Legal
Music Execs Flood to Invest in New Contract Creation Tech
Creative Intell has raised $3 million in seed funding that includes some of music’s top industry veterans for a service that automates how legal contracts are written. As everything from banking to project management has been revolutionized by online platforms, entertainment law remains the domain of Word, Dropbox and email. “This industry is absolutely behind,” says co-founder Steven Ship, who along with co-founder David Fritz of the entertainment law firm Boyarski Fritz is intent on making contracts accessible and understandable for independent musicians and producers while improving the workflow and efficiency of enterprise clients such as law firms. The product is currently in private beta and is expected to roll out to a wider audience this fall. Creative Intell has not revealed its p...
Epidemic Sound Sues Meta For $142M, Says Instagram and Facebook Stole Hundreds Of Songs
Meta Platforms Inc. is facing a lawsuit that claims its Facebook and Instagram platforms “intentionally and brazenly” stole hundreds of songs from Swedish production music label Epidemic Sound, encouraging their users to upload more than 50,000 infringing videos every day. Repped by attorneys at the top music law firm Pryor Cashman, Epidemic says the social media giant is offering nearly 1,000 of the label’s songs through its “Music Library” for users to add to their video uploads, but that Meta has refused to secure copyright licenses for that music — and has ignored the company’s repeated demands that it do so. “Perhaps Meta is hoping to get away with it for as long as possible,” Epidemic’s lawyers wrote in a complaint filed Wednesday (July 20) in San Francisco federal court. “Perhaps Me...
Ye ‘Weaponized Fame’ to Stiff Production Company $7M, Lawsuit Claims
Ye (Kanye West) is facing a new lawsuit that claims he owes $7.1 million in unpaid fees to a production company that worked on his Donda 2 release show as well as his canceled Coachella performance. In a complaint filed Thursday (July 14) in Los Angeles court, attorneys for Phantom Labs say the design and production firm “faithfully performed” the work requested by Ye, deploying “countless hours of in-house talent” and also making advanced payments to numerous other vendors. “Event after event, Ye and his representatives promised that if Phantom continued work on the budgeted and approved projects, Phantom would be paid promptly for the balance and the new work,” wrote Howard King, a well-known entertainment attorney who is repping Phantom. “More recent events have made clear that defendan...
Amber Heard’s Request to Set Aside Johnny Depp’s $10 Million Win Rejected by Judge
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A Virginia judge on Wednesday (July 13) rejected an effort by actress Amber Heard to set aside the $10 million judgment awarded against her in favor of her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. Depp won a defamation suit against Heard last month in a high-profile civil trial. Heard won a smaller, $2 million judgement on a counterclaim she filed against Depp. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Earlier this month, Heard filed a motion seeking to have Depp’s verdict set aside, or have a mistrial declared. Her lawyers cited multiple factors, including an apparent case of mistaken identity with one of the jurors. In a written order, Judge Penney Azcarate rejected all of Heard’s claims and said the juror issue specifically was irre...
Judge Says NBA Youngboy Lyrics Can’t Be Used as Evidence as L.A. Gun Possession Trial Begins
Youngboy Never Broke Again (a.k.a. NBA Youngboy) scored a major victory on the opening day of his Los Angeles trial for firearms possession on Tuesday (July 12), with the judge ruling to exclude the use of the rapper’s lyrics as evidence, defense attorneys confirmed to Billboard. The decision by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner means prosecutors won’t be able to use lyrics from three Youngboy songs — “Lonely Child,” “Life Support” and “Gunsmoke” — to help convict the rapper (born Kentrell Gaulden), who’s charged with possession of a firearm after he was discovered with a loaded FNX-45 gun during a traffic stop in Tarzana, California on March 22, 2021. Among other lines, prosecutors had argued that the lyric “FN, Glock, MAC-10s” from “Gunsmoke” demonstrates the rapper’s “familiarity and...
Three Men Charged With Trying to Sell Stolen Notes for Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’
Decades after Don Henley’s handwritten notes and lyrics for the Eagles album Hotel California were stolen, Manhattan prosecutors have indicted three men who they say tried to profit from the illicit materials. In a statement on Tuesday (July 12), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. said he had charged Glenn Horowitz, 66, Craig Inciardi, 58, and Edward Kosinski, 59, with conspiracy over their efforts to resell and hide the origin of the stolen notes, which include material from “Hotel California” and other iconic songs from the band and are worth more than $1 million. Bragg said that Horowitz even stooped so low as to exploit the 2016 death of Eagles member Glenn Frey by claiming that Frey was the source of the artifacts – a claim he allegedly hoped could not be refuted by the l...
Ricky Martin Denies Restraining Order Allegations in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican superstar Ricky Martin on Sunday (July 3) denied allegations that led to a restraining order against him, with police noting that he has not been charged with any crime. Police said Saturday that a judge had issued the order against Martin, but authorities trying to serve the order were unable to find the singer in the Puerto Rican town of Dorado, where he lives. The order was filed under Puerto Rico’s domestic violence law and police spokesman Axel Valencia said he could not provide further details, including who requested the order. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Martin said in a tweet that the order is based on “completely false” allegations and that he will face the process “with the responsibility that characterizes m...
Amber Heard Seeks to Throw Out Verdict in Johnny Depp Defamation Trial
Amber Heard’s lawyers have asked a judge to throw out the $10.35 million verdict against her in the defamation case filed by ex-husband Johnny Depp, arguing that the verdict was not supported by the evidence and that one of the jurors may not have been properly vetted by the court. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In post-trial motions filed Friday (July 1), Heard’s attorneys call the jury’s June 1 award of $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages to Depp “excessive” and “indefensible.” They ask the judge to set aside the verdict and dismiss Depp’s lawsuit or order a new trial. Immediately after the verdict, the judge reduced the compensatory damages to $350,000 under a state cap. Depp sued Heard for libel in Fairfa...
Google Violated Import Ban in Sonos Patent Case, US Customs Agency Says
Google is still ripping off Sonos’ technology — according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In a public ruling issued Tuesday, the CBP found that Google products including Pixel smartphones, tablets and computers that utilize controller technology invented and patented by Sonos were in violation of a ban issued five months ago by the U.S. International Trade Commission. That previous ruling by the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Google had infringed five audio technology patents owned by smart speaker maker Sonos and banned the tech giant from importing the infringing products from China. Several other products that were previously found to have infringed Sonos patents – including Chromecast, Home and Nest audio players – however, were excluded from the latest ruli...
How Brazil Is Stepping Up to Tackle Digital Piracy and Eying Metaverse Infringement
RIO DE JANEIRO – Authorities in Brazil are finding that fraudsters are using illegal download apps and websites to lure in music fans eager for a stronger connection to specific artists – and then profiting from reams of personal data they are mining from them. London-based IFPI and its recorded-music affiliate, Pró-Música Brasil, have been cooperating with a cybercrime unit of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice for over a year, working to root out services illegally peddling MP3 singles and albums from some of Brazil’s most popular artists, including Alok, Bruno & Marrone, Luccas Neto and Barōes da Pisadinha. Last month authorities shut down 461 illegal download apps and 11 websites — a record haul for a single anti-music piracy operation in Brazil. The apps generated more than 10.2 million...
New Zealand Extends Copyright Term to 70 Years
New Zealand has agreed to extend the term of copyright in sound recordings, a development the domestic music industry is celebrating as a “long overdue change” that should further protect authors, performers and producers. Currently, NZ recording artists and right holders enjoy copyright protection on their recordings for 50 years from the date of release. Those protections will be extended to 70 years, thanks to a NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement — announced this week — which brings New Zealand’s copyright regulations into line with those across the European Union as a trading partner. Recorded Music NZ CEO Jo Oliver welcomes the outcome as one that places domestic artists and rights holders “on a level playing field with their overseas counterparts.” Oliver continues, “copyright enables artist...
Ye Sued Over Sample Used on ‘Donda 2’ Track ‘Flowers’
Ye is facing yet another copyright infringement lawsuit over his unauthorized use of a sample, this time on a track from his most recent album, Donda 2. According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Wednesday (June 29), the rapper (referred to as Kanye West in the suit) sampled Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 house track “Move Your Body” (a.k.a. “The House Music Anthem”) on the song “Flowers” without gaining permission or providing compensation. The suit claims that the sample is “repeated at least 22 times throughout” Ye’s song. Filed by attorneys Christine Lepera and Bradley J. Mullins of the firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, the complaint was brought by Jefferson’s publisher Ultra International Music Publishing. Jefferson both wrote and performed “Move Your Body,” w...
