. Just to recap, though, plaintiffs including Kobalt Music and Prescription Songs say the defendants infringed their works by using unlicensed music in various social media videos as well as clips uploaded to NBA.com.

As a growing list of companies are finding out – or being reminded – via litigation, social media platforms’ pre-cleared song libraries are generally licensed for personal as opposed to professional use. There’s also another layer of complexity (at least for companies and professionals situated outside the industry) given how quickly usage rules and infringement responses can change on social services.

Individuals who upload videos featuring unauthorized music and pertaining to sports teams, for instance, won’t be (or haven’t been) chased down by the appropriate rightsholders. But it’s evidently a different “ballgame” when teams themselves are uploading allegedly infringing media.

In any event, the Timberwolves’ answer doesn’t touch on this complexity or the broader subject of potential licensing pitfalls on social media.

Instead, the legal text includes a comprehensive point-by-point refutation of the original complaint’s allegations – as well as a number of affirmative defenses to boot. Perhaps most interestingly, the claims are allegedly barred because the plaintiffs “engaged in copyright misuse.”

Here, that refers to the publishers’ allegedly leveraging “their copyright registrations along with threats of attorneys’ fees in order to extort from the Team disproportionate payments for allegedly infringing uses.”

Next, the Timberwolves say they “possessed an implied license” to exploit the allegedly infringed works, maintain that doing so constituted fair use, and further believe that the First Amendment protected the alleged usages, to name a few defenses.

Lastly, echoing arguments made in different copyright suits, the defendants claim that the infringement allegations are time barred owing to the approximate date on which the plaintiffs knew about or should have known about the usages at hand.

Unsurprisingly, teams are leaning into social media content as the NBA season kicks off today – but in their latest video uploads, the Timberwolves look to have incorporated lesser-known releases unaffiliated with the plaintiff publishers.

The New York Post printing plant in the Bronx. Photo Credit: Jim Henderson

In a case that could establish precedent relevant to multiple music industry lawsuits against generative AI companies, the owners of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post are suing Perplexity for copyright infringement.

Dow Jones & Company as well as NYP Holdings submitted that copyright complaint to a New York federal court, naming as the lone defendant San Francisco-based Perplexity. Billing itself as today’s “most powerful answer engine,” the latter startup counts as stakeholders Jeff Bezos and Nvidia.

Against the backdrop of sizable funding rounds and massive valuations in the AI space, the just-filed action points to a possible $3 billion market worth for Perplexity – though reports today suggested that the business is looking to raise $500 million at a whopping $8 billion valuation.

Conveyed in different words, it’s an understatement to say that ample cash is floating around the AI world. But according to the corporate entities behind the Journal and the Post, Perplexity in particular owes its success to a “brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously freeriding on the valuable content” at hand.

As recounted in the 42-page suit, the plaintiffs reached out to the defendant in July of 2024 with a letter describing infringement concerns and “offering to discuss a potential licensing deal.” (Separately, the New York Times recently sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter concerning alleged infringement, Reuters reported.)

Predictably, in light of the fresh complaint, the filing parties, having previously finalized a licensing pact with ChatGPT developer OpenAI via their parent, say they never received a response from Perplexity.

Shifting to the actual copyright claims, the complaint contrasts previously filed actions against generative AIs (including Amazon-backed Anthropic, OpenAI, and more) by accusing Perplexity of infringement at several stages.

First, the platform, often used to summarize news, allegedly “copied hundreds of thousands” of copyrighted Journal and Post articles without permission for its retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) database. Taking aim at arguments made by other AI giants, the action rather directly claims the alleged practice isn’t transformative and doesn’t constitute fair use.

In a nutshell, the RAG database, distinct from the much-discussed training process for large-language models, is said to house a continually updated (via web scraping) collection of information for use in AI-generated answers to user questions (including requests for breakdowns of articles, for example).

(Incidentally, at the time of this writing, the AI platform was declining to use the Post article about the lawsuit to create a summary of the matter, even when asked to do so. Citations are featured prominently beside Perplexity answers but, according to the plaintiffs, render “users less inclined to visit the original content source” and generate “virtually no click-through traffic” in any event.)

Next, Perplexity’s “full or partial verbatim reproductions of” copyrighted articles allegedly constitute independent instances of copyright infringement. That includes detailed, quote-heavy summaries of paywall-protected Journal coverage as well as entire Post pieces.

Furthermore, the AI defendant allegedly makes additional unauthorized copies of “articles to preserve the outputs it generates in another database that it uses for analytical and other purposes.” The exact quantity of alleged copies is unclear, but the plaintiffs say “each individual electronic copy constitutes its own infringement subject to statutory damages under the Copyright Act.”

Lastly, Perplexity allegedly produces “made-up text (hallucinations) in its outputs” and then falsely attributes said text, sometimes alongside genuine quoted materials, to specific articles and authors from the plaintiff publications. Among other things, the alleged practice is “likely to cause confusion or mistake,” according to the suit.

“This conduct likewise harms the news-consuming public,” the complaint sums up towards its end. “Generating content for advertisement or subscription revenue is unsustainable if the content is taken en masse and reproduced by bad-faith actors for substitutive commercial purposes.”

All told, the plaintiffs are seeking substantial damages and a number of orders – one barring the unauthorized copying of protected materials and another calling for the “destruction of any index or database created by Perplexity that contains” the same materials, to name a couple.

Photo Credit: Penguin Random House (UK CEO Tom Weldon)

Penguin Random House has updated its wording on its copyright pages to better protect its authors’ intellectual property from AI uses. The language specifically addresses large language models (LLMs) and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

A report from The Bookseller details these changes across all of its imprints globally confirming these new guidelines will appear “in imprint pages across our markets.” The new wording from these documents states, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.”

These new notices will be included in all new titles and any back-listed titles that are reprinted. The statement “expressly reserves [the titles] from the text and data mining exception,” in accordance with a European Parliament directive. The Bookseller reports that PRH UK CEO Tom Weldon said in a memo to staff in August 2024 that the trade publisher would “vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists.”

“It is encouraging to see major publishers like PRH adopt new wording in their printed materials that reaffirms the principle of copyright and explicitly forbids technology companies from using copyrighted works to train their models,” says Barbara Hayes, CEO of The Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society. “We hope more publishers follow [PRH’s] lead and that those companies developing such models take urgent notice.”

Several publishers have written cease and desist letters to some of the larger LLM platforms, taking practical steps to prevent their copyrighted works from being scraped or use for LLM training. When other major publishers were asked about updating their copyright wording, Pan Macmillan, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster all declined to comment.

Faber could not be reached for a comment. Though Faber recently adopted an ‘AI Policy’ that would prohibit freelancers working with its authors’ books from copying any of the information into an AI program “for the purposes of editing, checking, extraction, or any other purpose.”

Photo Credit: Scott Graham

A second wave of lawsuits hits Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, filed on behalf of seven more accusers, some of whom claim abuse as recently as 2022.

A new round of lawsuits has been filed against Sean “Diddy” Combs, including an allegation that he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl with an unnamed male and female celebrity. Some of the latest accusers claim abuse as recently as 2022.

The plaintiffs, all of whom are using a John or Jane Doe pseudonym to retain anonymity, are represented by attorney Tony Buzbee, who has previously announced he is representing over 120 clients against Combs. Buzbee filed a batch of lawsuits against the disgraced media mogul last week.

One of the new lawsuits comes from a Jane Doe who was 13 years old in 2000, when she tried to attend the MTV Video Music Awards, but could not get in without a ticket. She says she approached several limousine drivers after the event to see if she could attend an afterparty. One driver allegedly worked for Combs and took the plaintiff to a party where she was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement and was given a drink.

The plaintiff says she “began to feel woozy and lightheaded” after one drink, and went to lie down in an empty bedroom. Combs and an unnamed “male and female celebrity” allegedly entered, whereupon the plaintiff says she was raped by the male celebrity while the female celebrity watched, and then was raped by Combs as both celebrities watched.

Another plaintiff, a personal trainer, says he was drugged in 2022, on the night Combs was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BET Awards. According to the plaintiff, his “unconscious body” was passed around at an afterparty “like a party favor for [Combs’ guests’] sexual enjoyment.”

As the lawsuits against the Bad Boy Entertainment founder continue to mount, Combs’ defense team filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, asking for a gag order to prohibit “further extrajudicial statements from prospective witnesses and their lawyers that substantially interfere with Mr. Combs’ right to a fair trial.”

Before the initial round of Buzbee lawsuits, Combs was already facing at least a dozen other complaints alleging sexual abuse. Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after his arrest on September 16 by Homeland Security on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, but was twice denied bail and is set to remain behind bars until his trial in May 2025.

Photo Credit: 2 Live Crew for Luke Records

A jury had ruled that 2 Live Crew should benefit from a copyright ‘termination right’ to win back their music from a label that bought them out of bankruptcy.

Classic hip-hop group 2 Live Crew have won a jury verdict allowing them to regain legal control of the majority of their catalog from a small record label that has owned their copyrights for decades. On Wednesday, a federal jury in Florida that members of the group and their heirs were entitled to invoke copyright “termination rights,” which effectively allow creators to take back their works decades after they were sold to another company.

Attorneys for Lil Joe Records, which bought the band’s catalog out of bankruptcy back in 1996, insisted that termination shouldn’t apply to 2 Live Crew’s albums, arguing the catalog was “work for hire,” meaning no copyright was assigned in the first place. But 2 Live Crew’s attorneys countered that the right to terminate was “inalienable” and couldn’t be forfeited, with which the jury agreed.

Termination rights enable the original owner of a copyright to regain their rights after a set period of time, usually after 35 years depending on the specific statute in play. The hotly-contested clause has been batted around for decades, and 2 Live Crew’s victory could spark similar actions by other artists.

As a result of the jury’s verdict, 2 Live Crew’s Uncle Luke (Luther Campbell) and the heirs of Fresh Kid Ice (Christopher Wong Won) and Brother Marquis (Mark Ross) are entitled to invoke the termination right to regain lawful control of their five albums. This includes their risque 1989 album, As Nasty As They Wanna Be.

Lead counsel for Lil Joe Records, Richard Wolfe, as well as the label’s owner, Joe Weinberger, vowed to appeal the verdict, saying it introduced “novel legal questions about the interplay between termination rights and federal bankruptcy law.”

“The bankruptcy code is clear that all assets of a bankruptcy party are part of the bankruptcy estate,” Wolf said. “All means all.”

2 Live Crew’s case first kicked off in late 2020, when they notified Lil Joe they planned to invoke termination and take back ownership of their music. The two sides could not reach an agreement, leading to Lil Joe suing the group in federal court.

Far from slowing since DMN Pro’s last lawsuit breakdown, music industry litigation has continued ramping up both in quantity and significance. Here’s an updated list of eight especially important suits to watch during 2024’s final quarter and into the new year.

DMN Pro is currently tracking more than 150 different lawsuits across a range of different categories. But what are the most important suits roiling the business? Here, we pluck eight particularly meaningful suits out of the hat, with a summary of the actions and where things stand in each face-off.

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list of suits past or present. But the results of these litigatory battles could have far-reaching repercussions for the music industry. Read on.

Table of Contents

Introduction: An Overview of DMN Pro’s Latest Industry Litigation Breakdown

I. Limp Bizkit et al. v. Universal Music Group

II. UMG Recordings et al. v. Brinker International et al.

III. TikTok and ByteDance v. U.S. Department of Justice

IV. Musi v. Apple

V. U.S. Department of Justice v. Live Nation and Ticketmaster

VI. Concord Music Group et al. v. Anthropic

VII. Barry Manilow et al. v. Hipgnosis

VIII. Yout v. RIAA

This report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute — thank you.

The Spotify v. MLC lawsuit is only intensifying, referring now to an apparent discovery dispute. Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov

Just when you thought the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) v. Spotify lawsuit couldn’t get any uglier, the two are now embroiled in a bitter discovery dispute.

Both the MLC and the streaming platform illustrated the scope of this dispute today, in letters to the presiding judge about their respective qualms. For those who’ve been following the underlying courtroom confrontation even casually, these discovery hang-ups won’t come as a surprise.

We’ve provided more than a few updates – including on the plaintiff’s arguments, Spotify’s dismissal push, a retort to the latter, and much else – since the MLC submitted the suit five months ago.

Long story short, Spotify is paying materially less in U.S. mechanicals after abruptly deeming its main subscription packages bundles (and, for royalty-calculation purposes, reclassifying the involved accounts) owing to the addition of audiobook listening. In a nutshell, the Phonorecords IV determination for on-demand streaming treats bundled revenue far differently than it does revenue from standalone music-only packages.

The streaming giant says the move is above board, the MLC is adamant that the packages don’t constitute bundles, and millions in (allegedly unpaid) royalties are hanging in the balance as a result.

It’s against this backdrop that the MLC and Spotify are apparently locking horns over the precise scope of discovery.

Beginning with the few details about which the parties are in agreement, counsel for the MLC and Spotify participated in a roughly two-hour Zoom meeting on September 18th, corresponded via writing multiple times thereafter, have evidently been unable to reach a compromise, and are consequently asking the court to weigh in.

“Yet Spotify has refused to produce any documents in response to many of the MLC’s requests,” the MLC’s legal team maintained in the relevant letter, “and has sought to unreasonably narrow other requests, all in an effort to avoid producing the very documents the MLC requires to support its claim.”

(Technically, both letters were penned and submitted jointly, but that centering on Spotify’s discovery requests bears the letterhead for the streaming platform’s attorneys, whereas the same is true, albeit for the MLC’s counsel, of the other document.)

The categories in which Spotify has allegedly “refused to produce any documents” include but aren’t limited to the decision-making process behind the audiobook and music-only plans’ launches as well as the actual revenue, subscribers, and profit associated with the audiobook tier.

Of course, one needn’t stretch the imagination to see why the MLC, in arguing that audiobooks are of “token value,” wishes to obtain the performance details (on top of the “technical architecture” to boot) tied to the appropriate plan. Said plan costs $2 less per month than Individual in the States but, as it includes 15 hours of audiobooks access and no ad-free music support, is presumably finding few takers.

Meanwhile, Spotify has allegedly moved to limit the scope of discovery in different areas. Sticking with the streaming platform’s response as provided in the MLC’s letter, the defendant claimed in more words that it’d agreed to 53 of the over 60 requests at hand, besides lambasting these requests as an “extremely broad, invasive examination of a wide range of topics for a period of over three-and-a-half years.”

“Spotify has already agreed to take on a remarkable burden,” the defendant’s attorneys penned, “collecting and reviewing tens of thousands of documents (if not more). The MLC’s refusal to compromise on any of its requests is entirely unreasonable. … Spotify is hard-pressed to understand how documents related to wireframes or codebase have any bearing on whether audiobook streaming is a product or service distinct from music streaming that has more than token value.”

Shifting to Spotify’s letter to the court, the streaming service is of the belief that it’s entitled to internal communications between the MLC, music publishers, and the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) itself.

But the MLC has allegedly “refused to produce responsive documents, agreeing only to produce communications concerning Spotify’s reporting of Premium as a Bundle,” which is “insufficient.”

Certain other disputed requests (of 21 overall) from Spotify pertain to the internal MLC documents “that will speak directly to what MLC believes constitutes a Bundle and how it has treated other” streaming platforms with bundles in place.

As for the MLC’s position here, the entity’s counsel in more words said sufficient details had already been provided in the initial complaint and prior filings.

“Spotify claims it needs this extraordinarily broad and unduly burdensome discovery of its competitor’s reports and payment practices to understand the MLC’s position as to why Spotify’s Premium service does not qualify as a Bundle,” reads one such section. “But the MLC already has made its position on that subject abundantly clear, including in the Complaint and in its opposition to Spotify’s motion to dismiss.”

While it perhaps goes without saying, a near-term settlement doesn’t appear to be in the cards – though Spotify, as we previously noted, is still aggressively seeking dismissal.

Photo Credit: Ashley King

After hackers ran amok in Ticketmaster’s servers, stealing data and reverse engineering its Safe Tix feature—Live Nation is now facing a class action lawsuit over its response to the incident.

The lawsuit alleges Live Nation failed to adequately protect the data of its users and only alerted users of the hack months after it occurred. The lawsuit says Live Nation was negligent in its duties to protect customers’ data and seeks unspecified damages of at least $5 million on behalf of millions of users who were impacted by the hack.

“Ticketmaster operates a digital ticketing platform that requires customers to provide their personality identifiable information (PII) prior to purchase. [Ticketmaster] revealed in a June 28, 2024 notice to the Maine Attorney General that a hacker gained unauthorized access to Defendant’s cloud database, owned an operated by Snowflake, Inc. on April 2, 2024.”

“[Ticketmaster] did not discover the data breach until May 23, 2024, nearly seven weeks later. It did not notify plaintiff or class members until July 17, 2024—almost two months after the data breach was discovered. Plaintiff’s and class members PII was compromised in a data breach including personal details like name, contact information, and payment card information of about 560 million Ticketmaster customers.”

“The hackers are demanding a ransom payment of $500,000 to prevent the data from being resold on the dark web; a clear indication that the data breach was for the purpose of using the Plaintiff’s and Class Members’ personal information to perpetuate identity theft and other fraud.”

The lawsuit faults Ticketmaster for retaining PII that should have been deleted after a purchase. It also claims that Ticketmaster’s business involves selling data on users including when they purchase merchandise, a ticket to an event, emails, IP addresses, information about transactions to business partners and data brokers.

“As a result of the data breach, plaintiff and class members have been exposed to a substantial risk of fraud and identity theft. Plaintiff and class members must now and in the future closely monitor their financial accounts to guard against identity theft,” the lawsuit reads. “Plaintiff and class members may also incur out of pocket costs, for purchasing credit monitoring services, credit freezes, credit reports, or other protective measures to deter and detect identity theft.”

Ticketmaster has not responded to the lawsuit, which was filed in California federal court.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Kemper

Documents uncovered in the state’s attorneys general investigation against TikTok have uncovered that the social media giant knew how addictive its algorithm is to teenagers and that they are being exploited on the platform.

The confidential material uncovered was part of an investigation led by 14 attorneys general—which led to state officials suing TikTok last week. The lawsuit states that TikTok is designed with the express intention of addicting young people to the app, which can happen in as few as 260 videos. States argue that TikTok has deceived the public about risks associated with the app.

Dozens of internal communications, documents, and research were redacted in documents provided to authorities. But one document provided to the Kentucky Attorney General’s office was not redacted and Kentucky Public Radio was able to discern some 30 pages of documents that were kept secret. KPR published some excerpts of the redacted material, which contains candid comments from TikTok executives discussing the dangers for children on the app.

The material contained summaries of internal studies and communications and conversation around time-management tools. Executives determined that these tools would have a negligible reduction in screen time, but TikTok went ahead and promoted them anyway. Another document reveals that executives were aware of the addictive nature of the algorithm, leading to an almost irresistible urge to keep opening the app.

“Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” reads TikTok’s own research quoted in the lawsuit. TikTok was also aware that the level of addictiveness presented by the app could disrupt personal lives. “Compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”

The documents also reveal that TikTok’s touted features about limiting the amount of time a child spends with the app were designed to increase public trust rather than actually limit addictive behaviors. After internal testing, TikTok found that these tools had a negligible impact on the amount of time teens were spending in the app—leading to a 1.5 minute drop in usage. TikTok estimates teens spend about 107 minutes per day in the app.

Aside from the addictive nature of the app, the documents also uncovered censorship efforts that Digital Music News reported on back in 2020. When TikTok discovered that a “high volume of … not attractive subjects” were filling the algorithm, the company retooled it to amplify what it considered to be attractive. Digital Music News also reported on TikTok’s efforts to hide disabled persons and LGBTQ+ people from the main ‘For You’ algorithm-driven feed during its meteoric growth phase.

TikTok’s research determined that the best way to get people sucked into the app was to target younger users. “As expected, across most engagement metrics, the younger the user, the better the performance,” reads a TikTok document from 2019.

TikTok was also aware of the underage stripping phenomenon of underage kid essentially performing strip-teases for money on the app. TikTok discovered a significant number of adults who were direct messaging underage TikTok users about stripping live on the platform for monetary rewards in the form of gifts or coins. According to TikTok’s own research, more than one million gifts were sent to kids who engaged in transactional behavior with an adult.

“[O]ne of our key discoveries during this project that has turned into a major challenge with Live business is that the content that gets the highest engagement may not be the content we want on our platform,” reads one message from a TikTok official. Documents also show that TikTok is slow to remove users under 13 despite laws—largely because this cohort is the most impacted by its addictive algorithm.

Photo Credit: Kanye West by Kenny Sun / CC by 2.0

Kanye West’s former assistant has accused the rapper of drugging and raping her at a Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs party in a new lawsuit.

An assistant to the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, Lauren Pisciotta, has filed a lawsuit accusing West of drugging and raping her at a party he co-hosted with Sean “Diddy” Combs. The lawsuit, filed on October 11, consists of 88 pages and makes numerous allegations against West, who now goes by Ye.

Pisciotta’s lawsuit says that before working with West, she attended a party in Santa Monica that he co-hosted with Combs. At the party, West allegedly gave her a beverage and told all attendees that they needed to drink what they were offered if they wanted to stay at the event. Pisciotta says after a few sips of the drink, she “started to feel disoriented and […] began to slip into an altered and highly impaired state.”

“She felt less in control of her body and speech, and that is where [her] memories of the night escape her,” the filing reads. Pisciotta says the following day, she felt “ashamed and embarrassed” because she could not remember what happened at the party. Her filing claims she believed for several years that she had been drugged by a studio assistant, and had managed to make it out of the situation without incident.

But Pisciotta alleges in her filing that West told her what had actually occurred shortly before he fired her from her job in November 2022. West had been angry following a remark by his ex-wife — who is not named in the suit — about an alleged affair between himself and Pisciotta. Pisciotta then claims she intended to tell West’s ex-wife that nothing intimate happened between herself and West, before he allegedly stopped her and told her, “We did kind of hook up a little one time.”

“[West] then immediately proceeded to reminisce about the time he was referring to […] where he ‘hooked up’ with [Pisciotta] after she had been drugged,” the filing claims. Further, Pisciotta says West told his ex-wife about the alleged “hook up,” but “left out the true nature and severity of what he did to [her].”

The lawsuit, which describes West as “predatory, aggressive, compulsive, vulgar, perverse, and frighteningly calculative,” alleges to various forms of inappropriate behavior on West’s part behind the scenes at his company. Aside from Pisciotta’s claims, allegations include West being a “premeditative and sadistic groomer” who used his image to “feed his desires for sexual pleasure with no boundaries.”

The filing claims West would have sex with “various employees with different guests,” which included staff creating makeshift bedrooms throughout the office, from bathrooms to closets and changing rooms.

Pisciotta also alleges that West tried to “gift” her to an unnamed “A-list celebrity” who is said to have informed her of West’s intentions. She says West would use his contacts at major companies to bring women into the United States with “obscure job titles” who were then “offered up” to various men.

Pisciotta first accused West of sexual misconduct back in June, but he vehemently denied the allegations and vowed to file a lawsuit against her. West has yet to comment on the allegations in Pisciotta’s lawsuit.

Photo Credit: 50 Cent on MILLION DOLLAZ WORTH OF GAME / CC by 3.0

50 Cent sues celebrity jeweler TraxNYC for $5 million for misappropriating his likeness to sell knock-off chains.

50 Cent has sued popular celebrity jeweler TraxNYC for $5 million, alleging he misappropriated the rapper’s likeness to sell knock-off chains. The media mogul and musician is suing the jeweler for trademark infringement and violating his right of publicity after the jeweler made a series of TikToks appearing to suggest that 50 Cent was affiliated with the chains.

TraxNYC, whose real name is Maksud Trax Agadjani, made numerous social media posts featuring pictures of 50 Cent wearing jewelry, and tagging him in the captions. In one video, Trax even seems to taunt the rapper, saying, “We just jocked your style. I know you watch my videos and now I’m watching your shit and jocking your shit, just like you jocked my shit.”

Before filing the lawsuit, 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, warned the jeweler on social media, “This was a bad idea; you will regret doing this, I promise.” A representative for the rapper said in a statement, “Mr. Jackson takes the unauthorized use of his name and likeness for commercial purposes very seriously.”

Jackson also commented on the lawsuit on his Instagram, “Every now and then, someone does something like this. I don’t know why, but I do know I’ma need that by Monday.”

Since the lawsuit was filed, Trax made a public plea to Jackson to drop the suit, saying, “A cross is meant for forgiveness, redemption, forgiveness of sins. Forgive, forget, let it go, brother.”

But 50 was not so easily swayed, replying, “Let me think about it. Nah, you tried to play with me! You know the vibes by Monday.”

“This fool took my custom piece, copied it, then posted this seven hours ago using my likeness to sell them,” said Jackson in a post with a picture of the chains the jeweler was attempting to sell. “He must don’t know how this works. If he talks to a lawyer, they would tell him this is not good.”

The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined at trial, but amounting to no less than $5 million.

Photo Credit: Eva Carroll (Internet Archive HQ)

The Internet Archive experienced a catastrophic hack this week, exposing 31 million accounts and taking the archive completely offline. The Wayback Machine is down, as are the preserved recordings from old 78 rpm records that landed the foundation in a legal dispute with seven record companies.

The hack was first noticed by netizens on Wednesday evening, as visitors were greeted with a pop up stating, “Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!”

The HIBP refers to the website Have I Been Pwned? which tracks data breaches and allows users to see if their personal information has been compromised. Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle confirmed the attack. The site stopped loading on Thursday and now anyone visiting the Internet Archive is greeted with a message, “The Internet Archive services are temporarily offline” with a redirection to social media for updates.

Brewster Kahle confirmed on Twitter/X that the attack was a DDOS and a “defacement of our website via JS library; breach of usernames/email/salted-encrypted passwords.” The owner of HIBP, Troy Hunt, confirmed he received a 6.4GB database with the contents of the Internet Archive’s user accounts. The timestamp on the data is from September 28, 2024 which is likely when the hack started.

The hacking group SN_BlackMeta soon took responsibility for the attack, saying it launched highly successful attacks on the Internet Archive and would continue to do so. The Internet Archive preserves billions of webpages, texts, audio recordings, and other digital resources. It was at the front of a lawsuit filed by seven record companies over the preservation of old 78 rpm records that were digitized and made available to listen on the site. Now those records have been taken offline, along with 20+ years of internet history.

Photo Credit: Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg by Jason Persse / CC by 2.0

A marriage counselor is suing Dr. Dre for at least $10 million with allegations of systematic harassment and threats.

Dr. Charles Sophy, a divorce psychotherapist in Southern California, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against rapper and business mogul Dr. Dre with allegations of “systematic and malicious” threats and harassment.

Dr. Sophy is suing Dre for at least $10 million, alleging the rapper subjected him to a barrage of “unbearable harassment” that left him fearing for his life and wearing a bulletproof vest.

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, hired Dr. Sophy in 2018 to mediate the breakdown of his lengthy marriage to his now former wife, Nicole Young. Dr. Sophy says he worked “diligently, independently, and fairly,” to help the couple resolve their differences, and the pair reached a settlement in 2021.

But about 14 months later, Dr. Sophy says Dre began texting him with allegations that the doctor had somehow acted improperly, which he denies. “Rather than treating the mediation process as an opportunity for healing, Young decided to take his frustrations about the mediation out on Dr. Sophy — frustrations that manifested themselves in the form of a nearly year-long sustained campaign of late-night texts, threats of intimidation and violence, and homophobic rhetoric.”

Dre’s lawyer, Howard King, told Rolling Stone that the rapper previously filed a “confidential complaint” against Dr. Sophy with the Osteopathic Medical Board of California last year, seeking “to get Dr. Sophy punished for dereliction of duties and incredible incompetence.”

That complaint seeks “revocation of Dr. Sophy’s license to provide mental health counseling to needy patients,” says King. “In gross violation of all applicable standards of care, Dr. Sophy inserted himself into a contentious divorce while he simultaneously ‘treated’ not only Mr. and Mrs. Young, but their children.”

“He was terminated when it was revealed he was encouraging one of their children to take sides against Mr. Young, even encouraging his son to go to the press with false allegations in order to force a financial settlement that he recommended,” claims King. “Dr. Sophy has consistently rebuffed Medical Board attempts to investigate these claims, but has now filed this desperate suit while the noose of the Medical Board is tightening.”

According to Dr. Sophy, Dre sent him an “overtly threatening” text around 10 PM on February 16, 2023, in which he claimed someone told him something “disturbing,” and that the doctor was “going to have to pay for that.” When Sophy questioned him, Dre allegedly responded, “Yes, you,” and “You’re a piece of s—t.”

Dr. Sophy says Dre “falsely accused” him of trying to turn an unidentified third party against him, and “wrongly accused” him of acting improperly during the divorce mediation.

“There is no truth behind these baseless and far-fetched accusations,” reads Dr. Sophy’s lawsuit. “Dr. Sophy tried to let the threats go and not pursue them. Young, however, would not let go.”

The lawsuit includes claims of civil harassment, threats of violence based on his sexual orientation, and seeks a court order prohibiting contact. Dr. Sophy is seeking compensatory damages of at least $10 million and punitive damages to be decided at trial.

Photo Credit: Tobias Tullius

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs accuses federal agents and prosecutors of leaking the hotel security camera footage showing him attacking Cassie Ventura.

Federal prosecutors deny leaking the hotel security camera footage that showed Sean “Diddy” Combs attacking then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. Combs accused them of leaking the footage unlawfully in a court filing this week.

The video was initially obtained by CNN back in May. Its existence forced Combs into acknowledging its legitimacy and releasing a public apology for his actions, which he had previously denied.

“The Government was not in possession of the video before its publication by CNN,” prosecutors assert in a letter to the judge. “Indeed, at the time of CNN’s publication, the Government did not possess any video of the March 2016 incident.”

Further, prosecutors said they informed the defense, prior to the filing on Wednesday that alleged leaks, that they did not obtain the video through the grand jury process, and they did not believe Homeland Security Investigations had accessed the video prior to CNN releasing it.

“There is thus no colorable factual basis for the defendant’s claim that the Government leaked the video to CNN, let alone that it was leaked ‘in violation of grand jury secrecy,’” wrote prosecutors.

Combs, who has been held without bail, was arrested last month and charged with sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution, and racketeering conspiracy.

Prior to his court appearance this week, Combs’ attorneys alleged that leaks “have led to damaging, highly prejudicial publicity that can only taint the jury pool and deprive Mr. Combs of his right to a fair trial.”

“Mr. Combs continues to assert his right to a speedy trial and intends to request a trial date in April or May 2025, and as consistent with the Court’s trial schedule,” wrote defense attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos in a letter to the judge before Combs’ court appearance on Thursday.

In addition to his federal trial, Combs is still facing several civil lawsuits from alleged victims, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Two of the Marc Jacobs products that allegedly infringed on the famed Nirvana ‘smiley face’ logo. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

The better part of a decade later, Nirvana and Marc Jacobs have officially settled their dispute over the band’s famed “smiley face” design.

This image-focused case kicked off way back in 2018, when Nirvana’s namesake company sued Marc Jacobs and others for allegedly infringing on the relevant design. Though it perhaps goes without saying in light of the legal battle’s length, the courtroom confrontation delivered multiple dismissal motions, depositions, and counterclaims, besides one consolidation to boot.

On the latter front, art director Robert Fisher also claimed to be the maker and owner of the smiley face; it was suggested as well that Kurt Cobain had created the image, with major ownership implications for each possibility.

Long story short, Nirvana maintained that Marc Jacobs had infringed on the logo, the defendant designer challenged the validity and enforceability of the copyright at hand, and word of a settlement finally surfaced in July of 2024.

We promptly reported on that proposed settlement, the result of a mediator’s recommendations, and noted that the resolution was subject to an official submission as well as approval from the presiding judge.

Subsequently, late September saw Nirvana and Marc Jacobs jointly request dismissal with prejudice – while simultaneously asking the court to “enter an order retaining jurisdiction over this matter to enforce the parties’ settlement agreement.”

An October 10th deadline was then set for any objections – an important point given that Fisher, who only jumped into the action as an intervenor plaintiff to assert his alleged ownership of the logo, had previously appealed a December of 2023 summary judgement.

In relevant part, said summary judgement found “that, assuming Fisher drew the Smiley, it was a work for hire for Geffen and, assuming Cobain drew the Smiley, Nirvana owns the rights to the Smiley.” For obvious reasons, the determination didn’t sit right with Fisher, hence the appeal.

Shifting back to the present, Fisher doesn’t seem to have set forth a formal objection, and Judge John A. Kronstadt formally signed off on the aforementioned dismissal stipulation from Nirvana and Marc Jacobs.

Consequently, “all claims and counterclaims…are dismissed with prejudice,” per that order, and all involved “parties are responsible for their own attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in this action.”

Notwithstanding the case’s resolution, another legal battle pertaining to Nirvana IP – and specifically the cover of Nevermind – is still in full swing. Plaintiff Spencer Elden, the individual who appeared clothes-free on the well-known album’s cover as a baby and now alleges to be the victim of child pornography, saw the case revived on appeal late last year.

Discovery has apparently been in full swing as of late, and the district court just recently confirmed an October 23rd deadline for a joint summary judgment brief.

A Chili’s location in Georgia. Photo Credit: Michael Rivera

Moments following the conclusion of Sony Music’s social-media-focused copyright lawsuit against Marriott, a similar infringement complaint, levied this time by Universal Music Group (UMG) and naming Chili’s parent Brinker International as a defendant, has kicked off.

UMG submitted the to-the-point action – one of several ongoing disputes over brands’ alleged infringement in social-media promo videos – to a Texas federal court. As noted, a Sony Music v. Marriott legal battle just recently drew to a close, and Brinker isn’t a stranger to industry coverage.

That’s because the Dallas-based Chili’s and Maggiano’s owner is also fending off infringement allegations, once again centering on social media, from the Beastie Boys. We broke down the complaint, specifically accusing the defendant of incorporating “Sabotage” into an advert campaign sans authorization, when it was filed this past July.

With the courtroom confrontation still unfolding, however, Brinker is now facing a comparatively sweeping suit from UMG.

As far as infringement claims go, the action is straightforward enough: Brinker purportedly used UMG’s protected music in promo clips via the main Chili’s social handles “without permission or payment.”

Those “scores of” allegedly infringed Universal Music works include recordings and compositions alike, releases from Justin Bieber, ABBA, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, and Frank Sinatra among them, to name a few.

Moreover, as the major-label plaintiff sees it, discovery will likely “reveal that Defendants have unlawfully exploited other sound recordings and musical compositions.”

A big chunk of the alleged infringement looks to have occurred on TikTok, with the remaining alleged unauthorized usages attributed to Instagram clips. (In general, platforms’ song libraries are cleared for personal but not commercial use, different cases have underscored.)

UMG included links to boot; some of the posts had been deleted (or, alternatively, the provided links, a portion tied to Reels, had ceased working) at the time of writing.

In any event, the defendants allegedly have “no effective procedures for ensuring that the social media content posted for their Chili’s commercial restaurant businesses does not violate others’ copyrights,” according to the lawsuit.

Notwithstanding the allegation, UMG also highlighted purported licensing talks with the defendants. Brinker “did obtain a license from a relevant Plaintiff to use musical works in a few videos at issue, but they have exploited the works beyond the bounds of the applicable licenses,” the appropriate line reads.

As the case plays out – assuming it isn’t promptly dropped like the initially mentioned Sony Music-Marriott complaint – additional details about that seemingly important license should come to light.

Among other things, the filing parties are seeking damages for vicarious and contributory infringement, besides a permanent injunction prohibiting further alleged infringement.

During today’s trading, Brinker stock (NYSE: EAT) slipped by almost 2% to $82.96 per share. Despite the dip, EAT is up over 97% from 2024’s start and a whopping 178% from October of 2023.

Photo Credit: Garth Brooks by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II / Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C. / CC by 2.0

Garth Brooks’ legal battle against a woman accusing him of sexual assault heats up as he publicly identifies her in a legal filing and angering her lawyers.

Country star Garth Brooks was accused of sexual assault and rape by a former makeup artist who filed a lawsuit against him last week in California, and the battle continues to escalate.

The complaint was filed anonymously by a woman identified only as Jane Roe and Jane Doe, who says she began working for Brooks’ wife, singer Trisha Yearwood, as a makeup artist and hairstylist in 2017. She later began working for Brooks, also as a makeup artist, when she encountered financial difficulties and he started offering her more work as he toured.

But in 2019, she claims Brooks started sexually harassing her, including showing up naked to his appointments with her in his home. These events continued escalating, she says, until Brooks raped her in a hotel room while on a trip to Los Angeles for a performance.

Brooks has denied the allegations and accuses her of attempting to extort him out of “millions of dollars,” while tarnishing his wholesome country image. Brooks also filed a lawsuit in September against his accuser in Mississippi court, the state in which she now lives, in an attempt to stop her from filing her own complaint against him. That lawsuit, which he filed anonymously, sought a judgment declaring the allegations untrue and to prohibit her from suing him in the first place.

But attempts to dissuade her failed, and her lawsuit broke the country singer’s anonymity. In retaliation, Brooks has amended his initial complaint to not only add his own name to it, but her name as well.

A separate filing, obtained by Whiskey Riff, shows Brooks claiming he is the victim of a shakedown, condemning the attorneys involved for publicly naming him before a court could determine whether the case could go forward with both parties remaining anonymous. That move has angered his accuser’s attorneys.

“Garth Brooks just revealed his true self. Out of spite and to punish, he publicly named a rape victim,” said attorneys for his accuser in a public statement. “With no legal justification, Brooks outed her because he thinks the laws don’t apply to him. On behalf of our client, we will be moving for maximum sanctions against him immediately,” they continue. “He is far from the victim of a shakedown, and in fact offered millions of dollars to keep this matter from becoming public.”

Brooks addressed the issue briefly during his Inside Studio G livestream on Monday, October 7, saying the whole thing could take two years to reach a conclusion.

“This thing is on. It’s gonna happen. And people are telling me it could be up to two years, so my suggestion is, we all take a deep breath, we all just kind of settle in, and let’s hold hands and take a trip together, okay?” He went on, “Because it is something that you cannot talk about. That’s all we can say about it.”

The Warsaw Marriott Hotel. Photo Credit: Michal Mrozek

Just shy of five months after it kicked off, the copyright infringement battle between Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Marriott International has officially drawn to a close.

That abrupt conclusion arrived in the form of a notice of dismissal with prejudice from the major label, which had accused Marriott of infringing on a variety of recordings in social-media videos. In general – and as a number of companies are finding out the hard way – platforms’ licensed song libraries are cleared only for personal, not commercial, use.

But several promotion-minded brands have allegedly failed to obtain the required licenses, with Sony Music having specifically accused the “behemoth of the hospitality industry” Marriott of “at least 931 infringements” in the U.S.

While the lion’s share of the alleged infringement referred to videos uploaded directly to the defendant’s social handles, Marriott also used protected music without authorization in paid influencer campaigns, SME maintained.

Predictably, given the scope of the multi-year alleged infringement, Sony Music claimed that warnings and allegedly unfulfilled “tolling agreements” had failed to produce a satisfactory resolution.

Now, said resolution has evidently arrived – though the involved parties have opted against publicly disclosing the precise terms at hand. However, it appears that Marriott is being careful about the music featured in social content. The company’s latest Instagram videos encompass “original audio” that looks to have released on DSPs not long before the posts themselves went live, for instance.

Bigger picture, the dismissed Sony Music-Marriott suit certainly doesn’t mark the end of legal actions over brands’ alleged infringement on social media.

Over the summer, the Beastie Boys sued Chili’s parent company Brinker International over the alleged unauthorized incorporation of “Sabotage” into a social-media campaign. This case is slowly but surely chugging along, the docket shows, with Brinker having waived the service of the summons at the top of October.

Bringing the focus back to Sony Music, we’re weeks out from the one-year anniversary of the separate social-media-infringement suit it filed against OFRA Cosmetics.

Contrasting the shelved Marriott dispute, this older courtroom confrontation is in full swing, complete with an ongoing discovery process (the court has entered a confidentiality order as well) and a seemingly sweeping subpoena for pertinent materials from OFRA co-founder Ofra Gaito.

These materials pertain to OFRA’s funding history, ownership status, communications and documents concerning the brand’s social videos, and a whole lot else, according to a cursory look at the lengthy subpoena itself.

A live performance from Limp Bizkit, which has filed a massive royalties-related lawsuit against Universal Music Group. Photo Credit: ECarterSterling

Universal Music Group (UMG) could owe Limp Bizkit north of $200 million – at least according to the 30-year-old band, which is suing for unpaid royalties, copyright infringement, breach of contract, and more.

Limp Bizkit, frontman Fred Durst, and his Flawless Records label fired off the sweeping 60-page complaint today, alleging massive royalties underpayments, the misrepresentation of various accounts as unrecouped, “fraudulent accounting practices,” and a whole lot else.

As recapped in the legal text, these and other allegations can be traced to an initial 1996 agreement between Limp Bizkit and Flip Records, which, besides having a JV deal in place with Interscope, would later sell half its stake in the band’s royalties to UMG. Thus, the leading label is said to be responsible for paying the relevant royalties to Flip and the plaintiffs alike.

Amended multiple times before being replaced by a fresh Interscope agreement in late 2000, the Flip contracts (the royalty terms of which have allegedly been left in place) cover Limp Bizkit’s first three albums. Meanwhile, among several additional things, the UMG/Interscope pact rather unsurprisingly compels the major label to provide the band with bi-annual royalty statements, the suit describes.

Lastly, in terms of pertinent background details, the late 90s also delivered a JV deal between Durst’s aforementioned Flawless Records and Interscope; Durst, seemingly part of Interscope for a time, signed acts (like Puddle of Mudd) in exchange for a stake in the profits and the masters at hand, the document shows.

Fast forward to April of 2024, when Durst voiced royalties-related concerns upon hiring new reps. (The action doesn’t appear to dive into the artist’s possibly questionable prior team.) “Durst retained new representation and explained that he had not received any money for any Limp Bizkit exploitations—ever,” the text reads.

These new reps were “shocked” upon learning as much, including because of the band’s apparent commercial comeback (referring in part to an expected 793 million streams for Limp Bizkit by 2024’s end).

The focus quickly shifted to the relevant royalty statements – at which point Durst informed his team that he hadn’t received any such breakdowns “because UMG told him over the years that it was not required to provide them since his account was still so far from recoupment.”

That set in motion a “further investigation,” first in the form of obtaining access to the UMG portal. Upon gaining said access in April of 2024, the plaintiffs’ business managers identified cumulative due Limp Bizkit royalty balances of almost $1.04 million, per the document.

From there, the plaintiffs pushed to receive the payment immediately and were allegedly told that they’d have to provide basic forms and bank verification. More pressingly, the statements allegedly showed that the accounts had been recouped since 2019 but had also been “fraudulently reclassified as ‘unrecouped’ to prevent payment.”

“UMG did not explain why it failed to alert Limp Bizkit that it had over $1 million sitting with UMG that was payable to Limp Bizkit, why UMG had never even obtained the documents and forms it allegedly needed in order to actually make these payments, or why UMG could not use the documents already in their possession that it had used to pay Plaintiffs advances in the past,” the suit continues.

Of course, the specifics laid the groundwork for more intense scrutiny yet, which allegedly led to the plaintiffs’ discovering a number of missing royalty statements (some dating back to 1997) and claims of “recoupment costs for an extraordinarily long time.”

The appropriate accounts (for Limp Bizkit as well as Flawless) were allegedly overdrafted with “unsubstantiated costs” designed to make them appear unrecouped, the action claims in many more words.

Conversations with UMG execs over the summer are said to have failed to provide an adequate explanation, though higher-ups attributed the situation to a once-off software issue as well as $43 million or so in advances allegedly paid to Limp Bizkit.

The plaintiffs say the latter sum is “grossly inflated,” and when reviewing the appropriate (incomplete) royalty statements, they pinpointed closer to $13 million in advances, per the suit. Especially given the group’s sales resurgence, early albums should have recouped and started paying royalties long ago, according to the filing parties.

In any event, late August saw Limp Bizkit receive the aforementioned $1.04 million (before this, “Limp Bizkit had never received any royalties from UMG”), with $2.35 million paid to Flawless (which “had never received any profit sharing revenue from UMG”) around the same time.

The alleged lack of royalty statements, the alleged underpayments, and more then prompted the plaintiffs to seek the contracts’ termination – hence the complaint, which is looking to nix the deals and compel sizable damages payments. Limp Bizkit and Durst estimate that UMG owes them “in excess of $200 million due to the rescission of these agreements,” the action spells out.

Even some of the heavily redacted pages in the District of Columbia’s lawsuit against TikTok contain interesting details. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

Another day, another TikTok lawsuit – or more specifically lawsuits, which have been filed by over a dozen states as well as the District of Columbia due to the video-sharing app’s alleged harmful impact on children.

States including Massachusetts, Kentucky, New Jersey, and South Carolina submitted the suits, which stem from related investigations that kicked off in early 2022. As we covered then, the inquiries aimed to zero in on the controversial platform’s effects on children and teens.

And while the probes evidently laid the groundwork for legal action, today’s complaints are in many ways the tip of the child-safety iceberg for TikTok. Recent years have brought similar regulatory scrutiny (centering on children’s data and privacy as well, not solely harmful byproducts of use) from different states yet, besides related multimillion-dollar fines in the U.S., the U.K., the European Union, and more.

Bringing the focus back to the newest TikTok lawsuits, the lengthy complaints, the public copies of which are replete with redactions, share core arguments and key characteristics. Running with the District of Columbia suit, TikTok has allegedly “designed and cultivated a highly addictive social media application…that it knows harms children.”

In short, the “highly addictive” side of the complaint refers to “algorithms that leverage user data to feed users personalized content recommendations,” attention-grabbing push notifications, “filters and effects that create idealizations of unattainable appearances for users,” infinite scroll, and the TikTok Coins “unlicensed virtual currency system,” per the legal text.

Overall, the “features confuse and control young users, driving them to make choices on the App that boost TikTok’s profits at the expense of their emotional, behavioral, and physical health,” the D.C. complaint proceeds.

Unfortunately, the mentioned redactions mean we lack access to a variety of interesting data points – including total under-18 TikTok users residing in D.C., city-specific usage percentages by particular generations, hours of peak TikTok usage, and even the amount spent on in-app purchases by local users.

However, in keeping with the considerable ground already covered in past TikTok actions, the D.C. suit goes to great lengths to describe the app’s alleged negative impact (in terms of mental health, sleep-schedule disruption, and a whole lot else) on minors.

One of the more interesting and seldom-seen arguments here pertains to TikTok Coins and livestreams. The ByteDance subsidiary allegedly “ignored District law by failing to obtain the required money transmitter license” for its in-app currency, which is said to obscure the actual amount of real cash one is spending.

“Although LIVE, including both live streaming and Gifts, has a current minimum age requirement of 18 and older,” the suit indicates, “TikTok knows its lax age verification measures incentivize U.S. minors to lie about their age to gain access.”

Furthermore, TikTok allegedly designs the virtual “gifts” that users purchase with Coins “in ways that are intentionally attractive to children,” modeling the digital items after “cute, colorful animated emojis reminiscent of cartoons and Disney characters.”

All told, the District of Columbia lawsuit against TikTok is alleging several violations of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act and the money-transmission statute. While far from ideal, the newly filed complaints are hardly the biggest immediate threat to the operations of TikTok, which is staring down a quick-approaching forced-sale deadline in the U.S.

Downtown Washington, D.C. Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith

A federal judge has rejected a venue-transfer push from Live Nation in the antitrust lawsuit filed against it by the DOJ and a number of states.

District Judge Arun Subramanian recently ruled against the Ticketmaster parent’s transfer motion, which was specifically looking to shift the high-stakes case from New York to Washington, D.C. We previously covered the sought venue change – and the Justice Department’s opposition – in detail.

Just to recap, though, Live Nation argued in many more words that the legal battle should play out in D.C. owing to a jurisdiction-retention provision in the 2010 consent decree that gave it the green light to merge with Ticketmaster. That’s largely due to the litigation’s attempt to unwind the Live Nation-Ticketmaster union, which is at the core of the decree, according to the defendants.

But Judge Subramanian doesn’t feel the same way, spelling out in the relevant opinion and order that the “case doesn’t fall within the scope of that [consent-decree] provision, and defendants can’t otherwise carry their burden to show that transfer would foster convenience or the interests of justice.”

The alleged violations in the antitrust action, the judge proceeded, concern “the Sherman Act and various state laws, not the consent decree.” Moreover, the plaintiffs “aren’t trying to vindicate the decree’s requirements; they say that defendants have violated separate legal duties,” per the text.

“True, the practical effect of the decree was to remove an immediate barrier to defendants’ merger,” continued Judge Subramanian. “But nothing in the decree insulated the merged entity from future antitrust challenges, including this case. … This case doesn’t run up against the decree because the decree doesn’t reach beyond the specific pre-merger challenge that it helped resolve.”

And with that clear-cut answer to the transfer question, the suit (which Live Nation is confident it’ll beat) is chugging right along. A different order from the judge has given the parties until Friday, October 11th to jointly propose “dates for another conference in late October.”

While it perhaps goes without saying, the multifaceted case is proving involved on several levels. The City of Orlando was apparently subpoenaed in September to provide venue- and agreement-related documents from across a decade, for instance.

Earlier this month, ahead of a deadline to send along the materials later in October, the city moved to receive reimbursement for fees because the associated tasks “will undoubtedly require significant labor by both attorneys and staff.”

Naxos has filed a lawsuit against Kuke Music over allegedly missing payments. Photo Credit: Manuel Nägeli

Who says the classical music space is free of legal drama? Naxos is suing China-based Kuke for allegedly failing to pay $1.86 million under a 2018 digital distribution agreement.

Naxos Digital Service US, a division of the self-described “world’s leading classical music group” of the same name, submitted the action against Beijing Kuke Music to a Tennessee federal court. Kuke (NYSE: KUKE), for its part, bills itself as “the leading provider of classical music licensing, subscription and smart education services in China.”

Running with the points, under the mentioned 2018 tie-up, Kuke was expected to sell various Naxos services (music library, spoken-word library, and video library among them) to individuals and educational institutions in mainland China, the actual agreement shows.

Initially poised to run into 2026 with possible year-to-year renewals thereafter, the straightforward contract outlines revenue splits on the appropriate services and, in an ill-advised clause for Kuke, calls for an increasing “minimum license fee” for each year.  Said minimum fee hit $1.34 million between July of 2023 and June of 2024’s end, per the document.

Meanwhile, the pandemic undoubtedly disrupted the operations of Kuke, which organizes the Beijing Music Festival and has seen its shares part with over 66% of their value during the past six months. This pricing falloff has evidently resulted in NYSE delisting concerns, per related press releases.

Of course, the deal further allows Naxos to terminate the union should Kuke fail to cough up compensation due under the contract. Multiple allegedly missed payments (a portion involving Naxos’ third-party distributed labels) and some back-and-forth discussions later, that’s exactly what the plaintiff moved to do.

Now, the court should also order Kuke to forward the owed payments (which a catch-up plan of sorts allegedly failed to deliver), totaling the noted $1.86 million, the complaint maintains.

While the case’s core components are clear enough, questions remain given the timing of a seemingly separate acquisition announcement put out by Kuke back in May.

In short, the play was (and possibly is) to see Kuke buy from Naxos One Holding two companies: Angelina Assets and HNH International.

“The transaction is contingent on Kuke finalizing definitive agreements and completing satisfactory due diligence of the Naxos Group,” the release reads in part. “The company emphasized that there is no guarantee the acquisition will proceed as anticipated.”

“The director of Kuke is also the controlling shareholder of Naxos One, indicating an existing relationship between the entities,” the document proceeds.

Without diving too far into the convoluted specifics at hand, Kuke annual reports reference a “decades-old relationship with Naxos,” apparently including a distinct Naxos China unit. Moreover, Kuke CEO and board chair He Yu “holds 75% of the equity interests in Naxos…our largest content provider,” another, older regulatory filing states.

R. Kelly as seen in a 2003 mugshot.Photo Credit: R. Kelly Mugshot (2003) Miami Police Department

Back in July, R. Kelly petitioned the Supreme Court to toss a portion of his sex crime convictions. Now, a little over two months later, the nation’s highest court has rejected the appeal.

The Supreme Court just recently denied the disgraced singer’s certiorari petition alongside a number of others. As we noted over the summer, R. Kelly is serving multiple sentences: 30 years in connection with a federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York as well as a simultaneous 20-year sentence stemming from federal child sex abuse charges brought in Chicago in 2022.

This Supreme Court appeal pertained specifically to the latter, which resulted from a conviction under 2003’s PROTECT Act. In part, that federal law extended the statute of limitations for child abuse. But because the 57-year-old’s alleged crimes occurred in the 1990s, well before PROTECT became law, his attorneys argued that the “charges were brought outside the applicable statute of limitations.”

Despite the contention, the Supreme Court has made clear its disinclination to review the statute of limitations question here. While the corresponding rejection doesn’t elaborate on the reasons behind the decision, the development seemingly marks the end of the review-petition push for the R. Kelly crimes tried in Chicago.

However, it certainly doesn’t mark the end of the broader saga. In August, a New York judge ordered Universal Music Publishing Group to pay about $500,000 in R. Kelly royalties directly to victims of the three-time Grammy winner. Following the point to its logical conclusion, the artist’s works remain live on Spotify (where he has nearly five million monthly listeners) and other platforms despite the decidedly serious convictions at hand.

Closer to the present, Andrea Kelly, R. Kelly’s ex-wife, announced over the weekend that she’d written a tell-all entitled Under the Red Carpet. Scheduled to release in late December, the “book is going to set so many free,” according to the author, whose trailer for the project rather prominently features multiple clips and photos of Diddy as well.

“For years people have spoken on my life without knowing ANYTHING about me,” wrote 50-year-old Andrea, who was married to R. Kelly between 1996 and 2009 but still uses his last name. “How crazy is it to speak on someone you NEVER MET or had a conversation with as FACT. Well, the time has come to speak without fear! No more forcing a smile to get thru the pain of being me. No more ‘be nice’ to please an unpleasant world.”

Musi is suing Apple for allegedly removing it from the App Store without cause. Photo Credit: James Yarema

Apple is facing a breach of contract lawsuit levied by YouTube wrapper app Musi, which says it was unjustly booted from the App Store.

Manitoba, Canada-based Musi submitted that straightforward complaint to a California federal court, after it was allegedly kicked off the App Store on September 24th. As the development followed an apparent years-running dispute with the Play Store owner Google, Musi never released on Android.

By Musi’s own description, though, it afforded users “enhanced functionality to interact with publicly available content on YouTube’s website through an augmentative interface.” Stated differently, Northeastern Global News in an April profile elaborated that “Musi pulls [tracks] from YouTube’s entire library,” allowing users to access “an even broader range of music, particularly live recordings, than on Spotify.”

As laid out in the same account, Musi incorporated “silent, full screen ads” that were “less intrusive than the ads that play between every few songs on Spotify’s free, ad-supported tier.” Of course, one needn’t stretch the imagination to see why the model didn’t sit right with Google/YouTube, the major labels (which had the platform in their crosshairs pre-removal), and others.

Furthermore, judging by some of the qualms voiced in the many Reddit posts penned by now-former Musi users, the app was also selling lifetime access to an ad-free tier. (On the usership front, we previously provided a look at Musi’s surprising reach.)

Returning to the lawsuit, Musi’s “sporadic dialogue with YouTube” is said to date back to 2015, during which time the plaintiff “repeatedly expressed its commitment to offer the Musi app in a way that fully complies with YouTube’s Terms of Service,” per the legal text.

Keeping the timetable in mind, in 2021, YouTube counsel allegedly accused Musi of violating the video-sharing giant’s terms by allegedly accessing YouTube’s non-public interfaces, using YouTube for a commercial purpose without authorization, and selling ads on pages where YouTube videos were the main draw.

Predictably, Musi says it refuted each of the claims, though “YouTube never responded.” A similar collection of allegations and another alleged non-response from YouTube purportedly arrived in March of 2023.

Fast forward to this past August, when the App Store team emailed Musi about a formal complaint, alleging intellectual property rights infringement, from YouTube’s legal team. Musi once again returned fire, failed to receive an immediate response from Apple, and then engaged in an evidently fruitless email exchange (complete with an alleged lack of concrete responses from Apple and Google/YouTube) until the aforementioned App Store removal in late September, the suit shows.

Among other things, the move was allegedly “unreasonable, lacked good cause, and violated Apple’s Development Agreement’s terms,” per the suit. “Apple’s decision has caused immediate and ongoing financial and reputational harm to Musi,” the app spelled out for good measure.

Besides damages, the plaintiff is seeking “a preliminary and permanent injunction to have the Musi app restored on the App Store platform.”

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Garth Brooks says the claims made in a recent sexual assault lawsuit from a makeup artist are an attempt at extortion.

The complaint was filed in California and alleges that the make-up artist Jane Roe “endured painful and traumatic rape and sexual assault at the hands of Brooks.” The lawsuit alleges the inappropriate behavior began in 2019 when Ms. Roe was at the Brooks home on a styling appointment. She says she looked up to find Brooks emerging from the shower naked with an erection. Roe alleges that he forced her to touch his erection while requesting she perform sex acts.

The lawsuit alleges another incident in 2019 that Ms. Roe was physically dominated and raped by Brooks while employed for an event. Following the rape, Ms. Roe alleges she was pressured by time to continue business as usual to style his hair and make-up for the event he was attending. Roe says she repeatedly warded off his sexual conduct but became subject to verbal and physically inappropriate attacks.

In response to the allegations laid forth in the lawsuit, Brooks says, “For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars. It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face.”

Last month, Brooks filed a lawsuit against. Ms. Jane Roe in Mississippi, which his team calls an attempt to preempt her going public with the allegations. But Ms. Roe’s lawyers believe the preemptive complaint in Mississippi was timed to proceed anonymously after learning of her plan to file her complaint in California.

“We applaud our client’s courage in moving forward with her complaint against Garth Brooks,” reads a statement provided by Douglas H. Wigdor, Jeanne M. Christensen, and Haley Baker. “The complaint filed today demonstrated that sexual predators exist not only in corporate America, Hollywood, and in the rap and rock and roll industries, but also in the world of country music.”

“We are confident that Brooks will be held accountable for his actions and his efforts to silence our client through the filing of a pre-emptive complaint in Mississippi was nothing other than an act of desperation and attempted intimidation. We courage others who may have been victimized to contact us as no survivor should suffer in silence.”

The LA HQ of CAA, which is suing Range Media Partners for allegedly stealing confidential information to build its own business. Photo Credit: Minnaert

Range Media Partners “is an unlicensed talent agency built on deceit” – at least according to a firmly worded lawsuit filed by Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

CAA just recently fired off the complaint against nearly five-year-old Range Media Partners, which, as some know, is having a big 2024. In summary, the self-described “talent management and brand strategy” specialist scored a minority investment in April, finalized a UMPG admin deal via its publishing unit last month, and kicked off October by signing Rita Ora in all areas.

But as laid out by CAA, Range owes these feats to a foundation rooted in “stealing from and damaging” the plaintiff while simultaneously endeavoring to “improperly evade” the regulatory framework in place for talent agencies in California.

Beginning with the latter, the suit explores at length Range’s alleged effort to circumvent talent-agency requirements by operating as a management provider and then offering professional services well beyond the confines of that space.

“Put simply,” the legal text spells out, “Range’s business model is the pursuit of unlawful profit through deception: Range skirts rules that California legislators and artists’ guilds put in place to protect those working in the entertainment industry. The core ‘trick’ of Range is that it acts as a talent agency but labels itself a management company. Range thereby engages in lucrative transactions foreclosed to law-abiding talent agencies.”

That alleged move, the complaint explains (including by drawing from relevant emails sent by Range team members) in many more words, enabled Range to “avoid the rules designed to protect clients.”

Moreover, the same alleged failure to register as an agency allowed the five CAA vets who got Range off the ground to “claim to not be competing with CAA and try to continue to receive a share of CAA profits” despite “working to injure” the older firm.

Enter the second component of the action, which accuses Range co-founder and CEO Peter Micelli as well as fellow co-founder Jack Whigham and higher-ups David Bugliari, Michael Cooper, and Mick Sullivan, all CAA vets, of stealing confidential information.

In a nutshell, the individuals allegedly posed “as loyal CAA members, sitting shoulder to shoulder in confidential CAA meetings about clients and business, all while covertly working to benefit Range and themselves.”

And so it was that by the time Range officially announced its launch in August of 2020, the noted execs had for months been allegedly stealing CAA information, in violation of their confidentiality agreements to boot, for use at the new company, per the complaint.

This information refers in part to a variety of personal details about clients, “key entertainment industry relationships,” business plans, and data-analytics tools.

Additionally, the alleged information theft is said to have seen the mentioned persons send materials “from CAA’s systems to their personal email accounts and devices” and encourage multiple CAA employees to obtain sensitive details on their behalf. Some of the latter employees were later hired and “quickly” promoted at Range, per the text.

All told, CAA is accusing Range of violating California’s business and professions code, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duties, and more. Among other things, the plaintiff is seeking damages and an injunction compelling Range to cease using and return the allegedly stolen confidential information.

DMN reached out to Range for comment but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

Photo Credit: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs by Richard Burdett

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces dozens of new sexual assault allegations in a series of lawsuits soon to be filed.

When it rains, it pours, and rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs doesn’t have an umbrella since his arrest last month. With charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution, Combs is currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York.

But now, Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee revealed at a news conference on Tuesday (October 1) that he is representing over 120 accusers with allegations against Combs that occurred over 20-plus years ago.

“We will expose the enablers who enabled this conduct behind closed doors. We will pursue this matter no matter who the evidence implicates,” said Buzbee. “Many powerful people, […] many dirty secrets,” he added, noting that his team has collected “pictures, video, texts,” that cover allegations including “violent sexual assault or rape, facilitated sex with a controlled substance, dissemination of video recordings, [and] sexual abuse of minors.”

“It’s a long list already, but because of the nature of this case, we are going to make sure — damn sure — we are right before we [file suit],” Buzbee continued. “These names will shock you.”

Buzbee said he’s had over 3,000 individuals come to him with accusations against Combs, and that he plans to begin filing lawsuits in various states within 30 days. The other defendants will be named at a later date.

Further, the attorney said the new group of accusers hail from over 25 different states, with the majority from New York, California, Georgia, and Florida. Buzbee also said 25 of the accusers were minors at the time of the alleged incidents, with some having occurred as early as 1991. One of the accusers, Buzbee claimed, was as young as nine years old at the time of the alleged incident.

Combs and his legal team continue to deny any and all allegations against him — except those he fessed up to involving his ex-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, after video proof of the abuse he levied at her surfaced earlier this year and made his earlier denial moot.

“[Combs] cannot address every meritless allegation in what has become a reckless media circus,” his lawyer, Erica Wolff, said in a statement. “Mr. Combs emphatically and categorically denies as false and defamatory any claim that he sexual abused anyone, including minors,” Wolff continued. “He looks forward to proving his innocence and vindicating himself in court if and when claims are filed and served.”

Notably, many of the lawsuits against Combs have been filed in New York City, where the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law allows people to file lawsuits alleging sexual abuse even when the statute of limitations has passed.

AccuRadio is facing a SoundExchange lawsuit for allegedly failing to make licensing payments. Photo Credit: SoundExchange

A little over two months following the start of their lawsuit, SoundExchange and AccuRadio have hammered out a temporary payments agreement and ceased battling over an injunction.

That agreement’s specifics were just recently finalized in an order from Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, after SoundExchange submitted the underlying complaint in late July. As we covered in greater detail at the time, the plaintiff accused the internet-radio defendant of failing to cough up allegedly owed royalty payments.

Besides pursuing the royalties themselves, SoundExchange moved to obtain a preliminary injunction barring the statutory license’s use on the part of AccuRadio, which described the suit to DMN as “a complete surprise.” But now, following ample back-and-forth over the amount allegedly owed and more, the litigants have reached a deal to dial things down while the action plays out.

First up under that deal, which has as noted been confirmed by the court, SoundExchange has withdrawn its preliminary injunction motion. However, the AI-minded entity can resume that push down the line if it so desires.

This leads us to the second component of the agreement and order, “adequate protection in the form of advance monthly payments” from AccuRadio to SoundExchange.

As laid out in the legal text, the defendant is specifically set to forward to SoundExchange a minimum of $210,000 on the first of every month “until a final judgment is entered in the” overarching case, with the initial payment due today.

Regarding potential changes to the amount, the payments plan can be altered sans court approval if AccuRadio and SoundExchange consent to the retooled terms in writing. Any adjustments would be based on “AccuRadio’s average number of performances” per month (which will still be tracked through monthly reports in any event) as well as “the current regulatory rate for non-subscription transmissions.”

AccuRadio, the order emphasizes for good measure, will “receive full credit for payments received by SoundExchange under this Order against liability owed to SoundExchange as determined by the Court.”

And should the defendant fail to make a payment, SoundExchange reserves the right to refile its preliminary injunction motion, hunt for an expedited briefing schedule, or “seek any other appropriate relief.”

The AccuRadio dispute isn’t the only unpaid-royalties litigation SoundExchange is currently spearheading; an increasingly convoluted showdown involving SiriusXM, complete with counterclaims from the satellite radio company, is also in full swing.

Photo Credit: Lauryn Hill by Peter Tea / CC by 2.0

Pras Michel sues fellow Fugees member Lauryn Hill for fraud and breach of contract over their canceled 2023 tour.

Lauryn Hill is being sued in federal court by her former Fugees bandmate Pras Michel for alleged breach of contract and fraud over their 2023 tour that was cut short.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday (October 1) in the Southern District of New York, alleges that Hill “grossly mismanaged” the planning, marketing, and budgeting of their failed 2023 tour, “actually a veiled and devious attempt to make a big score for herself.”

The list of claims includes fraud, fraud in the inducement, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, accounting, and refusal to permit an audit of the Fugees’ tour. In a statement to Variety, Hill called the lawsuit “baseless” and “full of false claims and unwarranted attacks.”

Pras’ lawsuit claims the 2023 Fugees tour should have been “a huge commercial success,” as most of the shows for the arena tour were “sold out in advance.” But because Hill controlled the budget tour, Michel says he came away empty-handed. “[The tour budget] was so bloated with unnecessary, and most likely fictitious, expenses, that it seemed designed to lose money.”

The tour was cut abruptly short when Hill canceled the second half in November, citing vocal strain. Michel asserts Hill has “narcissistic tendencies,” citing an incident in which she turned down a $5 million offer for the Fugees to perform at Coachella when she allegedly felt snubbed that the festival put No Doubt’s reunion at the top of the bill.

Pras claims she never told him about the offer, or that she had rejected it; he only learned about it after the fact, when Hill, “in an astonishing display of hubris,” asked Pras to perform some Fugees songs “for free” as the opening act for her son, YG Marley, who was also performing at Coachella.

According to the lawsuit, Hill exploited Michel’s financial situation, as he needed money for mounting legal fees in the middle of his four-year legal battle with the US Department of Justice as a co-defendant of Jho Low. Low allegedly stole $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, IMDB, in what is now one of the world’s biggest financial scandals. Low remains on the run, believed to be hiding in China, while Michel was convicted in April last year for his role in the scandal, though he was not directly involved in the theft.

“Hill was taking 40% of the tour guarantees and tour net profits ‘off the top’ for herself, leaving the remaining 60% to be split equally between Hill, Pras, and Wyclef [Jean],” the lawsuit states, further alleging that Hill entered into a new agreement with Live Nation for a slew of Fugees shows this year, which she never disclosed to Michel. Ticket sales fell short of expectations, which Michel blames on Hill for having “taken far too long to close the deal,” and there was “little or no marketing for the tour.”

Live Nation pulled the US tour in August, which Hill blamed on the media. “Last year, I faced an injury that necessitated the rescheduling of some of my shows,” she said in a statement at the time. “Regrettably, some media outlets’ penchant for sensationalism and clickbait headlines have seemingly created a narrative that has affected ticket sales for the North American portion of the tour.”

The suit also asserts that Hill has “tarnished the Fugees brand” with her “chronic tardiness,” which has drawn the ire of fans. Hill reportedly arrived on stage over four hours late for a show this week in Nairobi, Kenya.

Photo Credit: Killphonic Rights

Killphonic Rights raises $3 million and forms a partnership with Stilwell Creative Capital.

LA-based management company Killphonic Rights has announced a partnership with Stilwell Creative Capital, who is investing $3 million in working capital for a proportional stake of equity in Killphonic. The new partnership and investment will go toward expanding services for the company’s rapidly growing roster of artists, songwriters, labels, and publishers.

Through this partnership, Stilwell will tap into Killphonic’s deep knowledge base and staff of industry veterans to increase collections and licensing opportunities for the growing catalog of rights the fund has acquired.

“Throughout this process, we were incredibly impressed by the Killphonic leadership team’s innovative approach to right management and the depth of their industry knowledge,” said Stilwell CEO Brian Baum. “In the near term, we feel that Killphonic will be an invaluable partner in monetizing the songs in our catalog. In the long term, we are excited about Killphonic’s potential to build the music industry’s preeminent rights management business.”

The partnership was orchestrated by Amanda Schupf of MAX Music Management and Consulting, who played a pivotal role in both connecting and advising the parties throughout the process. This ensured that both sides aligned on critical terms, market vision, and the future role of Killphonic and Stilwell in the evolving music rights landscape. As part of this partnership, Amanda will be joining the Advisory Boards of both organizations, where she will continue to provide strategic guidance and industry expertise.

“When we went seeking investment, we thought that as a modern music company, we would have to compromise something fairly large for the greater good of our artists and songwriters,” added Killphonic CEO Caleb Shreve. “We can’t believe that we found everything we wanted in Stilwell Creative Capital. CEO Brian Baum is a distinguished financial veteran with an equally top-tier passion for music. In my 25+ years in music, I haven’t met anyone with a stronger love for the art of music. There isn’t a partner other than Stilwell that we could imagine sharing the value and dedication to the art and its artists like we do.”

Before the end of 2023, CEO Caleb Shreve took an overwhelming majority stake after finalizing the repurchasing of equity from the company’s former founders.

Are the original creators of musical works used to train AI models entitled to a stake in the resulting derivative songs? Germany’s GEMA believes so, and it’s announced a new licensing model in pursuit of the objective. Photo Credit: Luca Bravo

Once-off payments are inadequate for authors whose works have been used to train generative AI models – at least according to Germany’s GEMA, which says it’s created the “first licensing model” tackling royalties racked up by derivative songs.

The Berlin-based collecting society and PRO reached out with an overview of the royalties framework, which it initially unveiled at the Reeperbahn Festival earlier in September. At the top level, it’s worth noting that this push for bolstered author protections has arrived amid the implementation of the EU’s sweeping AI Act.

Among many other things, the latter is expected to compel generative-model developers to disclose precise details about the media used to train their systems. That will presumably set the stage for the relevant recording and compositional rightsholders to seek payments for their IP’s (unauthorized) use.

But what about when AI factors prominently into works performed in public establishments? Just scratching the surface here, far-reaching questions remain with regard to measuring the percentage of each creation that’s attributable to AI.

That’s a departure from the comparatively straightforward existing process of identifying public plays (preferably with exact measurements as opposed to extrapolations) and then compensating the appropriate authors accordingly.

Perhaps more pressingly on the AI side, what about the public performance of derivative works that only exist thanks to generative models that were trained (with or without permission) on protected music?

Of course, there aren’t any direct answers at present – with even larger unknowns when it comes to developing a system to register the usages, particularly in light of the ongoing legal battles over where the AI-training copyright line will be drawn.

Nevertheless, GEMA says it’s “the first collecting society worldwide to develop a licensing approach aiming to balance technological progress and the protection of creative work.”

“Pure remuneration through a buyout, i.e. a one-off lump sum payment for training data,” the organization proceeded, “is not nearly sufficient to compensate authors in view of the revenues that can be generated. The model provides for fair remuneration at a high level while keeping in mind that the market and its technical developments can change dramatically and rapidly.”

Rather, “authors must be adequately involved in the subsequent generation of AI content based on their creative work,” the entity emphasized.

It’d be an understatement to say that fleshing out, implementing, and ensuring compliance with this system will prove a tall task. DMN requested additional details from GEMA, which offered an overview in its formal release, but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

In any event, the push raises interesting questions about yet another component of the AI explosion. Pre-cleared music for use in public establishments (and specifically those that are unconcerned with playing today’s top hits) is more widely available than ever, and many of the involved companies are harnessing AI.

But multiple AI developers say their models didn’t train on protected media at all, and in the bigger picture, AI tracks will undoubtedly make a mainstream commercial splash at some point.

Flou’s legal drafting process in action.

Earlier this year, we first profiled Flou, an upstart company founded by Puerto Rican music attorney Alexiomar Rodríguez. Flou has a strikingly sensible mission: to transform the generally chaotic way music contracts and agreements are created, negotiated, and maintained throughout their life cycles. Several months later,  the company has successfully road-tested its platform with several early takers – and shared the early results with Digital Music News.

As any DMN reader can attest, the music industry is rife with legal warfare. Copyright battles, contract disputes, and even corporate espionage cram our pages daily, spanning the frivolous to the momentous. Garnering less attention is the contracting process itself, which can often devolve into a chaotic mess of wasted time, expensive legal bills — and if you’re really unlucky, full-blown legal battles that mar the creativity and partnerships involved.

Alexiomar Rodríguez, a music attorney who’s been in the weeds of these contracts for years, has set out to change that reality. Rodríguez’s answer is Flou, an all-in-one platform designed to streamline music contract management — from creation to execution and beyond. The company offers industry-specific templates, AI-assisted collaboration features, e-signature approvals, centralized storage, deliverables tracking, and a range of reminders during the pre- and post-signature phases of a contract’s lifecycle.

As part of its pitch, the company paints a stark contrast between the messiness of current contractual processes and the relaxed orderliness of automated templates, collaborative drafting, and AI-assisted agreement terms. On Flou’s site, the former features a stressed-out dragon surrounded by a swirl of papers; the latter features a happy dragon with a neatly arranged document interface. It’s Flou’s model in a nutshell.

Of course, the music industry is complex and demands a lot of different legal contracts to cover that complexity. But Flou and Rodríguez are determined to address that complexity with a wide range of music industry contracts, including work-for-hire agreements, production contracts, and artist-label contracts. Part of the company’s challenge will be to address all of those scenarios and their nuances, while staying on top of constant changes in agreements and partnership structures.

Regardless of the specific contracts, the game plan is the same: by translating complex legal obligations into manageable tasks, Flou simplifies compliance and reduces legal risks. The platform also offers educational resources to help users navigate the complexities of music agreements.

“The value proposition is the same for indie labels, publishers, and artists’ teams,” Rodríguez told DMN.  “Flou saves money on legal fees, saves time by automating your music contracts, and eliminates all the stress and sleepless nights.”

All of that sounds great in theory. But is it working?

Partnering with Digital Music News, Flou decided to share their early client stories with us. It’s a rare look into the early steps of a young company, with some early success metrics suggesting broader industry-wide changes.

So who were the first takers? 

Flou has the backing of mega-companies like Warner Music Group and Concord Music. But the real proof-of-concept is coming from smaller shops that desperately need simplified legal solutions.

For starters, larger companies are understandably hesitant to trigger extreme overhauls in their contracting processes, while smaller companies have the luxury of being more flexible.

Flou’s initial focus isn’t industry giants, but that’s exactly the point. Rodríguez says Flou is working closely with smaller outfits as its platform grows, an approach that also allows the company to refine its offerings during its developmental and ramp-up phases.

With that, here’s a look at two companies that have thoroughly road-tested Flou and relayed back some serious savings (and gains): Sash Media Group and One Music Global Publishing.

Case Study One: Sash Media Group

Sash Media Group, an Atlanta-based company focused on music production and record label services, faced a common challenge for new businesses: managing legal contracts without incurring exorbitant fees and extreme time drains. Founded by Grammy-winning producer Samuel Ash, the company works with top-tier artists in the US and Latin America, necessitating well-crafted contracts that protect all parties involved.

The Giant Challenge of Legal Organization

As a startup record label, Sash Media Group desperately needed a streamlined, affordable way to create and manage contracts. Traditional legal services, while comprehensive, often come with hefty price tags. Recognizing the importance of legally sound agreements, Ash tapped Flou as a potentially cost-effective solution that would equal the contractual quality that a serious attorney or law firm could offer.

Adding to the complexity for Flou, Sash’s unique business model required customized contracts that deviated from standard templates. There were numerous variations and special cases that demanded a flexible and adaptable legal solution.

Not an easy first client, but Sash Media Group initiated a partnership with Flou in an attempt to resolve those easily-stage issues. Fast-forward a few months, and the pilot has produced some substantive benefits, including lowered legal costs.

Despite being at an earlier stage of development, Flou has an extensive library of pre-approved templates in both English and Spanish. That met Sash’s initial contractual needs to get the partnership started.

“Creating agreements is quick and easy, allowing us to focus on working with the artists instead of trying to figure out all the paperwork,” Samuel Ash described.

Right off the bat, there was the classic challenge of dealing with PDF contracts. “Like many of our users, Sash had contracts they had previously paid a lawyer to draft, which were sent in PDF format,” Rodríguez relayed. “We helped convert those contracts into templates, turning them into automated Q&A forms so they no longer had to rely on manual ‘find and replace’ edits.”

Overall, the newfound efficiency enabled Sash to prioritize its core mission of producing and marketing music, resulting in a nice win. Focusing on the game plan, Rodríguez detailed how Flou’s platform met a number of Sash Media Group’s specific requirements.

Here’s what Rodríguez emphasized in the partnership:

An Ever-Growing Library of Templates: Flou provided a considerable selection of up-to-date, lawyer-approved contract templates in plain language, ensuring clarity and legal compliance.

One System for Contracts: Flou offered an all-in-one solution, covering the entire contract lifecycle from drafting to signing and beyond, eliminating the need for multiple tools and streamlining the process.

Lots of Support: Flou’s implementation team provided a considerable level of support, assisting Sash Media Group in creating a customized template within its first week of signing up.

And the Big Win: Lower Legal Costs: By leveraging Flou’s self-serve platform, Sash Media Group significantly reduced their reliance on external legal counsel, resulting in substantial cost savings.

That last gain is a big win for smaller outfits, many of which lack the big-level budgets of their larger competitors. It’s a major part of the Flou model and why Rodríguez initially wanted to focus on smaller plays.

The real kicker is that Samuel Ash reported saving over $3,000 in legal fees, a significant amount for a fledgling business. That’s not a six-figure windfall, though it offered a nice savings start that can be scaled – with the company planning to reinvest those funds into music production and marketing efforts.

Beyond the monetary savings, Flou’s platform simplified the contract management process, saving valuable time and resources. Samuel Ash emphasized the platform’s ease of use: “We saw the value within the first week of subscribing.”

Case Study Number Two: One Music Global Publishing – A Powerhouse In Latin Christian Music

In the vibrant Latin Christian music scene, One Music Global Publishing has emerged as a serious player for the genre’s top songwriters. This boutique publishing company, based in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, currently boasts a catalog of over five million monthly listeners on Spotify alone.

Already representing a range of established and up-and-coming songwriters, One Music is now focused on solidifying its position in the Latin Christian genre. That means continuing to build strong partnerships with the songwriters that are connecting the most with this audience.

One Music’s popularity has been growing in a solid genre – that’s the good news. But the company also found itself drowning in the complexities of managing contracts and ensuring the equitable distribution of royalties. The company felt that the traditional manual contract process was time-consuming and prone to errors, hindering the company’s efficiency and diverting valuable resources from strategic initiatives.

This is a growth-stage mess that Rodríguez was seeing first-hand while practicing law in Puerto Rico. The situation made One Music an obvious choice for an early client.

Taking things further, One Music also wanted to get its songwriters more involved in the contracting process itself. In short, One Music wanted a tool to empower its publishing team to take control of contract creation and management.

One Music’s requirements were clear: a self-service platform that would streamline the entire contract lifecycle, from drafting to signing and beyond. The platform needed to be user-friendly while enabling quick adoption and integration into their existing workflow. Additionally, real-time visibility into the status of contracts was crucial for identifying and addressing any bottlenecks.

At this point, Flou was already gaining traction as a contract management solution, so they were plucked as the answer to One Music’s needs. Flou’s implementation team jumped in with an onboarding process that included heavy support to get things off the ground.

With a focus on self-servicing, One Music’s publishing team gained the autonomy to create split sheets and other essential contracts using pre-approved templates and simple Q&A forms. This eliminated the need for constant legal intervention, freeing up valuable time and resources. The platform’s real-time tracking capabilities also provided a clear overview of contract statuses, enabling the One Music team to address any delays proactively.

Sounds great, though Rodríguez told DMN that One Music presented some unique challenges that tested Flou’s model.

For example, the label manages both authorized and unauthorized versions of their music, particularly those involving language translations (Spanish and Portuguese are favorites) and remixes (welcome to the modern fan economy).

Flou also helped One Music continue expanding into label and distribution services, which demanded more contractual support. “We had to add more contract templates,” Rodríguez explained.

After the transition towards automation and templating, One Music relayed some early-stage wins.

The biggest win was this: One Music witnessed a staggering 50% reduction in contract turnaround time. This newfound efficiency translated into a significant boost in productivity, allowing the team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than administrative tasks.

Joan Bonilla, founder and CEO of One Music, is now looking to expand the partnership. “Flou has revolutionized our contract management process,” he remarked. “Creating split sheets is now quick and foolproof, allowing us to focus more on expanding our songwriters’ business and less on paperwork.”

The benefits extended beyond time savings. Flou’s centralized platform eliminated the need to juggle multiple systems and manual filing, reducing errors and enhancing overall efficiency. Joan himself found more time to engage in high-value activities such as attending industry events and negotiating favorable deals for his clients.

Rodríguez says that Flou has enabled One Music to focus on its core mission: championing the voices of Christian Latin songwriters and building enduring legacies in the world of music.

Where Flou Is Headed Next

After working with these initial clients, Rodríguez is understandably pleased with the proof-of-concepts. Substantial cost and time savings are core to Flou’s model, but big wins also came in the form of self-service functionality, collaboration, and template flexibility.

In many cases, Flou quickly encounters the exact problem its model is trying to solve: a mountain of disorganized paperwork, digital or otherwise. “Most music companies still use MS Word, DocuSign, and spreadsheets to manage contracts, which leads to missed renewals, decentralized storage, and bottlenecks,” Rodríguez described.

“Our goal is to be the go-to solution for managing all contract-related paperwork in the music industry. So we are open to collaborating and integrating with all types of music companies and solutions.”

That said, Rodríguez feels the biggest challenge for companies is the growing volume of legal and contractual paperwork, based on initial client feedback and what he’s witnessing in the marketplace. That problem is particularly acute for companies that are shrinking in size in response to investor and Wall Street demands.

After working ‘in the wild’ and hearing actual client needs, the model is now expanding substantially towards developing APIs, white label solutions, and a self-service portal that labels and publishers can offer to their artists, producers, and songwriters.

Flou has also been focusing on AI applications, particularly around clause-specific training, advanced contract reviews, and deal suggestions driven by music data analytics.

“Music companies are shrinking in size, but still have to manage a huge amount of paperwork,” Rodríguez said. “Right now, Business & Legal Affairs departments are paying $65,000 to $75,000 a year, plus benefits, bonuses, and profit-sharing programs, to hire contract administrators.”

“Our overarching goal is to shrink the workload around contracts and shift companies more towards their core competencies – developing great music from legendary artists!”

An aerial shot of Vancouver. Photo Credit: Aditya Chinchure

Major streaming platforms and record labels are once again pushing back against Canada’s controversial Online Streaming Act as well as wider broadcasting reforms, purportedly including an effort to apply radio regulations to on-demand services.

Music Canada (which counts as members the major labels’ Canadian divisions) and DIMA (which reps streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music) expressed these concerns in a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

That’s the Canadian government agency tasked with enforcing the mentioned Online Streaming Act, an amendment to and expansion of the existing Broadcasting Act. In brief, the majors and leading streaming services have for some time been challenging the law, which is complete with a 5% tax for on-demand platforms.

(We previously took a closer look at the tax’s specifics and the mentioned parties’ legal challenges, besides providing a detailed breakdown of what exactly the voluminous Online Streaming Act means for services.)

Said challenges have coincided with an apparently involved implementation process, which is mapped out on the CRTC website. Most recently, this process earlier in September brought multiple “engagement sessions,” several of which drew participation from Music Canada and DIMA members.

Now, having been encouraged to provide written feedback on the sessions, the organizations are taking the opportunity to drive home their belief that “radio and audio streaming are not the same.”

“Out of context,” they wrote, “it might seem odd for the largest streaming services and major music labels in Canada to write to a regulator asserting a truism, but we believe that the recent workshops have made this necessary.

“From the discussion guide to the moderated questions, there was a clear attempt to place the continuation of radio regulations on audio streaming services as an obvious next step. We do not agree.”

As the implementation inches forward, the organizations are calling on the CRTC to “think of the streaming services and their interactions with Canadians for what they are today and not as a proxy to the broadcasting system of the 1900s.”

Streaming, the entities indicated in more words, is tailored to personal listening preferences, encompasses a wide variety of content and features, supports more discoverability than radio, and drives global consumption as opposed to only local listening.

Moving forward, it’ll be worth monitoring the impact of these and other comments from DIMA and Music Canada. However, as alluded to, the wider broadcast-framework reform won’t happen overnight. The CRTC’s website describes several unfinished steps, with the agency seemingly “targeting launch late 2025” for the new full-scale regulatory structure.

Photo Credit: Ye by Pieter-Jannick Dijkstra / CC by 2.0

The class action lawsuit against Adidas over the company’s partnership with Kanye West, despite his erratic behavior, has been dismissed with prejudice.

The investor class action litigation against Adidas over their alleged prior knowledge of Kanye West’s “erratic behavior” has been officially dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. The lawsuit was initially dismissed back in August, citing insufficient evidence.

Filed by the HRSA-ILA Funds, the lawsuit asserted that Adidas failed to reveal to investors Kanye’s inappropriate behavior between 2013 and 2018 and their own internal apprehensions about working with him. But the court found insufficient evidence to show misleading statements that may have affected investors.

“Certainly, that [Kanye] allegedly engaged in such behavior while working with Adidas is troubling,” said Judge Karin J. Immergut at the time. “This Court does not condone what the Plaintiff allegedly did. But the question before this Court is not whether to admonish [Kanye] or hold Adidas accountable for his conduct.”

“Has [HRSA-ILA Funds] sufficiently pleaded facts showing that Adidas misled investors and thereby committed federal securities fraud? On the current record before this Court, the answer is no,” concluded Judge Immergut. “Based on the Court’s Opinion and Order granting Defendants Adidas AG’s […] Motions to Dismiss, it is ordered and adjudged that this action is dismissed with prejudice.”

Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, was bringing in over a billion dollars with his Adidas-Yeezy partnership by 2021, which accounted for 8% of Adidas’ revenue and over 40% of its profits. But beginning in 2013, investors alleged that the company was aware of the “troubling potential” of its partnership with the rapper.

Ye’s erratic behavior escalated with his antisemitic rants on social media in 2022, which led to Adidas cutting him loose despite the financial trepidation in doing so. Last year, the company’s revenue had dropped by $1.3 billion over the decision to sever ties with West.

Photo Credit: Tingey Law

The latest lawsuit against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs comes from a woman who alleges he drugged and ‘viciously’ raped her in a recording studio in 2001.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been sued by a woman who alleges he and his bodyguard “viciously” raped her in a New York City recording studio over 20 years ago after Combs had drugged her. The lawsuit, filed by Thalia Graves in federal court on Tuesday, also claims the men recorded the encounter on video, about which she only recently learned.

Graves is seeking a trial by jury in the lawsuit, which appears to be the first against Combs since his indictment last week by federal authorities in New York on charges including sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Graves’ lawsuit also names Combs’ former bodyguard and head of security, Joseph “Big Joe” Sherman, who denies raping or even knowing Graves, and claims he was not employed by Combs at the time.

According to the lawsuit, Graves met Combs around late 1999 or early 2000 through her boyfriend at the time, who was an executive at Combs’ Bad Boy Records, and had a close relationship with the rapper and producer. Graves says she frequently visited her boyfriend, who is curiously not identified in the complaint, at Combs’ Bad Boy studio in New York City, and attended events hosted at Combs’ properties.

In the summer of 2001, the suit claims Combs called the then-25-year-old Graves and asked her to meet with him to discuss her boyfriend’s “performance issues.” Combs picked her up in an SUV which Sherman was allegedly driving, where Graves was offered a glass of wine that she says later caused her to “feel lightheaded, dizzy, and physically weak.” They drove to the Bad Boy studio in Manhattan, and Graves says she found it difficult to walk upon exiting the vehicle. She says she was escorted to a couch in a private room in the studio, where she then lost consciousness.

When she came to, Graves says she was naked, with her hands tied behind her back with what felt like a plastic grocery bag. She shouted for help, after which Sherman lifted her from the couch and was said to have forcefully slammed her, face-down, on a pool table. Soon, Combs entered the room naked, the suit continues.

Graves says Combs applied lubricant to himself and then raped her, while she was “unable to move, totally overpowered physically, in addition to being drugged and bound.” She then lost consciousness again and awoke to Sherman slapping her in the face and sexually assaulting her. Graves then lost consciousness yet again.

According to the suit, when she finally awoke, she was alone on the couch, naked and terrified, and quickly got dressed and fled the studio. She says she called a livery driver she knew, who drove her to the hospital and tried to convince her to report the assault and get a rape kit. Graves said she was shaking and crying hysterically, and was unable to leave the vehicle, “terrified of what Combs would do to her and her family if she reported him.”

Last November, when the first lawsuit against Combs surfaced, filed by his ex-girlfriend and R&B singer Cassie Ventura, Graves says her former boyfriend revealed to her that, years earlier, Combs and Sherman showed him “and a group of men — some of whom were also employed by Combs’ companies” the video of her being raped.

Graves also alleges both Combs and Sherman to have contacted her in the years since the assault, warning her to stay silent and threatening her with repercussions if she did not, including that she could lose custody of her son.

“Plaintiff lives in constant fear,” the suit explains. “She struggles with hyper-vigilance and experiences anxiety and panic attacks in social settings, preferring to be alone. Her need to hide to feel safe has strained her relationships with friends and family.”

Sherman denies the allegations in Graves’ suit, saying he was employed by Combs from 1998 to 1999, and was not associated with Combs by the time the alleged assault would have taken place.

DJ Excision, the founder of music festival Lost Lands, the organizer of which is now suing ticketing platform Lyte for breach of contract and more. Photo Credit: Live Nation/Terrence Blanton

Seemingly shuttered ticketing platform Lyte is now grappling with multiple lawsuits filed by festival organizers who say they’re owed sizable sums following the company’s abrupt shutdown.

Lost Lands organizer Apex Event Management and the team behind North Coast Music Festival just recently fired off those complaints, amid continued operational woes for Lyte. We first covered the ticketing platform’s apparent issues last week, after its website was taken down for purported maintenance.

This maintenance process is still underway – as is a rapid-fire selloff of the assets owned by Lyte, which has parted with its founder and reportedly laid off its team to boot. Evidently without the resources to continue operating, the well-funded business looks set to find a new owner sometime next month.

Closer to the present, though, the unexpected turn of events has left multiple festivals and ticket sellers in a decidedly difficult spot. With Lyte completely offline, several happenings have lost access to their primary and/or secondary ticket sales as well as the resulting revenue.

Also on the resale front, a number of ticked-off Reddit users are claiming that they’re owed payments for transactions carried out via Lyte pre-shutdown. Running with the point, Billboard has described in more words Lyte’s alleged business practice of receiving VIP tickets directly from organizers, marking up the prices, and then cutting in said organizers on the inflated proceeds.

While time should reveal additional details about that arrangement – which isn’t surprising given the potential for event passes to fetch sizable sums – it’s worth keeping in mind when it comes to the initially highlighted lawsuits.

(Regarding those additional details, days after this piece was published, Billboard updated its original coverage “to more accurately describe NCMF’s lawsuit against Lyte.” North Coast Music Festival, the edited piece clarified, had actually been selling passes on Lyte “below their original check out price.” We then covered the update, pushback against similar scalping allegations from Lost Lands, and more about the ongoing Lyte meltdown on Friday, September 27th.)

To be sure, a substantial portion of the action from Excision’s Lost Lands has been redacted pending a formal application to seal. Nevertheless, the available details tell us quite a bit about the positioning of Lyte-partnered festivals.

According to the legal text, Lost Lands 2024 kicked off on September 17th – or shortly after Lyte, its “exclusive seller of secondary market tickets,” appeared to go belly up.

In “essentially shutting down the secondary ticket market” for the event, per the breach of contract and fraud suit, the defendant allegedly inflicted “untold damage” on the organizer and on the “many thousands of consumers who” were using the service to buy, sell, and/or access passes.

Whatever the precise terms of its Lyte agreement, Lost Lands says it ceased receiving the contractually outlined payments in August. That refers specifically to $79,773.81 due as of August 21st, $330,917.07 due as of September 4th, and an estimated total of over $600,000 due with the festival’s latest installment now in the books.

Apex/Lost Lands is further seeking interest on the sum, damages, and an order preventing the sale-minded defendant “from transferring assets that may be used to satisfy any judgment.”

Photo Credit: Daily Journal

Rapper T.I. and his wife ‘Tiny’ Harris win a $71 million judgment against toy maker MGA Entertainment, which they say violated their IP rights.

Rapper T.I. and his wife, singer-songwriter Tameka “Tiny” Harris, just won a $71 million judgment in their lawsuit against toy company MGA Entertainment, whom they alleged violated their intellectual property rights with the popular L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. line of blind box dolls.

According to The Daily Journal, who first reported the news, the couple was awarded $17.8 million in real damages and $53.6 million in punitive damages following a three-week trial in federal court in Santa Ana, California.

The ruling was unanimous, finding that of the seven dolls presented, all copied the Atlanta-based OMG Girlz’s likeness and trade dress, in violation of the Harris’ IP rights. Of the 32 dolls in total, some of them were found to have copied other artists, like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé.

T.I. and Tiny formed the OMG Girlz in 2009, with Tiny’s daughter Zonnique “Star” Pullins as a member. The group has disbanded several times, but its members (Pullins, Bahja “Beauty” Rodriguez, Breaunna “Babydoll” Womack) reunited last year and are currently on tour. All three members testified at the trial.

This was the couple’s third attempt to sue — the initial trial last year ended in a mistrial when jurors heard barred testimony that accused the company of cultural appropriation. The second trial actually ended in MGA Entertainment’s victory, but a Supreme Court ruling in June 2023 allowed the case to be retried with the belief that consumer confusion about a product should carry more weight in an infringement case.

John R. Keville, a partner at Sheppard Mullin who represented the group and the Harris family, suggested the jury penalize the toy company further “to send them a message,” given the amount of likenesses they infringed. “You found seven, plus about seven more, I think,” he said, referring to the dolls which copied the likeness of other musicians. He argued MGA should be penalized an extra $35 million to $72 million.

In contrast, MGA’s counsel said if the jury awarded an extra penalty, a range between $500,000 and $1 million was more appropriate since the $17 million verdict already reflected 100% of the dolls’ profits.

Photo Credit: Quavo’s Instagram

Quavo faces a copyright infringement lawsuit over his 2018 track, ‘Bubble Gum,’ from his debut solo album.

Former Migos rapper Quavo is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit filed in California on Friday by Lamount London, known professionally as rapper L.Mont. London alleges Quavo copied parts of his own track “Bubblegum,” which he says he wrote in 2015, in 2018’s “Bubble Gum,” released on Quavo’s debut solo album, Quavo Huncho.

London claims his song was registered with the US copyright office back in 2015 when he released it, and that it was released on all major streaming platforms. Quavo would therefore have had ample opportunity to have heard the earlier track — but London also says he performed as an opening act for 2 Chainz and Migos, whose members included Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset, in New Orleans.

It was after that show that L.Mont claims he attended an afterparty with Quavo and the other members of Migos, where he gave them a demo CD featuring the allegedly copied track, hoping he would be able to collaborate with the other rappers in the future. The lawsuit says Quavo “accepted the CD” from London and that he would consider working with him in the future.

But the collaboration never came to fruition, and L.Mont says Quavo “without express authorization” copied protected elements of the song in his own track of the same name. Quavo’s “Bubble Gum” was released and distributed by Universal Music Group, which is named as a co-defendant, through Quality Control Music, Capitol Records, and Motown.

“Defendants, without authority, have willfully copied and sampled many protected elements of the Plaintiff’s copyrights and further infringed upon those copyrights by acts of reproduction, distribution, publish, display, and unauthorized creation of derivative works,” the lawsuit adds.

London’s lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent further distribution of the song, as well as damages and attorney fees.

Photo Credit: Ice Spice’s Instagram

Ice Spice has reached a settlement to end the copyright infringement lawsuit against her over the hit song, ‘In Ha Mood.’

Ice Spice has reached an agreement to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against her by a Brooklyn rapper who claimed her hit song, “In Ha Mood,” was copied from his earlier song, “In That Mood.”

The case, filed earlier this year by Duval Chamberlain, who released a song in 2021 as rapper D.Chamberz, claimed that Ice Spice’s 2023 hit was “strikingly similar” to his track. But attorneys for both sides said in a motion filed in federal court over the weekend, that they had agreed to resolve the lawsuit. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, and neither side has responded to media requests for comment.

D.Chamberz claimed the two songs were so similar that it “cannot be purely coincidental,” asserting that those similarities are at “the core of each work,” and that listeners had identified those similarities as well. “By every method of analysis, ‘In Ha Mood’ is a forgery,” his attorneys wrote in the lawsuit filed in January. “Any proper comparative analysis of the beat, lyrics, hook, rhythmic structure, metrical placement, and narrative context will demonstrate that ‘In Ha Mood’ was copied.”

Further, the lawsuit claimed that Chambers’ song received “significant airplay” on New York City radio stations, including Hot 97, where Ice Spice’s frequent producer RiotUSA’s father is a longtime DJ. Therefore, the filing says, Ice Spice and others involved in her song’s creation would have had plenty of opportunity to have heard the earlier track.

Ice Spice, under her legal name Isis Naija Gaston, was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, as well as RiotUSA (Ephrem Lopez, Jr.), Universal Music Group, Capitol Records, and 10K Projects. Defendants formally denied the allegations back in April, but the case remained in its infancy until Friday, when the agreement was reached.

“In Ha Mood” debuted early last year after Ice Spice’s breakthrough the prior year and spent 16 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It reached No. 58 on that chart and No. 18 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song was included on her debut EP, Like..?, and saw a live performance on Saturday Night Live during Ice Spice’s October appearance as the show’s musical guest.

Photo Credit: CelebrityABC / CC by 2.0

The Michael Jackson Estate has taken legal action against a former sexual assault accuser for allegedly threatening them for a bigger payday amounting to $213 million.

Michael Jackson’s estate has filed a legal action against a former sexual assault accuser for allegedly threatening to resurface abuse allegations in breach of agreement if he is not paid more money.

As reported by the Financial Times over the weekend, Jackson’s estate filed a private arbitration case against the accuser, who remains anonymous to the media, back in 2020 over abuse allegations. The estate allegedly paid the accuser $3.3 million in a settlement in exchange for his signing a non-disclosure agreement. But now the estate claims he’s threatening to speak up in breach of contract if they do not pay him an additional $213 million.

“The associate’s lawyer even said to us, ‘If you don’t meet our demands, we’re going to have to share these allegations with a wider group of people,’” said estate executor John Branca in an interview with the Washington Informer. “It was a shakedown. Enough is enough.”

It’s not yet clear when the arbitration case was filed or what the exact allegations entail. Further details like the name of Jackson’s accuser have also remained undisclosed. The estate also would not confirm the accuracy of reports and declined to respond to media requests for comment.

The Financial Times reports that the estate also referred the matter to the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Like the estate, a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office declined to comment when asked to confirm the report or whether it had opened an investigation.

Jackson died in 2009, and was never convicted or held liable for any of the accusations of abuse levied against him. The estate has always staunchly denied all such accusations, and point out his acquittal in a 2005 criminal trial.

The unnamed accuser’s alleged threats to go public are, interestingly, timed to coincide with the premiere of the biopic of the singer’s life, Michael, starring his real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson. That film is due to release in April next year, and is directed by Antoine Fuqua.

Photo Credit: The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0

Rapper Nelly (Cornell Haynes Jr.) is facing a $50 million lawsuit from his former rap group, which accuses him of manipulating them into believing they would have writing credits on his 2000 album, Country Grammar.

The St. Lunatics rap group consisted of Nelly and the named plaintiffs, Ali Jones, Lavell Web, Robert Kyjuan, and Tohri Harper. Former member Corey Edwards is not involved in the lawsuit. The group appeared on several hit songs from his debut album and released songs like “Gimme What U Got” before Nelly’s break-out solo career.

During recording sessions for what would become the album Country Grammar, the group claims Nelly manipulated them into believing they would have writing credits on the album. “[Nelly] privately and publicly acknowledged that plaintiffs were the lyric writers for the original compositions and promised to ensure that plaintiffs received writing and publishing credit for the original compositions,” the lawsuit states.

“Plaintiffs, relying on the promises made to them by [Nelly], continued to perform shows with [Nelly] both in his solo performances (as back up performers) and as the group St. Lunatics.”

The lawsuit continues stating that Nelly continually told the plaintiffs that they would receive credits, while both Country Grammar and the St. Lunatics album Free City were performing well commercially. Defendants allege that they did not find out the truth of those promises until 2020.

“Despite repeated assurances by [Nelly] that plaintiffs would receive their writing credit and publishing income for creating the original compositions, plaintiffs—sometime in 2020—eventually discovered that [Nelly] had been lying to them the entire time,” the lawsuit continues.

“Plaintiffs eventually discovered that not only did they not receive any credit as authors or creators of the original compositions, but that [Nelly] and others took full credit for creating the original compositions contained in [Country Grammar].”

“Sometime in 2020, plaintiffs became aware of a dispute between an individual named Willie Woods Jr. p/k/a John Long and [Nelly] and/or UMPG regarding the song ‘Ride Wit Me’ which was contained in Country Grammar. Upon information and belief, Mr. Woods claimed to be one of the writers on the song ‘Ride Wit Me’ and was demanding his portion of publishing royalties from the sales, public performance, or exploitation of ‘Ride Wit Me.’”

“Realizing that they were not the only writers on [Country Grammar] that [Nelly] had failed to provide proper credit and publishing income, plaintiffs decided to seek legal advice regarding their copyrights in and to [Country Grammar].”

The St. Lunatics are suing for copyright infringement with UMG, UMPG, BMG, Kobalt, and Hipgnosis named as defendants alongside Nelly.

Photo Credit: Jesús Rocha

The musician indicted by the US government for his alleged role in the $10 million streaming fraud scam pleads not guilty as the case kicks off.

Michael Smith, the 52-year-old North Carolina musician who is being charged with three felony counts in connection with a $10 million streaming fraud scam, entered a plea of ‘not guilty’ during a brief proceeding. As initially reported by Law 360, US District Judge John Koeltl issued an order in Manhattan setting Smith’s bail at $500,000 as the case moves forward.

Earlier this month, the US government indicted Smith for his alleged role in the “scheme to create hundreds of thousands of songs with artificial intelligence and use automated programs called ‘bots’ to stream the AI-generated songs billions of times.”

The recently unsealed indictment alleged Smith went through a number of steps and processes to artificially boost streams, including fake email accounts and cloud service accounts, as well as paying for family plans on various streaming platforms. Smith estimated at one point he could use bots to generate around 661,440 streams per day, generating annual royalties of about $1,207,128.

Spotify issued a statement just last week, going on record to say that its platform only accounted for less than 1% of the money generated in the streaming fraud scheme. The company said it “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming” on its platform.

“It appears our preventative measures worked and limited the royalties Smith was able to generate from Spotify to approximately $60,000 of the $10 million noted in the indictment,” said Spotify. “As [Spotify] typically accounts for around 50% of streamshare, this shows how effective we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.”

According to the indictment, one unnamed streaming service was able to detect the alleged fraudulent activity, cutting Smith off from royalty payments as early as 2019. Though the indictment referred to that service as only “Streaming Platform-1,” news outlets have since identified the platform to be Spotify.

Meanwhile, the Mechanical Licensing Collective also identified issues with Smith’s streaming data and withheld the royalty payments associated with them. The timing was apt; the MLC had recently announced a collaboration with music streaming fraud detection platform Beatdapp to enhance the collective’s existing fraud detection capabilities.

Beatdapp, who also began a partnership with Universal Music Group in January, said earlier this summer that streaming fraud accounts for around $2 billion lost royalties for artists each year.

The National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) is officially urging the FTC to launch additional BOTS Act investigations into alleged ticket-scalping operations. Photo Credit: NITO

Nearly eight years after the BOTS Act became law, the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) is urging the FTC to investigate alleged “widespread” violations of the anti-scalping measure.

NITO reached out with word of its formal complaint, which arrives almost four years following the first charges under the BOTS Act. Full title the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, the law has seemingly failed to produce any additional charges in the interim.

But scalping (and runaway ticket prices generally) has, of course, hardly ceased to be an issue for fans both in the States and abroad. Following BOTS Act enforcement scrutiny in 2022, 2023 saw the introduction of expanded federal ticketing legislation, the Fans First Act.

However, the newer bill (which would, among other things, strengthen the BOTS Act with a web portal for FTC scalping complaints) is still tied up in committee. Consequently, it’s under the existing law that NITO is urging the government agency to spearhead investigations.

Far from calling for those investigations based on unspecific claims about vague problems like expensive tickets, the organization in its letter to FTC chair Lina M. Khan rather directly named a number of the companies allegedly responsible for selling tech used to violate the BOTS Act.

As described by NITO, it identified the companies when attending 2024’s National Association of Ticket Brokers-organized World Ticket Conference. At the Nashville happening, NITO allegedly “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases.”

Without mentioning the vendors’ names here – few if any of the businesses are regularly part of industry conversations – NITO narrowed down the alleged violations (and the culprits) to five main categories. Each complete with a thorough explanation of how the appropriate tools factor into scalping schemes, these categories are browser extensions, VPNs, virtual credit card services, data scraping tools, and “comprehensive resale platforms.”

Where, then, should rightsholders and especially the FTC go from here? Per NITO’s recommendations, subpoenaing customer lists from the above-described types of companies and prioritizing “investigations into large-scale ticket reselling operations, focusing on those using multiple technologies to circumvent purchasing limits” are good starting points.

Also recommended are bolstered FTC and rightsholder collaborations with leading ticket platforms “to identify patterns of behavior” suggesting BOTS Act violations, updated legislation, “a public awareness campaign to educate consumers about the negative impacts of scalping,” anti-bot tech development, a push for stricter high-volume-seller verification processes on resale sites, and related collaborations with global regulatory bodies.

Time will tell whether NITO’s effort leads to concrete results. As things stand, one needn’t search far to find customers’ ticket-price qualms – Green Day has now tagged out Oasis in that hot seat. And passes are already on sale for the 2025 World Ticket Conference, which is set to take place in late July.

Photo Credit: The MLC

At August’s end, Spotify moved to dismiss the “nonsensical” unpaid-royalties lawsuit filed against it by the Mechanical Licensing Collective. Now, the MLC is urging the court to reject that motion and allow the case to proceed.

The MLC just recently took aim at Spotify’s dismissal push, with roughly four months having passed since the initial complaint’s submission. As many know, said complaint centers on the streaming giant’s controversial bundling reclassifications in the U.S.

Stated concisely, while the current presence of an audiobook and music “bundle,” a standalone music tier, and an audiobook-only option might not seem like too big a deal to listeners, the subscription framework is having a massive impact on Spotify’s domestic mechanical royalty payments.

Once again in the interest of brevity, that’s because bundled subscription revenue is treated far differently than standalone subscription revenue under the Phonorecords IV determination (which runs through 2027) for on-demand streaming.

DMN Pro has performed multiple deep-dives into the involved calculations and also maintains a one-stop database of leading platforms’ per-stream mechanical rates in the U.S.

Long story short, nearly all the existing Spotify Individual subscriptions were simply reclassified in royalty statements as bundles. Per the MLC, the audio (and video) service looks to be saving somewhere in the ballpark of $150 million in domestic compositional royalties per year.

(In the MLC’s own words, that amounts to a “devastating financial impact on the music creators who are the lifeblood of Spotify’s multibillion-dollar business.”)

Predictably, the reality isn’t sitting right with publishers or, as demonstrated by the ongoing legal battle, the MLC. As laid out by the Copyright Office-designated organization, for reasons including audiobooks’ “token” value to subscribers, the packages at hand don’t constitute bundles under Section 115.

And among other things, that means Spotify allegedly owes millions in unpaid mechanicals. On the opposite side of the dispute, though, the Daniel Ek-led company believes audiobooks have more than token value, represent a distinct product tier, and are therefore eligible for bundling classification.

Taking its stance a step further in last month’s dismissal motion, Spotify drove home the view that the timing of audiobooks’ integration (November of 2023, well before the official bundling reclassifications in March of 2024), the accessibility of the audiobook-only tier (which the MLC says is difficult to locate and not distinct from the music package), and more are all irrelevant to the central bundling-eligibility debate.

Returning to the MLC’s opposition to Spotify’s dismissal motion, the over 30-page legal text doesn’t break much new ground in terms of the core unpaid-royalties arguments described above.

However, the document does make clear the MLC’s belief that these arguments are valid and that dismissal would be inappropriate at this stage in any event.

“Spotify may ultimately try to persuade the Court to ignore its inconsistent reporting of the same Premium offering,” the filing indicates, “but a motion to dismiss is not the appropriate vehicle for it to do so.

“The only question at this preliminary stage,” reads another relevant section, “under this well-established Second Circuit law, is whether the Complaint states a claim for relief that is plausible, liberally construing and accepting all of its factual allegations as true, and drawing all reasonable inferences in the MLC’s favor. The Complaint plainly satisfies this test.”

It perhaps goes without saying, but it’ll be interesting to see whether the high-stakes lawsuit survives dismissal here. Closer to the present, we aren’t without other examples of the seemingly far-from-optimal professional relationship between Spotify and the MLC.

Accepting as fact Spotify’s representations and details from a recent streaming-fraud indictment, the company promptly identified and put a stop to an alleged fake-stream scheme – at least on its own service. The MLC, not Spotify competitors, seems to have only pinpointed the same alleged operation years down the line, after it had racked up millions in royalty payments from bot-powered plays on different platforms.

Lainey Wilson, one of the many artists urging Congress to pass the No Fakes Act, kicking off the U.S. leg of her Country’s Cool Again Tour. Photo Credit: Erick Frost

It’s time for Congress to establish federal AI soundalike and lookalike protections with the No Fakes Act – at least according to the Human Artistry Campaign and hundreds of involved creators.

This latest push for the No Fakes Act’s passage kicked off with an advert from the Human Artistry Campaign, which counts as members the RIAA, A2IM, and several others. In said advert, which was printed in Politico, the likes of 21 Savage, Billy Idol, Cardi B, Elvis Costello, Mary J. Blige, Lee Greenwood, deadmau5, Common, Joe Walsh, Randy Travis, and many more expressed support for the legislation.

Besides arriving on the heels of California’s new SAG-AFTRA-backed AI laws, the current showing of No Fakes Act support has come about seven weeks after the bill’s formal introduction in Congress.

Short for the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act,” the proposed law dates back to October of 2023 and would, we covered in detail, establish a federal right protecting one’s voice and likeness.

In the interest of brevity – and though it perhaps goes without saying given the above-mentioned support and the continued prevalence of AI media – the music industry has strongly backed the bill from the outset. That includes a related April appearance before Congress from Warner Music head Robert Kyncl.

However, like with California’s five just-implemented AI laws, the No Fakes Act has attracted criticism as well. ReCreate Coalition executive director Brandon Butler, for instance, is of the belief that it “threatens free expression online” and “would create more problems for creativity and society than it solves.”

Running with the point, proponents of federal AI soundalike and lookalike regulations haven’t had an entirely smooth ride thus far. While it’s been out of the media spotlight for eight months, the No AI Fraud Act was introduced at the top of 2024 and, by the RIAA’s own description, “builds on” the No Fakes Act framework.

But with the seemingly more robust bill still stuck in committee despite a carefully coordinated support campaign, the focus has evidently shifted back to the No Fakes Act.

In keeping with the renewed focus, the Songwriters Guild of America, Music Creators North America, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists also reached out to DMN today, albeit with a letter they’d sent to four representatives.

This letter doesn’t mention the No Fakes Act by name, but thanks the lawmakers for their support in the AI space and other areas. (All three organizations are part of the Human Artistry Campaign in any event.)

Bigger picture, it’ll be interesting to see whether the developments spur a No Fakes Act vote in Congress. Worth highlighting on this front is that rightsholders and broadcasters (for obvious reasons, the latter strongly oppose the unauthorized AI-powered replication of voices and likenesses) seemingly find themselves on the same page here.

Possessing considerable legislative sway, broadcaster associations yesterday expressed support for the bill in a different open letter, touting it as “a step in the right direction.”

Photo Credit: Federal Bureau of Prisons

Hip hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has pleaded not guilty to the bombshell charges in a federal indictment that dropped yesterday. Now a judge has denied the music mogul bail and he will await his trial in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

The federal indictment alleges that Diddy, “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct” for decades. His September 16 arrest includes three felony counts of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Diddy’s attorney Marc Agninfilo released a statement after the arrest saying, “We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust proseceution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community.”

“He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”

After a federal judge denied him bail, Diddy spent the night at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late Tuesday night. Diddy will be held there ahead of his scheduled Manhattan federal court hearing for Wednesday afternoon—where he will appeal the decision to keep him behind bars. Dismal living conditions, inmate attacks, and worm and maggot-infested food are just some of the complaints about the MDC.

MDC inmates regularly complain about rats running around, while inmates endured freezing temperatures during a power outage in 2019. The MDC is where Ghislaine Maxwell was held during her sex-trafficking trial in connection with Jeffrey Epstein.

Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa

TikTok spent two hours making its case against a ban in front of an appeals court panel of judges, but it may not have gone so hot.

After spending more than two hours making its argument against a nationwide ban in front of a trio of federal judges, TikTok may have sealed its own fate. But the federal appeals court seemed to grapple with the decision based around how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its constitutional rights under US law — so it could still be anybody’s game.

The judges at a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. struggled to find a metaphorical precedent in cases past, and mostly leaned on analogies about propaganda and hypothetical scenarios. But some of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions regarding online speech played a role, too.

Notably, if the court’s decision affected only US-based companies, “there’s no doubt that would be a huge First Amendment concern,” said Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, citing cases decided by the Supreme Court just this summer.

But, he noted, that isn’t the issue at hand; instead, Congress passed a law targeting foreign owners of US companies and their influence over the algorithms used to affect the content Americans view. And the law does not open up the possibility of banning all foreign-owned platforms, just those from companies linked to specific adversary nations, of which China is one.

“The core point we’re making is one they’ve conceded — which is that [TikTok’s] code is made in China,” said attorney Daniel Tenny, representing the US government in its case against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance.

TikTok’s legal team pushed back against that assertion, stating that only “some of the code” that powers TikTok originates from China and that much of the platform’s curation “reflects decisions” made in the US. This, they say, would be infringed upon should the law to ban the app nationwide be upheld.

Ultimately, it’s unclear when the court might reach a decision regarding the legislation, but the law set a deadline of January 19 for TikTok, making it likely the court will rule before then. The legislation made its way through Congress with record speed this spring, a federal response to concerns that TikTok’s ties to China could enable the country’s government to access American users’ app data.

Photo Credit: Sarah Elizabeth

Prager Metis is set to pay $1.2 million to settle the auditor-independence lawsuit filed against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

That seeming end to the legal battle between the SEC and the prominent industry accounting firm came to light in the former’s newly submitted (and unopposed) motion for final judgement entry.

Last time we checked in on the matter, the presiding judge in March rejected Prager Metis’ discovery stay motion, before tossing a dismissal motion in late May. And as we described, the case, which kicked off about one year back, centers on multiple alleged “auditor independence rule” violations between late 2017 and October of 2020.

In the interest of brevity here, that refers specifically to the alleged inclusion of indemnification provisions in 87 client engagement letters. Also as of March, the case was tentatively expected to head to trial towards the top of 2025.

But settlement discussions have evidently proven fruitful during the past six months; per the mentioned motion, Prager Metis has “consented to the entry of the proposed” judgement.

On the “monetary remedies” side, said judgement includes a total of $1,205,000 in payments to be made by Prager Metis.

Prager Metis LLC will put up the lion’s share of the sum, $980,000, as “a civil penalty,” with $172,728.19 attributable to disgorgement and another $27,486.64 to interest on the latter, according to the document. Rounding out the $1.21 million, the closely associated Prager Metis LLP is poised to pay $3,868.90 in disgorgement, $916.27 in interest thereon, and a $20,000 civil penalty.

Perhaps more important than the relatively modest financial penalties is a collection of settlement clauses permanently restraining and enjoining Prager Metis from violating the relevant securities laws moving forward.

As to where things go from here, the settlement doesn’t appear to be quite “official official.” At the time of this writing, the court didn’t look to have granted the sought judgement, which, the document reiterates for good measure at its end, “will fully resolve this pending matter.”

But the available evidence strongly suggests that formal approval will arrive sooner rather than later for the government agency and Prager Metis, which over the summer added Jared Mahar to its tax department.

Photo Credit: NBC News

Following the arrest of music mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs last night in Manhattan, federal prosecutors have unsealed the indictment. Diddy is charged with three felony counts of racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

The unsealed indictment lays out the charges against the music mogul, alleging that he “threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires” for years. Federal prosecutors argue that Combs created a “criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in” various crimes including “sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”

At the center of the indictment are parties that Diddy called ‘freak offs’ where he recorded victims engaging in forced sex acts. Prosecutors allege Diddy used force to “cause victims to engage in extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded.”

Victims were often plied with illegal drugs to control them for long stretches of time, with participants often needing “IV fluids to recover from the physical exertion.” Prosecutors also allege that Diddy used the electronic recordings of these ‘freak offs’ as “collateral to ensure the continued obedience and silence of the victims.”

Court documents reveal that the U.S. Government is seeking to recover significant financial assets from Diddy, and that he could be on the hook for “any and all property, real and personal” and an undetermined “sum of money” involved in these alleged crimes. The indictment does not specifically list any assets that may be targeted.

The indictment also alleges that Diddy used his commercial enterprise as a key component of his criminal enterprise. Prosecutors allege that several of his employees were “to carry out, facilitate, and cover up his abuse and commercial sex.”

“Those employees — including security staff, household staff, personal assistants, and high-ranking supervisors — and other close associates acted as Combs’ intermediaries, and their conduct was facilitated and assisted by Combs’ control of the Combs business,” prosecutors allege. The documents also allege that federal agents seized 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant during the raid on his Miami and Los Angeles homes.

The indictment against Diddy includes alleged criminal acts going back 16 years. The racketeering count covers acts allegedly committed by the defendant beginning in 2008, while the sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution charges started in 2009. “On numerous occasions,” Combs would assault women by “among other things, striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at and kicking them” the indictment reads.

In May 2024, Diddy apologized for his violent behavior after a leaked hotel video showed him dragging his then girlfriend Cassie Ventura down the hallway after brutally and viciously beating her for trying to flee in an elevator.

Shortly after the indictment was unsealed, Diddy pleaded not guilty to all charges in a New York courtroom. The rap star was handcuffed at the time, and it remains unclear if Diddy will spend time in jail or be allowed to post bond or live under monitored house arrest.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams (pictured) has said the investigation into Diddy’s conduct is not done. “A year ago, Sean Combs stood in Times Square and was handed a key to New York City,” Williams told reporters. “Today, he’s been indicted and will face justice in the Southern District of New York. We are not done. This investigation is ongoing, and I encourage anyone with information about this case to come forward and do it quickly.”

Miley Cyrus, who, along with Sony Music Publishing and an array of others, is facing a copyright infringement complaint over ‘Flowers.’ Photo Credit: Raph_PH

Another day, another copyright infringement lawsuit: Miley Cyrus and an array of others are being sued for allegedly lifting from Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man” without permission to create “Flowers.”

A company called Tempo Music Investments recently submitted that action to a California federal court, and DMN obtained an exclusive copy of the straightforward-but-sweeping complaint. By way of background, Mars, a non-party here, released “When I Was Your Man” in late 2012, and the track has racked up a cool 2.26 billion streams on Spotify alone.

Meanwhile, March of 2020 saw the lone plaintiff finalize an IP-investment deal with “When I Was Your Man” co-writer Philip Lawrence, thereby securing a stake in the work. And as most already know, Cyrus dropped “Flowers” – which, among other things, made a material international splash last year – in early 2023.

Having hit one billion Spotify streams faster than any other track to date, the work has itself accumulated 2.20 billion on-platform plays.

But as Tempo Music Investments sees it, that commercial success resulted from the mentioned Mars release, without which “‘Flowers’ would not exist,” according to the legal action.

“Any fan of Bruno Mars’ ‘When I Was Your Man’ knows that Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ did not achieve all of that success on its own,” the filing company spelled out in the suit.

According once again to the legal text, the newer effort “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements” of the relevant Bruno Mars track. That includes “the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass-line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions,” per the document.

Though infringement actions involving lesser-known releases typically go to great lengths to illustrate how the defendant(s) may have accessed the music in question, Tempo Music Investments opted against doing so here given the well-established reach of “When I Was Your Man.”

Instead, a substantial portion of the suit explores in technical detail the alleged similarities between the songs, including but not limited to purported lyrical and melodical overlap.

Some of the alleged similarities between ‘Flowers’ and ‘When I Was Your Man’ according to the plaintiff, Tempo Music Investments. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

Lastly, in terms of the action’s specifics, Willkie Farr & Gallagher-repped Tempo Music Investments isn’t suing only Miley Cyrus. Rather, the long list of defendants includes as well the 31-year-old’s fellow “Flowers” co-writers, Sony Music Publishing, and Concord, to name just a few.

Likewise staring down the suit are all manner of streaming services (Apple proper, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, and SoundCloud but, curiously, not Spotify), Live Nation, and even retailers such as Walmart and Target.

Live Nation, for its part, allegedly “participated in the reproduction, distribution, sale, and/or other exploitation of ‘Flowers,’ including by selling copies of the song through Cyrus’s official online store,” per the complaint. And Walmart allegedly “participated” in the same way, albeit for both tracks, “by selling copies of the songs in its brick-and-mortar stores.”

Photo Credit: Altice USA

Several parties, including Altice USA, signed amicus briefs in support of Cox Communications’ petition filed last month with the Supreme Court.

In Cox Communications’ ongoing battle with Sony and other major labels, several parties have signed amicus briefs in support of Cox’s petition filed last month with the Supreme Court. The petition asked the high court to review the increasingly complex copyright infringement case that could potentially affect the internet access of Americans nationwide.

The issue stems from a case brought against internet service provider (ISP) Cox Communications by Sony Corp. and other music industry groups back in 2018. That case was just one of many levied against ISPs by music labels for copyright infringement committed by users through online piracy, in which the labels assert the ISPs are liable.

Now, the two amicus briefs signed by Professor Alfred C. Yen and Altice USA — which quietly settled its own copyright infringement case with BMG last month — as well as Frontier Communications, Lumen Technologies, and Verizon, urge the high court to “review this significant copyright infringement case that could jeopardize internet access for all Americans.”

“Sony is attempting to hold internet service providers like Cox and its peers responsible for instances of piracy and copyright infringement committed by individual users,” a representative close to the matter told Digital Music News.

Cox filed its petition last month asking the US Supreme Court to review the decision it made back in February that the ISP committed secondary copyright infringement by failing to address user piracy. At the time, though the Court upheld part of the jury verdict that held Cox liable, it threw out a $1 billion award for the labels, which included Universal Music alongside Sony Music. A new trial was ordered to determine the amount of damages Cox would owe.

But Cox argues that the only way it could avoid liability under the Court’s decision would be to terminate internet service for “entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities, and even regional [ISPs] […] merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged to have used the connection to infringe.”

Photo Credit: Raph PH / CC by 2.0

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, BMG, and Universal Music have officially beaten an appeal in a copyright suit centering on “Living in a Ghost Town.”

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just recently affirmed a prior district court ruling in favor of the Rolling Stones members as well as the label co-defendants. Last time we checked in on the courtroom confrontation, the plaintiff towards the top of 2024 set his appeal in motion.

That Spain-based plaintiff, an artist named Sergio Garcia Fernandez and known professionally as Angelslang, accused the defendants of lifting without permission from two tracks to create the Stones’ “Living in a Ghost Town” (2020).

These allegedly infringed works, the filing party claimed in the March of 2023 complaint, had been forwarded on CD to an “immediate family member” of Jagger back in 2013. Predictably, as the plaintiff told it, the tracks’ positive reception laid the groundwork for the alleged infringement (extending to a variety of elements) the better part of a decade later.

As things stand, a stateside court has yet to rule on the validity of those claims. To be sure, the action was tossed on jurisdictional grounds in October of 2023, when Judge Eldon E. Fallon, in deeming his court an improper venue for the case, reiterated in part that “none of the defendants ‘reside’ or ‘may be found’ in this district.”

The plaintiff then unsuccessfully urged the case’s transfer to a different venue, before January of 2024 brought the aforementioned appeal.

Now, though, with a three-judge appellate panel having “considered on the record on appeal and the briefs on file,” the prior dismissal order has been affirmed. Digging into the straightforward eight-page opinion behind the newer ruling, the presiding judges explained in more words that simply releasing the allegedly infringed music in Louisiana isn’t sufficient to establish jurisdiction in the state.

Likewise unconvincing is the personal jurisdiction argument when it comes to the allegedly infringed works’ potential to eventually reach Louisiana.

“Not only do the defendants lack minimum contacts with the forum, but there is no connection between the forum and the specific claims at issue,” the panel spelled out.

Lastly, the judges also called for the plaintiff artist to cover the costs incurred by the defendants in relation to the appeal. According once again to the appropriate legal text, the judgement will formally issue at the later of seven days following the rehearing-petition deadline or seven days after the entry of an order denying a petition for rehearing.

Photo Credit: Bermix Studio

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has been arrested in Manhattan by federal authorities following a grand jury indictment.

Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose music and entrepreneurial career has been disgraced by mounting sexual assault lawsuits and a federal investigation, has been arrested in Manhattan this evening (September 16), following a grand jury indictment earlier today.

A person familiar with the matter but who was not authorized to speak publicly has confirmed the indictment, which is sealed while the charges have remained undisclosed. The same person told The New York Times they believed Combs was charged with racketeering and sex trafficking.

Combs’ legal team released a statement that they were disappointed with the decision to prosecute him, noting he had been cooperative with the investigation and had “voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.”

Representatives for the US Attorney’s Office in New York did not respond immediately to media requests for comment. An unidentified source told media outlets that Combs was taken to the FBI Field Office in Manhattan.

The arrest and preceding indictment follow the federal raids on Combs’ homes in Beverly Hills and Miami. A grand jury has been hearing testimony from various accusers and other parties over the last few months.

“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the US Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said in a statement. “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon […] who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community. […] He is an imperfect person but is not criminal.”

Agnifilo concludes Combs has “nothing to hide,” and “looks forward to clearing his name in court.”

Combs has been a well-known figure in hip-hop since the 1990s and early 2000s, helping in the rise of rappers and R&B singers like Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige. He has been under increasingly intense public scrutiny since his former girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, filed a lawsuit against him last year accusing him of sexual and physical abuse.

Since then, Combs has been hit with numerous lawsuit accusing him of similar offenses, which culminated with a federal investigation that has been ongoing for months.

An American Hockey League game between the Milwaukee Admirals and the Rockford IceHogs, the latter of which allegedly used APM works in promo videos without authorization. Photo Credit: Michael Barera

Days after levying a copyright action against Johnson & Johnson, Associated Production Music (APM) is now suing the American Hockey League (AHL) for allegedly using recordings in “numerous” promotional videos without permission.

APM just recently levied the copyright complaint, the latest in a line of suits targeting allegedly unauthorized usages on social media and content platforms generally. Also naming as defendants several American Hockey League teams, the straightforward action begins by reiterating the plaintiff’s production music and sync credentials as well as driving home the AHL’s “all-time high” popularity.

At the points’ intersection, the legal text calls out the alleged “rampant infringement” of APM’s protected works “on team-specific social media channels,” reiterating for good measure that the AHL has allegedly “refused to obtain proper licenses or admit wrongdoing.”

All told, the plaintiff is seeking relief for alleged direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement across a number of works (which are listed in the suit), and the corresponding videos seem to have been uploaded to a variety of platforms. Said platforms include Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter/X alike.

Some of the allegedly infringing clips, like one posted to X by the Syracuse Crunch, had already been pulled at the time of this writing. But others, such as a player promo uploaded to YouTube by the AHL itself in late 2021, were still live.

DMN reached out to the American Hockey League for comment but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing. However, as previously highlighted, this isn’t the year’s first copyright complaint alleging infringement on social media, where any pre-licensed song libraries are cleared solely for personal, not commercial, use.

Beyond APM’s initially mentioned Johnson & Johnson action, July saw Kobalt, Prescription Songs, and other publishers sue more than a dozen NBA teams for the same reason.

Transitioning back to the recorded side – and only scratching the litigation surface in this area – May brought a Sony Music suit against Marriott, once again over alleged “rampant infringement” in social clips. And in July, the Beastie Boys targeted the parent of restaurant chain Chili’s with a similar complaint.

Furthermore, this litigation trend isn’t new for rightsholders, with 2022 having seen each of the majors sue Bang Energy (which Monster acquired out of bankruptcy last year) before Sony Music took legal action against OFRA Cosmetics in 2023.

Still in full swing, the latter courtroom confrontation had a discovery hearing in late August, per the docket. The presiding judge subsequently approved Sony Music’s discovery requests at the top level, ordering OFRA “to immediately produce responsive documents on a rolling basis” while nevertheless giving the beauty company until September 19th “to fully respond” to these discovery demands.

Photo Credit: Eddy Grant by Stuart Sevastos / CC by 2.0

Eddy Grant finally scores a victory against Donald Trump four years after filing a copyright infringement suit against him.

District Court Judge John G. Koeltl has ruled that Donald Trump is on the hook legally and financially for his use of Eddy Grant’s 1982 hit, “Electric Avenue,” without the musician’s permission during a video promoting Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. The judge rejected Trump’s legal arguments as either moot or without merit, finding him liable for monetary damages.

The ruling leaves one question up in the air — whether a jury will be convened to decide on the amount owed. Eddy Grant asked in his filing back in 2020 for lawyers’ fees and $300,000 in damages.

Regardless, the ruling is just the latest in a seemingly never-ending stream of litigation against Donald Trump for music he has used in his political campaigns. Artists who have filed suit against him include the Rolling Stones, Celine Dion, and Jack White.

Because Eddy Grant’s case involved an animated video mocking Trump’s opponent at the time, Joe Biden, with “Electric Avenue” playing in the background, Trump’s lawyers tried to claim it constituted fair use. They asserted that the cartoon was political commentary, not a campaign commercial soliciting donations, and that the song was “contextually transformed” by its use in the clip, further insisting that Grant didn’t even have the track copyrighted.

But Judge Koeltl disagreed with all these points, referring back to an earlier ruling in which he described the video as a “wholesale copying of music to accompany a political campaign ad.”

Grant’s lawsuit first came back in 2020 when then-president Trump and his campaign aides posted the video using “Electric Avenue” on Twitter, gaining millions of views and around 100,000 retweets before it was taken down. Known for his socially conscious music, Grant stated at the time that the use of his song to amplify “derogatory political rhetoric” was “wicked” and a source of “considerable emotional distress.”

If Spotify paid less than 1% of the royalties behind an over $10 million music streaming fraud scheme, which platforms provided the rest of the sum? Photo Credit: Towfiqu Barbhuiya

Yesterday, another interesting piece of the $10 million+ royalties scheme puzzle fell into place, as Spotify claimed to have promptly halted the operation on its own platform. But which services allowed the AI tracks to stay live and rack up billions of plays?

That’s the multimillion-dollar question right now, after a North Carolina-based musician was indicted earlier in September on charges stemming from an alleged music streaming fraud scheme. Per the indictment, the defendant allegedly used bots to stream hundreds of thousands of tracks across the better part of a decade.

But the plot quickly thickened when it came to light that the CEO of Warner Music-backed and ADA-partnered AI music generator Boomy had allegedly provided the works at the scheme’s center. And subsequently, Spotify told DMN that it, today’s leading on-demand music platform, had only paid out $60,000 or so of the $10,000,000+ in royalties described in the indictment.

(Said indictment also cites emails penned by the defendant, who pointed therein to closer to $12 million in total royalties stemming from the alleged scheme.)

The disclosure raised multiple interesting points and questions. Chief among the former was the fact that Spotify seemingly caught the alleged fraud early on – before the culprit nevertheless managed to score millions upon millions in illicit royalty payments from different services. Related communications between the MLC (which per the indictment uncovered the alleged fraud last year) and Spotify were seemingly non-existent.

And on the questions front, which platform(s) failed to flag the defendant’s tracks and paid the lion’s share of the alleged fraudulent royalties?

Running with the information provided by Spotify, DMN set out to answer the question. Yesterday, we sought comments from Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music alike. Starkly contrasting their usual eagerness to discuss coverage, none of the services had responded at the time of this writing.

Furthermore, various factors are preventing a detailed analysis of where exactly the alleged fraudulent streams came from. Per the indictment, the defendant allegedly went out of his way to direct a small number of streams to each of the tracks, attributed to a multitude of made-up artist names, to avoid raising suspicion.

Among other things, this largely successful endeavor means that while Chartmetric registered the “artists” and “songs” at hand, few fetched the consumption information, and there isn’t an abundance of hard data available about the since-removed tracks. Separately, it’s possible that at least some of the uploads would have failed to generate recording royalties on Spotify under the platform’s controversial 1,000-stream-minimum policy.

Shifting the focus to what we do know, the “songs” mentioned in the indictment didn’t appear to be streaming on Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, or Deezer at the time of writing. But for those interested in getting a taste of the generic AI outputs, SoundCloud was still hosting uploads from the likes of Calypso Xored, one of the artist names mentioned in the indictment.

(In another aside, even the mass-produced AI tracks were seemingly unable to avoid winding up on piracy platforms, one of which has a Saint Pierre and Miquelon domain ending and was the target of multiple BPI DMCA notices to Google.)

As we continue to seek details about which services hosted and paid royalties on the uploads at the heart of the indictment, it’s worth reiterating the apparent scope of the wider AI problem on streaming services.

And those streaming services include Spotify despite the comparative quickness with which it looks to have flagged the alleged royalties scheme here. Back in April of 2023, we reported on the findings of a listener who said he’d encountered the same “song,” albeit with different artist names and titles, about 50 times via Spotify Radio.

Roughly 17 months after that individual added 49 of the works to a Spotify playlist, 40 are still live – with similar availability through competing services.

This isn’t to say the remaining tracks are benefitting from streaming fraud, but they’ve racked up over 553,600 cumulative Spotify plays in any event. With several other machine-generated audio snippets on each of the profiles (which also have uploads across non-Spotify platforms), this operation, a tiny component of an increasingly massive overall AI library, seems to be raking in sizable royalty payments relative to the responsible party’s effort.

Photo Credit: SiriusXM

BMI files action in rate court against SiriusXM for ‘attempting to lower its payments to BMI songwriters, composers, and publishers.’

Today, US performance rights organization BMI has filed an action in its rate court to determine fair and appropriate fees for a license with satellite radio service SiriusXM. According to BMI, despite years of negotiations, SiriusXM is “attempting to lower its payments to BMI songwriters, composers, and publishers, ignoring BMI’s preeminent market share, changes in the marketplace, SiriusXM’s product evolution towards a digital service, and the company’s strong revenue growth.”

“BMI’s songwriters and composers should not have to accept an outdated rate that significantly undervalues their music, which provides the very foundation for SiriusXM’s programming,” said BMI in a statement.

“After attempting to negotiate with SiriusXM in good faith for more than two years, we were compelled to file this action given their insistence on underpaying the creators of the music that drives the majority of their business,” said Mike O’Neill, BMI’s President and CEO.

“SiriusXM’s proposal is a clear attempt to rely on a rate that was established when the company was very different in terms of its size, reach, degree of digital focus, and revenue growth, and falls well below what is in the best interests of our affiliates. We will continue to fight for fair and appropriate rates when we believe the music created by our songwriters and composers is being significantly undervalued.”

BMI’s petition, filed in New York court on September 12, points out it licenses the public performance rights in the US of over 22.4 million songs and compositions. The rights organization operates per a Consent Decree, citing Article XIV(A) which “requires BMI to quote music users what BMI deems to be reasonable fees and terms for requested licenses. If BMI and a music user are unable to agree on license fees and terms, either party can petition [the court] to evaluate the reasonableness of BMI’s rate quote and, if necessary, set the reasonable fee and terms.”

On May 8, 2023, BMI quoted fees and principal terms deemed reasonable for a BMI license for the period of January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2026, but the parties were unable to reach an agreement. The performance rights organization’s petition to the court asks for determination that the rates it quoted for the license to SiriusXM are reasonable, or an order outlining what reasonable rates would be for the BMI repertoire.

Spotify says it paid out less than 1% of the $10 million or more in royalties associated with an alleged streaming fraud scheme — raising questions about which platform(s) failed to flag the billions of plays at hand. Photo Credit: Alexander Shatov

The plot is thickening in the alleged $10 million+ royalties fraud scheme that came to light earlier this month – Spotify, today’s most popular music streaming platform, claims it paid out less than 1% of the total.

The streaming giant, which reported 626 million monthly active users for Q2 2024, disclosed that decidedly significant information to DMN. As our readers already know, a North Carolina-based musician named Michael Smith was indicted closer to September’s start on charges stemming from an alleged AI- and bot-powered fake stream operation that generated millions in royalties.

Though Smith is the sole defendant at present, he didn’t act alone. With the indictment having mentioned (albeit not by name) two co-conspirators, the individuals were quickly found to be Boomy CEO Alex Mitchell and Indiehitmaker founder Bram Bessoff. (Both share writing credits with Smith on thousands of works.)

ADA-partnered Boomy’s involvement with the alleged crime – or at least the involvement of its CEO – is important on multiple levels. Currently, it’s unclear precisely where the generative AI music platform stands with Warner Music/ADA and how the episode will unfold from here.

Also unclear is exactly how Smith, who’s listed as the writer of over 200,000 works in the MLC database, managed to execute the alleged scheme across the better part of a decade (per the indictment) before being discovered.

Running with that point, questions remain not only on the distribution side, but in terms of the timing of the alleged scheme’s identification and streaming services’ role in evidently failing to flag the involved works.

Beginning on the scheme-identification front, the indictment says the following of how the mechanical payments were purportedly “halted” by the MLC: “In or about March and April 2023, the MLC halted royalty payments to MICHAEL SMITH, the defendant, and confronted SMITH about his fraud. In response, SMITH and representatives acting on his behalf repeatedly lied to the MLC in an attempt to obtain the royalty payments.”

Previously, when DMN reached out to the MLC for further comment, the organization opted against elaborating and instead directed us to an already-issued statement from CEO Kris Ahrend.

Just to reiterate, that statement reads: “The DOJ indictment shines a light on the serious problem of streaming fraud for the music industry. As the DOJ recognized, The MLC identified and challenged the alleged misconduct, and withheld payment of the associated mechanical royalties, which further validates the importance of The MLC’s ongoing efforts to combat fraud and protect songwriters.”

Now, though, new comments from Spotify are spurring scrutiny of the established timetable – and about a possible breakdown in communications between today’s largest music streaming service and the government-appointed entity to which it forwards mechanicals.

At the top level, the situation certainly wasn’t helped by the frayed professional relationship between Spotify and the MLC, which are still embroiled in a high-stakes legal battle over alleged unpaid royalties. According to Spotify, it was extremely successful in identifying and putting a stop to Smith’s alleged scheme on its own platform.

“Spotify invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform,” a Spotify spokesperson told DMN. “In this case, it appears that our preventative measures worked and limited the royalties Smith was able to game from Spotify to approximately $60,000 of the $10,000,000 noted in the indictment.

“As Spotify typically accounts for around 50% of streamshare, this shows how effective we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on our platform,” the spokesperson concluded.

What the response doesn’t specify is when exactly Spotify learned of the alleged fake streams at hand. But judging by the relatively small royalties the platform says it paid Smith, the finding looks to have come early on.

Far from giving us answers, that point actually raises even more questions – including about how the alleged scheme was allowed to proceed, seemingly raking in millions upon millions of dollars in royalties, after today’s on-demand streaming leader was so prompt in identifying the fraud.

More pressingly, assuming Spotify’s representation is true, that means the $10 million or so in royalties – per the indictment, the defendant in a February of 2024 email boasted about scoring even more than that, at $12 million, from four billion plays – had to derive from streams on competing platforms.

Returning once more to the indictment, the legal text notes at its start: “From approximately 2017, up to and including 2024, MICHAEL SMITH, the defendant, orchestrated a scheme to steal millions of dollars of musical royalties by fraudulently inflating music streams on digital streaming platforms (the ‘Streaming Platforms’), such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music.”

“Such as” doesn’t mean “limited to,” but we’re in the process of contacting Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music to get a better idea of how the alleged multimillion-dollar – and multibillion-stream – scheme might have failed to catch the attention of today’s leading non-Spotify streaming players.

Photo Credit: David Rodrigo

Abu Dhabi-based rights management entity ESMAA announces a licensing agreement with streaming platform Anghami, marking the end of the two parties’ legal dispute.

ESMAA, an Abu Dhabi-based rights management entity representing global music stakeholders in the Gulf and Middle East, and Anghami, the leading music and entertainment streaming platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), have announced a new music licensing agreement on behalf of independent music publishers.

The deal marks the resolution of a legal dispute between ESMAA and Anghami, clearing the way for a new joint performance and mechanical licensing agreement based on global practices for representation, reporting, and claims. ESMAA represents the repertoire of PopArabia, including the company’s Arabic music catalog and its global sub-published repertoire, and that of IMPEL, the international collective of music publishers.

This partnership is the first of its kind between international independent music publishers and a domestic streaming service, reaffirming ESMAA and Anghami’s commitment to supporting the music ecosystem in the MENA region, ensuring fair compensation for songwriters, composers, and publishers while delivering exceptional value to consumers.

Dedicated to advancing the music and arts ecosystem in the Gulf region, ESMAA’s mission is to protect the rights of songwriters, artists, and rights owners by providing a solution to licensing their music in the Gulf and Middle East. ESMAA has already licensed music in numerous public spaces, in the retail sector, as well as live events. The rights management entity represents labels, PROs, music publishers, performers, and composers in the region.

Anghami is the leading multi-media technology streaming platform in the MENA region, offering a comprehensive ecosystem of exclusive premium video, music, podcasts, live entertainment, audio services, and more. Since its launch in 2012, Anghami has led the way as the first music streaming platform to digitize MENA’s music catalog, reshaping the region’s entertainment landscape. Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Anghami operates in 16 countries across MENA, with offices in Beirut, Dubai, Cairo, and Riyadh.

Photo Credit: Human Artistry Campaign

The NO FAKES Act has been introduced in the House, and the Human Artistry Campaign endorses the effort, which would create federal IP rights.

The NO FAKES Act (Nurture Originals, Foster Art, Keep Entertainment Safe) has been introduced today in the US House of Representatives by Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL-27), Madeleine Dean (D-PA-4), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX-1), Joe Morelle (D-NY-25), Rob Wittman (R-VA-1), and Adam Schiff (D-CA-30).

First introduced in the Senate in July, the NO FAKES Act creates a federal right of publicity that will protect all Americans against unauthorized digital replicas in the age of AI. The NO FAKES Act aims to accelerate the push for protection against invasive AI deepfakes, voice clones, and other nonconsensual digital replicas, while establishing a system of accountability. Organizations, including the Human Artistry Campaign, have spoken out in favor of the effort.

“The Human Artistry Campaign unequivocally believes everyone deserves a right to their own voice and image. We commend Representatives Salazar, Dean, and their colleagues for their united efforts in making that a reality as unethical AI deepfakes and highly realistic voice clones invade and victimize our communities,” said Human Artistry Campaign Senior Advisor Dr. Moiya McTier.

“The NO FAKES Act is essential to protecting people and our culture while acknowledging long-held exceptions for free speech. As some unethical AI developers move recklessly forward, Congress must pass this bipartisan legislation.”

“The Recording Academy is thrilled to celebrate the introduction of the NO FAKES Act in the House — alignment with the Senate on this bill represents an important step in the bipartisan, bicameral effort to establish a federal right of publicity that will protect artists, creators, and all Americans in this new era of technology,” said Harvey Mason Jr., Recording Academy CEO.

“Since I testified before the House on the impacts of AI on the creative industries this February, it’s been a privilege to be a part of the music community’s work to move the needle on meaningful legislation that ensures AI enhances, not replaces, human creativity. The Academy thanks Reps. Salazar, Dean, Moran, Morelle, Whitman, and Schiff for their leadership of the NO FAKES Act in the House, and we will continue to advocate for music creators by collaborating with Congress to pass this landmark bill into law.”

On a state level, the Recording Academy played a critical role in moving forward both Tennessee’s ELVIS Act and Illinois’ HB 4875, which were both signed into law earlier this year, along with California’s AB 1836, which passed the state’s Senate last week.

Each of these bills updates their state’s right of publicity law to address the emerging challenges posted by generative AI, including protections against the creation of unauthorized digital replicas.

Photo Credit: Dawn Richard with Danity Kane by Jay1095 / CC by 4.0

A former bandmate of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs accuses him of sexual abuse in a new lawsuit that also recounts his abuse of Cassie Ventura.

The latest in the seemingly unending stream of sexual abuse lawsuits filed against disgraced producer and business mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs comes from Dawn Richard, a member of Combs’ Danity Kane and Dirty Money musical groups.

Richard’s lawsuit accuses Combs of sexually abusing and terrorizing her, but also claims she witnessed him beating his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.

According to the lawsuit, shared with Digital Music News on Wednesday (September 11th), Combs’ “persistent abuse” of Cassie included “choking and strangling,” as well as “striking her with his hands and with objects, slapping her, punching her, and throwing items at her, including a scalding hot pan.”

“On many occasions, Ms. Richard tried to intervene, offering Ms. Ventura support and encouragement to leave Mr. Combs,” the lawsuit reads. “Each time, Mr. Combs learned of her efforts to help Ms. Ventura and became enraged, threatening Ms. Richard’s life with statements such as, ‘you want to die today,’ ‘I make n—— go missing,’ and ‘I end people.’”

Further, Dawn Richard accuses Diddy of withholding her earnings, stealing her copyrighted works, and subjecting her to “years of inhumane working conditions which included groping, assault, and false imprisonment.”

Specifically, the lawsuit cites work Richard did with Combs on MTV’s Making the Band 3 and 4, in which Combs allegedly “deprived Ms. Richard and her Danity Kane bandmates of basic needs such as adequate food and sleep.”

“When Ms. Richard or her Danity Kane bandmates requested meals or rest, Mr. Combs refused and chastised them with derogatory comments like, ‘you bitches don’t want this,’ or ‘y’all are not hungry enough,’ and ‘I’m paying you bitches to work.’”

Richard’s lawsuit also recounts an incident in 2005 in which she says she saw another of Combs’ former girlfriends, Kim Porter, crying as she left the studio with her face banged up. This, she says, was when she first realized Diddy was capable of violence. It was a year later that she was present when Combs met Cassie Ventura.

“Coincidentally, this first meeting between Mr. Combs and Ms. Ventura was the first time that Ms. Richard was in Mr. Combs’ presence without a camera crew filming. Observing Mr. Combs behave in such an intimidating, predatory manner the first time that they were off camera made Ms. Richard feel deeply apprehensive and afraid of him.”

So far, Combs and his attorneys have not responded to media requests for comment on the latest allegations against him.

Photo Credit: Diddy for HOTSPOTATL / CC by 3.0

Diddy is slapped with a $100 million default judgment in one of the many sexual assault complaints against him; his attorneys vow to fight back.

It’s been a very busy year for Sean “Diddy” Combs, with numerous sexual assault lawsuits levied against him. Many of these are yet to be settled, but in the latest update, a Michigan inmate has won a $100 million default judgment against the disgraced producer. But Combs’ attorneys were quick to dispute the judgment, vowing to fight back.

Detroit’s Metro Times revealed the award was issued on Monday by a Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge following a temporary restraining order against Combs filed by Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith. The 51-year-old Cardello-Smith is described as a “Michigan inmate known for his long history of challenging the judicial system with civil lawsuits.”

The lawsuit alleges Combs drugged and sexually assaulted Cardello-Smith in 1997 at a party in Detroit. The default judgment was reached when Combs failed to appear for a virtual hearing on Monday; the judge set a payment schedule of $10 million per month, beginning October 1.

Cardello-Smith’s lawsuit states that he met Combs while working at a restaurant in the Detroit area. The duo met a group of women at a party and were having sex with them when Cardello-Smith says he felt a “male hand” touching him, claiming it was Combs. Later, he says Combs offered him a drink, which had been spiked and caused him to pass out. When he awoke, he saw Combs having sex with a woman; Combs allegedly told him, “I did this to you too.”

Marc Agnifilo, an attorney for Combs, disputed both the judgment and Cardello-Smith’s account of events. “This man is a convicted felon and sexual predator, who has been sentenced on 14 counts of sexual assault and kidnapping over the last 26 years. His resume now includes committing a fraud on the court from prison, as Mr. Combs has never heard of him, let alone been served with any lawsuit. Mr. Combs looks forward to having this judgment swiftly dismissed.”

According to a source close to the situation, the lawsuit’s paperwork was sent to an out-of-date address, and Combs did not receive it “in a timely manner.”

Combs has been quick to deny most of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, though he admitted to assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura when video footage of him doing so in 2016 leaked online.

Photo Credit: Jack White by David James Swanson for Sony Music Entertainment / CC by 4.0

Jack White previously threatened to sue Donald Trump over his campaign’s use of the White Stripes’ music, and now he’s made good on that threat.

Jack White has made good on his threat to sue Donald Trump for the use of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” in campaign videos, in a complaint seeking a jury trial filed Monday in New York federal court.

The lawsuit, filed by Jack White and his ex-wife and former bandmate Meg White, states that the pair “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.”

The White Stripes musician had previously commented on Instagram about a post made on the former Twitter by Margo Martin, the Trump campaign’s deputy director of communications. In Martin’s post, she shared a now-deleted video of Trump boarding a plane for rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin, using the White Stripes’ 2003 hit as a backing track.

“Oh, don’t even think about using my music, you fascists,” Jack said on Instagram, along with a copy of Martin’s post. “Lawsuit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.) Have a great day at work today, Margo Martin.” Notably, Martin is also named in the lawsuit.

Jack White is only the latest in a long line of musicians who have publicly expressed discontent with their music being used by Donald Trump and his campaign. Recently, these include Abba, Celine Dion, and Foo Fighters.

But a slew of musicians have also teamed with the Artist Rights Alliance in an open letter calling on US political parties to “establish clear policies requiring campaigns to seek consent” for the music they want to use for their political or campaign events. Musicians to have signed that letter include Aerosmith, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Green Day, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Courtney Love, Linkin Park, Lionel Richie, Sia, and more.

Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

A little over a month out from the one-year anniversary of its start, the copyright suit levied by major music publishers against Anthropic is heating up amid the AI giant’s renewed push for dismissal.

That push, music publisher plaintiffs including Concord and UMPG emphasized in their latest filing, actually marks the second attempt by Anthropic to dismiss the high-stakes case. As many know by now, the courtroom confrontation centers on alleged infringement stemming from the training process behind Anthropic’s Claude product.

The filing companies have pointed to the alleged presence of lyrics in the chatbot’s outputs – and claimed, among other things, that the alleged “massive copyright infringement” helps Anthropic to generate revenue and attract users.

Multiple twists and one time-consuming venue change later, Anthropic last month (again) fired back against the publishers’ push for a preliminary injunction blocking the continued use of lyrics in outputs and in future training.

And now, the music publishers themselves are taking the opportunity to refute Anthropic’s latest dismissal arguments as well as the appropriate motion.

Predictably, given the ultra-important case’s plodding nature, this 33-page refutation doesn’t break too much new ground. Instead, the publishers drove home that Anthropic’s dismissal motion is untimely in part because it arrived before a formal answer to the suit.

Running with the latter idea, the plaintiffs indicated that Anthropic had “deliberately contravened the Federal Rules” by ignoring purported warnings about the timing of its answer (or the lack thereof).

In short, the Amazon-backed AI mainstay is working “to gain a litigation advantage by prioritizing resolution” of the dismissal motion without first answering the complaint.

“When Anthropic answers the Complaint,” the publishers spelled out, “it will have to admit facts that it so far refuses to acknowledge directly, including that Anthropic copied Publishers’ lyrics when training Claude and made no effort to remove those lyrics from its training dataset despite its ability to do so.”

And from there, the publishers took aim at Anthropic’s specific dismissal arguments, which are looking to toss each claim save that involving direct infringement.

“Publishers are not required to name and date every instance of direct infringement to state a claim for secondary infringement,” the plaintiffs reiterated in part. “Publishers plausibly allege that Anthropic’s AI models respond to queries from users seeking copyrighted lyrics—including queries from Publishers’ investigators—by delivering those lyrics as requested.

“That allegation, without naming specific infringing users, is sufficient to set forth a valid claim for secondary copyright liability,” they proceeded.

Furthermore, dismissal would be “especially unwarranted” because the plaintiffs have yet to “discover from Anthropic what other third parties have requested from the Claude chatbot or APIs,” per the precedent-heavy legal text.

Photo Credit: Wesley Tingey

Pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson is being sued for ‘rampant copyright infringement’ by production music house APM.

Major production music company Associated Production Music (APM), jointly owned by Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group, is suing pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson in the Central District of California, Western Division, for alleged “rampant” copyright infringement. Notably, neither Sony nor Universal are named as plaintiffs in the suit.

According to the filing, APM alleges that Johnson & Johnson used copyrighted sound recordings without permission in promotional videos on social media, specifically Facebook, Instagram, the former Twitter, and YouTube. APM claims this use infringes on their exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and publicly perform the recordings.

The production music company says it first learned of the infringement earlier this year and contacted Johnson & Johnson, who allegedly refused to obtain licenses or even admit to any wrongdoing. APM is seeking an unspecified amount in damages, an injunction to stop further infringement, and attorney’s fees, asserting that Johnson & Johnson is liable for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement.

“As a direct and proximate result of [Johnson & Johnson’s] direct infringement of [APM’s] copyrights, Plaintiff is entitled to recover its actual damages, including Defendant’s profits from infringement, as will be proven at trial,” attorneys for APM write. Alternatively, the company claims it is entitled to recover up to $150,000 in statutory damages per infringed work.

APM’s catalog contains over 1 million tracks, which the company says consist of multiple “diverse and in-demand production libraries,” including Bruton, Cezame, KPM Music, Kosinus, and Sonoton. The company’s music has been synced on major entertainment properties such as Westworld, The Americans, Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, SpongeBob SquarePants, and several films and video games.

The lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson reads similarly to other recent lawsuits filed against large US companies for allegedly using unlicensed music in promotional and social media posts.

In July, a group of NBA teams were hit with lawsuits alleging the use of copyrighted music without permission in promo videos posted to the official NBA website and social media accounts. Those suits, filed by Kobalt Music Publishing and other publishers, called out teams including the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets.

Warner Music Group and Blue Spike have disclosed a settlement in principle in their years-running patent legal battle. Photo Credit: Cytonn Photography

Warner Music Group (WMG) has hammered out a settlement in the years-old patent complaint filed against it by Blue Spike. But the latter company’s separate legal action against Universal Music Group (UMG) is still in full swing.

The WMG-Blue Spike settlement came to light in a recent dismissal order from the presiding judge. We first covered the underlying suit (and that levied by Blue Spike against UMG) two years ago to the day.

In short, the Texas-based plaintiff, which per its website possesses north of 100 patents, accused WMG of infringing on four data-protection patents under a Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) partnership. That partnership was announced in 2016 and sought to deliver HD audio to listeners.

Without diving too far into the specifics at hand, Blue Spike played a part in pioneering digital watermarking and explored early software initiatives in collaboration with the majors, per founder Scott Moskowitz’s LinkedIn profile.

Returning to the settlement, a couple years of intense litigating later, Judge Jesse M. Furman in the aforementioned order acknowledged the parties had “advised that all claims asserted herein have been settled in principle.”

Consequently, the court dismissed the suit without costs, nixed all pending motions, and set a 60-day deadline for Blue Spike to reopen the action should the settlement fail to officially wrap. Terms of said settlement haven’t been revealed publicly.

Also as highlighted at the outset, though, a resolution between Blue Spike and Warner Music hasn’t been accompanied by a settlement in the former’s similar-but-separate patent action against UMG.

As described by Blue Spike in a May of 2024 order seeking a 180-day extension for all deadlines, things aren’t going as smoothly in that courtroom confrontation.

“Over the course of this litigation,” Blue Spike and its counsel wrote, “Plaintiffs have diligently attempted to obtain from” Universal Music “the most basic information concerning UMG’s use of the Master Quality Assurance (‘MQA’) encryption system.

“With less than a month remaining before the close of fact discovery,” the filing entities proceeded, “UMG has for the first time disclosed that it has virtually no information about MQA, and that the relevant information is in the hands of third parties, some of whom it has yet to disclose and others of whom are overseas.”

June saw the presiding judge approve the extension motion, and a scheduling conference is now teed up for later this month.

Hardly letting up in the interim, Blue Spike kicked off August with a demand to examine on September 5th “the computer which UMG currently uses to encrypt its files in the MQA format, or in the alternative a computer which has previously been used to encrypt its files in the MQA format.”

It’s unclear whether the desired inspection actually occurred – the docket hadn’t received a related update at the time of writing – but especially with the scheduling conference set, additional details will likely emerge in the near future.

‘Only the songwriters suffer in this messed up, inequitable streaming licensing scheme,’ says Jody Dunitz, a former exec at Sony Music Publishing. Here’s her case for nixing the mechanical, sunsetting the MLC, and shifting the action to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and other PROs.

This year has featured lots of handwringing about Spotify’s bundling antics and their impact on mechanical royalties.  That revenue is taking a big hit.

But don’t cry for the major publishers who oversee 70% of the revenue-earning songs in the United States.  Their paychecks are secured by the label bosses whose streaming revenue hasn’t lessened one bit.

Only the songwriters suffer in this messed up, inequitable streaming licensing scheme.

Given the labels’ dominance of the negotiating hierarchy, song rights revenue can never top 20% of the finite streaming revenue pot.   Subscriber rate hikes mean the pot gets bigger (which Spotify and the labels love), but the song share of the pot doesn’t change.

Against that reality, direct licensing of mechanicals won’t fix anything.  That’s simply a head fake fantasy promoted by the head of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), David Israelite.  It runs contrary to all principles of copyright law. Further, the idea that hundreds of publishers would negotiate thousands of songs separately with each streaming service is ridiculous and would crash the whole streaming business. The NMPA knows it, and the labels know it.

But there are actual practical fixes to this problem.

One is to “update” the US Copyright Act to eliminate the fiction that streaming triggers any mechanical royalty at all.

The simplified solution is to codify the position that the only “right” attached to musical compositions in streaming services is the “public performance” right.  (For the history of mechanical licensing in streaming, sink your teeth into this.)

In such a case, ASCAP and BMI (and the other minor PROs) would negotiate the full song royalty on behalf of all publishers and writers, collect 100% of all monies due, and distribute them through their very efficient payment systems. Combining the rights would take them outside the scope of Section 115’s compulsory license applicable to mechanical (reproduction) rights, eliminate the mess that would engulf direct licensing of mechanicals, and achieve Israelite’s purported goal of “market-based” negotiations.

There’s another huge benefit to songwriters if this reform were to prevail.  The songwriters’ share of performance income flows directly to them.  If all streaming revenue connected to songs were deemed “performance” income, the writers’ share would follow and flow directly to them. The publishers, of course, would hate this idea.

They like the fiction of “mechanical income” because it allows them to collect 100% of royalties so designated and use them to recoup writer advances and other costs. They also love the idea that with direct licensing, they could negotiate advances and non-recoupable fees from Spotify – just like the labels. And the best part is they wouldn’t have to share those monies with the writers, just like the labels keep their collected advances and fees from artists.

Publishers love Israelite’s calls for such action.  Songwriters should hate it.

The other option is to force all content stakeholders—labels, publishers, and songwriters—to arbitrate their respective share of the streaming revenue pot in a single hearing.

The most pernicious aspect of the US scheme for licensing streaming rights is that rates are set separately, in disconnected arenas, for each discrete element of streamed music. The labels negotiate the recordings’ rates directly with the streaming services. A government tribunal (under Section 115) sets rates for streaming mechanicals after long, costly hearings punctuated with obtuse testimonies by competing economists. Lastly, rates for performance income are set by yet another negotiation between the PROs with the services. This is nuts.

The content stakeholders know very well that each of them contributes an indispensable part of streamed music. They understand that these disjointed negotiations can never lead to an equitable split of the whole pot.

So why not adopt the standard app store model?

In the app store model, the platform takes a percentage off the top for its costs and profit margin and the content owners split the rest. Let the labels, publishers, and songwriters negotiate their respective shares among themselves. Employ (through clear legislation) the services of an “arbiter” panel to conduct hearings and allocate the content shares.  The federal copyright tribunal empowered under the current Section 115 has a history of accepting negotiated “settlements” to finalize rate procedures. There is precedent for such negotiations.

The only rub in the arbiter plan is that the songwriters, the most beleaguered community in this brawl, have no authentic industry-wide advocate to conduct negotiations for them.

NMPA is not a trusted agent for songwriters. The only viable industry representatives for songwriters are ASCAP and BMI.

Both are explicitly chartered to serve and protect songwriters (as well as publishers). They are well-funded and experienced negotiators. They should declare their allegiance to songwriters and forsake the publishers for this purpose (who can use their true agent, NMPA). In this mess, they should rise to the occasion and confront the label/publisher cabal obstructing royalty parity.

Both roads lead to a prominent role of the PROs. It is time to fix this debacle.

Photo Credit: Marques Thomas

Verizon is now filing a motion to dismiss the major labels’ infringement lawsuit, calling the entire action ‘legally deficient.’

Verizon claims the major labels’ lawsuit involving the amount of piracy on its network should be tossed out, arguing that the music companies can’t use the “same playbook” that saw them win a similar lawsuit against Cox Communications. According to the telecom provider, the music labels’ allegations rest on a “faulty premise.”

The case, filed in July by Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, alleges that Verizon looked the other way in the face of repeated warnings of piracy on its network. Verizon effectively “[buried] its head in the sand” as its users illegally downloaded and shared music.

Now, Verizon is filing a beefy motion to dismiss the case, one that rips apart a number of major label assertions. According to the filing, viewed by DMN over the weekend, Verizon is calling the entire premise of the lawsuit “legally deficient” in asserting an internet provider should be held liable for its users’ behavior.

“When people do bad things online, their internet service providers are not typically the ones to blame. This lawsuit claims otherwise. The plaintiffs are massive record labels — together worth billions — alleging that some people illegally shared their artists’ songs over the internet. Yet they made a calculated choice not to sue those people,” Verizon’s attorneys wrote.

To prove that an internet provider is liable for secondary copyright infringement would require evidence of “culpable action, not passive inaction,” the attorneys for Verizon continue. “The labels do not allege that Verizon encouraged music piracy or even wanted it to happen. All Verizon did was sell general internet access, which some people abused to share copyrighted music with others.”

Verizon’s attorneys pointed out a 2023 ruling by the US Supreme Court in which it was found that companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter could not be sued for “aiding and abetting” terrorism just because terrorists posted content to social media.

But the labels’ case against Verizon is just the latest in a long series of major lawsuits aimed at ISPs to encourage them to take more proactive steps in eliminating piracy on their networks. Similar cases have been filed against Charter, RCN, and Cox Communications.

“The labels filed this lawsuit because the same playbook has worked against others. But the decisions blessing those lawsuits were wrong then and even less persuasive now,” Verizon’s attorneys wrote. “This complaint should be dismissed.”

A federal judge has granted an appeal request from Kobalt as it faces a push from Spotify to foot a massive damages bill. Photo Credit: Wesley Tingey

With Spotify having scored a victory in a marathon royalties battle against Eminem publisher Eight Mile Style, the presiding judge has temporarily denied the streaming giant’s motion for a massive damages payment from Kobalt.  

Judge Aleta A. Trauger signed the corresponding order today, following a filing in which Kobalt urged the court to reconsider its underlying judgement or, alternatively, pause the damages bill pending appeal. DMN obtained exclusive copies of both legal documents, which have arrived over half a decade after Eight Mile levied the initial complaint.

For some quick background – the convoluted courtroom confrontation is decidedly unsuited for inverted-pyramid writing – that original infringement action named Spotify as the sole defendant, and the Harry Fox Agency was added as a second defendant in a 2020 amended complaint.

Then, Spotify in 2020 targeted Kobalt as a third-party defendant; DMN covered this development and all manner of others in detail. Stated concisely, though, the platform expressed the belief that the underlying allegations lacked merit while also claiming that if anyone should be on the hook for the allegedly due royalties and damages, it was Kobalt.

Fast forward past more than a few twists to mid-August of 2024, when the presiding judge, despite acknowledging that “Spotify’s handling of composer copyrights appears to have been seriously flawed,” partially signed off on the streaming service’s motion for summary judgement (and partially granted Kobalt’s own motion).

Keeping the focus on brass-tacks takeaways in the interest of relative brevity, regarding the terms of Spotify’s 2016 blanket license agreement with Kobalt, the court granted the platform’s summary judgement push for indemnification.

Zeroing in on the definition of “administrator,” the language of the agreement, and a whole lot of related subjects, the judge validated the indemnification clause notwithstanding Kobalt’s opposition.

The latter company, the actual contract spelled out in part, would hold Spotify “‘harmless from any and all third party claims, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses.’” On cue, Spotify filed a (sealed) motion to obtain compensation for a presumably huge legal-fees bill.

“In Spotify’s Motion for Award of Damages (Doc. No. 708),” the court wrote of the sealed motion, “it seeks substantial attorney’s fees, for which it has not submitted itemized attorney time entries, and suggests that the court may find it necessary to rely on a special master if the court seeks such documentation for review.”

Predictably, that expensive-sounding proposal didn’t sit right with Kobalt, which promptly urged the court to reconsider the underlying ruling or, alternatively, certify an interlocutory appeal.

As the third-party defendant sees it, the damages question hinges on the adopted definition of “administer,” and specifically whether the indemnification provision extended to works, like the Eminem compositions, for which Kobalt lacked the stateside authority to issue mechanical licenses.

(In the end, following the expiration of a prior deal, that authority ultimately rested with Bridgeport Music, a distinct publisher “closely associated” with Eight Mile Style, per the court’s order on the summary judgement motions.)

“Does the 2016 BMLA [blanket mechanical licensing agreement] require Kobalt to indemnify Spotify for Kobalt’s failure to license a composition over which it lacked U.S. mechanical licensing authority,” Judge Trauger summed up of the central question at play, “but over which it exercised other rights associated with administration, such as non-U.S. mechanical licensing, worldwide synch licensing (subject to publisher approval), and acceptance of license requests?”

Furthermore, it’d “be in the interests of justice and efficiency to allow the question of liability on those claims” – meaning those on which Spotify prevailed over Kobalt – “to be appealed alongside the other issues in this case,” Judge Trauger wrote.

Consequently, setting the stage for this appeal, the court also ordered judgement to be officially entered on all claims save those in favor of Spotify against Kobalt.

New details have come to light about the co-conspirators in an alleged music streaming fraud scheme. Photo Credit: Sora Shimazaki

Yesterday, a North Carolina-based musician was indicted for allegedly facilitating a massive streaming fraud scheme for the better part of a decade. Now, new details – among them the name of the prominent AI music company CEO with whom the defendant allegedly conspired – are coming to light. Also emerging: the MLC’s Credits Database attributes an astounding 202,000 AI-generated works to the defendant.

On Wednesday, DMN broke the news that North Carolina musician Michael Smith had been slapped with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. According to the indictment, Smith had raked in more than $10 million since 2017 by spinning up thousands of AI-generated tracks and using bots to generate fake streams and royalty payments.

Now, it turns out that Smith wasn’t acting alone. According to prosecutors, Smith could serve up to 60 years behind bars if found guilty on all counts, depending on how this shakes out.  But the affidavit also mentions details on co-conspirators without naming names — though only Smith has been formally charged with a crime so far.

So who else was in on the $10 million heist?

Importantly, while the sole defendant is alleged to have organized the scheme, the indictment doesn’t claim that he acted alone. Rather, the Cornelius, North Carolina-based producer allegedly coordinated with “the Chief Executive Officer of an AI music company” and “a music promoter” to create the hundreds of thousands of songs that made the scheme possible.

We contacted both the MLC and the US Attorney’s Office to determine those identities but couldn’t get any answers. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), which is said to have halted royalty payments to the defendant in March of 2023 due to fraud suspicions, told us it was “unable to comment beyond” the official statement put out by CEO Kris Ahrend.

The MLC isn’t talking, though the fingerprints of at least two co-conspirators can be found in multiple song databases — including the MLC’s own Credits Database.

Hardly opting for a subtle approach, the defendant, having evidently raked in recording and compositional royalties alike, is registered in the MLC database as a writer on a staggering number of works.

Specifically, an astonishing 201,944 “creations” in the MLC database are attributed to Michael Anthony Smith. Digging into the attributions alongside DMN, Billboard unearthed this afternoon the names of Indiehitmaker founder Bram Bessoff and Alexander Mitchell (the founder and CEO of Warner Music-partnered AI music generator Boomy) as co-writers with Smith on thousands of works.

Admittedly, the scope of these joint credits seems relatively small; bearing in mind the almost 202,000 works tied to Smith, Bessoff’s associated with 5,118 works in the MLC database, against 5,119 for Mitchell, search results show.

It’s unclear whether the north of 200,000 AI-generated tracks are included in the 20.16 million songs that Boomy’s created (according to its website, that is) thus far. But in any event, just at the top level, the facts raise interesting questions about the unprecedented impact of the AI music explosion as well as the revenue sources behind it.

Bessoff has opted against publicly addressing the information, reportedly due to “his cooperation in the ongoing investigation.” However, Mitchell in a statement said he was “shocked” with the indictment and insisted that Smith had “consistently represented himself as legitimate.”

That doesn’t quite sound right given some smoking-gun emails and communications details by federal investigators, though this investigation is just getting started.

Moving forward, it’ll be worth keeping an eye out for additional charges, possible effects on the AI music space, and, perhaps most notably, the defense of Smith.

There are, of course, serious ethical issues with using bots to rack up streams on artificial intelligence tracks. Nevertheless, time will tell if the defendant (possibly taking a page from the book of the individual charged in Denmark for alleged streaming fraud) and his counsel attempt to paint the relevant laws as less clear-cut than those covering more traditional crimes.

Furthermore, the case may also be made that this isn’t entirely a criminal matter given that Smith violated a number of contractual terms with platforms like Spotify.

Also worth asking: how did Smith and the gang rack up $10 million in fake plays without anyone — including the MLC and Spotify, among others — even noticing?

More questions than answers, indeed — stay tuned as more foul-smelling solids hit the rotating fan blades.

Photo Credit: Council of Europe

The US, UK, and EU have signed the ‘first-ever international legally binding treaty’ for AI systems to abide by human rights and the rule of law.

The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on artificial intelligence and human rights, democracy, and the rule of law (CETS No. 225) was open for signing today during a conference of the Council of Europe Ministers of Justice in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The convention is the first international legally binding treaty relating to AI, which has been in the works for the past few years and was formally adopted in May, following discussions between 57 countries. The Framework Convention was signed by Andorra, Georgia, Iceland, Norway, the Republic of Moldova, San Marino, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United States, and the European Union.

The convention focuses primarily on the protection of human rights of those affected by AI systems, and is not to be confused with the EU AI Act, which also took effect last month. The EU AI Act formulates comprehensive regulations on the development, deployment, and use of AI systems within the EU market. Founded in 1949, the Council of Europe is an international organization distinct from the EU, with a mandate to safeguard human rights. All 27 EU states are members, with 46 countries in total making up its membership.

“This convention is a major step to ensuring that these new technologies can be harnessed without eroding our oldest values, lie human rights and the rule of law,” said Britain’s Justice Minister, Shabana Mahmood.

“We must ensure that the rise of AI upholds our standards, rather than undermining them. The Framework Convention is designed to ensure just that,” said Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić.

“It is a strong and balanced text — the result of the open and inclusive approach by which it was drafted and which ensured that it benefits from multiple and expert perspectives. The Framework Convention is an open treaty with a potentially global reach. I hope that these will be the first of many signatures and that they will be followed quickly by ratifications, so that the treaty can enter into force as soon as possible.”

The Framework Convention was adopted by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on May 17, 2024. The 46 Council of Europe member states, the European Union, and 11 non-member states (Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, the Holy See, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Peru, the United States of America, and Uruguay) negotiated the treaty. Contributing as observers were representatives of the private sector, civil society, and academia.

The treaty will enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the date on which five signatories, including at least three Council of Europe member states, have ratified it. Countries worldwide will be eligible to join and commit to complying with its provisions.

A North Carolina-based musician has been indicted in connection with an alleged music streaming fraud scheme. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

A North Carolina-based musician is facing criminal charges for allegedly racking up millions in royalties on AI-generated tracks as part of a massive music streaming fraud scheme.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced the indictment as the “first criminal case involving artificially inflated music streaming.” Despite AI music generators’ relatively recent entry into the commercial mainstream, the 18-page indictment indicates that the alleged music streaming fraud scheme kicked off way back in 2017.

Said alleged scheme, extending to Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and YouTube Music alike, even carried on into 2024, delivering a cumulative $10 million or so in royalty payments to which the defendant, one Michael Smith, “was not entitled,” according to the indictment.

As described in the same legal text, Smith took the alleged streaming fraud into high gear by developing a voluminous library of tracks – a move powered by a 2018 tie-up with the head “of an AI music company.”

With this unnamed AI company pumping out (in exchange for a cut of the alleged scheme’s revenue) thousands upon thousands of tracks, Smith allegedly spearheaded a “labor-intensive” effort to register “bot accounts” on the above-mentioned platforms.

Allegedly coordinating with co-conspirators based in the States and abroad, the defendant for obvious reasons allegedly zeroed in on multi-account Family plans and spread streams out across a multitude of AI songs so as to avoid raising suspicion. (Incidentally, Spotify no longer pays recording royalties on uploads with fewer than 1,000 annual streams, a development that may have shifted the math a bit.)

Between 2020 and 2023, the defendant allegedly “transferred $1.3 million in fraudulently obtained royalties to a bank account he controlled at a U.S.-based financial institution.”

From there, the proceeds were allegedly shifted to a Manhattan-based provider of corporate debit cards, which was allegedly misled into believing that made-up names (each tied to an email address and streaming account) were employees of a company owned by Smith.

Moving beyond the many other details associated with the execution of the convoluted alleged scheme, the debit cards were allegedly used to pay for the bots’ streaming subscriptions.

And in 2017, Smith in an email allegedly relayed “that he had 52 cloud services accounts, and each of those accounts had 20 Bot Accounts on the Streaming Platforms, for a total of 1,040 Bot Accounts.

“He further wrote that each Bot Account could stream approximately 636 songs per day,” the indictment proceeds, “and so in total SMITH could generate approximately 661,440 streams per day. SMITH estimated that the average royalty per stream was half of one cent, which would have meant daily royalties of $3,307.20, monthly royalties of $99,216, and annual royalties of $1,207,128.”

While the indictment doesn’t dive too far into rights-related specifics, Smith allegedly lied to his distributor for multiple years when confronted about streaming and royalty abnormalities. (Besides the aforementioned annual-stream minimum at Spotify, the platform is now fining distributors themselves for fake plays.)

Though it’s hardly a new phenomenon for AI music and even non-music uploads (like white noise, which Spotify and others have also cracked down on at the behest of Universal Music Group) to generate recording royalties, the defendant here took things a step further by allegedly raking in compositional royalties to boot.

As described in the indictment, the Mechanical Licensing Collective caught wind of that decidedly bold maneuver and then “halted royalty payments to” the defendant in March or April of 2023.

“Today’s DOJ indictment shines a light on the serious problem of streaming fraud for the music industry,” MLC CEO Kris Ahrend added in a statement emailed to DMN. “As the DOJ recognized, The MLC identified and challenged the alleged misconduct, and withheld payment of the associated mechanical royalties, which further validates the importance of The MLC’s ongoing efforts to combat fraud and protect songwriters.”

Of course, it’s not illegal to create and distribute AI music – provided that the works aren’t infringing on protected media. However, bearing in mind the bot-powered fake-stream allegations and more, the defendant is being accused of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.

How much did Barry Manilow sell his music catalog for? Thanks to new legal filings, we have the answer. Photo Credit: Matt Becker

How much did Barry Manilow sell his music catalog for? Four years after Hipgnosis Songs Fund announced the purchase, a new lawsuit has revealed interesting details including the deal’s size.

Barry Manilow just recently submitted that lawsuit, we reported yesterday, after Hipgnosis in early August reportedly levied a complaint of its own across the pond. In short, the ugly legal battle centers on a bonus-payments dispute stemming from the parties’ 2020 agreement.

Intriguing on multiple levels – including because of its timing – the courtroom confrontation is also providing worthwhile insight into the underlying transaction. Overall, concrete specifics about IP sales are few and far between despite the sub-sector’s steady stream of investments.

With that said, how much did Barry Manilow sell his music catalog for?

Barry Manilow’s Hipgnosis Catalog Deal by the Numbers – The Size of HSF’s One-Time Payment

According to the legal text, Hipgnosis paid Manilow “an upfront one-time payment” totaling $7.5 million.

In keeping with the play’s initial announcement and coverage at the time, the deal extended to the artist’s recording royalties – and specifically, to quote from what’s described as a section of the actual contract, “‘worldwide income, revenue, earnings and financial interests of every type whatsoever from any and all sources and payors, in perpetuity pertaining to the masters [sic] recordings’” at hand.

The Disputed Bonus Payments: Here’s How Much Manilow Says He’s Owed

On top of the $7.5 million, Manilow was to receive a total of $1.5 million in bonus compensation (two payments at $750,000 apiece), per the suit. Predictably, given the action, the one-time Grammy winner alleges that Hipgnosis has failed to cough up the additional pay.

Without digging too far into the language associated with the relevant contractual clause, the convoluted deal seemingly tied the bonuses to 10% year-over-year increases in the revenue Hipgnosis generated from the recording rights.

Running with the description from Manilow and his team, exceeding 10% annual growth for each of the initial three years would unlock $750,000, followed by another $750,000 bonus if the same was true of the first four years post-sale.

How much does Barry Manilow’s catalog generate annually?

Looking beyond the disagreement’s methodology nuances – possibly including contrasting views of whether year-one royalties would set a baseline for future years or whether they themselves would need to increase by 10% from a prior period for bonus eligibility – the text also discloses Hipgnosis’ earnings from the Manilow catalog.

As laid out in the complaint, Hipgnosis “earned $404,388.00 in cash income from the” Manilow masters in the first year, followed by $539,822 in year two, $493,309 in year three, and $550,383 in year four.

Barry Manilow’s Other Qualms With Hipgnosis

Elsewhere in the complaint, Manilow alleges that “false representations” concerning Hipgnosis’ promotional capabilities played a part in his decision to sell – though with a full understanding of the situation, he wouldn’t have pursued the sale.

“Hipgnosis not only failed to make good on its promises to market and promote Manilow’s music,” the text reads in part, “but it lacked skilled and competent personnel to do so. It did not devote an experienced team to pursue this goal, nor could it retain the personnel it did have on a long-term basis.”