Photo Credit: Eminem by EJ Hersom for DoD News / CC by 2.0

Eminem’s music publisher, Eight Mile Style, is suing Meta with allegations of widespread copyright infringement on Facebook and Instagram.

Eight Mile Style, Eminem’s music publishing company, has filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging the tech company’s social media platforms allow widespread use of the rapper’s songs without proper licensing.

The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, says Meta has “created and stored” copies of Eminem’s songs on their servers and distributed them to “billions of users” around the world. According to the publisher, the rapper’s songs have been used in millions of videos across Facebook and Instagram that have collectively been viewed “billions of times.”

Further, through Meta’s online tools that encourage creating content based on another user’s content, users can “steal” music from others’ posts for use in their own, “resulting in exponential infringement,” the lawsuit claims.

Eight Mile Style asserts that Meta is “actively encouraging” users to stream the rapper’s music by making his songs available for use on Facebook, Instagram, and the messaging service WhatsApp. These apps’ algorithms also allegedly promote his music directly to users via “For You” pages and “Trending” features.

Eminem’s publisher brought the issue to Meta’s attention previously, the lawsuit claims, which resulted in the tech giant removing several Eminem tracks from its libraries. However, several alternative versions of his song “Lose Yourself,” including a karaoke version, an instrumental piano version, and a cover version, remained available to all users. Other prominent tracks from the artist also remained available—prompting the lawsuit.

“Meta’s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile Compositions is another case of a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a license and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property,” Eight Mile’s lawyers write.

The company is seeking damages, in addition to Meta’s “profits attributable to the infringement,” with maximum statutory damages that Eight Mile claims would exceed $109 million. Further, the company is seeking an injunction to cease further infringement.

The major labels, Suno, and Udio are reportedly negotiating possible settlements in their copyright infringement disputes. Photo Credit: Sebastian Herrmann

Nearly one year after suing Suno and Udio for copyright infringement, the major labels are reportedly exploring possible settlements with the gen AI music platforms – including a licensing and compensation framework.

Rumblings of the potential resolution discussions just recently entered the media spotlight. At the time of writing, however, neither the majors nor the AI-platform defendants had publicly addressed the matter; Suno and Udio didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for publishing.

But according to Bloomberg, the settlement discussions are ongoing, with the majors pushing for licensing fees and “small” equity interests in the AI upstarts. Additional details are few and far between, though the same source claimed that the talks “are happening in parallel.”

This doesn’t exactly come as a surprise given the cases’ considerable overlap and the fact that both Udio and Suno have tapped Latham & Watkins for representation. (Udio is also repped by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.)

That said, it’s unclear whether there’s weight to the same report’s indication that the dual negotiations are “creating a race of sorts to see which” AI company will settle first.

To state the obvious, preventing (extremely) protracted courtroom confrontations can bring inherent advantages.

Here, avoiding even bigger attorneys’ fees would certainly qualify as one such advantage. Meanwhile, the majors would have the opportunity to invoke the resulting terms in licensing talks with other AI platforms, and Suno as well as Udio would put an end to an apparently thorny discovery process.

“Given the complexity of the case, the number of discovery requests at issue—to date, over fifty RFPs from each side— and the number of Plaintiffs and Asserted Works, this process has been a complex one that has required careful attention and compromise on both sides,” counsel for Udio and the majors summed up in an early May update.

Plus, “the parties spent several months negotiating the protocols that govern Plaintiffs’ inspection of Udio’s source code and training data,” they wrote.

With all this said, the settlement “race” description doesn’t necessarily paint a full picture of the situation. Most significantly, Suno and Udio remain adamant that their training processes constitute fair use.

As broken down by DMN Pro, the central argument is deceivingly strong from a legal perspective, and litigation wins aren’t guaranteed for the majors should the cases play out. In other words, it’ll be especially interesting to see whether the rumored back-and-forth resolves the cases and sets the stage for different AI licensing models throughout the wider industry.

Washington’s James Madison Memorial Building, which houses the US Copyright Office (Photo: UpstateNYer)

The battle over who controls the US Copyright Office now heads to the courts. But can ousted Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter litigate her job back? The answer is of utmost importance to the music industry and billions in IP assets — and the focus of this report.

As first reported on Digital Music News, Perlmutter is now suing the Trump Administration and various Trump officials over what she claims was an ‘unlawful’ dismissal. Perlmutter is seeking a court order to reinstate her position, arguing that Trump lacked the legal and Constitutional authority to issue the firing.

(The case, Perlmutter v. Blanche, 1:25-cv-01659, is currently being tracked in DMN Pro’s Music Industry Litigation Tracker; check this page for ongoing developments in this case).

Most of Perlmutter’s filing is focused on procedural arguments, including whether the US Copyright Office is a legislative or executive entity. Arguments over separation of powers and the limits of presidential power abound, though Perlmutter is battling a number of unfriendly precedents.

In this weekly report, we dig into those arguments and consider whether Perlmutter has a case — or whether judges will quickly dismiss the action.

Report Table of Contents

I. An Ousted US Copyright Office Chief Fights Back In Court

II. Perlmutter v. Blanche: An Overview of the Legal Arguments

III. Is This Case a Prayer? A Hard Look at the Merits of This Case – And Similar Legal Battles In Washington

IV. The Problem With a Perlmutter Victory: Strategizing Within the Music Industry Begins

V. Chronology of the Chaos: A Timeline of the US Copyright Office Meltdown – So Far

Please note: the following report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute — thank you!

Fired Copyright Office head Shira Perlmutter, who’s challenging her dismissal in a lawsuit. Photo Credit: USCO

Axed Copyright Office head Shira Perlmutter is suing the Trump administration over her “blatantly unlawful” dismissal – and seeking, among other things, a court order allowing her to remain in the post.

Perlmutter submitted that straightforward complaint yesterday, after she was fired as Register of Copyrights earlier in May. One component of a wider Library of Congress and Copyright Office showdown – more on this in a moment – Perlmutter’s ordered exit arrived days following the firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

In turn, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (one of multiple defendants in the action) was named as Hayden’s replacement on an acting basis. From there, as described by Perlmutter’s action, Blanche “sent two Justice Department officials to the Library of Congress” to begin as the acting Deputy Librarian and acting Register.

Specifically, those DOJ officials are Associate Deputy AG Paul Perkins, tapped to serve as the acting Register of Copyrights, and Blanche’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Brian Nieves (acting Deputy Librarian).

But as the plaintiff sees things, President Trump doesn’t have the “authority to name a temporary replacement Librarian of Congress, much less name a high-ranking DOJ official whose presence offends the constitutional separation of powers.”

“In short, the President’s attempt to name Mr. Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress was unlawful and ineffective, and therefore Mr. Blanche cannot remove or replace Ms. Perlmutter,” the filing party summed up of her position.

Meanwhile, though Perlmutter’s complaint contains several requests for relief, the most noteworthy is that mentioned above, concerning her staying aboard as Register.

The court should “[e]nter a preliminary and permanent injunction ordering that Plaintiff Shira Perlmutter may not be removed from her office as Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office,” the legal text spells out.

Regardless of how Perlmutter’s legal challenge unfolds, it’s safe to say that the broader battle for Copyright Office control involves more than a few moving parts.

In its latest weekly report, DMN Pro broke down the multifaceted situation, which is still replete with unknowns when it comes to policy and, in turn, the optimal approach to lobbying.

Besides the legal questions (and lawsuit) surrounding the shakeup, it remains to be seen whether the aforementioned DOJ officials will stick around in their new posts or soon make way for non-acting replacements.

The timing here is certainly important. Despite the widespread idea that “tech bros” facilitated the Copyright Office and Library of Congress overhaul – Perlmutter’s firing directly followed the release of an AI training report – evidence suggests that the acting replacements are hardly Big Tech proponents.

Photo: Krivitskiy

For those trying to make sense of the post-apocalyptic hell-scape known as the US Copyright Office, we wish you the best.

What started as a tech bro ambush has shifted into an all-out war for control over the US Copyright Office — and the critical policy direction that comes with it. It’s not entirely clear why former US Copyright chief Shira Perlmutter was abruptly fired, though widespread conjecture pointed to the handiwork of tech bro operators like Elon Musk and David Sacks — not to mention the very powerful cadre of pro-AI, Trump-allied tech titans.

The theory sounds logical enough, but why can’t they finish the deal?

As recently-fired Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter launches her legal counterattack against the Trump Administration, we’re guessing the White House will forge ahead with their chosen replacements at the Copyright Office and its umbrella org, The Library of Congress.

But wait: the White House’s interim picks aren’t very pro-AI or pro-tech, raising serious questions about the tech bro puppet master theory. If Musk & Co. directed the dismissal of the more pro-copyright Perlmutter, why aren’t more AI-friendly replacements being named?

Tossing another perplexing incident into the riddle: Trump himself ‘re-truthed’ a rather anti-tech post on Truth Social — from legal ally Mark Davis, who has sharply questioned the copyright-be-damned mantra of the AI class.

As we head into the weekend, some top-ranking Department of Justice officials are assuming positions at both the Library of Congress and US Copyright Office. But is that how this works?

A key argument in Perlmutter’s legal filing is that the White House and Department of Justice lack any authority to fire the head of the Copyright Office. Instead, the head of the Library of Congress has the sole authority to appoint and dismiss the Register of Copyrights, though it should be noted that the President does appoint the Librarian of Congress with Congress’ consent and has the power to remove the Librarian as well.

Perhaps this is procedural quibbling, but it raises the question: will a federal judge issue an injunction and restore Perlmutter to her former post?

If so, get ready to crank the mayhem meter to 11. But will the Trump Administration simply seek another method to dispose of Perlmutter if a judge steps in?

Perhaps the more vexing question for the music industry is whether a restored Perlmutter will have anything close to her previous influence. Shaping copyright policy with a Director-under-attack seems dicey at best, with one policymaker telling DMN that Trump-appointed, pro-copyright people might be the best outcome here.

But who might those people be?

Besides the legal questions (and lawsuit) surrounding the shakeup, it remains to be seen whether the aforementioned DOJ officials will stick around in their new posts or make way for non-acting replacements.

Meanwhile, getting far less attention is a pernicious piece of pro-AI legislation in ‘The One Big, Beautiful Bill.’

‘The One Big, Beautiful Bill’ recently passed the House by the narrowest of margins before heading to the Senate. And buried with the voluminous Bill — at least as currently written — is a dastardly 10-year moratorium on state-led AI regulations. That’s right: by law, states would be prevented from enacting AI regulations of any size or flavor.

It’s a big, beautiful bonus for AI megaliths like Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI, with pesky regulations off the table for a full-blown decade.

As one might expect, state attorneys general are arguing that the moratorium would be “sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI.” In a recent open letter to Congress, they point out that the absence of federal protections means states are often a first line of defense against technological harms—including those impacting personal identity, privacy, and creative rights.

On the AI side, the argument is that over-regulation will kill technological development and competitiveness with rivals like China. Of course, the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ still has a gigantic Senate hurdle, and plenty of changes are likely to occur. Can pro-copyright forces — not to mention state AGs — remove or soften the 10-year provision?

Sadly, this isn’t the best of times for copyright defenders like the NMPA, RIAA, and others.

The Trump Administration has its copyright defenders and big tech challengers, but can music’s well-heeled lobbyists steer this ship towards a zone of content protection and compensation? Part of the problem is Hollywood, which is ardently anti-Trump and, well, Californian.

That anti-Trump energy has certainly dominated the music side as well. However, DMN keeps hearing that the music industry would be wise to fire up its Nashville contingent, including its Red State superstar musicians, to shift the discussion. Incidentally, that includes Trump pals like Kid Rock, who flanked the president during his ratification of the momentous Music Modernization Act during the first term.

Perhaps it’s time to roll out that game plan again in the more critical battle against AI?

More as this chaotic situation develops.

Photo Credit: US Copyright Office

It looked like a quick solution to a nagging roadblock for AI’s tech bros. But gutting the US Copyright Office and its IP protections is proving trickier than originally planned. Here’s the latest in the fast-moving and quickly-shifting battle over control of IP’s most important government agency.

Just one week after a shocking shakedown at the US Copyright Office and Library of Congress, things might be going sideways for the tech bros. Suddenly, the premise that Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter was fired at the whim of tech bros is coming under question. Or, perhaps Elon Musk and associates – including White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks – are exerting far less influence over this situation than originally imagined.

Enter the appointed replacements, none of whom are ardently pro-AI, to say the least. According to details now confirmed by the Department of Justice, Trump allies Paul Perkins, Brian Nieves, and Todd Blanche are filling key roles at the Library of Congress and USCO – at least for now.

A huge question is whether these appointees will stick around, or whether they are merely transitional figures. But aside from the Constitutional questions surrounding Trump’s appointed replacements, an interesting question surrounds the philosophies of all three — in particular their tough attitudes towards tech.

Chili’s parent Brinker International has finalized agreements in principle to settle infringement complaints from the Beastie Boys and Universal Music. Photo Credit: Saiflee100

Copyright conflicts resolved: Chili’s parent Brinker International has officially moved to settle a pair of infringement actions centering on social media promo videos.

Counsel for Brinker and each of the plaintiffs just recently informed the court (or more specifically courts) of the settlements in principle. Both actions, one filed by the Beastie Boys, the second levied by Universal Music, kicked off last year.

And as noted, the similar complaints revolve around the defendant’s alleged infringement of protected music in adverts. As many know, this type of litigation – which has hit energy drink companies, NBA teams, AHL teams, Marriott (though the company quickly settled), and a number of others yet – is increasingly common today.

But now, it looks as though there will be two fewer suits to track here. Beginning with the surviving Beastie Boys members’ comparatively concise claim, alleging the unauthorized use of “Sabotage,” a May 7th mediation session is said to have delivered a settlement agreement in principle.

As things stand, the appropriate parties say they’re finalizing the resolution’s particulars and intend to formally move for dismissal by July 7th.

Shifting to Universal Music’s comparatively sweeping action – alleging the infringement of a variety of recordings and compositions – a separate May 7th mediation also brought about a settlement in principle. Like in the Beastie Boys v. Brinker’s battle, the major and the Chili’s operator plan to put the finishing touches on the resolution by July 7th.

It probably doesn’t need saying given that the settlements aren’t yet wrapped, but the exact terms at hand are unclear. However, it’ll certainly be worth keeping an eye on the once-off legal expenses identified in Brinker (NYSE: EAT) earnings reports moving forward.

Closer to the present, recent months have brought several additional infringement showdowns involving social platforms, where, in general, song libraries are pre-cleared for personal but not commercial use.

Unsurprisingly, in light of the above-described litigation volume in this area, it’d take quite a while to provide updates on each case. Just in passing, Crumbl is expected to answer Warner Music’s infringement suit by June’s end; WMG’s even newer action against Designer Shoe Warehouse is still in its early stages.

Bringing the final major into the fold, then, Sony Music is alleging largescale infringement on the part of the University of Southern California, which now has until June 6th “to file a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and for improper venue,” the docket shows.

Universal Music Group is firing back against the copyright-recapture lawsuit filed by Salt-N-Pepa. Photo Credit: David Burke

Let the copyright-recapture battle intensify: Universal Music is firing back against Salt-N-Pepa’s newly submitted lawsuit. Meanwhile, the hip-hop group has redacted sensitive details from its action.

We broke down the straightforward-enough suit at length moments after its filing. Long story short, Section 203 of the Copyright Act is said to allow certain entertainment professionals (not solely musicians) to terminate copyright transfers executed under non-work-for-hire agreements more than 35 years ago.

Translation: Some legacy acts (and a few actors) are moving to assume ownership of IP covered by decades-old agreements. Unsurprisingly, the increasingly common step isn’t sitting right with the majors and others, which have opposed the maneuver in no uncertain terms.

(Nevertheless, the likes of Dwight Yoakam and Southside Johnny have quietly settled recapture complaints levied against the majors.)

Returning to Salt-N-Pepa’s allegations, the original action, we previously noted, features as exhibits copies of the relevant agreements as well as related communications with Universal Music execs.

UMG brass in one such letter seemingly argued that Salt-N-Pepa’s sought terminations were both time-barred and invalid because members Cheryl James and Sandra Denton hadn’t themselves transferred the copyrights under the appropriate contracts.

Another document, dated July 2024, looks to outline terms under which Universal Music would continue exploiting the contested works while the recapture showdown unfolded. Last month, push evidently came to shove, and UMG when replying to another recapture letter said it’d halted “all U.S. exploitation of the” recordings at issue.

Bearing these points in mind, the major in responding to the action described the complaint’s exhibits as indicative of “repeated attempts to resolve this matter amicably.”

“As indicated by Salt-N-Pepa’s own legal filings,” a UMG spokesperson told DMN, “Universal Music Group has made repeated attempts to resolve this matter amicably, including offers to enter into a mediation, ever since the artists served an invalid termination notice.

“Although we had no legal obligation to do so, we still sought to find a way to improve the artists’ compensation and pay them directly, even after they had sold their royalty streams to a third party.

“Clearly, the artists’ legal counsel thinks they can use the threat of negative media coverage to achieve their unreasonable demands. Despite this, and consistent with our longstanding practice, we remain committed to working towards an amicable resolution,” the rep concluded.

Time will, of course, tell whether that amicable resolution materializes. Closer to the present, the presiding judge has now granted Salt-N-Pepa counsel’s mentioned redaction request.

Unfortunately, evidence suggests that the approval is too little, too late; the green-lit redactions seemingly pertain to Social Security numbers that the original complaint already revealed in full.

Photo Credit: Wesley Tingey

Part I of this article discussed the different type of works and copyright rights in music. In Part II, we discussed different types of music licenses. In this final part of the article, we’ll discuss what happens when someone does not have a license to use the musical work or sound recording and the use is not otherwise allowed by the law. This is known as copyright infringement.

When is a Musical Work or Sound Recording Infringed?

Anyone who, without the authorization of the copyright owner, engages in an act that is covered by one or more of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is an infringer of copyright unless:

1. The musical work or sound recording is not protected by copyright (for example, if it’s in the public domain); or
2. The act is permitted by an exception in copyright law.

In other areas of law, in order to be culpable, the actor must have had knowledge or intent to do the wrongful act. Not so in copyright. Copyright infringement is determined without regard to the intent or the state of mind of the infringer. In other words, it makes no difference whether the infringer knew what they were doing constituted copyright infringement. The only time that the actor’s state of mind may come into play is when a court is determining how much money in to award to a copyright owner in damages for the infringement.

How To Prove Copyright Infringement

Courts usually require a copyright owner to prove that they owned the copyrighted work, and the defendant violated one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. In a case where infringement of the reproduction right is alleged, since there is seldom direct evidence of the offending act, a copyright owner may prove infringement through circumstantial evidence establishing that: (1) the defendant had access to the original work, and (2) the two works are substantially similar.

It is not necessary that the entire musical work or sound recording be copied for an infringement of the reproduction right to occur, nor that the copying be literal. All that is necessary is that the copying be substantial and material and that protected expression is copied. Likewise, the similarity between the two works must also be a similarity of protected elements, not unprotected elements. For example, in music, this means that copying of common musical ideas like chord progressions or basic scales will not qualify as copyright infringement, but copying of more unique melodies might.

The portion taken by the alleged infringer must also be more than a trivial amount to qualify as infringing. In music, this issue usually arises in the context of sampling. In most instances, a license is needed to use a sample of another song in your song. Typically, sampling (without a license) is only permissible in very limited circumstances, where the quantity and quality of what is taken is considered to be insignificant. 

Remedies for Copyright Infringement

If one or more of the exclusive copyright rights of the owner of a musical work or sound recording have been infringed and the copyright owner wishes to seek monetary damages and profits, attorneys’ fees, and/or an injunction, they can initiate a lawsuit in federal court against the alleged infringer for civil copyright infringement. Before a copyright owner can initiate a copyright infringement suit in federal court, they must have applied for a copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office for the work at issue in the case and the Office must have rendered a decision om the copyrightability of that work by either issuing a registration or rejecting the application on copyrightability grounds. 

The various remedies for copyright infringement in federal court are available to copyright owners who registered their works in a timely fashion. These remedies are explained in detail below.

• Injunctions: In federal court, a copyright owner may seek a preliminary or permanent injunction to prevent or restrain the infringer from continuing the infringement. Courts often grant permanent injunctions where liability is established and there is a threat of continuing infringement.
• Damages: At any time before final judgment is rendered, a copyright owner may elect to recover either (i) actual damages and profits of the infringer or (ii) statutory damages (i.e., damages determined by the statute, here the Copyright Act). Actual damages may be awarded in the amount of the copyright owner’s losses plus any profits of the infringer attributable to the civil copyright infringement. Statutory damages are only available when the copyright owner registers their work with the U.S. Copyright Office either (1) within three months of publication of the work, or (2) before the infringement starts. Statutory damages in federal court may be awarded in an amount between $200 and $150,000 per work infringed, with the former available only for “innocent infringers” and the latter available in cases of willful infringement. Remember, intent is not necessary to prove infringement, but it is factored into a court’s analysis on damages. 
• Court Costs and Attorneys’ Fees: Federal courts have discretion to allow the recovery of full court costs by or against any party, including the awarding of reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party under certain circumstances. However, plaintiff copyright owners cannot be awarded attorneys’ fees unless they have timely registered their works with the U.S. Copyright Office.
• Impoundment and Destruction: Federal courts may order the impounding of infringing goods at any time an action is pending. As part of a final judgment, the court may also order the destruction or any other reasonable disposition of the infringing goods.

An Alternative to Federal Court—the Copyright Claims Board (CCB)

The Copyright Claims Board (CCB) is a voluntary alternative to federal court for resolving certain types of small copyright disputes. The total monetary damages that can be awarded by the CCB is limited and cannot exceed $30,000 in one case and $15,000 per work. The CCB also cannot issue injunctions. However, if the parties reach an agreement where one party agrees to cease a particular conduct, the CCB can include a requirement in its final determination that the party abide by the agreement to cease the conduct. As a general rule, at the CCB, parties must pay their own attorneys’ fees and court costs. The CCB is often used instead of federal court where the infringement is not a large amount and/or the copyright owner may not be able to afford the cost of litigating in federal court.

Conclusion

Obviously, there is much more that we could discuss when it comes to music copyright. After all, there are many books written on the topic. Hopefully, the information provided in the three-part series offer a strong foundation for you to understand your basic rights and how to license your music to someone and what to do if they use it without your permission. It may have also sparked an interest to learn even more about music copyright. 

If you’re still looking for more information, here are few additional resources from the U.S. Copyright Office that we’d recommend:

• What Musicians Should Know about Copyright
• How Songwriters, Composers, and Performers Get Paid
• Musical Works, Sound Recordings & Copyright
• Sampling, Interpolations, Beat Stores, and More: An Introduction for Musicians Using Preexisting Music

If that’s not enough, two other books you might find helpful include All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald S. Passman, which includes information about the legal financial and practical information about music copyright and is considered by many to be the industry bible on music copyright; and Music Money and Success by Jeffrey and Todd Brabac, which includes detailed information about licensing and royalties. 

And don’t forget to join the Copyright Alliance’s FREE Creator Membership to continue your educational journey on how to protect your creative work.

A live performance from Ed Sheeran, whose legal team is urging the Supreme Court to reject a cert petition in a marathon ‘Thinking Out Loud’ copyright dispute. Photo Credit: Mark Kent

Ed Sheeran is firing back against a Supreme Court cert petition in one of multiple “Thinking Out Loud” copyright suits. As the artist and his team see things, reversing the courts’ prior decisions could set the stage for a tidal wave of speculative infringement actions.

Defendants including Sheeran just recently made their position clear in a 31-page brief opposing an appeal from Structured Asset Sales (SAS). The latter has an interest in the Marvin Gaye hit “Let’s Get It On” and, alleging unauthorized overlap with the aforementioned Sheeran track, fired off a related infringement suit the better part of a decade ago.

Technically, this marathon legal battle is distinct from the similar complaint spearheaded by the estate of “Let’s Get It On” writer Ed Townsend. An appellate court closed out 2024 by denying a rehearing request in the SAS action – evidently laying the groundwork for the filing party to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

As we previously explored in greater detail, the confrontation centers specifically on protectable elements of deposited works under the Copyright Act of 1909.

Ultimately amended by the 1976 Act, the more than century-old copyright law required “two complete copies of the best edition” of a published work (meaning sheet music here) to be deposited with the Office to receive protection.

The 1976 update officially brought recordings into the fold (effective in 1978, that is) for compositional deposit copies, but “Let’s Get It On” was registered in 1973. And while it probably doesn’t need saying given the nearly eight years of litigation at hand, the point proved important.

Though the complaint alleged infringement of certain elements (like the bass line) contained in the “Let’s Get It On” recording, the courts in many more words found that the claims must be confined to the actual handwritten deposit copies.

“The Copyright Office has claimed that the 1909 Act registration deposit strictly delimits the scope of copyright in a work,” SAS vented in its initial cert petition. “In fact, nothing in that Act states that the deposit defines scope—no court ever limited a copyright based on a deposit for over 100 years until Led Zeppelin.”

Letting the brief from Sheeran and his counsel take the wheel, then, the purportedly “plain wrong” Structured Asset Sales is allegedly overlooking more than a century of well-established precedent.

“For over a century,” Team Sheeran wrote, “as evidenced by consistent case law and even by copyright treatises, there has been nothing ‘unsettled’ about the scope of copyright protection for musical works being limited to what is literally expressed in the ‘complete copies’” deposited with the Copyright Office under the 1909 Act.

“The self-serving free-for-all Petitioner posits would foment vast uncertainty and encourage rampant speculation, decades after the fact (and, in many cases, such as this one, long after the death of the composer in question), regarding the composer’s supposed intentions,” Sheeran and others continued.

“It would expand copyright infringement litigation to encompass elements appearing nowhere in deposited sheet music under the 1909 Act, nor in deposited recordings under the 1976 Act, so long as an expert is willing to suggest that such elements can be implied,” the respondents drove home.

More than 300 music industry lawsuits updated daily. US-based jurisdictions with global cases coming soon.

Anthropic counsel has apologized for a citation ‘hallucination’ in an expert testimony submitted as part of a copyright battle with music publishers. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

Time to lay off the use of AI in legal documents? Amid a high-stakes copyright battle with music publishers, Anthropic attorneys have apologized for an apparent citation “hallucination,” pinning the blame mainly on Claude.

We broke down the citation crisis after counsel for the music publisher plaintiffs formally voiced related concerns to the court. Anthropic data scientist and expert witness Olivia Chen, the publishers maintained in more words, had seemingly referenced a non-existent academic paper.

Unsurprisingly, the serious allegation prompted the presiding judge to order an explanation on the part of Anthropic. And this explanation arrived in the form of a declaration from Latham & Watkins associate Ivana Dukanovic.

The way Dukanovic tells the story, an internal investigation confirmed “that this was an honest citation mistake and not a fabrication of authority.”

Running with the point, the Anthropic attorney indicated that the relevant American Statistician citation “includes an erroneous author and title, while providing a correct link to, and correctly identifying the publication, volume, page numbers, and year of publication of, the article referenced.”

So what happened? Well, according to the same declaration, Claude took some liberties when citing not just the American Statistician article, but other sources used in Chen’s testimony.

“After the Latham & Watkins team identified the source as potential additional support for Ms. Chen’s testimony,” Dukanovic penned, “I asked Claude.ai to provide a properly formatted legal citation for that source using the link to the correct article.

“Unfortunately, although providing the correct publication title, publication year, and link to the provided source, the returned citation included an inaccurate title and incorrect authors,” she continued.

Claude is also said to have fumbled with “additional wording errors” in different citations. Though so-called AI hallucinations aren’t exactly rare – including in legal settings – the situation certainly draws attention to the law firm’s review approach.

“During the production and cite-checking process for Ms. Chen’s declaration,” Dukanovic weighed in here, “the Latham & Watkins team reviewing and editing the declaration checked that the substance of the cited document supported the proposition in the declaration, and also corrected the volume and page numbers in the citation, but did not notice the incorrect title and authors, despite clicking on the link provided in the footnote and reviewing the article.”

These remarks may raise more questions than they answer. Chief among them: If one has to make all sorts of corrections to AI-powered legal citations, wouldn’t it be preferable to tackle the process without consulting a chatbot?

And at the risk of throwing salt on the imaginary-citation wound, it’s safe to say the reviewing team’s performance left something to be desired.

But as the (incorrectly) cited article actually exists, the “embarrassing and unintentional mistake” doesn’t mean “Chen’s opinion was influenced by false or fabricated information,” per the text.

“We have implemented procedures, including multiple levels of additional review, to work to ensure that this does not occur again,” added Dukanovic.

DMN asked Claude about the episode, and even it advised against using LLMs for legal citations.

“Regarding citation hallucinations more generally – this is a known limitation of large language models like myself,” Claude responded. “When asked to provide citations, if I don’t have perfect recall of specific sources, I might generate what seem like plausible citations based on my training patterns rather than accurate bibliographic information.

“For any situation requiring accurate citations, the best practice would be to use dedicated academic search tools and databases rather than relying on an AI system to recall specific publication details from memory,” Claude continued.

Cover of the US Copyright Office’s latest update of ‘Copyright and Artificial Intelligence,’ pre-released just prior to Shira Perlmutter’s firing. The report’s recommendations may be getting shelved.

The music industry is battling another flurry of AI-related developments, with few positive developments for IP owners and creators. Here’s a look at the latest tumult in the AI world — and the industry’s possible next steps.

Those in the music industry hoping for an ‘ethical AI’ future were dealt serious blows over the past week, with concepts like permission-based training, fair use limitations, and creator compensation potentially tossed out the window. This DMN Pro Weekly report examines what just happened at the US Copyright Office, the latest proposed legislation surrounding AI training, the political underpinnings at work, and possible next steps for music publishers, label groups, IP owners, and artists.

Table of Contents

I. What Just Happened at the US Copyright Office – And What It Might Mean for the Music Industry

II. Unfettered AI: Will the Tech Bros Get Their Way?

III. Hollywood’s Hate Affair With DC: Can the Music Industry Chart a Different Path?

IV. The Music Industry Mafia, v2.0: How a Self-Regulating Industry Can Address AI Problems

The following report is for DMN Pro subscribers only. Please do not redistribute. Thank you!

In Part I of our Understanding Copyright in Music series, we explored the different types of works and copyright rights in music. In Part II we’ll discuss different types of music licenses.

There are many kinds of music licenses. What and how you license will depend on the type of work you are licensing—whether it is a musical work or sound recording (or both)—and what kinds of uses you are allowing the licensee to do with your work. Below is a list of several types of music licenses and how they are used:

Public Performance License

A public performance license grants someone permission to play a song in public, whether to a live or online audience. Recall that a performance is considered “public” when the work is performed in a public place, at a place where a substantial number of persons outside a normal circle of friends and family are gathered, or is transmitted to the public. If someone wants to publicly perform a musical composition, they must obtain a public performance license to do so. 

The owners of the public performance right in the underlying musical work typically authorize a Performance Rights Organization (or PRO), such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR, to license these rights. As discussed in Part I, owners of sound recordings only have a public performance right when the performance occurs by means of a digital audio transmission. That right is administered by Sound Exchange. But no license would be required when the transmission of the sound recording is by a terrestrial or other non-digital transmission, for example over broadcast radio. 

Mechanical License 

A mechanical license grants someone permission to reproduce and distribute a copy of a musical work and is required when someone wants to create and distribute copies of a song—whether in physical or digital form or whether it’s a recording of an original song or a cover version. This is because in all these examples, the musical work is being copied or a copy of it is being distributed. For example, if someone wants to use the musical work in a CD, a vinyl record, or a digital download of a song, they’ll need a mechanical license.

The Mechanical Licensing Collection (MLC) administers blanket mechanical licenses for musical compositions to eligible digital streaming and download services. A “blanket license” is a single license that allows the licensee to use any musical work in a catalogue. In the case of The MLC, the blanket license covers all musical works in the United States. The alternative to a blanket license is song-by-song licensing, which requires a licensee to obtain a license for every song they want to use on an individual basis. The blanket license covers interactive streams, limited downloads, and permanent downloads. The MLC does not administer public performance licenses for musical compositions (including for digital radio, or “non-interactive” streaming), and does not administer any rights for sound recordings.

Other organizations also administer mechanical licenses for other uses. For example, the Harry Fox Agency issues licenses for creating and distributing cover songs. Mechanical licenses can also often be obtained directly from the music publisher.

Print License

A print license is a license that allows someone to rearrange, print, or display the music notes or lyrics of a musical work in print. This type of license is required to reproduce or display sheet music or lyrics of a song in printed form. The difference between a mechanical license and a print license is that a mechanical license covers audio reproductions, while a print license covers printed reproductions.

Synchronization (“Sync”) License

A synchronization license (“sync” license) is a license that allows someone to use a musical composition along with a video in an audio-visual work. For example, a songwriter or music publisher would grant a sync license to someone who wants to use a song in a video format, such as a movie, TV show, advertisement, or video game. It would not give them the right to use a sound recording of that musical composition. In order to use the sound recording in the audiovisual, the licensee would also need to obtain a master use license from the owner of the sound recording rights. 

Master Use License

A master use license is a license that allows someone to use a particular sound recording in, for example, a movie, television show, or advertisement. Master use licenses are usually available from the record label. Many of the licenses listed above are particular to and only apply to the musical work. The master license is different in that it a license that someone gets from the owner of the master recording of the sound recording. 

Understanding Licenses is Important to Getting Compensated and to Protect Your Music

Understanding your rights and the various types of music licenses is important since the terms of those licenses will specify what rights you are licensing and how someone is allowed to use your musical work or sound recording. These licenses will also specify how much and when you will be paid for allowing such use (i.e., your royalties) and for how long these payments will continue, as well as many other aspects that govern the relationship between you, the music licensor, and the person or entity who is using your music, the licensee.

Don’t stop your copyright education here! Be on the lookout for Part III of our Understanding Copyright in Music series, and also be sure to check out Copyright Alliance’s FREE Creator Membership for additional educational resources.

Photo Credit: Anthropic

The high-profile copyright lawsuit between major music publishers and Anthropic’s chatbot Claude just took a dramatic turn. Anthropic’s legal counsel is accused of submitting a court filing containing AI-generated hallucinations to an academic citation that does not exist.

Today a federal judge in San Jose ordered Anthropic to address allegations that one of its expert witnesses referenced a non-existent academic paper in the company’s court filing. The citation is purportedly from the journal American Statistician and was included in the filing to bolster Anthropic’s argument that the reproduction of copyrighted song lyrics is a “rare event.”

Attorneys representing Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO discovered that the cited article from the court filing does not exist. Upon checking with both the alleged author and the journal, the plaintiffs confirmed the citation was a complete fabrication. Attorney Matt Oppenheim, who represents the music publishers, suggested that expert witness Olivia Chen relied on Anthropic’s own AI tool Claude to generate both the argument and supporting authority.

Oppenheim stopped short of accusing Chen of deliberate misconduct, but he emphasized the seriousness of submitting a court document citing AI-generated falsehoods in court. Meanwhile, Anthropic’s legal team has characterized the incident as an accidental citation mistake, noting the incorrect citation seemed to reference the correct article but linked to a different one entirely.

Music publishers allege that Anthropic unlawfully used lyrics from hundreds of songs from Beyoncé to The Rolling Stones to train Claude—and that Claude often returns the lyrics verbatim in response to certain user prompts. This isn’t the first time AI-generated hallucinations have ended up in court, either.

One of the first incidents was the Mata v. Avianca case in New York in 2023. Two New York attorneys representing a plaintiff in a personal injury suit against Avianca Airlines used ChatGPT to generate their legal research. The AI produced several non-existent cases, which the attorneys cited in their filings. After a judge discovered those fabrications, he issued a $5,000 sanction against both.

At least seven cases across the United States have seen courts question or discipline lawyers for submitting AI-generated hallucinations in their legal filings.

Photo Credit: Shira Perlmutter, the 14th Register of Copyrights, by David Rice

Donald Trump fires Shira Perlmutter, who leads the US Copyright Office, just after the release of a three-part report on artificial intelligence.

President Trump has fired Shira Perlmutter, who heads the US Copyright Office as the 14th Register of Copyrights. The news was reported by several outlets and confirmed by Democratic Representative Joe Morelle on the Committee for House Administration.

Perlmutter took her position back in 2020 during the first Trump administration, and was appointed by Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. Hayden was also fired by Trump this week.

“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” said Morelle. “It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

Morelle also linked to a pre-publication draft of a US Copyright Office report released last week—the third part in a longer report—that focuses on copyright and artificial intelligence. The report outlines that, while each case’s outcome cannot be pre-judged, there are limitations on the amount that AI companies can count on “fair use” as a defense when training their large language models (LLMs) on copyrighted work.

“Making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” the report reads, pointing out that research and analysis use cases would probably still be allowed.

Further, the Copyright Office suggests that government intervention would be “premature at this time,” but hopes that “licensing markets” where AI companies pay copyright holders for access to their content should continue to develop. “Alternative approaches such as extended collective licensing should be considered to address any market failure.”

AI companies, including OpenAI, are under fire with numerous lawsuits accusing them of copyright infringement. OpenAI has asked the US government to codify a “copyright strategy” that would provide AI companies with extra wiggle room regarding fair use. The Copyright Office’s recent report suggests that won’t be happening the way the companies may have hoped—but Trump may hope to change that with his onslaught of firings.

“Now tech bros are going to attempt to steal creators’ copyrights for AI profits. This is 100% unacceptable,” wrote attorney Mike Davis on a post on Trump’s Truth Social, linking to CBS News’ coverage of the firing. Strangely, Trump “ReTruthed” the post, despite the fact Davis appeared to be criticizing the move.

“Tech bro” and Trump ally Elon Musk is both a co-founder of OpenAI and that of a competing company, xAI, which is merging with the former Twitter. He has expressed support for Square founder Jack Dorsey’s call to “delete all IP law.”

Photo Credit: ThoroughlyReviewed / CC by 2.0

Snapchat owner Snap Inc. has finalized a broad number of licensing agreements with major music publishers, according to details tipped to Digital Music News.

The yellow ghost isn’t ghosting music publishers — according to signed agreement details shared with Digital Music News.

Per paperwork that somehow found its way to DMN’s place of business, Snapchat owner Snap Inc. is signing deals with a bevy of music publishers under deal terms structured by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA). And for those who enjoy counting Benjamins, this is a juicy pot of revenue of nearly $15 million over two years.

Even better for the biz: apparently, this is the latest in a string of licensing agreements involving Snap, a decision that removes the need for those pesky, multi-year lawsuits. That hasn’t been the case with X, née Twitter, which has refused to pay for music licensing and remains locked in a legal battle with major music publishers led by Bob Valentine’s Concord Music Publishing and the NMPA.

Incidentally, Snap’s more cooperative stance could be paving the way for some high-profile artist collaborations ahead. In that light, which massive artist is planning a major event with Snapchat as soon as this week? — Stay tuned.

NMPA chief David Israelite confirmed to Digital Music News that this isn’t the first deal between music publishers and Snap Inc. — far from it.

Instead, this is simply the latest re-up of a longstanding licensing agreement, meaning the terms were ironed out years ago and inked multiple times.

Shifting to the dollar amounts involved, the blanket agreement covers a two-year span and a guaranteed pot of $14,660,010. The opt-in agreement window lapsed in March after a 90-day window, and participating publishers will claim their share of the purse based on a pro-rata, market share calculation.

For Snap and its collection of properties, this deal looks all-encompassing.

Beyond the core Snapchat app, the licensing agreement also covers Bitmoji and Zenly and associated players, pages, apps, websites, tools like Lens Studio, and Messaging products — though it looks like the Snapchat kitchen sink isn’t included.

Ted Suh, Head of Music Partnerships at Snap, appears to have been quarterbacking the deal for the social media platform. Snap declined to comment on the licensing agreement.

According to the contract terms, any NMPA member publisher can jump into the agreement. In terms of who isn’t part of this opt-in deal, the language strongly suggests that the biggies have already structured separate contracts, including Sony Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, and BMG Rights Management.

For everyone else, the deal flexes the NMPA’s muscle and its representation of a broad swath of the global music publishing industry. And what about those who aren’t members of the NMPA? According to more information spilled to DMN, non-NMPA publishers will have to strike their own agreements, though we’ve also learned that Snap flat-out isn’t doing deals with them.

The NMPA opt-in itself is global in scope, with Argentina the only exception.

And in case you think we’re making up the whole ‘sign here or we’re going to court’ vibe, it’s actually spelled out in the contract.

Indeed, the agreement acknowledges that while “the parties disagree as to whether or not, under the copyright laws, Snap is required to obtain a license for Snap’s users’ use and/or exploitation of musical compositions and/or lyrics,” the participating music publishers agree “not to sue Snap or its users for the use of musical compositions or lyrics… in order to enter into the License Agreement.”

In other words, ‘we came to an understanding’ — music industry style.

A live performance from Bakar, whose viral ‘Hell N Back’ is at the center of a new copyright infringement lawsuit. Photo Credit: Tackofall099

Bakar’s viral “Hell N Back” has crashed into a massive copyright infringement lawsuit for allegedly sampling a decades-old track without proper authorization.

New York City-based Tuff City Records fired off the multifaceted complaint yesterday, naming as defendants not only Bakar, but Resnik Music Group, Sony Music UK, its Black Butter Records imprint, and others yet.

As some already know, the nearly six-year-old “Hell N Back” is still riding a wave of commercial momentum – including on TikTok, where it’s featured in millions of clips. Beyond the short-form app, the track (which Summer Walker remixed in 2023) is said to have appeared in a trailer for Disney’s Elemental and on American Idol.

Putting those pertinent details on the backburner for a moment, plaintiff Tuff City Records currently specializes in “rescuing thousands of blues, jazz, funk, soul and R&B treasures from obscurity,” its website shows.

Overall, the company owns and administers “tens of thousands of musical recordings and compositions,” per the suit. And as the filing party tells the story, that pile of IP includes a 1967 song entitled (ironically enough) “I Caught You in a Lie.”

As laid out in the action, multiple years and agreements later, full ownership of the recording (released by Robert Parker) and the composition (penned by Lee Diamond) ultimately wound up with Tuff City.

That’s a decidedly important point for the plaintiff, which believes that “Hell N Back” and its remix sample “the entire rhythm track (including all of the bass and drum sounds)” from “I Caught You in a Lie.” It probably doesn’t need saying given the suit, but the alleged usages “were not authorized by” Tuff City.

How, then, did an allegedly infringing track release via a major label imprint and rack up 900 million Spotify streams (while recording several different consumption feats to boot) before this complaint’s submission?

On the compositional side, Tuff City is placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the aforesaid Resnik Music Group and its alleged “false claim of ownership” over “I Caught You in a Lie.”

Long story short, Resnik Music allegedly maintains that it’s the actual owner based on a series of rights transfers stemming from the above-noted Lee Diamond.

On top of allegedly securing royalties to which it’s not entitled, Resnik Music has allegedly denied the plaintiff its “opportunity to license” the composition.

“Based on their claimed ownership of the Composition,” the suit reads in part, “Defendants [Robert] Resnik and Resnik Music and their counsel have demanded that Plaintiff abandon its ownership claims.”

DMN reached out to Resnik Music for comment but didn’t immediately receive a response. However, “I Caught You in a Lie” seemingly remained available to license via Resnik Music’s website at the time of writing.

And when it comes to the relevant recordings, Tuff City (which says it “repeatedly notified” the defendants of its concerns) is pointing to alleged false representations from one Maple Gaines to Sony Music UK.

Gaines is said to have inked a related licensing deal with Sony Music UK in October 2019 – despite not owning the master, according to the suit. Consequently, “she was not authorized to enter into the agreement, and as she lacked the rights, the agreement was a nullity,” per the legal text.

Sony Music UK may not have known “that Gaines’s representations and warranties were false,” but “declined to distribute royalties [to Tuff City]…amounting to at least $47,500 as of 2023,” the suit states.

All told, Tuff City is suing Bakar, Sony Music UK, Black Butter, and Summer Walker publisher LVRN for copyright infringement, besides seeking an injunction as well as a declaratory judgement confirming that it’s “the owner of all rights in and to the” composition and the recording.

The plaintiff is also pursuing fraud claims against Resnik Music, its owner, and Gaines.

Photo Credit: Troy T

The creation and delivery of music to audiences requires collaboration between a variety of creative individuals and businesses, including songwriters, music publishers, performers, producers, and record labels. All of these creative individuals and many others play an important role in crafting and bringing music to audiences, and it’s important that each understands and appreciates their rights under U.S. copyright law. This three-part series explores those rights by discussing: (i) the different types of works and kinds of rights for music under copyright law; (ii) the different types of music licenses; and (iii) the remedies for copyright infringement.

To understand how music and those who create and distribute music are protected and compensated, one must first understand certain copyright basics, because copyright is the primary means by which songwriters, composers, artists, publishers, and other music creators are protected and compensated for their works. To understand copyright in music one must understand that there are two distinct kinds of copyrighted works in any given song—a musical work and a sound recording.

Two Types of Copyrighted Works Protected in a Song

Copyright law protects original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, audiovisual, and visual works. Examples of such works are movies, novels, songs, computer software, and photographs. Importantly, in the area of music, there are two different types of copyrighted works:

• Musical Works: These include any work that consists of musical notes and lyrics in a musical composition.
• Sound Recordings: These include any work that results from the fixation of sounds without a visual component, whether musical or spoken. This is the music you actually hear, and it includes digital downloads, music on CDs and vinyl, podcasts, and recorded speeches.

It’s important to be aware of these distinct types of copyrightable works because there are likely different copyright owners for any one given song, different kinds of music licenses, and slight differences in the kinds of rights in copyright law for these works. 

The Exclusive Rights in Musical Works and Sound Recordings

The Copyright Act grants the following exclusive rights to copyright owners of musical works and sound recordings, subject to certain limitations and exceptions:

Reproduction Right

The reproduction right grants the copyright owner of the musical work or sound recording the ability to control the making of a copy of the work. It is arguably the most important of the rights as it is implicated in most copyright infringement disputes. For example, uploading music to a website implicates the reproduction right.

Adaptation Right

The adaptation right, which is often referred to as “derivative work right,” grants the copyright owner of the musical work or sound recording the right to control the modification or adaptation of their works into new works, often referred to as “derivative works.” Derivative works include any type of editing, translating, modifying or making other types of changes to the work. An example of an activity that implicates the adaptation right includes revising the musical arrangement of a song, making a song parody, or remixing of a sound recording.

Distribution Right

The distribution right grants the copyright owner of a musical work or sound recording the ability to control the manner in which a work or a copy of a work is transferred to others, whether by sale, rental, lease, or lending. This right allows the copyright owner to not only prevent the distribution of unauthorized copies of a work (i.e., copies that infringe the reproduction right), but also allows the copyright holder to control the unauthorized distribution of authorized copies (subject to a limitation commonly referred to as first sale exception). For example, uploading a music file to a website or “lending” digital files like a sound recording would implicate the distribution right. In the digital environment, often a violation of the distribution right is accompanied by a violation of the reproduction right.

Public Performance Right

While this public performance right is one of the most important to music creators, it is also one of the most complex of the exclusive rights because it applies to musical works but not to sound recordings (but see below for more). 

A performance is considered “public” when the work is performed in a public place, at a place where a substantial number of persons outside a normal circle of friends and family are gathered, or is transmitted to the public. The public performance right vests the copyright owner of the musical work with the authority to control the manner in which a work is publicly performed. Examples of activities that implicate the public performance right include streaming music over the internet or playing music at a public event or venue.

As noted above, while owners of the musical work enjoy the exclusive right to perform their works in public, sound recording owners do not. Currently the United States is one of the few countries in the world that does not recognize a full public performance right for sound recording owners. Copyright owners of sound recording get a much more limited public performance right—the exclusive right to publicly perform the sound recording when the performance occurs by means of a digital audio transmission.

Public Display Right

The public display right applies only to musical works, not to sound recordings. It allows the owner of the musical work to control the display of the musical work to the public (as the term is defined in the paragraph above). The most common examples of a public display of a musical work would be where someone displays lyrics on a website or shows sheet music in a classroom.

Understanding Exclusive Rights Under Copyright Law in Music is Important for Compensation and Enforcement 

If any of the rights above are implicated by someone’s use of copyright-protected music, and such use is not authorized by the copyright owner of the sound recording or musical work or otherwise allowed by the law, for instance under the fair use exception, the user has infringed the copyright owner’s rights. We’ll discuss that more in Part III about music copyright infringement. 

While you are waiting for Part II and Part III, we encourage you to check out the Copyright Alliance’s FREE Creator Membership, which provides a wealth of education resources for you to explore on copyright law.

Jimmy Page (pictured), Warner Chappell, and others are facing another copyright lawsuit centering on ‘Dazed and Confused.’ Photo Credit: Simon Fernandez

Jimmy Page, Sony Pictures Classics, Warner Chappell, and others are facing a copyright suit centering on “Dazed and Confused,” which allegedly appeared in Becoming Led Zeppelin without the original songwriter’s authorization.

Singer-songwriter Jake Holmes submitted the straightforward complaint to a California federal court. Turning back the clock for a moment, Holmes, now 85 years old, wrote and recorded “Dazed and Confused” nearly six decades ago.

As the story goes, Page then “learned of” and began performing the same effort while a member of the Yardbirds. Subsequently, a reworked version of “Dazed and Confused” made its way onto Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut album with (among different things) fresh lyrics and Page credited as the sole songwriter.

Evidently, the situation didn’t sit right with Holmes, who in a 2010 complaint accused Page and others of infringing on his “Dazed and Confused” composition with the Led Zeppelin founder’s own version.

(“Page copied Plaintiff’s Dazed and Confused in purporting to author a composition Page also entitled ‘Dazed and Confused,’” the firmly worded 2010 suit alleged.)

That set the stage for a settlement the following year, when, per Holmes’ latest complaint, the parties agreed that he “‘created and had and has complete ownership of’” the initial “Dazed and Confused” composition.

But according to the newly submitted action, Page and his fellow defendants have since “released numerous sound recordings” without Holmes’ authorization and in violation of the settlement.

This refers specifically to a variety of Yardbirds live tracks, all of which allegedly “falsely” credited Page instead of Holmes and allegedly failed to direct the appropriate royalties to the latter professional.

Building on these allegations, the action also maintains that the mentioned Becoming Led Zeppelin features an unlicensed Yardbirds rendition of “Dazed and Confused” – with Page, not Holmes, credited as the songwriter. Holmes didn’t provide his “permission or authorization” for the usage, the legal text spells out.

Consequently, the defendants “have willfully infringed” the original “Dazed and Confused,” according to Holmes, who’s said to have fired off cease-and-desist emails in mid-April. Those messages were “ignored,” per the plaintiff.

Now, ahead of a quick-approaching physical release for Becoming Led Zeppelin, Holmes is seeking damages, a share of the defendants’ profits, and, perhaps most notably, an injunction barring “any further false and unauthorized uses” of “Dazed and Confused” in the documentary.

Warner Music Group is suing DSW for alleged copyright infringement on social media. Photo Credit: Anthony92931

Another day, another social-focused copyright lawsuit – this time from Warner Music, which is suing Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) and others for allegedly infringing on protected works in hundreds of promo videos.

Warner Music Group (WMG) submitted the straightforward action to an Ohio federal court, naming as defendants the mentioned DSW, Topo Athletic, and their Columbus-headquartered owner, Designer Brands (NYSE: DBI).

By now, many are aware of the mountain of infringement actions targeting music featured in companies’ social videos. In short, social platforms’ song libraries are pre-cleared only for personal use, with standalone licenses required for commercial usages in most instances.

(On the “most instances” front: Warner Music licensed some of its catalog for TikTok’s “Commercial Music Library,” which, as its name suggests, includes works cleared for brands.)

And paid influencer campaigns don’t constitute personal use, multiple companies have found out the hard way in separate litigation. Per today’s suit: “DSW’s social media advertising” – even featuring an appearance from the spouse of a Warner Music exec – “is similar to that of” Bang Energy.

Bang “was found liable for copyright infringement in two different lawsuits due to the same type of copyright infringement,” WMG’s DSW suit reads in part.

Running with the point, then, Warner Music says the defendants have “extensive experience with music licensing” but failed to seek or receive usage permission for its own social videos and for its influencer campaigns.

(WMG also took the opportunity to call out the defendants’ alleged approach to compensating influencers.“[C]ontrary to Federal Trade Commission guidelines, the social media influencers often do not disclose that they receive compensation in any form,” the complaint maintains.)

As for the extent of the alleged infringement, the filing parties’ “initial investigation has revealed that DSW misappropriated over two hundred” compositions and recordings in which Warner Music has stakes, per the text.

Incorporated into videos on Instagram and TikTok alike, the allegedly infringed works include tracks recorded by Usher, The Weeknd, Linkin Park, Ed Sheeran, and many others, the suit shows.

All told, Warner Music has levied three copyright claims against DSW and the other defendants, including for vicarious and contributory infringement.

Regarding the aforementioned mountain of social-infringement actions, various music companies have opted to litigate against NBA teams, AHL teams, Chili’s parent Brinker International, the University of Southern California, and Crumbl Cookies, to name some.

Photo Credit: Sam Smith, Normani – Dancing With A Stranger (Official Music Video)

A copyright infringement lawsuit against Sam Smith and Normani over their hit “Dancing With a Stranger” has been revived by a federal appeals court.

A federal appeals court has revived a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Sam Smith and Normani over their 2019 hit “Dancing With a Stranger,” alleging it copied aspects of a similarly named song from 2015. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.

According to the appeals court, a jury could find the hooks of the two songs to be “substantially similar.” Ultimately, a California federal judge will reconsider the matter.

Sound and Color, copyright holder of “Dancing With Strangers” by Jordan Vincent and music duo SKX, filed the initial lawsuit in 2022. The filing alleged the song’s title, lyrics, melody, and overall production copied elements of the earlier track.

Smith’s song has a noticeably slower tempo, but the lawsuit claimed the similarities are undeniable when the tracks are played at the same speed. Further, it asserted the underlying composition of both songs is “nearly identical,” and their hooks share the same lyrics and arrangement of phrasing.

The case was dismissed by a California federal court in 2023, determining that the two songs were not substantially similar other than the phrasing of the title. But that was determined too general to be protected by copyright law.

Now, the appeals court says the case should have gone before a jury. The court emphasized that there isn’t a well-defined standard for assessing similarities in the arrangement and selection of songs to determine whether infringement has occurred.

“As Sound and Color’s experts opined, the hooks share the same combination of several musical elements, including the same lyrics, the same ‘metric placement’ at the beginning of each syllable, and the same downward ‘melodic contour’ that starts at pitch 7 and ends at pitch 3,” they wrote.

“Defendants’ exhibit containing forty-three audio excerpts of songs with similar lyrics but differences in rhythm, pitch sequence, and melodic contour illustrates the ‘wide range of possible expression and broad creative choices’ involved in crafting a hook and thereby shows that broad copyright protection is appropriate.”

The order arrives at a crossroads for similar cases, which for a while seem to have trended in favor of the artist being sued. Ed Sheeran won in two lawsuits that went before juries over his songs “Shape of You” and “Thinking Out Loud.” But cases of this nature can go either way; more often these days, such cases have been going before a jury due to the nuance involved in determining whether infringement has taken place.

Photo Credit: Ashley King

Media conglomerate Ziff Davis is suing OpenAI for copyright infringement. The suit alleges that OpenAI “intentionally and relentlessly” exploited Ziff Davis’s copyrighted content to train its AI models without authorization or compensation.

Ziff Davis is one of the largest digital publishers in the U.S., overseeing more than 45 media brands and employing 3,800 people. The brand’s gaming portfolio includes some of the biggest sites in the gaming ecosystem, including IGN, GameSpot, GameFAQs, Humble Bundle, and Eurogamer. The conglomerate is also responsible for brands like PCMag, Mashable, Lifehacker, CNET, RetailMeNot, and others.

According to the complaint, OpenAI allegedly ignored explicit instructions to keep its web crawlers off Ziff Davis sites and even stripped copyright notices from the content it aggregated. Ziff Davis claims that OpenAI’s use of its content in training datasets resulted in ChatGPT generating ‘identical reproductions’ and derivative works, undermining the publisher’s ability to monetize its articles while harming the brands’ reputations.

The Ziff Davis lawsuit is part of a growing wave of legal actions taken by media companies, authors, and artists challenging AI companies over the use of copyrighted materials in training data. In the music industry, publishers and artists alike have raised alarms about AI models ingesting and reproducing copyrighted lyrics, melodies, and recordings.

Recent court decisions, such as a federal judge denying music publishers’ requests to block Anthropic from using copyrighted lyrics, highlight the unsettled nature of this legal frontier. If Ziff Davis prevails in this lawsuit, it could set a precedent requiring AI companies to obtain licenses or compensate rights-holders—potentially reshaping how AI interacts with news, music, and other creative industries.

The case mirrors one against Meta where court documents show that Meta researchers downloaded over 81.7 terabytes of books and research papers from online shadow libraries like LibGen and Anna’s Archive. Internal communications revealed that Meta executives were aware of the legal and ethical risks associated with obtaining licensed content from pirate sources. They attempted to conceal their piracy by avoiding the use of Facebook servers for downloads and minimized the digital footprint of their actions. CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly approved the use of these illicit datasets.

Photo Credit: Crumbl

Warner Music Group sues Crumbl Cookies for around $24 million, alleging copyright infringement on social media—including TikTok and Instagram.

Warner Music Group (WMG) filed a complaint in a US District Court in Utah on Tuesday, April 22, alleging cookie chain Crumbl used at least 159 of WMG’s music in promotional videos posted to Instagram and TikTok. WMG says those works include recordings or compositions from artists and songwriters like Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Mariah Carey, and Taylor Swift, without proper authorization or licensing.

“Defendants have misappropriated at least 159 of the most popular and valuable sound recordings and musical compositions in the market, using those creative works to build [Crumbl’s] brand profile and drive massive sales to Defendants without any compensation to [WMG],” the lawsuit reads.

“The audio track generally runs the full length of the Crumbl Videos and includes the most familiar portion of the sound recording and underlying musical composition, such as the hook or chorus,” WMG claims. The music giant cites examples such as Lil Mosey’s “Blueberry Faygo” played over a video promoting blueberry cheesecake cookies, another promoting yellow sugar cookies to Coldplay’s “Yellow,” and a third promoting Kentucky butter cake to BTS’ “Butter.”

Further, Warner’s lawsuit asserts that in addition to creating and posting infringing videos directly, Crumbl partnered with social media influencers who then received “perks and rewards” such as “paid initiatives” in exchange for promoting Crumbl products.

“Crumbl draws each of these influencers’ followers to Crumbl’s social media pages and to the Crumbl Videos. Crumbl recruits these individuals — including, upon information and belief, those featured in the Crumbl Videos — to ‘collaborate’ with Crumbl, whereby participants are rewarded for promoting Crumbl products,” the lawsuit reads.

WMG claims that Crumbl continued posting infringing content even months after the company sent the cookie chain a cease-and-desist letter in 2023. “Crumbl’s willfulness is further evidenced by its very own statements,” WMG continues, citing a TikTok video from January 2024 in which Crumbl said, “We were gonna make a funny video to promote Mystery Cookie, but legal said we can’t use any trending audios.”

Warner Music Group is seeking up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each infringed work, potentially resulting in damages of up to $23.85 million. The company is also seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting Crumbl from further infringement.

Founded in 2017 with a single store in Utah, Crumbl now has over 1,000 locations worldwide, with more than 29,000 employees. According to Reuters, the company has been exploring a sale since January that could value the business at $2 billion.

A live performance from Mariah Carey, who, along with fellow defendants including Sony Music, is pushing to receive legal fees in an ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ copyright lawsuit. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

All I want for Christmas is everything you own: A copyright infringement lawsuit over Mariah Carey’s perennial holiday hit is turning ugly amid a legal fees sub-dispute.

We first broke down that high-stakes sub-dispute closer to April’s beginning, after the presiding judge opted to toss the complaint in March. Long story short, the country-singer plaintiff, Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone), accused Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” of lifting from his own effort of the same name.

But the ruling in favor of the defendants – among them Universal Music, Sony Music, and Carey herself – set the stage for a massive attorneys’ fees demand. All told, the parties are looking to make the plaintiff cough up an astonishing $185,602 and change.

Unsurprisingly, the request isn’t sitting right with Stone, who, when opposing the bill in a new filing, described himself as “an elderly man now without vast resources.”

Elsewhere in the legal document, the plaintiff emphasized in more words that he’d pursued relief not on a whim, but only after “two of the most esteemed musicologists in the country” had independently identified alleged overlap between the two Christmas songs.

Not stopping there, Stone also underscored the belief that musicologists and artists know more about the subject matter than the court or attorneys in general.

“This is a lawsuit between a successful artist from one generation against another successful artist from a later generation,” Stone and his counsel wrote. “These musicians know more than any lawyer or the Court what they hear in another song.”

Evidently attempting to cover every angle, Stone proceeded to call out the defendants’ allegedly “unreasonable” legal fees billing.

Furthermore, the plaintiff reiterated his own litigation expenses (purportedly including a $40,000 bill just to oppose summary judgement motions) and claimed that “forcing him to sell parts of his catalogue of music will accomplish nothing.”

Against the backdrop of a volume-heavy infringement-litigation landscape, the defendants’ counsel would probably disagree with the latter remark.

With all that said, how much should the plaintiff pay? While the best answer (from Stone’s perspective) is undoubtedly “nothing at all,” if the court is inclined to award legal fees, giving “the entire group more than $70,000 would be reversible error,” per the filing.

Under the current schedule, we won’t have to wait too long to see whether the judge agrees with Stone here; the courtroom confrontation’s next hearing is set for May 12th.

Photo Credit: Otherbrick

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the operator of a website he claims is selling counterfeit merchandise.

A company belonging to Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, David Gilmour Music Ltd., is filing suit against the owner of Otherbrick.com, alleging trademark infringement and counterfeiting.

The lawsuit, filed in Illinois on Monday, April 21, states it was created to “combat online counterfeiters who trade upon [Gilmour’s] reputation and goodwill by selling and/or offering for sale products in connection with” his “David Gilmour Trademark,” US Trademark Registration No. 3,756,468.

According to the website’s about page, it is the “ultimate destination for Pink Floyd-inspired merchandise,” such as t-shirts, accessories, and home decor, that “reflect the spirit of this iconic band.” Most importantly, the website features David Gilmour-related merchandise, which Gilmour and his company claim are being sold without his permission.

“[David Gilmour Music Ltd.] is in the business of developing, marketing, selling, distributing, and retailing high-quality concert merchandise […] under the federally registered ‘David Gilmour’ Trademark,” the lawsuit reads.

The suit claims that Otherbrick’s “sales of counterfeit products [are] in violation of [Gilmour’s] intellectual property rights, [and] are irreparably damaging [David Gilmour Music Ltd.]” Further, it asserts that Gilmour and his company “remain active,” and an “official source of authentic David Gilmour products.”

Since David Gilmour’s trademark has been “continuously used and never abandoned,” the filing says products bearing his name and trademark are “widely recognized and exclusively associated by consumers, the public, and the trade as being products sourced from [Gilmour].”

“[Otherbrick] is using a fake online storefront designed to appear to be selling genuine [Gilmour] products, while selling inferior imitations of [Gilmour] products,” says the filing, further asserting that the owner of Otherbrick has “intentionally concealed [their] identity and the full scope of its counterfeiting operations in an effort to deter [Gilmour] from learning [the owner’s] true identity.”

Gilmour is seeking a permanent injunction to stop the unauthorized use of his trademark and future sales, transfer of the domain name to Gilmour’s company, removal of the site from search results, as well as substantial damages and attorneys’ fees.

Roblox is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit centering on the viral ‘Apple Dance.’ Photo Credit: Oberon Copeland

A copyright infringement battle over dance moves? TikToker Kelley Heyer has named Roblox Corporation in a lawsuit centering on its emote for the viral “Apple Dance.”  

The self-described artist and creator Heyer submitted the straightforward complaint to a California federal court, naming Roblox as the sole defendant. As laid out in the eight-page suit, the plaintiff “created and choreographed the viral Apple Dance” last summer.

Set to the Charli XCX track of the same name, the dance is said to have made its way onto TikTok in an upload from Heyer on June 15th, 2024. And at least according to the filing party, the Apple Dance took off from there; a multitude of posts and the better part of a year later, Coachella attendees did the apple last weekend.

Evidently, though, there’s more to the “Apple Dance” story than a nice bit of promotion for Charli XCX (as well as Warner Music) and an advantageous wave of exposure for Heyer, who looks to have attended the VMAs.

Per the legal text, the dance is a “work of authorship” resulting from “Heyer’s ingenuity, creativity and artistry; it is literally her brainchild.”

Roblox purportedly contacted the plaintiff “to license her viral Apple Dance as an emote.” And Heyer allegedly consented to the usage on August 12th pending “an executed agreement on the license terms.”

It probably goes without saying in light of the suit, but this executed agreement doesn’t seem to have materialized. Instead, Roblox allegedly began selling the dance emote on August 17th “while engaged in active negotiation with Heyer.”

Heyer claims to have “submitted her copyright registration application in the Apple Dance” on August 30th, before negotiations with Roblox “ground to a halt” in November, according to the action. Incidentally, November also saw Roblox cease selling the emote, the suit indicates.

While the emote was available via Roblox, it sold an astonishing 60,000 “units” to generate around $123,000, the complaint estimates.

“Notably,” the text claims, “other similar entertainment platforms, such as Fortnite and Netflix, HAVE licensed (following extensive negotiation and full execution) the Apple Dance for emote or skin release, PRIOR to commercial exploitation of such.”

Suing for copyright infringement as well as unjust enrichment, Heyer is seeking damages, a piece of Roblox’s Apple Dance profits, and more. In a statement, a Roblox spokesperson told DMN that the company is confident about “the propriety of its dealings in this matter.”

“As a platform powered by a community of creators,” the Roblox rep said to DMN, “Roblox takes the protection of intellectual property very seriously and is committed to protecting intellectual property rights of independent developers and creators to brands and artists both on and off the platform. Roblox is confident in its position and the propriety of its dealings in this matter and looks forward to responding in court.”

Jack Dorsey, who believes it’s time to “delete all IP law.” Photo Credit: Mark Warner

Against the backdrop of ongoing AI debate — and adjacent legal battles concerning generative models’ training processes — Block CEO Jack Dorsey says it’s time to “delete all IP law.”

Dorsey provided that controversial take on X, where, unsurprisingly, many promptly criticized the position. Notwithstanding the pushback – more on this in a moment – the contentious stance did find a high-profile supporter in Elon Musk.

“I agree,” the xAI founder wrote to Dorsey, who elaborated on his four-word post when replying to less enthusiastic responses.

These responses touched on not only the income fallout for creatives, but differences between various types of (and protections for) IP, the potential effect on medical research, and a whole lot else.

“creativity is what currently separates us,” Dorsey followed up, “and the current system is limiting that, and putting the payments disbursement into the hands of gatekeepers who aren’t paying out fairly.”

(There may well be non-AI angles to the comment for Dorsey, whose current company in November 2024 scaled back its questionable Tidal investment. Regarding the “gatekeepers” word choice, we’ve been hearing quite a lot lately about artists, from Snoop Dogg to Kate Nash, receiving small major-label streaming payments for their much-played tracks.)

Meanwhile, another critic asked about the sweeping move’s possible impact on the motivation to create. “What motivation would there be to create if there were no way to monetize?” the individual inquired. “This is straight out of the CCP playbook.”

“execution and speed matters more,” followed up Dorsey, whose net worth is (per Forbes) $3.6 billion.

As initially mentioned, Dorsey’s remarks are especially interesting and relevant in light of far-reaching AI-training questions.

There’s still much to see here, in terms of lawsuits and legislation, in both the U.S. and internationally. And though it probably doesn’t need saying, lawmakers aren’t going to “delete” IP protections outright.

But like DMN Pro has broken down in detail, despite rightsholders’ continued pushback, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that stateside courts will deem training on protected materials fair use.

More concretely, it’s safe to say that gen AI giants based in several other nations around the globe are (and will almost certainly continue) freely disregarding IP concerns when training.

Of course, this broader disregard for IP isn’t exactly new. But it’s definitely taken on a heightened importance given the unprecedented content-output capabilities of the technology at hand.

Following the point to its logical conclusion, there’s a separate conversation to be had about a susceptibility to commercial fallout stemming from cheapening artistry and prioritizing near-term profits above all else.

In and well beyond the music world, today’s top-selling projects aren’t necessarily today’s best projects, and carefully tailored AI outputs may resonate with the undiscerning audiences in question.

Photo Credit: Nelly by Adam Bielawski / CC by 3.0

The last St. Lunatics member who was still suing Nelly for copyright infringement has dropped his lawsuit. But this battle may not be over yet.

St. Lunatics member Ali Jones has dropped the lawsuit the group filed against former member Nelly last year. The filing claimed the group never received proper credit or royalties for Nelly’s 2000 album, Country Grammar. The rest of the group — Murphy Lee, Kyjuan, and City Spud — all dropped out of the suit shortly after it was filed last year, claiming they never authorized legal action to be taken on their behalf.

Strangely, Jones and his legal team have not provided an explanation for their decision to dismiss the case. But they might not be walking away without consequence; Nelly’s legal team has urged the presiding judge to consider delaying the dismissal to hold the St. Lunatics members accountable for the rapper’s legal fees.

“Plaintiff’s counsel succeeded in its frivolous campaign aimed at forcing [Nelly] to spend money defending Plaintiff’s ridiculous time-barred claims,” wrote attorneys for Nelly. “The Court is respectfully requested to retain jurisdiction and set a briefing and hearing schedule [for potential sanctions].”

St. Lunatics, a group of high school friends from St. Louis, are credited with both performing and songwriting across Nelly’s debut album. But their lawsuit claimed the final credits undersold their contributions to the record, depriving them of royalties.

“Despite repeatedly promising plaintiffs that they would receive full recognition and credit […] it eventually became clear that defendant Haynes had no intention of providing the plaintiffs with any such credit or recognition,” their filing read.

The case was framed as a copyright infringement lawsuit, rather than a legal battle over ownership. This is due to the three-year statute of limitations that was far exceeded, given that Country Grammar was released nearly 25 years ago.

The Internet Archive and the major labels are discussing a possible settlement in their Great 78 Project copyright infringement battle. Photo Credit: Mick Haupt

Multiple years and twists later, the major labels’ copyright infringement lawsuit against the Internet Archive looks to be trending towards a resolution.

That’s according to the litigants themselves, which just recently requested a 30-day stay in the case. The presiding judge promptly approved the sought pause, and as a result, we should know sooner rather than later whether the parties will finally put the matter to bed.

But as described by Universal Music, Sony Music, and the Internet Archive, which are clashing specifically over the latter’s “Great 78 Project” music-preservation effort, things are trending in the right direction on this front.

Both sides “have engaged in and made significant progress in settlement discussions and believe a thirty (30) day stay of proceedings will facilitate resolution of this matter,” they jointly told the court when seeking the stay.

Furthermore, the parties “are optimistic that settlement discussions may be successful and that this case can be dismissed,” per the document.

At present, we don’t know exactly what those settlement discussions entail, nor do we know for certain why a compromise is now being discussed in earnest.

The back-and-forth legal battle initiated in 2023, and the Internet Archive last year came up short with its dismissal motions. However, that the same defendant suffered a largescale hack in October 2024 is worth keeping in mind. More pressingly, so is the considerable artist pushback against the relevant infringement lawsuit.

We broke down the straightforward criticism – expressed as part of a campaign organized by Fight for the Future – in December. At the time, approximately 630 artists had signed a letter opposing the “major record labels’ unjust lawsuit targeting the Internet Archive.”

Since then (and with the letter no longer accepting new signatures), roughly 850 total musicians have added their names to the message, the appropriate webpage shows.

As to where the dispute proceeds from here, the newly issued stay will run through early May. Of course, if a settlement does come to fruition, the parties will jointly seek dismissal. And if a resolution doesn’t materialize during the period, they’ll have 10 days post-stay to submit a new proposed schedule to the court.

In other infringement-suit resolutions, Dua Lipa recently beat a “Levitating” copyright complaint, Mariah Carey last month emerged victorious in an “All I Want for Christmas Is You” action, and hip-hop producer Turbo topped a different suit yet.

Photo Credit: Flou

For all the attention paid to missing music metadata, copyright infringement, and royalty battles, the music industry often overlooks a potentially bigger issue: chaotic music contracting. Enter Flou, whose CEO, Alexiomar Rodriguez, is helming one of the more promising missions in the music industry: to fix the chaos that surrounds music agreements. Here’s a breakdown of his vision for ‘Music Contracts 2.0’ — including a detailed white paper.

What’s wrong with music contracts? For the answer to that question, one must start at the beginning — i.e., the first draft of an agreement.

Bad deals happen, and plenty of court cases focus on missed deliverables and differing interpretations. However, according to Flou founder and CEO Alexiomar Rodriguez, the bigger problem lies in the chaos surrounding the contract drafting, signing, and post-signature stages.

Rodriguez — an Orlando-based music attorney who cut his teeth in the music industry hotbed of Puerto Rico — battled the same pile of shared docs and ‘versioning hell’ familiar to lawyers, labels, and artists alike. In response, Flou is aiming to reengineer the entire music contracting process, and replace the current chaos with a SaaS-like update that prevents downstream disagreements, metadata issues, and missed deliverables.

Just recently, DMN joined forces with Flou to accelerate the industry’s shift to a completely different contracting approach. The very real possibility is that in just a few years, it’s entirely possible that the music industry lands in a totally different — and saner — place.

Investors love this kind of problem/solution startup — and Flou is focused on a specific music industry problem. But what is ‘Music Contracts 2.0’?

At its core, Flou’s ‘Music Contracts 2.0’ system features a centralized ‘Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)’ platform that replaces a constellation of disconnected applications and sharing protocols like Gmail and Dropbox. On the creation side, Flou also includes automating contract drafting with templates and forms, streamlining sending, signing, and storing contracts with tracking and notifications, and integrating with other management and royalty systems.

The logical solution is rooted in serious pain — felt every day by lawyers, artists, and everyone in between. “Current music contract management is messy, outdated, and leads to lawsuits, lost money, delayed releases, missed payments, and broken relationships,” Rodriguez relayed.

Surprisingly, current contracting still features paper-based systems, manual tracking, and reliance on email and spreadsheets. It’s not that the tools themselves are bad, but they are rarely interconnected and frequently impossible to track cohesively. The result is a familiar, headache-producing swirl of disjointed elements.

Flou envisions a 2.0 replacement that accelerates deal-making and offers better control on both sides of the table, as well as stronger privacy protection, time savings, reduced costs, and increased efficiency.

“Flou is specifically designed for the music industry with pre-made templates, bilingual contracts, smart automation, and a secure central location for all contracts,” Rodriguez explained.

“Our goal is to shift the music industry from a slow, stressful, and expensive contract process to a fast, simple, and clear one, ultimately turning contracts into an advantage rather than a headache.”

If this sounds like a glass of ice water in your current hell, check out the white paper below – and theflou.com for more info.

A live performance from Quavo, who, along with Hybe America and Quality Control, is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit from sculptor Daniel Arsham. Photo Credit: Jørund Føreland Pedersen

Hybe America, its Quality Control subsidiary, and Quavo are facing a copyright lawsuit for allegedly infringing on a visual artist’s work in social media posts.

Daniel Arsham, touted as “one of the most well-known contemporary artists in the world,” submitted the unique action to a New York federal court. As laid out in the suit, the plaintiff sells his projects “for many hundreds of thousands of dollars” apiece and “has a robust licensing market.”

On the latter front, New York City-based Arsham is said to have collaborated with “a litany of hip-hop artists, including Pharrell, Usher, Jay-Z, Gunna, The Weeknd, Nas, and others.”

While it probably doesn’t need saying in light of the complaint, Quavo isn’t featured in that litany of talent.

At least as told by Arsham, he’s the creator of a sculpture called Quartz Eroded 1961 Ferrari GT. That 2018 effort is “part of a collection of full-size vehicle sculptures that he has created in his signature ‘eroded’ fictional archeological technique,” per the legal text.

Also in 2018 (and then again in 2023), the plaintiff allegedly displayed the creation, photos of which are included in the suit, to the public in an exhibition.

Fast forward to December 2024, when Quavo allegedly took to Instagram and TikTok to upload a teaser for “Trappa Rappa” (2025).

This clip, besides several subsequently uploaded stills thereof, allegedly shows “Quavo performing in front of the” aforesaid sculpture.

(The track itself debuted in February 2025; “music video” is used once in the complaint to describe the social posts, but the actual music video doesn’t seem to include the statue.)

Though Quavo and his team tagged Arsham in the original posts, they didn’t obtain the artist’s permission to use the sculpture, the lawsuit maintains.

The plaintiff “never consented” to the usage and hasn’t received related compensation, the legal text drives home for good measure.

And to reiterate the obvious once more, Arsham – who purportedly discovered Quavo’s alleged usages in December 2024 and sent multiple cease and desist letters soon thereafter – claims there haven’t been any “meaningful discussions” between his team and the defendants.

Furthermore, the alleged infringement has purportedly “significantly damaged the value of the” sculpture, the artist’s other works, and “the value of any licenses for his artworks in the relevant markets.”

All told, Arsham is seeking relief for vicarious and contributory infringement, with an additional publicity-rights claim under New York law to boot.

Photo Credit: DMX by Mika Väisänen / CC by 3.0

The DMX Estate secures a victory in an ongoing lawsuit challenging their sole ownership of the late rapper’s copyright and IP rights.

DMX’s estate has secured a major victory in an ongoing lawsuit that challenges the estate’s sole ownership of the late rapper’s copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rights.

The judge issued a decision and order on Monday (April 7) that rejects the claims by DMX’s ex-wife, Tashera Simmons, that she co-owned his IP rights accrued during their marriage and is entitled to 50% of all revenue generated.

The decision reinforces that the estate, represented by Kurzman Eisenberg Corbin & Lever, LLP and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, is the sole owner of all such rights. Tashera Simmons’ rights, therefore, are limited to a portion of record and music publishing royalties generated by musical works that her former husband released during their marriage.

“[The Estate] is the sole owner of all intellectual property rights (including all copyrights and trademark rights) that [DMX] acquired during his marriage to [Simmons], as well as any and all trademarks and intellectual property rights that belonged to [DMX] at the time of his death; except as specifically set forth in five Letters of Direction signed by [DMX],” wrote Judge David F. Everett.

“[Simmons] has no income interest and is not otherwise entitled to any monies of any kind generated by or attributed to services rendered by [DMX], and/or to copyrights and trademark rights […] acquired during his marriage to Plaintiff.”

DMX, real name Earl Simmons, who began rapping in the early 1990s, passed away on April 9, 2021, at only 50 years old. His influence on hip-hop is undisputed; his aggressive style and violent lyricism helped popularize the horrorcore genre.

Throughout his career, he won an American Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, and was nominated for six Grammy Awards. DMX was the first artist to have their first five albums consecutively debut atop the Billboard 200. By 2021, he had sold over 75 million records worldwide.

His international hit, “X Gon’ Give It to Ya,” released in 2002, saw a resurgence in popularity in 2016 when it was featured in the Marvel film Deadpool and its trailers. DMX’s eighth and posthumous studio album, Exodus, was released a month after his passing, on May 28, 2021.

TikTok USA, circa 2025 (Photo: TCY)

Months after ‘the ban,’ there’s no telling what happens to TikTok next in the US.

After inching oh-so-close to a deal to secure TikTok in the US, China apparently pressed hard pause on the arrangement following Trump’s tariff slap. So what does that mean for the music industry?

If you love uncertainty, this one’s for you. Trump is now extending the ban by another 75 days, though a hard clock is now ticking on a deal that was apparently 99% done. Congressional pushback on the ‘phase 2 extension’ is already happening, and Apple is seeking White House assurance that the app can remain on its App Store.

This slow-motion cookie crumble could go in any direction. Among the possibilities within the next 30 days: TikTok shutting down for good or continuing business-as-usual — or, potentially, some insane variation in the middle.

Last we checked, TikTok is available on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, though this situation is volatile. And certainly not a recipe for crafting stellar, long-term artist marketing campaigns — or advertising campaigns, for that matter.

Most music folks are smartly spreading their marketing efforts across the gamut of social media giants, with IG Reels and Shorts getting a nice stability bump. That said, as long as TikTok is ticking, it has the power to blow stuff up — including entire artist careers and dusty catalog tracks.

While the over-under on TikTok’s survival has gone haywire, some executive ship-jumping is worth noting — particularly TikTok Music ex-honcho Ole Obermann, who recently packed his bags for Apple Music. And he’s not the only one potentially pondering the writing on the wall.

Meanwhile, other platforms continue to seize the moment. On that note: what major social media platform just inked a broad-reaching deal with major music publishers? (Hint: the first letter isn’t ‘X’…)

On a broader note, few in the music business seem to be rooting for TikTok’s survival.

It’s not that TikTok isn’t making some effort to play nice with the music business. Just last week, for example, TikTok was among the supporting sponsors at the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) golf classic and fire relief efforts in Los Angeles. But for the most part, the vibe within the music industry isn’t warmly supportive, to say the least.

TikTok famously refused to reasonably compensate rights owners until absolutely forced, with the aforementioned Obermann battling it out with Universal Music Group for weeks before a deal was hammered out. Indies are also understandably cool on this low-paying platform, though TikTok’s marketing muscle is certainly potent — especially if the viral fairy gods tap your shoulder.

Then again, that’s the aspiration for rivals like Reels and Shorts, among others. And we get the sense that witnessing a heavy door slamming on TikTok’s derriere would be oh-so-satisfying for many industry folks.

Guess everyone’s replaceable — and let’s face it, life will go on in the music industry, with or without TikTok USA playing a role in it.

More as this develops.

Got a juicy tip? Hit me up at paul@digitalmusicnews.com or Signal (@digitalmusicnews.07).

A federal judge has denied multiple dismissal motions in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the Isaac Hayes estate over ‘Hold On, I’m Coming.’ Photo Credit: United Press International / CC by 4.0

A federal judge has rejected a pair of motions to dismiss the infringement complaint filed against Donald Trump and others over Isaac Hayes-penned “Hold On, I’m Coming.”

Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. denied the dismissal pushes (and ruled on several other motions) during a recent 50-minute hearing. We’ve covered the underlying copyright complaint, levied by Isaac Hayes Enterprises (which isn’t the sole owner of the appropriate IP; more on this in a moment), since it initiated in August 2024.

Just to recap, the relevant defendants did, in fact, obtain a public performance license. But the Hayes estate says its opposition to the use of Sam & Dave-recorded “Hold On, I’m Coming” at the president’s campaign events caused the work to be excluded from the license.

Also at issue is (among other things) the allegedly unauthorized synchronization of “Hold On, I’m Coming” in various social clips.

On the parties front, the initial action named as defendants President Trump, his campaign, the RNC, the NRA, Turning Point Action, the American Conservative Union, and the entity (BTC) behind the annual Bitcoin conference.

But a December 2024 amended action dropped all defendants save the president, his campaign, Turning Point, and BTC. Meanwhile, the court has now granted a joint request from BTC and the Hayes estate to transfer the case – for BTC only – from Georgia to Tennessee.

Returning to the new rulings, then, the court rejected Turning Point’s motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of standing.

However, this defendant further argued that it hadn’t had much at all to do with the alleged infringement – “there are no allegations…that TPA engaged in any wrongful conduct.” The court said the personal-jurisdiction position was “taken under advisement.”

(Without diving too much deeper into the convoluted courtroom confrontation here, the judge also rejected a sanctions motion against Turning Point counsel for, in the Hayes plaintiffs’ words, allegedly filing “a [dismissal] motion riddled with false statements.”)

Additionally, the court denied the Trump legal team’s own motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Said motion had called into question the ownership particulars of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” in part by taking aim at an alleged 2014 Warner Chappell copyright termination as well as the actual rights of plaintiff Isaac Hayes III, one of Isaac Hayes’ 11 children.

“The problem is that none of these key legal events—the alleged termination of the copyright license based on one-half of the ownership in the Work; the alleged transfer of Isaac Hayes’s rights to Hayes Enterprises; or the agreement between the latter and Primary Wave—is documented,” the president’s legal team wrote. “There is nothing, not a single document: no termination; no assignment; no agreement.”

(The Hayes plaintiffs later pushed back, including by “disclosing the identities of each owner/member of” Isaac Hayes Enterprises, “which happen to be all the known heirs.” Non-party Primary Wave is said to own a quarter of Isaac Hayes’ body of work.)

As to where things go now, discovery will seemingly proceed after the judge (in the second such music industry ruling this week) also denied the defendants’ request to pause the process.

Photo Credit: Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga by marcen27 / CC by 2.0

Tony Bennett’s daughters are suing their brother, alleging he illegally took finances from their late father’s estate at their expense.

Tony Bennett’s daughters, Antonio and Johanna Bennett, have filed a lawsuit against their brother, D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett, who was their father’s manager and now heads their family trust.

According to the sisters’ filing, Danny allegedly “exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death.” This, they say, occurred “through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain.”

The suit further claims Danny Bennett took advantage of their father’s diminished state late in life due to Alzheimer’s disease in order to make millions for himself and his company. This includes the sale of his catalog shortly before his death in a deal including name, likeness, and image rights to brand development firm Iconoclast.

Danny Bennett’s sisters also sued him back in June, seeking an accounting of their father’s assets, alleging their brother had mishandled them. But the new filing further alleges he breached his fiduciary duty and seeks to remove him from his position as head of the family trust.

The new lawsuit also accuses Danny of benefitting from “self-interested and conflicted transactions, excessive and unearned commissions,” and “substantial loans and gifts to himself and his children.” These, they assert, have rapidly diminished assets that the late singer’s will calls for to be distributed equally between his children.

The sisters claim they have received a “single modest distribution” of $245,000 each, which is “nowhere close to what they believe they are entitled to receive.” Further, they allege their brother has gotten rid of items of great sentimental value to the family in a “malicious and retaliatory manner” following their previous attempts to get an accounting of the estate’s assets.

“This lawsuit is yet another baseless attempt to distort the public and the court’s understanding of Tony Bennett’s clearly stated wishes,” said a spokesperson for Danny Bennett. “Danny has followed his father’s plans with integrity and care, and it is disappointing that those Tony supported throughout his life — and continues to support through his estate — are now challenging Danny’s integrity with unsubstantiated and unfounded claims.”

Danny Bennett was his father’s manager, both personally and professionally, and possessed power of attorney. He was manager of his company, Benedetto Arts, and continues to serve as trustee of the family trust. Another brother, Daegal “Dae” Bennett, and Tony’s widow, Susan Bennett, are also named in the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks damages to be determined at trial.

A live performance from Mariah Carey, who, along with several other defendants, is seeking legal fees after beating an ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ copyright case. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

Weeks following their “All I Want for Christmas Is You” copyright case triumph, Mariah Carey, Sony Music, and Universal Music are asking the court to award them a massive pile of legal fees.

These and other defendants made that sizable ask yesterday, ahead of a scheduled May 12th hearing on the matter. As for the dispute itself, we’ve covered the straightforward-enough infringement suit every step of the way – including its seemingly definitive dismissal last month.

And as many know, the complaint is one of an abundance of actions targeting alleged infringement in commercially prominent works. Bearing this point in mind, it’s not a stretch to say that the defendants could be looking to dissuade similar copyright litigation in part by presenting a hefty legal-fees bill.

All told, that bill, reflecting work kicked in by four law firms, comes out to a staggering $185,602 and change.

Behind the figure, the defendants’ attorneys are said to have performed a cumulative total of $125,432 worth of work in opposing the summary judgement motion and another $60,170 or so worth of work preparing their sanctions motion.

At least as described by Mariah Carey and others, notwithstanding the multiple involved firms, “the hours billed show the work was performed with little redundancy.”

Without digging too far into the per-hour particulars here, the legal professionals billed at anywhere from an eye-watering $374 hourly (for a paralegal, that is) to an astonishing $1,475 hourly, the text shows.

(Few hours were billed at the latter rate, however. A handful of attorneys and a paralegal apparently performed the lion’s share of the work at a “substantially discounted” rate of no more than $995 per hour.)

Now, all eyes are on the above-mentioned May 12th hearing, which the presiding judge today rescheduled from the original May 5th date.

In the bigger picture, time will tell whether the aggressive legal-fees push makes would-be litigants think twice about firing off infringement actions of their own. As things stand, March alone saw several plaintiffs beat dismissal motions in their copyright battles, with others yet having initiated new suits.

One of the latter is accusing Karol G and different professionals of lifting a third-party beat to create “Gatúbela.” Additionally, George Clinton is suing Bridgeport Music in a $100 million copyright-theft action.

xAI has acquired X in a multibillion-dollar deal, but the social platform is still entangled in a copyright infringement suit levied by 17 music publishers. Photo Credit: Dima Solomin

xAI has acquired X (formerly Twitter) in an all-stock transaction. Despite the multibillion-dollar deal, however, the social platform is still facing an infringement suit from almost 20 music publishers.

Elon Musk unveiled the purchase in a post on the relevant social service. “The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt),” he noted, emphasizing as well X’s “more than 600M active users” and the combined entity’s “immense potential.”

“Today,” Musk continued, “we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Of course, the precise effects of that “blending” remain to be seen; other coverage of the purchase doesn’t look to have disclosed many details besides those included in Musk’s post.

But at the top level, one needn’t be an AI expert to grasp the arrangement’s inherent training advantages – especially given that X’s constant stream of content and interactions flows in a multitude of languages.

(Turning for a moment to X’s privacy settings section, unless users have opted out, their “public data” might be used “to train and fine-tune Grok and other AI models developed by xAI.”)

Keeping the focus on what we do know, new ownership structure or not, X hasn’t completely shaken the copyright infringement suit filed against it by 17 National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) members.

We’ve covered the legal battle, centering on X’s alleged failure to adequately address users’ repeat infringement, since it initiated in June 2023.

Despite garnering less media attention amid high-stakes copyright suits against gen AI giants, not to mention music publishers’ ongoing Spotify showdown, the case has been chugging along all the while.

As things stand – and with a trial not expected until 2026 at the earliest – the publishers and X are locking horns in an involved discovery sub-dispute. Last week, the presiding judge signed off on the parties’ joint request to expand a related protective order, which now extends to additional “commercially sensitive” information.

Meanwhile, the music publishers submitted an amended action towards 2025’s beginning. X promptly refuted this retooled suit, though neither the updated complaint nor the appropriate response looks to have broken much new ground.

Perhaps the most interesting takeaway here is the publishers’ decision to reiterate already-dismissed (in March 2024) direct and vicarious copyright claims.

“Plaintiffs have left those claims in the Amended Complaint to preserve all rights as to those claims,” the publishers explained.

Dua Lipa, who’s scored a win in a copyright infringement case centering on ‘Levitating,’ performing at Glastonbury. Photo Credit: Raph_PH

A federal judge has put an end to a long-running copyright case against Dua Lipa, finding that she didn’t infringe on a pair of decades-old tracks to create “Levitating.”

Judge Katherine Failla closed the suit today by granting Dua Lipa’s motion for summary judgement. We’ve covered the copyright confrontation since it kicked off in early 2022, following the October 2020 release of “Levitating.”

Just to recap, plaintiffs including Larball Publishing Company maintained that Lipa and others had ripped off two works to create the much-streamed “Levitating”: 1979’s “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and 1980’s Spanish-language “Don Diablo.”

Like in a number of infringement battles, the parties enlisted qualification-equipped (though, if Lipa’s legal team is to be believed, not exactly impartial) “experts” to advance their arguments.

On top of wrapping the case – more about this main point in a moment – Judge Failla today rejected the defendants’ calls to exclude the opposing side’s expert testimonies in their entirety.

Stated briefly, the judge found that the two reports at hand, despite Lipa’s qualms concerning methodology and alleged bias, “meet the standard for reliability.”

Potentially significant when it comes to different infringement showdowns’ musicologist remarks is that Judge Failla did, however, agree to exclude “impermissible conclusions of law” from the reports.

In directly alleging copyright infringement, beyond analyzing the appropriate works’ purported technical overlap, the plaintiffs’ experts “usurp the role of the factfinder in applying the law to the facts,” per the court.

Returning to the core summary judgement determination, between all the allegations, reports, and back-and-forth, the judge indicated that, according to the plaintiffs, the “actionable copyright infringement in this case distills to one descending scale plus one additional identical note.”

Citing (among other things) the Structured Asset Sales v. Ed Sheeran case, Judge Failla found these and different elements, individually and when combined, to be unprotectable.

“More fundamentally,” the judge proceeded here, “the Court finds that a musical style, defined by Plaintiffs as ‘pop with a disco feel,’ and a musical function, defined by Plaintiffs to include ‘entertainment and dancing,’ cannot possibly be protectable — alone or in tandem — because to hold otherwise would be to completely foreclose the further development of music in that genre or for that purpose.”

With that, the court formally closed the case, which is one of multiple infringement actions filed against Lipa over “Levitating” in particular.

Photo Credit: Lady Gaga’s sweatshirt (left); Lost International trademark logo (right)

Surf brand Lost International sues Lady Gaga for using a logo on her new Mayhem merch they say is ‘near identical’ to their trademark.

Lady Gaga is being sued by a California surf company that claims she infringed on their trademark with the Mayhem logos featured on her newest merch. The company filed a complaint against the 38-year-old pop star in California district court on Tuesday, March 25.

According to the complaint, the logo featured on merch used to promote her new album is “substantially similar if not nearly identical” to the logo they trademarked in 2015. Lost International says they’ve been using the “Mayhem” trademark since 1986 on surfboards, surf equipment, clothing, accessories, and in videos. “Mayhem” is also the nickname of the company’s co-founder, Matt Biolos.

“Lady Gaga’s actions are likely to mislead the public into concluding that her goods originate with or are authorized by Lost, which will damage both Lost and the public,” reads the complaint. “Lost has no control over the quality of goods sold by Lady Gaga and because of the source of confusion caused by Lady Gaga, Lost has lost control over its valuable goodwill.”

Lost International is asking for a trial by jury, and claims they sent Lady Gaga’s team a cease and desist that was ignored.

“Lady Gaga’s Mayhem soared to No. 1 and shattered records; a testament to her unmatched talent and global impact. It’s disappointing — but hardly surprising — that someone is now attempting to capitalize on her success with a baseless lawsuit over the name ‘Mayhem,’” her attorney, Orin Snyder, said in a statement. “This is nothing more than an opportunistic and meritless abuse of the legal system.”

Upon its release, Mayhem debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Lady Gaga is set to embark on her Mayhem Ball tour in support of the album in July, for which she will play 32 shows across North America, Europe, and the UK through November.

According to the superstar, “Mayhem is about following your own chaos into whatever cranny of your life that it takes you to. And in that way, it was about following the songs,” she said in an interview with ELLE. “Writing as many songs as I did for this album was a labor of total love. And then you just have to be very cutthroat by the end.”

Photo Credit: Tyla for Capital FM Kenya / CC by 3.0

Tyla and producer Sammy Soso are being sued in California over the former’s hit single, “Water.” Sony Music is also listed as a co-defendant.

South African superstar Tyla and producer Sammy Soso are facing a lawsuit in California over her Grammy-winning hit, “Water.” The lawsuit was filed by Olmo Zucca and Jackson LoMastro, who claim to be co-composers and co-authors of the song’s composition. Both are listed as co-writers on the track’s credits on Spotify.

The lawsuit primarily names Sammy Soso (Samuel Awuku) as a defendant, but Tyla and Sony Music are also named as co-defendants. Zucca and LoMastro assert they are owed royalties for the song, as “top-line producers of the song.” The suit alleges that the “defendants have acknowledged that [Zucca and LoMastro] are co-composers and co-authors of the composition of the song, but steadfastly refuse to recognize and compensate [them], and pay [them] all of the royalties to which [they] are entitled from the song.”

Further, the suit alleges that the defendants’ refusal to credit Zucca and LoMastro properly as top-line producers of the song “has resulted in harm” to their reputation and careers, costing them opportunities that would otherwise have been available to them.

Zucca and LoMastro claim they were both present for the song’s recording, and produced numerous audio files that are used in the song’s final master recording. “Zucca and LoMastro were not session musicians, and their contribution to the song was not done on a work-for-hire basis,” the lawsuit continues. “[They] never received or signed any paperwork indicating that they were session musicians for the song, and they never were paid on a work-for-hire basis for the song. Rather, Zucca and LoMastro were full producers.”

The two producers are asking the court to declare them each a top-line producer of the song, and that they are “entitled to a prospective and retroactive 12.5% share of the publishing royalties generated from the exploitation of the song.” They are also seeking pro rata master/record royalties relating to the song, and a producer fee.

“Water” has won numerous awards since its release in July 2023, including the inaugural Grammy for Best African Music Performance. The track has been streamed over 1 billion times on Spotify alone, with over 350 million views on YouTube across the official video and official audio.

Photo Credit: Karina Carvalho

Kanye West is no stranger to sampling songs for his music—but his antisemitic behavior has resulted in more pushback over the years. He’s a prolific unlicensed sampler, resulting in at least 14 cases being filed against him. Here’s a peek at some of the legal action surrounding Ye’s ‘sample first, get permission later’ attitude.

Several of Kanye’s most well-known songs were involved in sampling disputes, including “Gold Digger” and “Bound 2.” Other samples were still used willfully by Kanye, despite being denied permission to use the sample. Most of these lawsuits end up in private settlement so it’s impossible to say the outcome—though others have resulted in tracks being removed.

Not mentioned are several cases in which an unlicensed sample was objected to by an artist, but no legal action was brought forward for various reasons.

The Long History of Kanye’s Sampling Fiascos

In May 2008, Joe Farrell’s daughter, Kathleen Firrantello, accused Kanye of sampling “Upon This Rock” (1974) for West’s track “Gone.” She sought damages of up to $1,000,000 and demanded no more copies of that song be made or distributed. The case also implicated three others rappers—Common in “Chi-City,” and Method Man and Redman’s “Run 4 Cover.” Kanye settled with Firrantello in 2010.

In 2010, British musician Aphex Twin claimed that Kanye attempted to use a sample of his piano melody in “Avril 14th” without compensation. West’s team sent him an early version of the song “Blame Game” with a time-stretched sample of “Avril 14th.” Aphex Twin offered to re-record the piece at a different tempo to improve the quality. West’s team responded “It’s not yours, its ours, and we’re not even asking you anymore.”

In October 2011, blues and soul artist Syl Johnson accused West and Jay-Z of sampling “Different Strokes” (1967) for their song “The Joy.” Johnson says the sample was used without permission, credit, or compensation. He also stated that Kanye had previously sought permission for the song but was denied—making the copyright infringement willful. This case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2012.

In April 2013, two family members of David Pryor sued West, claiming his track “Gold Digger” used an unauthorized sample from “Bumpin’ Bus Stop” (1975). Pryor passed away in 2006 and it took six years for his estate to wind its way through probate. This case was eventually dismissed in 2014 on grounds that the sample used was ‘de minimis’—too short it doesn’t count as copyright infringement.

In December 2013, Ricky Spicer of the group Ponderosa Twins Plus One sued Kanye for sampling the group’s song “Bound” for his own track, “Bound 2.” By May 2015, Spicer reached a deal with West to settle this case outside of court for an undisclosed amount.

In May 2016, Gábor Presser of the Hungarian rock band Omega sued the rapper for sampling “Gyöngyhajú Lány“ (1969) on his track “New Slaves.” Presser sought $2,500,000, stating that Yeezy’s representatives offered a $10,000 check after the start of The Yeezus tour to resolve the issue. A trial for this case was due to begin on May 15, 2017—but ultimately Ye settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

In February 2019, the parents of Natalie Green sued Kanye for illegally using a clip of Green’s voice at the beginning of the song “Ultralight Beam.” West sought permission from Green’s birth mother, but as she was no longer the legal parent of the child, she could not clear the sample. The case was settled in November 2020 for $350,000.

In March 2019, actor Ronald Oslin Bobb-Semple claimed that West and Kid Cudi’s track “Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)” illegally sampled his 2002 one-man show without providing credit or compensation. West admitted to sampling the show, but claimed fair use. In January 2020, Bobb-Semple and West settled the suit for an undisclosed amount.

In August 2021, gospel singer Briana Babineaux said she was unaware that her vocals from “Make Me Over” were sampled in the Kanye song, “Lord I Need You.” The owner of the song B. Slade pushed back on Babineaux’s claims, stating West had cleared the sample with him as the rightful owner of the song.

In May 2022, Texas pastor David P. Moten sued Kanye for using a minute of his recorded sermon, “Come to Life.” The case for this copyright infringement is still active and is slated to go to trial on June 2025.

In June 2022, Ultra International sued West for sampling “Move Your Body” (1986) by Marshall Jefferson in his song “Flowers.” West settled this suit in May 2023 for an undisclosed amount.

In November 2022, music company Phase One Network accused West of sampling Boogie Down Productions’ song “South Bronx” for his song with Andre 3000, “Life of the Party.” The company alleges that West submitted and then retracted a clearance request in 2021. In August 2024, both sides settled for an undisclosed amount.

In July 2024, a music company called Artist Revenue Advocates sued West for using their instrumental song “MSD PT2” in both “Hurricane” and “Moon.” This case is still pending in California fedearl court.

In February 2024, Ozzy Osbourne threatened legal action over a sample of the Black Sabbath song “Iron Man” appearing on Kanye’s track “Carnival from the Vultures 1 album. Osbourne stated he refused to clear the sample due to Kanye’s antisemitism. West removed the sample efrom the track and replaced it with a different sample for which he did have clearance from a prior use.

Kanye also faced legal action from the Donna Summer estate for interpolating “I Feel Love” (1977) on their song “Good (Don’t Die).” The Summer estate denied his request to sample saying they did not want to be associated with West after his numerous antisemitic scandals. West and the Summer estate reached a settlement in June 2024. Part of the terms of that settlement was the track was removed from the Vultures 1 album.

In November 2024, several hip-hop artists from Memphis sued West and Ty Dolla Sign for sampling “Drank a Yak (Part 2)” (1994) in their song “Fuk Sumn.” The artists claim to have participated in talks for sample clearance, but negotiations were stalled due to the turnover of Kanye’s employees after his antisemitic rants. This case is still pending.

Finally, German singer-songwriter Alice Merton is suing Kanye for his unauthorized sample of her song “Blindside” in his track “Gun to My Head.” That lawsuit was filed on Marh 25, 2025. Merton says Kanye asked permission to sample the song in February 2024, but she denied the sample because she did not want to be associated with him. “The artist’s values are contrary to our values.” That case is still ongoing.

Photo Credit: Alice Merton by Fred Gasch / CC by 4.0

A German singer is suing Kanye West, aka Ye, for using a sample of her music after she refused to clear it for his use due to his antisemitic rants.

German singer-songwriter Alice Merton filed a lawsuit against Ye (formerly Kanye West), claiming he sampled a song she wrote that she refused to license it to him, due to his antisemitism. She says she feels “shocked and humiliated” by the move as the descendant of Holocaust survivors.

In a case filed Monday in federal court, Merton’s attorneys say West used clips from her 2022 track, “Blindside,” in his 2024 song, “Gun to My Head” with Ty Dolla $ign and Kid Cudi. But she had expressly refused to clear the sample for his use, citing that “the artist’s values are contrary to our values,” referencing his antisemitic remarks and rants.

“Although defendant’s use of plaintiff’s song could potentially bring in significant revenue, [she] was unwilling to compromise her personal beliefs and wanted not to be associated with Ye in any manner,” her lawyers wrote. “Merton is a German resident who has close ties to the Holocaust through Jewish family members who survived its horrors, and as such feels closely connected to it.”

“Merton’s name was suddenly appearing everywhere, with claims that the song was a collaboration between Ye, Cudi, and Merton,” reads the lawsuit. It further explains that things got worse when the song was not included on Ye’s Vultures 2 album, and fans harassed her to approve the sample. “Plaintiff Merton began receiving death threats and abuse from Defendant’s fan base. […] Defendant did nothing to stop the abuse, allowing his fans to intimidate and harass […] Merton.”

Her lawsuit is just the latest filed against Ye over claims of unlicensed samples. In fact, the controversial rapper has faced nine infringement cases since 2019 alone — including a battle with the estate of Donna Summer, which settled last year.

A federal judge has denied music publishers’ motion for a preliminary injunction against AI giant Anthropic. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

A federal judge has denied music publishers’ push for a training-related preliminary injunction against AI giant Anthropic.

Judge Eumi Lee rejected the injunction request in a 13-page order, following considerable back-and-forth between the plaintiff publishers and the Claude developer. Among other things, the injunction sub-dispute saw Anthropic defend its existing training safeguards for protected works.

Ultimately, late 2024 delivered a training “guardrails” compromise of sorts between the parties. As we covered at the time, this partial injunction resolution settled questions concerning possibly infringing outputs from current and future Claude models.

But it didn’t resolve the second component of the music publishers’ sought injunction, involving Anthropic’s training of LLMs.

“Anthropic…[is] enjoined and restrained from using copies of lyrics (or portions of lyrics) to compositions owned or controlled by Publishers for future training of Anthropic’s AI models,” the plaintiffs wrote in their proposed injunction order.

Regarding the injunction’s scope – seemingly a big hang-up for the court – the publishers said they’d supplement the lawsuit’s 500 allegedly infringed works with a more comprehensive list. The latter would then update “on at least a quarterly basis,” per the text.

In the end, on the heels of related hearings and more, the court found the publishers’ “vague and unwieldy injunction” request to be “elusive and poorly defined.”

“Publishers’ counsel could not say how many songs would be subject to the injunction. … Publishers did not offer a concrete or definitive way for Anthropic – as the party subject to the injunction and the legal repercussions of a violation – to ascertain its parameters or comply with its terms,” Judge Lee indicated.

“The enormous and seemingly ever-expanding scope of Works included in the requested injunction raises significant concerns regarding enforceability and manageability,” the court drove home.

As for the possibility of issuing a more limited injunction (like for the above-noted 500 works identified in the suit), the judge emphasized that the publishers hadn’t “requested this narrower form of relief.”

“The Court therefore finds it inappropriate to issue a more limited injunction,” Judge Lee proceeded.

Perhaps more problematic – at least for music rightsholders when it comes to the broader infringement battle against gen AI developers – are the court’s findings pertaining to the alleged infringement’s resulting harm.

Of course, this position ties directly to the injunction motion, not the central copyright claims. Admittedly, though, its tone doesn’t appear to bode well for the publishers’ suit.

“But they [the publisher representatives’ declarations] do not demonstrate how using the Works to train Claude is affecting – let alone diminishing – the value of any of the Works,” the court wrote.

“Even if Publishers had shown that the use of the Works to train Claude will cause them harm within the emerging AI licensing market,” the judge found on the market-harm front, “they once again fail to show that such harm is irreparable.”

In a statement, the music publishers reiterated their continued confidence in the overarching suit.

Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

A federal appeals court unanimously ruled that AI-generated works without human involvement do not qualify for copyright protection in the US.

Computer scientist Dr. Stephen Thaler created a generative artificial intelligence (genAI) called “Creativity Machine,” which generated a picture Thaler titled, “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.”

The US Copyright Office denied Thaler’s application, citing a requirement that work must be authored by a human being. Thaler had listed his Creativity Machine as the work’s sole author.

Thaler challenged the decision, but the US District Court for the District of Columbia, a federal court, upheld the Copyright Office’s decision. Thaler appealed; the federal appeals court affirmed the federal district court’s ruling.

“The Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authorized in the first instance by a human being,” said Circuit Judge Patricia A. Millett for US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. “Even if the human authorship requirement were at some point to stymie the creation of original work, that would be a policy for Congress to address.”

The Copyright Office has permitted the registration of works made by human authors who have used artificial intelligence. The issue remains over how much AI contributes to a human author’s work. In Thaler’s case, he listed his genAI as the sole author.

“Photography, sound recordings, video recordings, and computer programs are all technologies that were once novel, but which copyright law now applies,” Judge Millett continued, noting that Congress is key in updating copyright law, not the courts.

“[The Court’s] well-reasoned holding is consistent with decades of copyright law and the holdings of other courts that have considered similar questions and found the same result — that to be copyrightable, an expressive work must be created by a human,” said Alicia Calzada, Deputy General Counsel of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). “That is why several years ago, a court held that a selfie taken by a monkey was not copyrightable, and it is why images created solely by AI are not copyrightable.”

Photo Credit: Apple

A federal judge has dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Mariah Carey and her Christmas hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

In June 2022, country singer Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone) filed a $20 million lawsuit against Carey. He later withdrew the lawsuit without prejudice. In November 2023, Vance re-filed the lawsuit along with co-writer Troy Powers. They alleged that their 1989 song of the same title was copied by Carey’s Christmas hit.

Both Vance and Powers argued that Carey had access to their song due to ‘extensive airplay’ in 1993 and a White House performance in 1994. The lawsuit claims that Carey’s song shared a ‘unique linguistic structure’ and musical elements with the Vance composition.

Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani rejected those allegations, citing evidence from a musicologist that the songs’ only shared aspect are “commonplace Christmas song cliches.” That’s an argument Carey’s attorneys made when arguing the case, stating that Vance’s language use was found in “legions of Christmas songs.”

New York University professor Lawrence Ferrara testified that he found at least 19 songs that incorporated the same lyrical ideas and were released before Vance’s track. Judge Almadani said that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proof to show that Carey’s song and Vance’s song were “substantially similar under the extrinsic test.” She also called Vance and his lawyers’ conduct egregious and said they caused unnecessary delay and needlessly increased the cost of litigation.

Accordingly, Vance was ordered to repay Carey’s legal bills incurred while defending the case. Carey’s iconic Christmas song is a big earner for her year after year. While yearly totals differ, estimates put her earnings from royalties between $2.5 million and $3.3 million each year.

Over its lifetime, the song has reportedly generated over $103 million from global streaming and other revenue sources. Carey has embraced her role as the ‘Queen of Christmas’ and has offered holiday-themed merchandise and last year an Apple Music Christmas special.

Photo Credit: Cosynd

Trusted copyright protection platform Cosynd has announced a new partnership with performance rights organization BMI. The partnership will benefit BMI’s new Spark program, designed to support BMI’s global community of music creators at every stage of their career.

The following was created in collaboration with Cosynd, a proud partner of Digital Music News.

The innovative partnership marks the first time that Cosynd has offered an American PRO exclusive access to discounted U.S. Copyright Office registrations and vital legal agreements. This will empower BMI’s music creators to safeguard their works easily and affordably, while setting a new standard in copyright protection for the industry.

With Cosynd’s suite of tools, BMI’s more than 1.4 million songwriters, composers, and publishers can quickly establish ownership of their content and prevent unauthorized use of their work—all for 80% less than similar services and within a fast and simple UI.

“In today’s fast-paced music industry, music creators are being asked to do more than ever, not just making the music we love, but also putting it out into the world, finding and engaging with their fanbases, and creating their own unique brand,” says BMI Executive Director of Strategic Partnerships & Industry Research, Jess Robertson.

“In addition, managing the many platforms and various registration processes required to protect their work and collect revenue adds yet another layer of complexity. That’s why we are so thrilled to have Cosynd join Spark as an inaugural partner, further supporting BMI’s commitment to prioritizing our songwriters, composers, and producers and their copyrights.”

“We are proud to celebrate this milestone with BMI as the first PRO to take a bold step in prioritizing copyright protection for its members,” adds Cosynd CEO, Jessica Sobhraj. “By making it easier and more affordable for creators to secure their rights, BMI is setting a new precedent for how the industry can support music creators at every stage of their careers.”

“As AI and streaming fraud present new challenges, this partnership ensures that BMI’s members have the legal protections they need to safeguard their work, assert their ownership, and uphold the value of their music in an ever-evolving landscape.”

Through Cosynd’s efficient copyright registration service, BMI creators can easily register any of their content with the U.S. Copyright Office. That allows them to secure legal standing to pursue infringement claims, accessing statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement, and gaining global protection in over 175 countries.

Additionally, Cosynd’s agreement builder allows BMI members to quickly create customized, legally binding agreements, ensuring clarity on ownership when collaborating with others. To further enhance their experience, BMI members can also take advantage of an exclusive discount for Cosynd’s Premium Annual Membership, which includes the ability to create an unlimited number of agreements and up to four free copyright registrations (though federal filing fees will still apply).

Cosynd’s partnership with BMI arrives at a critical moment as the music industry grapples with the implications of artificial intelligence and the rising tide of streaming fraud. Recent lawsuits against AI companies for unauthorized use of copyrighted songs underscore the need for clear protections.

Reports suggest that up to 10% of global streams are fraudulent, significantly impacting streaming revenues and revealing vulnerabilities in the current system. In this complex landscape, establishing clear copyright registrations is essential for asserting ownership, preventing misuse, and ensuring creators are fairly compensated for their works.

BMI’s proactive efforts to offer secure and affordable copyright protection for its members solidify its position as a key advocate for music creators in an increasingly complex landscape. Curious about BMI Spark and its partners? You can find more information here. Cosynd is trusted by thousands of copyright owners across 160+ countries, transforming what was once a complex, expensive process into an accessible, cost-effective solution. The service saves businesses and creators thousands in legal fees with just a few clicks—here’s how.

A federal judge has opted against dismissing the copyright infringement claims levied by Limp Bizkit against Universal Music, which has until early April to submit an answer. Photo Credit: ECarterSterling

A judge has dismissed a number of state-law claims in Limp Bizkit’s unpaid-royalties lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG). But the core copyright infringement claims are moving forward at the federal level.

We last checked in on the high-stakes courtroom confrontation earlier this week, when covering Iggy Azalea’s separate unpaid-royalties allegations against UMG. At the time, a dismissal-motion hearing in the Limp Bizkit v. Universal Music showdown was slated for next Monday, March 24th.

Now shelved in light of the fresh court order, the dismissal hearing would have pertained specifically to the amended complaint submitted by Limp Bizkit (along with frontman Fred Durst) in February.

In short, that noticeably lengthier action doubled down on far-reaching existing claims, including by alleging material contractual misrepresentations from Flip Records founder and former Geffen president Jordan Schur.

And without retreading too much ground regarding those claims – we’ve covered the legal battle since it kicked off in October 2024 – Limp Bizkit and Durst are accusing UMG of fraud, withholding millions of dollars in due royalties, and a whole lot else, all allegedly discovered when Durst hired new reps in early 2024.

More pressingly, the plaintiffs maintain that they lawfully nixed the underlying agreements – one involving Limp Bizkit and Interscope, another concerning Durst’s Flawless Records JV, and a third pertaining to Flip and Limp Bizkit – after learning of the alleged contractual violations.

As such, the filing parties say they’re now (among other things) the rightful owners of the valuable masters in question. Given the works’ continued availability via UMG on streaming and elsewhere, that’s where the copyright infringement allegations come into play.

Unsurprisingly, the arguments aren’t sitting right with Universal Music, which in the above-noted dismissal push said that the Flip-related claims were subject to a forum-selection clause and should be tossed.

Additionally, the major-label defendant described Limp Bizkit’s contract rescindment as invalid for multiple reasons – with the infringement claims purportedly falling through as a result.

Back to the initially mentioned court order, the presiding judge just recently opted against hearing the 14 state-law claims in Limp Bizkit’s amended action, citing “the potential for juror confusion arising out of different legal standards for the state claims” and more.

Those claims have been dismissed without prejudice, and the act’s reps told DMN that they plan to refile in state court “soon.”

Still proceeding at the federal level, however, are the core copyright infringement allegations. As currently scheduled, Universal Music has until Monday, April 7th, to provide a formal answer.

A federal judge has denied a dismissal motion from Miley Cyrus and others, and Tempo Music Investments’ ‘Flowers’ infringement suit is moving forward as a result. Photo Credit: Azraulker

One dismissal-motion rejection later, the copyright lawsuit accusing Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” of infringing on Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man” is moving forward.

The presiding judge just recently denied multiple defendants’ dismissal motion, after Tempo Music Investments fired off the underlying complaint in September 2024.

(Among the case’s defendants are Warner-Tamerlane Publishing and Deezer, the latter being controlled by Warner Music Group parent Access Industries. WMG itself took a controlling stake in Tempo Music last month, but Deezer is still expected to answer the suit by April 9th.)

As we reported at the time, Tempo says it bought an interest in “When I Was Your Man” from co-writer Philip Lawrence back in 2020. Also according to the plaintiff, Miley Cyrus and others lifted from the Mars hit without authorization to create the much-streamed “Flowers.”

Fast forward to November 2024, when Cyrus’ legal team argued in more words that Tempo lacked standing to sue for infringement.

“It is clearly established law in this Circuit that an assignee or licensee of a single co-author, like Plaintiff here, does not own exclusive rights and, as a result, lacks standing to sue for copyright infringement,” the songwriter defendants and their counsel wrote when urging dismissal.

But as mentioned at the outset, the court doesn’t feel the same way, with Judge Dean Pregerson’s order describing the dismissal position as “incorrect.”

“When a co‐owner transfers his or her interest,” Judge Pregerson penned, “which the co-owner need not obtain consent from the other co‐owners to do, the transferee stands in the shoes of the transferor, making the transferee a co‐owner in the copyright.

“Lawrence’s interest was a co‐ownership interest in the exclusive rights of the copyright. … Because Lawrence as a co-owner could sue for infringement, Tempo as co‐owner, in lieu of Lawrence, can sue for infringement without joining the other co‐owners of the copyright,” the judge proceeded.

With that dismissal argument rather definitively settled, at least for now, the next step in the courtroom confrontation appears to be formal answers from the varied defendants.

All told, those defendants include not only Miley Cyrus and the aforesaid Deezer, but Sony Music Publishing, Concord, iHeartMedia, Live Nation, Walmart, and a number of others.

Even France-based Xandrie is being pulled into the legal battle; the Qobuz parent has one week, until March 26th, to officially respond to the complaint.

Photo Credit: Eminem by EJ Hersom for DoD News Features / CC by 2.0

Eminem’s former sound engineer is facing federal charges for allegedly stealing and selling the rapper’s unreleased music.

Prosecutors say 45-year-old Joseph Strange stole unreleased music created by Eminem and sold it on the internet, where it was later leaked. Acting US Attorney Julie Beck is charging Strange with criminal infringement of a copyright and interstate transportation of stolen goods. Joseph Strange is said to have worked for Eminem between 2007 and 2021.

The FBI reportedly received a tip in January from employees of Eminem’s studio in Ferndale, who discovered the unreleased music online. Similarly, they found an image of a list of music the rapper created but had not released, and realized the image was taken from the hard drive where the songs were kept.

A complaint filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan said employees of the studio told federal agents that the music in question is stored on hard drives not accessible to the internet. Those hard drives are also password protected and stored in a safe when not in use. According to employees, only four people had access to those hard drives: three sound engineers (Joseph Strange, Mike Strange, and Tony Campana), and manager John Fischer.

The criminal complaint says Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, contacted a business associate in the UK for assistance. The associate, Fred Nasser, better known as Fredwreck, posted on social media warning fans about the leaked music. A fan then reportedly contacted Nasser about the leaks, providing screenshots of a chat with a person using the name “Doja Rat.” This person allegedly purchased the songs from Joseph Strange, paying about $50,000 in Bitcoin.

FBI agents searched Joseph Strange’s home in late January and found numerous handwritten lyric sheets and notes from Eminem inside a safe, a VHS tape containing unreleased music, and more.

Meanwhile, Eminem’s longtime spokesperson released a statement earlier this year about unreleased songs leaked from the rapper’s vault. “These leaked songs were studio efforts never meant for public consumption […] demos, experiments, and ideas that are dated and not relevant so many years later,” Dennis Dennehy said. “The latest in a line of unfinished material released against artists’ will and without their permission.”

“Eminem and his team are very appreciate of the efforts by the FBI Detroit bureau for its thorough investigation which led to the charges against Joe Strange,” Dennehy continued in a statement to 7 News Detroit. “The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem’s artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated, let alone the enormous financial losses incurred by the many creators and collaborators that deserve protection for their decades of work. We will continue to take any and all steps necessary to protect Eminem’s art and will stop at nothing to do so.”

“Protecting intellectual property from thieves is critical in safeguarding the exclusive rights of creators and protecting their original work from reproduction and distribution by individuals who seek to profit from the creative output of others,” wrote Acting US Attorney Beck in a statement.

“This investigation underscores the FBI’s commitment to safeguarding artists’ intellectual property from exploitation by individuals seeking to profit illegally,” added FBI Special Agent in Charge of Michigan Cheyvoryea Gibson. “Thanks to the cooperation of Mathers Music Studio, FBI agents from the Oakland County Resident Agency were able to swiftly enforce federal laws and ensure Joseph Strange was held accountable for his actions.”

Karol G, who’s facing a copyright infringement lawsuit centering on ‘Gatúbela.’ Photo Credit: Junta de Andalucía

Is Karol G’s “Gatúbela” infringing on a third-party beat? An El Salvador-based producer believes so, and he’s fired off a firmly worded lawsuit as a result.

That producer, Alfr3d Beats, and Florida-based Jack Hernandez (who owns a company called Ocean Vibes Music Publishing) just recently submitted the complaint to a Florida federal court.

Besides Karol G, Maldy, and Universal Music itself, the straightforward infringement action names as defendants the co-writers on 2022’s “Gatúbela.” At present, the much-streamed effort is approaching 500 million Spotify plays.

But according to the filing parties here, “by every method of analysis,” the work “is a forgery” of “Punto G,” which plaintiff Alfr3d Beats is said to have released a month and change before “Gatúbela” debuted.

Still live on platforms including YouTube, “Punto G,” its creator makes clear in the appropriate video’s description, is free to incorporate into non-commercial projects. However, commercial usages would require explicit permission.

Running with the point, the suit maintains in more words that “Gatúbela” producer DJ Maff was subscribed to Alfr3d Beats’ YouTube channel when “Punto G” went live. From there, Maff allegedly brought the beat to Karol G, passed it off as his own, and then incorporated it into the song.

Unsurprisingly, the plaintiffs went ahead and cited the findings of an “expert musicologist” in support of their position. As many know, these findings – often submitted by both sides in involved copyright showdowns – aren’t exactly rare.

In any event, as laid out in the complaint, the plaintiffs’ “highly regarded musicology expert” compared the works and found that “both the main synthesizer riff and vocal chorus melody of Gatúbela are extremely similar to the synth melody” in “Punto G.”

Additionally, “such similarities would not have occurred by chance alone; and such similarities cannot be explained away by prior art,” per the legal text.

More interesting and unique than these details is the aforementioned DJ Maff’s social-media follow-up to Alfr3d Beats when accused of lifting “Punto G.”

According to the suit, Alfr3d promptly discovered and then commented (on Maff’s Instagram, in a post previewing “Gatúbela”) about the alleged infringement; in a since-deleted response, Maff allegedly asked the peeved producer not to “tell anybody” about the purported infringement.

Capped off with a laughing emoji, the response (though admittedly ill-advised) may not have been a serious reply to the allegations. After that, the two continued the conversation via direct messages, when Maff allegedly brushed off the possible similarities and said he’d created the beat some nine months beforehand, the suit shows.

All told, the plaintiffs claim these remarks amount to “written admissions of guilt,” and they’re seeking at least $6 million in damages for the alleged infringement.

Sony Music has filed a social media copyright infringement lawsuit against USC. Photo Credit: Sean Pierce

Sony Music Entertainment (SME) has fired off another social media copyright complaint – this time against the University of Southern California (USC), which is accused of “blatantly willful” infringement.

The major label just recently slapped USC with the straightforward action. Though the suit spans nearly 30 detail-oriented pages, including a rather comprehensive look at the university’s sports-program revenue, its central argument boils down to a few main claims.

As described by Sony Music, USC sports teams have for years incorporated protected recordings into social videos without licenses. In short – and as driven home by a number of similar complaints – social platforms’ song libraries are pre-cleared for personal, not commercial, use.

Here, Sony Music identified “hundreds” of allegedly infringing uploads across various USC accounts, adding for good measure that it’d probably be able to find “many more infringing uses” yet.

Unsurprisingly, much of the alleged infringement – extending to releases from Travis Scott, Elvis, Tate McRae, Future, Shakira, and others – leads back to popular USC sports teams.

Evidently, however, Sony Music has been monitoring alleged infringement on lesser-known USC social accounts as well, including for the rowing team and the “Sports Performance” center, to name a couple.

(The suit doesn’t come out and say as much, but the USC Iovine and Young Academy’s Instagram account appears to have made use of several prominent recordings, the precise licensing status of which is unclear.)

Also unsurprising is that the copyright dispute didn’t exactly sprout up overnight. Per Sony Music, it first notified USC of the alleged infringement back in 2021. Additional notifications and discussions purportedly arrived at the top of 2023 and the summer of 2024, per the legal text.

While it doesn’t necessarily need saying, settlement talks failed to bring about an amicable resolution; USC allegedly continued to infringe on certain tracks in new posts even after receiving notifications.

“As of August 15, 2024,” SME wrote here, “USC and Sony Music entered into an agreement to toll the statute of limitations to allow for settlement discussions to continue, which extended through January 15, 2025.”

Besides seeking a massive pile of damages, the plaintiffs also went ahead and not-so-subtly alluded to the possibility of additional litigation on the compositional side and from different labels.

“USC has used, without permission,” Sony Music indicated, “many sound recordings owned and controlled by numerous other record labels, as well as musical compositions owned and controlled by numerous music publishers.”

USC has already pushed back against the suit with a statement, but as mentioned, many of the allegedly infringing social videos remain live. Different defendants in similar complaints have responded by deleting the relevant uploads at once.

Just in passing, those similar complaints include a (quickly settled) suit against Marriott International, on top of multiple actions targeting Chili’s parent Brinker International, an ugly showdown between publishers and NBA teams, and a copyright dispute involving a variety of American Hockey League teams.

Photo Credit: OpenAI

OpenAI hopes for a nation where AI training on copyrighted works counts as fair use — or else, the company says, the US might ‘forfeit’ its AI lead to China.

Courts have yet to decide whether AI training constitutes fair use, while rights holders say that AI models trained on copyrighted creative works threaten to water down humanity’s creative output. But OpenAI hopes that the Trump administration’s “US AI Action Plan,” due out in July, will declare AI training fair use and set the table for AI companies’ unbridled access to training data. This, the company believes, is crucial to keep the United States ahead of China in the AI race.

In the UK, the government is working to pass a (highly controversial) law that would allow AI companies to train on copyrighted works as long as they didn’t “replicate” them. Artists and rights holders will be able to “opt out,” rather than choosing to “opt in,” making it difficult to police who is using their copyrighted works, and for what end.

Back in the US, several lawsuits are ongoing involving this issue — which AI companies hope will be swiftly resolved thanks to the proposed “US AI Action Plan” granting them unfettered access to training material.

While the White House is still mulling the situation over, the AI Action Plan is expected to define policy actions to enhance “freedom-focused” recommendations to bolster America’s position as an AI powerhouse. At the same time, it prevents “unnecessarily burdensome” requirements from hindering private sector innovation — notably, reversing some directives from the Biden administration.

The US has seen one landmark ruling that favored rights holders, in which a judge declared that AI training is not fair use. In that case, AI outputs clearly threatened to replace Thomson Reuters’ legal research firm, Westlaw. But OpenAI is hoping Trump’s AI Action Plan will save them from a similar fate — in particular, in a major suit against the company brought by The New York Times.

“OpenAI’s models are trained to not replicate works for consumption by the public. Instead, they learn from the works and extract patterns, linguistic structures, and contextual insights,” asserts OpenAI. “This means our AI model training aligns with the core objectives of copyright and the fair use doctrine, using existing works to create something wholly new and different without eroding the commercial value of those existing works.”

Further, the company suggested that the US should end these court battles by shifting the focus of its copyright strategy to promote the AI industry’s “freedom to learn.” That, they say, is the only way to prevent China from gaining a leg up on the “AI race.” OpenAI argues that the People’s Republic of China will “likely continue accessing copyrighted data that US companies cannot access,” while “gaining little in the way of protections for the original IP creators.”

Photo Credit: Turbo & Gunna, “Classy Girl”

Producer Turbo wins the $10 million infringement claim filed against him by the vocalist of his now-famous ‘Run that back, Turbo’ producer tag.

The suit was initially filed in January 2024 by musician Jamal Britt, whose voice is heard in Turbo’s now-iconic “Run that back, Turbo” producer tag. Britt alleged that he did not consent for his voice to be featured on future songs — including those by Lil Baby, Gunna, Nicki Minaj, and Chris Brown. The vocals came from a song, “Afghanistan,” recorded by the pair in 2017.

Britt’s lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, included Warner Chappell Music and several other record labels as defendants. He sought joint ownership of the tag, as well as damages and compensation for past royalties.

The labels and entertainment companies that released tracks featuring the producer tag in question were named as defendants in the suit. These include Quality Control, Motown Records, Capitol Records, Young Stoner Life Records, 300 Entertainment, Universal Music group, Chris Brown Entertainment, Young Money Records, Cash Money Records, and Republic Records.

Britt alleged in his suit that he “was never given notice that his voice was being used, never properly credited for his contributions to the songs in question, and was never compensated from any of the royalty payments, profits, or other income generated from the exploitation of his recorded voice.”

But last week (March 7), the court dismissed all claims without prejudice, ruling Britt had no valid claim to the tag beyond the original recording in 2017. The judge’s ruling reinforced Turbo’s exclusive rights, ownership, and control of his producer’s tag in future works.

The latest Turbo song to feature the infamous tag is “Classy Girl” featuring Gunna, which the 30-year-old producer previewed last month. The track landed on streaming services just last week.

Photo Credit: George Clinton by Raj Gupta / CC by 2.0

George Clinton has filed a $100 million lawsuit against his former business partner and Bridgeport Music, alleging copyright theft.

Funk musician George Clinton has filed a copyright lawsuit against former business partner, Armen Boladian, and his Bridgeport Music company. The suit, filed in Florida District Court on Tuesday, alleges that Boladian fraudulently obtained copyrights to approximately 90% of Clinton’s catalog.

According to Clinton’s lawsuit, Boladian and Bridgeport — as well as Westbound Records, Nine Records, Southfield Music, and Eastbound Records — unlawfully profit off the funk musician’s work. He held a press conference outside of the Apollo Theatre to announce the suit, alongside his attorney Ben Crump and fellow counsel. Clinton says he intends to reclaim ownership of his catalog to provide generational wealth to his family.

“These songs we’re talking about is my history,” said Clinton. “I have to fight for them; I have to make sure that I did not do all of this my whole life and have my family here, not get what’s due to them, what they inherit. We don’t have a chance to pass down 40 acres and mules to our families. We do not have the copyrights for the songs. So I’m here along with Ben and partners to make sure that Armen does not get what we worked so hard for.”

“I will continue to speak truth to power and to fight against the forces that have separated so many songwriters from their music,” Clinton continues. “I encourage all my fellow artists to investigate, interrogate, litigate, unseal, reveal. If we don’t get this right, then they win, and I refuse to let them win. This is about my family and the family of the other legacy artists and us being able to give generational wealth to our family from the intellectual property.”

Clinton’s lawsuit claims that his longtime business partner, Boladian, withheld millions of dollars in royalties and engaged in deceptive and fraudulent practices throughout the years. Allegedly, between 1982 and 1985, Boladian fabricated multiple versions of agreements, designating additional rights to his catalog, adding fake names and pseudonyms to copyright registrations to dilute royalty shares.

“This is just the latest in a series of lawsuits that Mr. Clinton has filed against Bridgeport and Armen Boladian over the last 30 years, raising the same exact issues,” said a statement from Boladian’s attorney, Richard Busch. “He has lost each and every time, including in the very courthouse in which he has filed this latest lawsuit. We will obviously, therefore, be moving to dismiss this lawsuit and will be seeking sanctions.”

Boladian has a history of litigious behavior over commercial use of Clinton’s music. He has filed hundreds of lawsuits in 2001 alone against musicians who sampled his work. Clinton’s lawsuit notes that he was not included as a plaintiff in any of those lawsuits, and did not receive any of the millions Boladian was awarded.

Clinton also lost a copyright lawsuit to Boladian in 2001 after a Florida judge ruled that music written from 1976 to 1983 belongs to Bridgeport Music. But that was only the beginning of their legal warfare. Boladian lost a defamation suit against Clinton in 2021, over claims made in the latter’s 2014 autobiography, “Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?: A Memoir.” The book claims that Boladian had fabricated documents, fraudulently backdated and altered contracts, and “robbed” Clinton of his songs.

A live performance from Ultra Records-signed Icona Pop, whose ‘Stockholm At Night’ allegedly infringes on Ultra Publishing’s interest in the underlying composition. Photo Credit: Kim Metso

The Ultra International Music Publishing v. Sony Music legal battle is getting even uglier, as Ultra has doubled down on its copyright infringement claims in an amended complaint.

Ultra Music Publishing – or at least the company currently known as such – just recently submitted the amended action. As we reported last year, this particular showdown dates back to November 2024.

Because the suit represents one component of a wider clash, though, a bit of background information will prove useful here. It’s been about 13 years since Sony Music purchased a 50% stake in Patrick Moxey-founded Ultra Records; the major closed a deal for the remaining interest in 2022.

Long story short – we’ve already covered the fiasco in greater detail – Moxey operated the separate Ultra Publishing under a name-licensing arrangement of sorts during the 10-year window.

But when SME became the sole owner of Ultra Records, it moved (ultimately with a lawsuit) to nix said arrangement and compel Ultra Publishing to find another name. Multiple years later, the trademark-centered showdown finally went to trial; the jury sided with Sony Music in December.

Despite opting against awarding the major damages, this verdict nevertheless set the stage for a court-ordered name change; Ultra Publishing has about six months to adopt a new name.

Technically distinct from this confrontation is the above-mentioned November 2024 copyright suit levied by Ultra Publishing, which is suing Sony Music and subsidiaries including AWAL.

As we reported at the time, a years-long audit uncovered many instances of infringement on Sony Music’s part, according to the Ultra plaintiffs. While it perhaps goes without saying, the described attempts to resolve the dispute sans litigation didn’t pan out.

Sony Music returned fire with a February 2025 dismissal motion, criticizing the “vague” complaint as an alleged “ill-conceived effort…to retaliate” for the name disagreement. Additionally, when it comes to allegedly due payments stemming from the royalties audit, SME relayed that it’d settled with Ultra Publishing “in principle years ago [2019, that is] for a small fraction of the amount claimed.”

Plus, the major called out the plaintiffs’ alleged failure to provide a variety of important specifics concerning the purported infringement.

Six pages longer than the original complaint, Ultra Publishing’s amended suit doesn’t break a ton of new ground.

The entity is still demanding compensation for the alleged unauthorized use (across streaming, downloads, physical, and sync) of over 100 compositions. And Sony Music is still facing accusations of improperly engaging in direct negotiations with Ultra Publishing-signed songwriters.

(Those songwriters “did not have the ability to grant licenses,” and consequently, any resulting agreements “are a nullity and invalid,” per Ultra Publishing’s amended action.)

That said, a few fresh components jump out. First, Ultra Publishing is pushing back against the major’s alleged mischaracterization of the suit as “revenge” amid the broader conflict.

“Most recently,” some of the relevant text reads, “Sony Music has misrepresented this lawsuit as a hasty ‘revenge’ tactic that purportedly was filed by Plaintiffs in response to a trademark dispute between the parties. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a copyright lawsuit that does not involve trademarks or any sort of ‘revenge.’”

Next, bearing in mind the alleged deficiencies Sony Music called out, the amended suit features a comparatively detailed breakdown of the allegedly infringed works.

Besides the already-present titles, artists, registration numbers, and labels, the bolstered action includes the alleged infringement’s initial dates, the involved digital platforms (chief among them Spotify), and more.

Lastly, the filing parties went ahead and expanded on their position that the suit is “just the first of numerous copyright-infringement actions” they intend to launch against Sony Music.

Per the amended complaint, as other alleged infringement is uncovered, Ultra Publishing will spearhead these actions either through further amendments or “additional lawsuits” yet.

Photo Credit: Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) by JD Lasica / CC by 2.0

A federal judge allows an AI copyright lawsuit against Meta to move forward, though he dismissed a portion of the original suit.

A group of authors, including Richard Kadrey, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and comedian Sarah Silverman, filed a lawsuit against Meta with allegations that the company violated copyright by training its AI models using their books. Meta has argued that training its LLMs qualifies as fair use, asking the judge to dismiss the lawsuit outright.

In a ruling on Friday, US District Judge Vince Chhabria determined that the authors’ allegation of copyright infringement is “obviously a concrete injury sufficient for standing.” Perhaps even more damning, the judge also ruled that the authors “adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed CMI [copyright management information] to conceal copyright infringement.”

“These allegations raise a reasonable, if not particularly strong, inference, that Meta removed CMI to try to prevent Llama [Meta’s AI model] from outputting CMI and thus revealing it was trained on copyrighted material,” wrote Judge Chhabria.

Notably, the judge dismissed the authors’ claims that Meta violated the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA). He explains this is due to the fact they did not “allege that Meta accessed their computers or servers — only their data (in the form of their books).”

Even with part of the lawsuit dismissed, things don’t look good for Meta. Discovery in the case has shown that Meta employees discussed internally the use of copyrighted works to train the company’s LLMs. Documents submitted to the court allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave his AI team the go-ahead to train on copyrighted content acquired through “legally questionable” means, while halting AI training data licensing talks with book publishers.

One Meta employee, a research engineer named Xavier Martinet, suggested in internal chats that the company buy ebooks at retail prices to build a training set rather than securing licensing deals with individual book publishers. When another employee pointed out that this could put them in a position where they could be legally challenged, Martinet doubled down on asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

“I mean, worst case: we found out it is finally ok, while a gazillion start up [sic] just pirated tons of books on bittorrent,” wrote Martinet. “My 2 cents again: trying to have deals with publishers directly takes a long time…”

Even Melanie Kambadur, a senior manager for Meta’s Llama model research team, suggested using “links aggregator” LibGen to provide access to copyrighted works from publishers, rather than licensing data sources individually. LibGen has been sued several times and fined millions for copyright infringement.

Photo Credit: Bermix Studio

The US government responds to Diddy’s accusations of racism as he tries to get the charges against him dismissed.

As his court date draws near, Sean “Diddy” Combs and his legal team hope to have charges against him dismissed on the basis that the law itself is “racist.” Now the federal government has responded, asserting race played absolutely no role in the charges contained in the indictment.

Filed on Tuesday, March 4, documents filed by the government referred to Combs’ claims as “outrageous and illogical.” They add that “race played no role whatsoever in the decision to seek the charges contained in the indictment, which instead stemmed from the defendant’s decades of criminal conduct.”

“Because the defendant offers nothing more than conjecture to suggest otherwise, [the motion to dismiss] should be denied,” the documents conclude.

Combs’ motion was filed last month, focusing specifically on the charge of transportation to engage in prostitution — one of three counts in the indictment, alongside sex trafficking and racketeering. His legal team claims there has never been a similar prosecution under the Mann Act, and that no white person has ever been targeted with the law. The Mann Act, which has been in place for over a hundred years, was designed to prohibit the transportation of women for sex.

According to his team’s filing, Combs is a victim of racism. “MR. Combs has been singled out because he is a powerful Black man, and he is being prosecuted for conduct that regularly goes unpunished.” It also doubles down on the defense’s assertion that all sexual activity between Combs and others was consensual. Further, it claims that federal prosecutors have been leaking information about the case to the media ahead of the trial scheduled to begin on May 5.

“The government’s handling of this case demonstrates bias and animus,” the filing claims. “It has gone out of its way to humiliate Mr. Combs and to prejudice the jury pool with pretrial publicity that plays on racist tropes. It has leaked damaging (and oftentimes false) material to the press.”

The government has denied claims prior to their filing that they have discriminated against the media mogul based on his race. A prosecutor called similar accusations made by Diddy’s team during a pre-trial hearing in October “baseless,” and said they posed a “serious risk” to the conduction of a fair trial.

Photo Credit: Chloe Bailey for WBLS / CC by 3.0

Chloe Bailey faces a copyright infringement lawsuit from a songwriter who claims not to have been properly compensated for their work.

Chloe Bailey is facing Trouble in Paradise. The R&B singer, known mononymously as Chloe, is being sued by songwriter Melvin “4rest” Moore, under the claim he was not properly compensated for his work.

Moore is suing Bailey, as well as Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records for “copyright infringement, fraudulent misrepresentation, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), civil conspiracy, and deceptive business practices.

According to Moore’s filing, the defendants failed to “appropriately credit or compensate” him for his contributions to Chloe’s songs, “Favorite,” “Might As Well,” and “Same Lingerie,” from her latest album, Trouble In Paradise.

The songs were allegedly written from Moore’s “personal and […] lived experiences,” and he “did not grant consent to the commercial exploitation” of his work. Notably, he is credited as a songwriter on “Same Lingerie” and “Might As Well,” but not on “Favorite,” according to BMI’s Songview repertory.

“My journey as a songwriter has been one of immense struggle and perseverance. I’ve faced homelessness for two years, only to achieve homeownership 17 years later. These experiences have shaped my resilience. But even after overcoming these obstacles and achieving success, I find myself still fighting for basic fairness in how I am compensated for my work,” said Moore in a statement to Rolling Stone.

Moore claims he made efforts to resolve the issue before getting litigious, with “good-faith attempts” across “almost 200 days,” as well as issuing a DMCA takedown notice. He is seeking monetary damages of up to $150,000 for each “intentional violation,” as well as a court order to stop further commercial use of the songs, and a complete investigation of the defendants’ revenue gained from the unauthorized use. Moreover, he is asking for repayment of all profits gained from such use, proper credit, punitive damages of $5 million per song, and more.

The Long Island headquarters of Altice USA. Photo Credit: Kidfly182

A federal court has ordered Altice USA to turn over the identities of up to 100 subscribers accused of copyright infringement by Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME). 

The presiding judge just recently signed off on that jointly proposed order, which is, of course, an unwelcome one for the affected Altice/Optimum customers.

Last time we checked in on the courtroom confrontation, although Altice had previously settled a separate-but-similar BMG infringement action, evidence was pointing to a protracted WMG dispute.

Perhaps most notably, a discovery disagreement, pertaining in part to the transfer of materials from the BMG case, was slowing the legal battle. So was a venue-transfer push, the defendant ISP’s dismissal efforts, and an adjacent attempt to shrink the pile of nearly 11,000 allegedly infringed works from a damages perspective.

(The latter, concerning multiple recordings sharing the same copyright registration number as well as creations stemming from work-for-hire agreements, isn’t unique to this suit.)

Fast forward to late last month, when the plaintiffs and the internet company apparently reached something of a discovery breakthrough on a variety of points. 10 days thereafter, the involved parties hammered out a follow-up discovery compromise, which the judge then granted.

Under the newer of the agreements, Altice had until today to “make reasonable efforts” to inform 100 subscribers, all accused of repeat infringement, of plans to provide their names and contact details to the rightsholder plaintiffs.

In turn, said subscribers will have 30 days to object. Should that deadline pass without formal pushback, Altice must within two more days disclose each non-opposing customer’s “name, telephone number, address, and e-mail address,” the order spells out.

With a trial tentatively scheduled to take place in September 2025, it’ll be worth closely monitoring the Warner Music-Altice showdown from here.

Though evidence suggests it might be best to avoid a trial – see the humongous damages verdict that Cox Communications is still fighting – Altice in its 2024 earnings report underscored plans to continue “vigorously defending against the claims” from WMG.

Likewise vigorously defending, albeit against copyright claims submitted by all three majors this past summer, is Verizon. Most recently, the telecom giant in November 2024 doubled down on its dismissal calls – including by urging the presiding judge to “say that courts in other Circuits went astray in blessing the Labels’ theory” of contributory liability.

Thomson Reuters has scored a major ‘fair use’ win in an ongoing AI infringement battle. Photo Credit: Mohamed Nohassi

Following several rightsholder setbacks in copyright actions against AI developers, Thomson Reuters has scored a major “fair use” victory.

That important win arrived in the form of a fresh summary judgement ruling from Judge Stephanos Bibas, who had previously rejected both parties’ related motions.

For a bit of background – the involved courtroom confrontation will turn five years old in May – the marathon case centers on Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw legal database.

In far more words, the plaintiff has accused now-defunct defendant Ross Intelligence of lifting protected materials from that database sans permission to create a law-focused AI search engine.

Technically, this lifting was allegedly performed by a third-party legal-services provider. For obvious reasons, when approached by Ross with a licensing proposal, Thomson Reuters had opted against providing the relevant content (including headnote summaries) directly to its competitor.

But unsurprisingly, given the years-long showdown, those materials ultimately wound up with Ross and factored into its AI search product, according to the plaintiff.

Shifting back to the summary judgement, Judge Bibas found the Thomson Reuters headnotes, notwithstanding the presence of verbatim judicial opinions therein, to “have original value as individual works.”

“More than that,” the judge wrote, “each headnote is an individual, copyrightable work. That became clear to me once I analogized the lawyer’s editorial judgment to that of a sculptor. A block of raw marble, like a judicial opinion, is not copyrightable. Yet a sculptor creates a sculpture by choosing what to cut away and what to leave in place. That sculpture is copyrightable.”

Building on the interesting point, the judge also ruled in favor of Thomson Reuters on the all-important fair use front, describing Ross’ utilization of the protected materials as non-transformative. Plus, the court arrived at the fair use answer after determining that the defendant had allegedly aimed “to compete with Westlaw by developing a market substitute.”

In a statement, Thomson Reuters applauded the fair use findings, which could factor into music rightsholders’ own copyright suits against AI developers.

A few of these defendant developers have likewise rallied behind the fair use defense, maintaining that rightsholder permission or not, it’s entirely lawful to feed protected works into generative models en masse. The underlying technologies, the same companies have claimed in more words, are transformative.

Of course, logic strongly suggests that generative AI’s all-encompassing consumption of copyrighted media – without which AI products simply couldn’t exist, developers have acknowledged – is anything but fair.

Nevertheless, Judge Bibas’ summary judgement ruling (besides leaving multiple questions to the jury) appears to be more of a solid base hit than a homer for the wider rightsholder community. Perhaps most significantly here, the Thomson Reuters-Ross Intelligence battle doesn’t concern generative AI whatsoever.

“Ross took the headnotes to make it easier to develop a competing legal research tool,” the court spelled out. “So Ross’s use is not transformative. Because the AI landscape is changing rapidly, I note for readers that only non-generative AI is before me today.”

Specifically for the music space, where generative models have allegedly sucked up an abundance of protected media to pump out derivatives, that’s a pertinent component of today’s fair use ruling.

To be sure, the judge “slogged through all 2,830 headnotes” (which are only a portion of the allegedly infringed summaries) and identified “actual copying” on 2,243.

With the possible exception of music publishers’ AI infringement actions, which accuse chatbots of pumping out protected lyrics verbatim, it’ll be comparatively difficult (at least without the assistance of a new law) to pinpoint copying “so obvious that no reasonable jury could find otherwise.”

Photo Credit: R. Kelly at Groovin in the Park 2017 by comechatwitmi / CC by 3.0

R. Kelly’s victims are suing the incarcerated R&B icon for the nearly $10 million in damages he still owes them.

Six victims who won a $10.3 million judgement against disgraced R&B artist R. Kelly in 2022 say he still owes them more than $9.9 million of it. Now, Lizette Martinez, Lisa Van Allen, Kelly Rodgers, Faith Rodgers, Roderick Gartell, and Gem Pratts — all of whom were featured in the Lifetime docuseries, “Surviving R. Kelly” — are suing to collect their cash.

According to their filing in the Manhattan Supreme Court, the six plaintiffs have received just two payments totaling less than $500,000. The suit names the 58-year-old Kelly; his former manager, Donnell Russell — both of whom are behind bars — as well as Kelly’s former label, Universal Music; the label’s publishing branch, Universal Music-Z Tunes; and Chicago-based revenue sharing platform for independent artists, IndyBuild.

Although Universal Music’s co-publishing agreement with Kelly ended in 2019, court documents claim the company “remains contractually obligated to collect revenues and remit music publishing royalties to Kelly.” That money, therefore, should go to the victims, the plaintiffs contend.

In August 2023, Kelly was ordered to pay the six plaintiffs combined $5.1 million in compensatory damages, and another $4.5 million in punitive damages. The plaintiffs assert they are also owed $2,450.30 a day in interest.

R. Kelly was once the biggest name in R&B and adored by his fans worldwide, even after allegations of his conduct toward young women and girls began circulating in the ‘90s. In 2008, he was acquitted in Chicago on child pornography charges.

But a second Chicago trial in 2022 ended in his conviction on charges including sex trafficking, racketeering based on the sexual exploitation of children, and producing child pornography. The singer was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is currently housed at the Butner Federal Prison in Granville County, North Carolina.

One of the product listings for an allegedly infringing Biggie Smalls poster. Photo Credit: Digital Music News

The Notorious B.I.G. estate and others are suing canvas-art company iCanvas as well as several retailers for allegedly infringing on a well-known picture of the famed rapper.

The Biggie Smalls estate’s IP company, Republic Merchandising, and photographer Barron Claiborne just recently submitted their straightforward suit to an Illinois federal court.

On the opposite side of the legal battle, the action names as defendants not just iCanvas, but a closely associated business, the companies’ shared founder, Target, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond’s parent, and Nordstrom. (The plaintiffs intend to add more defendants down the line, the document emphasizes for good measure.)

As laid out in the complaint, the veteran photog Claiborne captured the “King of New York” photo of Biggie, wearing a plastic crown, three days before the rapper’s 1997 passing. That shot subsequently became culturally prominent, with the actual crown having sold for almost $600,000 at auction, the legal text indicates.

Fast forward to 2015, when iCanvas allegedly began infringing on Biggie’s NIL, trademarks, and the mentioned photograph itself as part of “a multi-year unlawful campaign.”

In its FAQs section, iCanvas encourages artists to submit their portfolios if they’re interested in featuring works on the site. At least according to the plaintiffs, when contacted about the alleged infringement in 2023, iCanvas said it’d received the relevant Biggie artwork from two individuals (both non-parties here).

And that artwork centered on the “King of New York” photo and ultimately encompassed 108 SKUs, which iCanvas printed and sold, the action claims.

“ICanvas either has not had a procedure for vetting the pieces it received from ‘artists’ and ‘designers’ for intellectual property and personality rights clearance purposes,” the suit proceeds, “has had a wholly ineffective one, or has had one persons at the company simply have not used.”

Unsurprisingly, given the complaint, the plaintiffs say they didn’t approve these alleged usages – or the items’ alleged sale via the above-mentioned retailers, which are named as defendants for allegedly offering the resulting products to customers.

When contacted by the plaintiffs in 2023, iCanvas purportedly responded by removing the identified products but not all those allegedly infringing on the Biggie IP.

The printing-company defendant also opted against providing “a detailed accounting and contact information for the ‘artists’ and ‘designers’ that initially provided the company the infringing items,” the text proceeds.

On the retail side, after receiving related notices of their own, each of the appropriate companies save Bed Bath and Beyond removed the Notorious B.I.G. items in question, the suit maintains.

(The referenced products were still live on Bed Bath’s website yesterday, per the action, but were seemingly pulled between then and this piece’s writing.)

All told, the plaintiffs are seeking damages for copyright infringement on the main photo, trademark infringement, publicity-law violations, unfair competition, false advertising, and more.

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

Photo Credit: Engin Akyurt

T.I. and Tiny Harris have been awarded the full $71.4 million in damages they initially won in their lawsuit before a judge nearly docked it by 75%.

Toy giant MGA Entertainment, which created the LOL Surprise! doll line, was initially ordered to pay over $71 million in September. The company was found liable for infringing the T.I. and Tiny Harris’ OMG Girlz intellectual property. But Judge James Selna had considered reducing the amount payable to around $17 million in January — omitting the $53.6 million in punitive damages.

Fortunately for the couple, Judge Selna changed his mind and has officially awarded them the original full amount. “There’s a lot to contemplate. I want to put this down for a couple days, and I want to come back to it fresh from the top,” the judge said in a statement to journalists at the time, confirming that he was not convinced in his original consideration of reducing the amount.

Initially, Judge Selna suggested there was not enough evidence to prove that MGA Entertainment acted in bad faith when they copied the OMG Girlz’ likeness. Therefore, he posited that the punitive damages may not be warranted, and considered reducing the amount payable to just the real damages, or around $17.8 million.

“The OMG Girlz are getting their $53 million in punitive damages from toymaker MGA over the OMG Dolls!” wrote journalist Meghann Cuniff. “Judge Selna changed his mind! Order issued today!”

Tiny wrote on her Instagram Story, “Don’t play with God’s children! So thankful and grateful to our amazing law team.” She also commented on The Shade Room’s post of the news, “God be showing out!! So thankful and happy for [OMG Girlz Bahja Rodriguez and Breaunna Womack] and [daughter Zonnique] most of all!”

T.I. and Tiny’s lawsuit against MGA Entertainment accused them of copying the likeness of their girl group, OMG GIrlz. The successful ruling agreed that seven of the dolls in the LOL Surprise! OMG dolls product line copied the likeness of the trio. MGA has denied allegations of copyright infringement, but T.I. and Tiny further asserted that the company was bullying them for filing the suit.

“[They were] trying to paint me as the bad guy when really, they were the [bad] ones,” said T.I. “They were the ones that came and ripped us off, and [they] expected us not to have the audacity to stand up and speak for ourselves.”

Photo Credit: Tingey Law

A court ruling by a federal judge in a Louisiana copyright case has rooted chaos in the music industry over how copyrights on music catalogs function.

A federal judge in Louisiana has ruled that US copyright termination rules apply globally, granting songwriter Cyril Vetter full copyright ownership to the 1963 track, “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” from publisher Resnik Music Group. The ruling allows Vetter to reclaim full copyright ownership for all territories worldwide, should the decision stand.

The ruling brings into question “termination rights” under the US Copyright Act of 1976, which enables the original author(s) of a song to reclaim their copyright after a set period of time. Until the ruling, it was widely understood that when an author exercises their termination rights under US law, this applies only to US rights.

But the ruling by the US District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana has upended this, concluding that a termination under US law applies globally. Resnik Music Group asserts the ruling will create chaos in the industry. “Copyright in each work [will be] dependent on its country of origin, rather than the orderly system that the nations of the world have in fact developed over more than a century, in which the applicable law is the law of the place ‘where protection is claimed.’”

Vetter’s lawyers called Resnik’s claims a “novel theory” about copyright functionality, but agreed the Court’s ruling is the correct one under international law. Resnik’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case back in July, arguing that ruling in Vetter’s favor would result in chaos.

The Court’s ruling is likely to be appealed, as Resnik’s legal team had already attempted to appeal at an earlier point in the proceedings.

“Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” was written in 1962 by Don Smith and Cyril Vetter. The song was first recorded in 1963 by Dick Holler and the Holidays, but it was in 1966 that it became a Top 40 hit when it was recorded by the Swingin’ Medallions. Smith and Vetter sold the rights to the song in 1963 to Windsong Music Publishers for one dollar.

The song’s copyright came up for renewal in 1994. Per the original agreement, Vetter’s copyright was extended for another 28 years under pre-1976 copyright law. Smith died in 1972, and his heirs took back their share of the copyright, and sold it to Vetter.

Windsong sold their rights in the song to Resnik Music Group in 2019. In 2022, Vetter notified Resnik that he was exercising his termination rights — 56 years after the copyright was originally taken out — and taking full control of the song. Resnik continued to claim one-quarter ownership of the copyright, granting it international rights to it, which prompted Vetter to take the matter to court.

A federal judge has dismissed the bundling-focused copyright lawsuit that the Mechanical Licensing Collective filed against Spotify. Photo Credit: MLC

Looks like Spotify’s aggressive bundling strategy is here to stay: The streaming platform has resoundingly triumphed in a related lawsuit from the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC).

The presiding judge tossed that roughly eight-month-old legal action with prejudice today, after Spotify towards 2024’s beginning unilaterally reclassified its existing U.S. subscriptions as music and audiobook bundles.

And as most in the music space know, that seemingly minor maneuver is having a decidedly massive impact on compositional royalties. In short – and as broken down in detail by DMN Pro – bundled revenue is treated a lot differently than revenue attached to standalone music plans.

At present, DMN Pro data shows that bundles account for over 99% of Spotify’s subscriptions in the U.S. – with the resulting royalty savings having cracked a total of $100 million in a matter of months.

Unsurprisingly, Spotify’s bundling bonanza is eliciting pushback on multiple fronts, including firmly worded criticism from the NMPA and, in the current year, a songwriter boycott of the platform’s Grammy party. (Along with most but not all other 2025 Grammy parties, the latter was subsequently shelved due to the LA wildfires.)

But it was the Mechanical Licensing Collective that promptly fired off a lawsuit alleging Section 115 violations and, in turn, demanding millions in additional mechanicals from Spotify.

The MLC further argued that the joint music and audiobook offerings didn’t constitute bundles at all, in large part because of audiobooks’ alleged “token value” and failure to represent a distinct product, we covered at length in 2024.

But Judge Analisa Torres has granted Spotify’s dismissal motion and rather definitively agreed with the platform’s view.

“The Court finds that § 115 and its implementing regulations are unambiguous,” Judge Torres spelled out in her opinion, “and that the only plausible application of the law supports Spotify’s position.

“Under the facts as alleged,” the court continued, “audiobook streaming is a product or service that is distinct from music streaming and has more than token value. Premium is, therefore, properly categorized as a Bundle, and the allegations of the complaint do not plausibly suggest otherwise.”

A portion of the MLC’s arguments concerned the fact that Spotify had initially added audiobook access to Premium in November 2023 – well before the bundling shift was made official in pricing and royalty statements. But as the judge sees things, the timing at hand is of no consequence here.

“That Spotify did not immediately report Premium as a Bundle to MLC in November 2023 although it could have,” Judge Torres found, “and thus likely paid more in royalties to MLC than it was otherwise required to pay, does not mean that Spotify’s later decision to reclassify Premium as a Bundle is invalid.”

Also irrelevant is the number of subscribers accessing audiobooks, per the judge, who ultimately tied this and adjacent determinations back to “the words of the regulation” in question.

“In effect,” Judge Torres indicated, “MLC asks the Court to interpret the undefined phrase ‘token value’ in a manner that will force Bundle, a defined term, to reflect that term’s ordinary and natural meaning. This the Court cannot do. … Although the Court agrees with the premise of MLC’s argument that the regulations define Bundle in a manner that encompasses more than what an ordinary consumer might consider a ‘bundle’ to be, the Court cannot disturb the words of the regulation as they are defined.”

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2025 and beyond, it’ll certainly be worth monitoring the decision’s impact on negotiations and other streaming platforms’ bundling classifications.

As we previously noted, from a legal perspective, there’s seemingly nothing stopping Apple Music (which, among other things, affords subscribers Apple Music Classical access at no additional cost) from taking a similar step. And this past November, Amazon Music conspicuously integrated Audible (and specifically one audiobook per month); now the service has an “artist-centric” pact in place with Universal Music.

More immediately, Spotify touted today’s ruling and emphasized its recent direct deal with Universal Music Publishing Group.

“We are pleased with this outcome,” Spotify told DMN, “which demonstrates that, after careful review by the court, Spotify’s Premium service is appropriately categorized as a bundle and offers valuable content alongside music.

“Bundle offerings play a critical role in expanding the interest in paying for music and growing the pie for the music industry. We know the regulations can be complex, but there’s plenty of room for collaboration—and our recent deal with UMPG shows how direct licenses can create flexibility and additional benefits,” concluded the service, which appears to be plotting a “Courses” buildout in the U.S.

A live performance from Playboi Carti, who’s facing a copyright lawsuit centering on ‘Kelly K.’ Photo Credit: The Come Up Show

Playboi Carti (real name Jordan Carter) is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit from an individual who says he’s owed payment for contributing to the vocals on “Kelly K.”

One Eric Mercer Jr., known professionally as Blakk Soul and described in the action as “a multi-hyphenate singer/songwriter/producer/engineer,” just recently submitted that complaint to a California federal court.

Also naming Cash Carti Music, Universal Music, and its Interscope Records as defendants, the straightforward suit solely concerns the above-mentioned “Kelly K.” The second-to-last track on Carter’s 2017 debut mixtape, that effort currently boasts 55 million Spotify streams.

And according to the plaintiff here, who has credits on releases from Anderson .Paak and others, he recorded some of the vocals on “Kelly K.” While many other complaints go to great lengths to illustrate connections between the plaintiffs and the accused (besides creative overlap between works), Mercer’s suit is upfront about how the purported vocal contributions came to be.

Per the action, Mercer recorded said contributions with Jake One (real name Jacob Dutton), and the vocals made their way into the completed song; Dutton is officially credited on “Kelly K.”

But as laid out by Mercer, before the popular track’s release, he didn’t “transfer any of his rights, including, but not limited to his copyrights to” the non-party Dutton or the defendants.

Fast forward to July 2019, after “Kelly K” had gained commercial traction. At that point, Playboi Carti and his noted Cash Carti Music approached Mercer with a split sheet granting him a 5% “ownership interest” in “Kelly K” for his contributions, the suit explains.

From there, Mercer allegedly “executed” the appropriate agreement on January 24th, 2020. Notwithstanding the claimed “Kelly K” interest, though, the plaintiff says he “has yet to receive a single dollar, or even an accounting of what is owed to him.”

Unsurprisingly, then, the filing party allegedly informed the defendants via email and certified mail “that he was rescinding the” deal in question. According to Mercer, however, “none” of the notice’s recipients responded.

All told, Mercer is suing not only for straight copyright infringement, but for alleged publicity-right violations under California law, breach of contract (specifically against Playboi Carti and his company), and unjust enrichment.

At the time of writing, Playboi Carti didn’t appear to have addressed the suit on social media. As for the 29-year-old’s next career steps, a long-expected third studio album, entitled I Am Music, is presumably set to arrive sooner rather than later. The project’s lead single, “All Red,” dropped this past September.

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst during a live performance. Photo Credit: CarterSterling

Limp Bizkit’s far-reaching lawsuit against Universal Music isn’t going particularly well, as the presiding judge has dismissed several components of the over $200 million complaint.

The court recently made this partial dismissal official, after Limp Bizkit, frontman Fred Durst, and his Flawless Records submitted the initial action in October 2024. We covered the 60-page complaint, alleging millions in unpaid royalties and seeking to nix the underlying agreements, in detail.

Just to recap, Durst hired a new team in April 2024, and they uncovered millions in allegedly missing royalty payments as well as purportedly below-board recoupment practices across multiple deals (including an Interscope-Flawless JV).

Consequently, owing in part to the timing of the relevant royalty payments, the plaintiffs moved to axe all the agreements in question and assume ownership of the involved recordings.

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t sit right with Universal Music, which fired back in November 2024 with a firmly worded dismissal motion. In short, the major said it hadn’t violated the terms of the appropriate agreements, which allegedly allowed (and allow) for cross-account recoupments.

Running with the point, there definitely hadn’t been a “total failure” on UMG’s part to honor the terms of the contracts – including because of the multimillion-dollar advances it’d coughed up, per the company.

As a result, Limp Bizkit’s push to invalidate the contracts should be rejected, per UMG, which therefore moved to dismiss the closely related copyright infringement allegations as well.

And as initially highlighted, the presiding judge has sided with the defendant label, specifically by tossing Limp Bizkit’s contract-recission, copyright infringement, and declaratory relief claims.

“The Court therefore concludes that Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged the type of ‘substantial’ or ‘total failure’ in the performance of the contracts that could support rescission of the parties’ agreements,” Judge Percy Anderson summed up after pointing to the mentioned advances and more.

(That UMG has admitted being late in making some of the payments – and failing to remedy the situation within a 30-day post-notification window – also isn’t grounds for rescindment, per the court.)

Similarly, the judge rejected the other components of the plaintiffs’ rescindment argument, namely that they’d been fraudulently induced into signing the deals because UMG didn’t intend to make the outlined royalty payments.

But for now, the court opted against reviewing the remaining allegations; the Limp Bizkit plaintiffs have until February 3rd to submit an amended action.

Photo Credit: Wesley Tingey

Artist Partner Group accuses Create Music Group of violating copyrights by allegedly poaching artists and uploading songs it doesn’t own to YouTube.

Publishing company and independent label Artist Partner Group (APG) has sued Create Music Group with allegations the company violated copyrights by interfering with its artists’ contracts and uploading and monetizing songs it did not own.

According to APG’s complaint, Create Music Group has engaged in multiple forms of copyright infringement, including unlawfully uploading APG artists’ songs to streaming services and collecting royalties on their behalf. The filing also argues Create intentionally approaches acts who have signed with APG and offers them YouTube monetization deals in violation of APG’s existing deals with them.

“Create and its subsidiaries wrongfully induced these artists to sign these bogus ‘contracts’ by falsely asserting that [APG was] purportedly doing a bad job exploiting their works and leaving money on the table — thereby damaging Plaintiffs’ reputation,” reads the filing. “Create and its subsidiaries further falsely induced these artists by telling them that these ‘contracts’ do not violate [APG’s] rights.”

CMG has refuted APG’s claims as “unfounded.” “We at Create Music Group find ourselves in a situation reminiscent of a classic piece of vinyl — spinning in circles over outdated grievances,” said a representative for the company. “We believe that APG, a legacy player in the industry, is struggling to adapt to the digital age and has resorted to legal theatrics in an attempt to slow down our innovative momentum.”

Founded in 2015, Create has built a name for itself in the music industry through its YouTube royalties collection business. It owns other companies such as distributor Label Engine, TikTok-focused digital media studio Flighthouse, and a majority stake in YouTube collective The Nations. Its business practices on YouTube are a significant part of APG’s complaint against the company and its subsidiaries.

But this isn’t the first time Create has drawn criticism for its tactics. At least ten executives told Billboard in 2022 of instances where Create claimed YouTube royalties to which it had no rights. “We’ve never been sued by a lawyer or manager for this activity,” said Create co-founder Jonathan Strauss at the time. “You would have to think if there was any truly egregious activity, they would do that.”

Create was initially sued in 2023 by music management company DigiGlo, with allegations it had “lost out on years of payments for its content monetization” for over 400 works on YouTube due to Create’s tactics and failure to honor contracts. Create denied these allegations, and the suit is still ongoing.

An aerial shot of Munich, including the city’s Olympic Stadium. Photo Credit: Christoph Keil

Two months and change after tagging OpenAI with a copyright lawsuit, Germany’s GEMA has officially submitted an infringement action against generative AI music platform Suno.

Berlin-headquartered GEMA filed that copyright complaint against Suno in the Munich Regional Court today. Besides following the mentioned November action targeting OpenAI, the newer suit arrives on the heels of GEMA’s “AI Charter” and proposed licensing framework for generative models.

In a nutshell, the charter and the framework concern creator and rightsholder compensation for the use of protected works in generative AI. GEMA’s proposed licensing approach in particular would give these parties a piece of the AI-system pie (referring to “all net income”) as compensation for both training and derivative outputs.

Unsurprisingly – and in keeping with several ongoing actions in the States – training and derivative outputs are likewise at the center of GEMA’s OpenAI and Suno suits.

Regarding the latter, as summed up by the filing entity, Suno allegedly used a number of GEMA-repped works to train “without paying remuneration.” And as Suno users can “make a song about anything” via text prompts, per the relevant website, the platform has allegedly been utilized to pump out “audio content that is confusingly similar to the original songs.”

Those allegedly infringed songs include Alphaville’s “Forever Young” and Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5,” to name a couple.

“GEMA was able to document that the system outputs content that obviously infringes copyrights,” the plaintiff summed up. “In terms of melody, harmony and rhythm, this content largely corresponds to world-famous works whose authors GEMA represents.”

“Generative AI tools such as the music tool from Suno Inc. make uninhibited use of compositions and texts that do not belong to them,” added GEMA supervisory board chairman Ralf Weigand. “If we don’t want to do without man-made music in the future, we urgently need a legal framework that guarantees authors an appropriate share of the value created by AI providers.

“Otherwise, we will very quickly reach the point where no one will be able to make a living from their creative work – a ‘brave new world’ after all human creativity in music has ended!” he concluded.

DMN reached out to Cambridge-headquartered Suno (which partnered with Timbaland in October 2024 and launched an Android app last month) for comment and received an automated response. But at the time of this writing, the company hadn’t followed up with a statement about the GEMA suit.

In any event, it’ll be worth closely monitoring the action’s status in Germany throughout 2025. Stateside, the major labels last year sued Suno as well as Udio for copyright infringement.

The AI upstarts promptly lawyered up with Latham & Watkins (which is also repping OpenAI and Anthropic in their own copyright battles) and doubled down on their well-documented fair use training position.

For obvious reasons, the RIAA pushed back against that position in clear-cut terms, we also reported. A cursory glance at the docket shows that the Suno legal battle is in full swing; the presiding judge last month signed off on a confidentiality and protective order concerning discovery materials.

Travis Scott, SZA, Future, and others are grappling with a copyright infringement lawsuit centering on ‘Telekinesis.’ Photo Credit: Frank Schwichtenberg

Did Travis Scott, SZA, and Future steal from an existing track to create “Telekinesis”? A Roc Nation-signed singer-songwriter believes so, and she’s fired off a firmly worded infringement suit as a result.

Victory Boyd just recently submitted that suit to a New York federal court, naming as defendants Travis Scott, SZA, Future, Sony Music, and several others.

Roc Nation isn’t a party to the relatively straightforward action, but Boyd is currently signed to the Jay-Z-founded company’s label.

Moreover, bearing in mind Roc Nation’s NFL tie-up, it was only in late September that Texas-based Boyd performed the national anthem before the Giants took on the Cowboys.

Evidently, though, the alleged infringement was weighing on the artist’s mind even as she kicked off the game.

As Boyd tells the story, she wrote and then recorded as a voice note a demo entitled “Like the Way It Sounds” in November 2019. The artist promptly shared the work (later copyrighted under registration number SR0000986420) with Kanye West, according to the legal text.

In short, West purportedly based multiple tracks on “Like the Way It Sounds,” but opted against officially releasing any of the derivatives on Donda.

Nevertheless, the non-party West is said to have played Boyd’s song for Travis Scott and then left the creation “in a studio in Wyoming.” Scott allegedly accessed “Like the Way It Sounds” through said studio.

Fast forward to May 2023, when Scott allegedly introduced SZA and Future to the relevant effort; the three then allegedly lifted lyrics and more sans permission to put out “Telekinesis” towards the end of July 2023.

Needless to say, that move isn’t sitting right with the plaintiff, who says she’s actually credited as a “Telekinesis” co-writer in streaming metadata. (At the time of writing, Spotify as well as YouTube were, in fact, displaying “Telekinesis” as one of the top results in searches for “Like the Way It Sounds.”)

And in November 2023, Swiss luxury watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet, also a defendant, allegedly contacted Boyd when seeking to license the appropriate Scott work for an advert campaign. The plaintiff says she denied the request and wasn’t contacted by any of the other defendants to authorize the usage, which occurred in any event.

However, these other defendants did recently attempt “to credit Plaintiff as an 8% writing contributor” on “Telekinesis,” the lawsuit maintains. While it’s perhaps a given in light of the litigation, Boyd opted against accepting the alleged credit offer.

Instead, she’s demanding a sizable pile of damages, a preliminary injunction blocking the “further broadcast” of “Telekinesis,” and more.

Photo Credit: Nathan Dumlao

A federal judge considers slashing T.I. and Tiny Harris’ lucrative payout against doll line LOL Surprise! OMG from $71.4 million to $17 million.

T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris sued toy company MGA Entertainment last year with allegations the LOL Surprise! OMG line of blind box dolls violated their intellectual property. After being awarded $17.8 million in real damages and $53.6 million in punitive damages — over $70 million overall — a federal judge may be slashing that number by a significant amount.

In a new filing, Judge James Selna suggested there is not enough evidence to prove that the toymaker acted in bad faith to therefore be required to pay punitive damages. The judge voiced the prospect of reducing the amount MGA Entertainment would be required to pay the Harris family by 75 percent, or over $53 million.

“There’s a lot to contemplate. I want to put this down for a couple days, and I want to come back to it fresh from the top,” said the judge in a statement to journalist Meghann Cuniff, confirming he has yet to make a final decision.

In their lawsuit, T.I. and Tiny accused MGA Entertainment of copying the likeness of their girl group, OMG Girlz. The ruling found seven of the dolls in the product line copied the group’s likeness. The couple’s daughter, Star, who was a member of the group, testified during the hearing, along with her bandmates.

“[They were] trying to paint me as the bad guy when really, they were the [bad] ones,” said T.I. in a statement to Rolling Stone after the case reached its initial conclusion. “They were the ones that came and ripped us off, and [they] expected us to not have the audacity to stand up and speak for ourselves.”

T.I. and Tiny also accused the toymaker of bullying them during the legal dispute, which MGA has denied. The company also denied allegations of copyright infringement, calling the couple “extortionists.”

Photo Credit: Tony Buzbee

Another case has been filed against law firm Quinn Emanuel, alleging participation in a scheme attempting to solicit and pay individuals to sue the Buzbee Law Firm.

A second case has been filed by an individual alleging law firm Quinn Emanuel and lawyer Marcy Croft oversaw and coordinated a scheme to solicit and pay individuals to sue the Buzbee Law Firm. An earlier, similar case was filed last month.

Jose Maldonado claims he was contacted by investigators working for Roc Nation who pretended to be federal agents. After confirming that he was a former client of the Buzbee Law Firm, Maldonado alleges the investigators encouraged him to sue the firm and offered him money to do so. Buzbee Law Firm is currently pursuing an aggressive ‘Jane Doe’ rape case against Jay-Z, as well as a large number of sexual assault and abuse cases against Diddy.

Investigators are said to have confirmed they were being paid by Roc Nation and were sending all cases they collected to lawyer Marcy Croft. They also ‘bragged that the lawsuits that would result would be in the press.’ Marcy Croft has, for many years, worked closely with the Quinn Emanuel law firm; Roc Nation is a client of their firm.

“The conduct alleged by Mr. Maldonado is illegal and unethical,” said attorney Tony Buzbee in a statement to Digital Music News. “We know investigators have gone all over the United States illegally contacting our former clients to try to entice them with money to sue our firm. According to Mr. Maldonado, we now know who is behind this effort. We won’t be intimidated nor deterred in our important work. I expect more lawsuits will follow as we continue to hear former clients report this egregious conduct.”

Another Buzbee client filed a similar suit in December against Quinn Emanuel and a Mississippi attorney of “barratry-solicitation and civil conspiracy.” That lawsuit included a transcript of an alleged conversation in which people impersonating federal investigators solicited a man to file a legal malpractice suit against Buzbee and his firm.

Tony Buzbee is representing over 150 alleged victims of Sean “Diddy” Combs. Combs remains in federal custody on charges including racketeering, sex trafficking, and more. Roc Nation founder Jay-Z has been involved in lawsuits with individuals alleging abuse in connection with Combs.

Music publishers’ NBA lawsuits are facing discovery-related delays. Photo Credit: JC Gellidon

Music publishers’ infringement litigation against more than a dozen NBA teams is still in full swing – though discovery delays appear likely to push the involved showdowns back by multiple months at a minimum.

Technically, those showdowns are separate; publishers including but not limited to Kobalt levied the underlying copyright complaints last summer. However, the allegations (centering on the purported unauthorized use of protected works in social videos) largely overlap, and the publishers are actively attempting to consolidate the cases.

First highlighted in December, that consolidation request, extending to the 13 remaining suits, is pending. (The Atlanta Hawks look to be finalizing a settlement; as of early December, related discussions were ongoing, an attorney for the defendant communicated in a court update.)

Closer to the present, the intertwined and increasingly convoluted legal battles seem poised for discovery delays, as mentioned.

The publishers as well as the Portland Trail Blazers just recently asked the court to approve a multi-month discovery postponement. In short, the parties said they’d “diligently pursued discovery” but nevertheless requested a 60-day cutoff extension from early February to early April.

Moreover, the litigants indicated that third-party discovery disputes in the publishers’ Orlando Magic suit were “likely to affect discovery in this case.”

These discovery disputes concern song-usage monitor TuneSat, which, in brief, is taking issue with all manner of requests from the Magic defendant. Admittedly, covering every angle here would take some time.

But as described by TuneSat in a letter supporting its motion to quash the requests, the NBA team is leaving no stone unturned as it zeroes in on possibly time-barred elements of the claims.

Among many other things, the Orlando Magic is said to be seeking information about when TuneSat “first created the digital fingerprint” used to find the allegedly infringed works and the “URLs that were downloaded from each of the team’s social media accounts and the dates they were downloaded.”

Also sought are specifics about “any search” of the social sites for the Orlando Magic and the results thereof, to name just one more example. Stated concisely, there’s quite a lot happening on the discovery front.

And it’s against this backdrop that the presiding judge today granted the initially noted discovery delay specifically in the Blazers action. Now, both sides have until January 10th to jointly submit a fresh scheduling order.

It’ll certainly be worth keeping an eye out for that update and monitoring the overarching disputes, which, along with similar actions, may well prompt licensing scrutiny from brands when it comes to their video uploads.

Associated Production Music is suing the American Hockey League and several teams over alleged infringement, for instance, though multiple settlements were disclosed last month.

Photo Credit: OpenAI (Sam Altman)

OpenAI teased a tool called ‘Media Manager’ to allow creatives and content owners to opt-out of AI research and training. But seven months on and as 2025 begins—insiders say the tool is not a priority for the company.

Back when the Sam Altman-led company teased the feature in May 2024, it said the Media Manager tool would provide a standard for creators, content owners, and regulators to opt-out of having their content used in AI training. “This will require cutting-edge machine learning research to build a first-ever tool of its kind to help us identify copyrighted text, images, audio, and video across multiple sources and reflect creator preferences,” the blog post announcing the feature reads.

“Over time, we plan to introduce additional choices and features,” the post continues. OpenAI announced the feature in response to criticism of its approach to hoovering up everything on the internet to train its models. OpenAI has argued in the past that it would be nearly impossible to create a model without copyrighted content present—which seems to be the case seven months on.

TechCrunch recently spoke with OpenAI insiders, who said the Media Manager feature just wasn’t a focus for the company—despite the announcement. “I don’t think it was a priority,” a former OpenAI employee said. “To be honest, I don’t remember anyone working on it.”

Another non-employee who coordinates work with the company told TechCrunch that OpenAI spoke about the tool in the past, but there have been no recent updates. The person who was working on Media Manager, Fred von Lohmann, is no longer with the company and has transitioned to a part-time consultant role.

OpenAI’s Sora model is capable of generating material that features copyrighted characters, works, and compositions. That’s because Sora is trained on billions of webpages, videos, and images that may contain copyrighted content.

The AI cannot distinguish itself when something has been sufficiently altered, so Sora users are often able to prompt for near exact matches of copyrighted content. OpenAI is currently fighting class action lawsuits from artists, writers, news organizations, and YouTubers who claim the company used their works without permission.

Since the blog post in May 2024, OpenAI has not publicly mentioned Media Manager at all.

Photo Credit: Anthropic

Anthropic must maintain guardrails to prevent future AI tools from producing infringing material from copyrighted content. This stipulation partially resolves the music publishers’ preliminary injunction motion filed in the Northern District of California.

Eight music publishers sued Anthropic in October 2023 and sought an injunction in August 2024. Music publishers argued that the injunction was necessary to prevent the infringement of their works. Anthropic opposed the motion and argued its use of training AI models on copyrighted content was ‘fair use,’ given the output was transformed from the original work.

Under this new agreement, Anthropic will maintain its implemented filters on responses to users’ queries. It is allowed to expand, improve, optimize, or change the implementation of these guard rails as long as their overall efficacy at preventing the reproduction of copyrighted content is not diminished.

“Anthropic will maintain its already implemented Guardrails in its current AI models and product offerings. With respect to new large language models and new product offerings that are introduced in the future, Anthropic will apply Guardrails on text input and output in a manner consistent with its already-implemented Guardrails. Nothing herein prevents Anthropic from expanding, improving, optimizing, or changing the implementation of such Guardrails, provided that such changes do not materially diminish the efficacy of the Guardrails,” the agreement reads.

“At any time during the pendency of this proceeding, publishers may notify Anthropic in writing that its guardrails are not effectively preventing output that reproduces, distributes, or displays—in whole or in part—the lyrics to compositions owned or controlled by publishers, or creates derivative works based on those compositions,” the agreement continues.

Anthropic is required to respond to publishers in an expedient manner and must undertake an investigation into any allegations made by publishers. “Anthropic will ultimately provide a detailed written response identifying when and how Anthropic will address the issue identified in Publishers’ notice, or Anthropic will clearly state its intent not to address the issue,” the stipulation states.

Nothing in the parties’ agreement should be interpreted as an admission of liability, fault, or wrongdoing by any party it concludes. The music publisher complaint that Anthropic refrain from using unauthorized lyrics to train its future AI models remains pending.

Music publishers including Kobalt have moved to consolidate the more than dozen copyright lawsuits they’re levying against NBA teams. Photo Credit: TJ Dragotta

Several music publishers are moving to consolidate the copyright infringement lawsuits they’re spearheading against more than a dozen NBA teams.

That development, anticipated by DMN about five months back, came to light in a recent letter to the court from the publisher plaintiffs, including Kobalt, Prescription Songs, and others.

In a nutshell, those publishers over the summer accused the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Philadelphia 76ers, and more of infringing on their protected works in videos posted to TikTok, Instagram, and NBA.com.

The league itself isn’t a party to the straightforward suits, which are part of a growing stack of complaints against brands and companies over alleged copyright violations in social media promos. In general, social platforms’ song libraries are cleared only for personal, not professional, use.

Bringing the focus back to the sought consolidation, the publishers’ related motion “seeks to consolidate thirteen cases, including the instant action, with the Cleveland Cavaliers Action serving as the lead case,” according to the relevant letter to the court.

As some will recognize, the case total has decreased by one since the suits initiated in July. In a separate letter earlier this month, the Atlanta Hawks’ legal team informed the judge that the appropriate parties had “exchanged redline drafts of a settlement agreement” and were “working diligently to finalize the terms.”

But litigation is in full swing when it comes to the other defendants, which, per the plaintiffs’ letter, are open to consolidation for pre-trial proceedings but remain “opposed to consolidation for all purposes.”

Running with the point, the publishers have specifically asked the court to schedule a conference to discuss the consolidation push. Meanwhile, with this sub-dispute set to play out in the new year, the aforementioned similar infringement battles are ramping up in their own right.

Also filed this past July, the Beastie Boys’ infringement action against the parent of Chili’s will now see the latter party file its answer by February 3rd, according to a newly approved extension from the presiding judge.

And in October, as Sony Music settled a different social-media-focused copyright suit against Marriott, Universal Music levied a complaint of its own targeting the owner of Chili’s. As a result of a recent deadline extension, the defendant’s answer in the UMG showdown is due on January 27th.

Finally, Associated Production Music earlier in December settled infringement litigation involving multiple American Hockey League teams; others are still embroiled in copyright confrontations, however.

Anthropic has doubled down on its opposition to major music publishers’ sought injunction. Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

Anthropic is doubling down on its opposition to a preliminary injunction push from major music publishers, which say the AI giant’s Claude chatbot has infringed on their protected works.

Amazon-backed Anthropic just recently refiled its opposition to the plaintiff publishers’ desired preliminary injunction, on the heels of a court order granting and denying in part jointly sought redactions.

Now, those redactions (impacting a relatively small portion of Anthropic’s argument, albeit including interesting details like how much it would cost to comply with the injunctions) are reflected in the appropriate documents.

For a bit of quick background, it’s now been more than a year since Concord, Universal Music, and others first requested said relief. One of the desired injunctions pertains to removing the plaintiffs’ protected works from the generative AI system’s training data, with the other calling for an order blocking protected lyrics from appearing in Claude outputs.

At the top level, Anthropic in opposing the injunctions largely reiterated longstanding arguments – chief among them that using copyrighted works to train LLMs constitutes fair use.

“While Anthropic is confident that using copyrighted content as training data for an LLM is a fair use under the law—meaning that it is not infringement at all—there is no basis to conclude that money damages would not make Plaintiffs whole if they ultimately prevailed on the merits,” the AI platform indicated.

“The Court, accordingly, should not stretch on this underdeveloped record to get ahead of the other cases where the analogous substantive copyright issue will be adjudicated on a full summary judgment or trial record,” Anthropic continued.

Unsurprisingly, Anthropic also reiterated at length the volume of data behind Clyde – the chatbot “learns the patterns of language from trillions of tiny textual data points” – and explored the training specifics, probably including “some copyrighted works,” at hand.

Adjacent to the point, the AI developer stressed the now-common transformative argument. Utilizing “copyrighted song lyrics as part of a multi-trillion token dataset to train a generative AI model about the world and how language works is the very definition of ‘transformative’ under the fair use doctrine,” per the defendant.

Furthermore, certain cited research details “preceded the commercial release of Claude by nearly a year,” according to the legal text. And since then, Anthropic has purportedly added “a broad array of safeguards to prevent reproduction of copyrighted works from occurring in Claude outputs.”

All told, those safeguards mean there’s “no reasonable expectation that the complained-of activity is likely to recur,” according to Anthropic, which also refuted allegations of ongoing market and licensing harm stemming from the purported infringement.

Lastly, in a separate declaration in support of the injunction opposition, Anthropic co-founder Jared Kaplan rattled off his credentials and explained at length Claude’s training particulars.

Heading into the new year, it’ll be worth closely monitoring the status of the injunction battle – not to mention the overarching infringement dispute, a substantial portion of which might be tossed in the not-so-distant future.

Universal Music Group is aggressively doubling down on a push to dismiss a royalties-related lawsuit filed by Limp Bizkit. Photo Credit: UMG

About one month after firing back against Limp Bizkit’s massive unpaid-royalties and infringement suit, Universal Music Group is aggressively doubling down on its dismissal arguments.

The major made its newest push to have the case tossed via a reply in support of a late November dismissal motion. Limp Bizkit and frontman Fred Durst levied the initial action, alleging north of $200 million in potential damages, back in October.

Without rehashing the case’s multifaceted specifics – we’ve already covered those particulars as well as UMG’s counterarguments in detail – the plaintiffs say the major withheld sizable royalty payments under a JV with Durst’s Flawless Records and a deal with Limp Bizkit itself.

Durst unearthed the allegedly missing payments, allegedly stemming from “unsubstantiated” recoupment balances and different “fraudulent accounting practices,” upon hiring a new team, per the complaint. And among other things, he’s seeking the immediate termination of the relevant contracts.

But the allegations amount to “fiction,” UMG maintained in the November dismissal motion, claiming in more words that Limp Bizkit’s then-business manager had fueled any potential payments mix-ups through his own misrepresentations.

As to the allegedly inflated advances, certain still-unrecouped accounts allegedly offset other accounts’ positive balances at various points, according to Universal Music. Meanwhile, a Limp Bizkit rep didn’t hesitate to push back against UMG’s arguments, decrying in a statement the alleged “well-trodden strategy of reaching for any escape route by desperately grasping at technicalities.”

Now, those same dismissal arguments have resurfaced, with a bit of additional detail, in the aforesaid reply.

Keeping the focus on the top level here, one of the relevant deals, complete with a New York forum-selection clause, is still in place notwithstanding the plaintiffs’ rescindment claims, per UMG. And in any event, the validity of the rescindment alleged in the California-filed action “is therefore a question for a New York court to answer,” the legal text reads.

Next, after diving into a slew of challenges to Limp Bizkit’s actual effort to nix the deal, the firmly worded retort explores the suit’s alleged failure to state a claim when it comes to royalty-related breach of contract allegations.

“UMG has further acknowledged that Plaintiffs have the explicit right under all three agreements to audit Interscope’s books and records to determine whether additional royalties are owed,” one relevant line spells out. “And yet, with all this information available, Plaintiffs have failed to identify a single transaction that would trigger a royalty that has not been paid.”

Lastly, Limp Bizkit and Durst “do not (and cannot) dispute that the relevant agreements expressly allow the cross-account recoupments they allege as fraud,” the document suggests.

If the original complaint and above-highlighted response are any indication, the plaintiffs will have much to say about UMG’s position. Previously, the involved parties jointly requested an early January hearing on the dismissal question, though it remains to be seen whether the sought timetable will come to fruition.

Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev

A federal judge is reportedly poised to dismiss the majority of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by music publishers against AI giant Anthropic.

That development emerged during a hearing yesterday on Anthropic’s motion to dismiss. From the outset, we’ve covered the defendant’s efforts to toss the complaint, which alleges that Anthropic infringed upon a number of compositions while training its Claude product and via the chatbot’s outputs.

Long story short, following one venue change and ample back and forth over the publishers’ injunction push, the plaintiffs in September urged the court to reject Amazon-backed Anthropic’s dismissal motion.

Among other things, the filing parties said they’d effectively alleged Anthropic’s “direct financial benefit from infringing activity sufficient to state a claim for vicarious liability,” intentional removal of copyright management information, and more.

Nevertheless, on the heels of the initially mentioned December 19th dismissal hearing, the court could be prepared to toss most of the suit – albeit with leave to amend.

At the time of writing, that 64-minute Zoom hearing’s transcript hadn’t yet made its way onto the docket, nor had a related ruling document. (Overall, the involved companies have jointly moved to seal a variety of materials and information in the suit.)

But according to legal trades including Bloomberg Law, the presiding judge indicated that she would likely toss two of the three claims (regarding Anthropic’s knowledge of the alleged infringement and more) for being too general.

However, the same judge reportedly found that allegations pertaining to Anthropic’s profits from the purported infringement could proceed – besides relaying that the publishers would have the chance to amend and then refile the dismissed claims.

Once again at the time of writing, the publisher plaintiffs didn’t appear to have commented publicly on the subject. As a whole, though, the news marks the latest in a line of less-than-ideal 2024 developments for rightsholders litigating against AI behemoths.

While those behemoths’ unprecedented technologies continue to evolve by leaps and bounds, infringement complaints concerning their training materials – without which the systems wouldn’t exist, by developers’ own admissions – are plodding along.

Even before this latest hiccup for music publishers, preliminary scheduling details suggested that the Anthropic case wouldn’t head to trial until 2026 at the earliest.

More immediately, regulatory battles are in full swing in several countries over generative AI training laws. One of those battles is underway in the U.K., where a government proposal would simply enable tech firms to train on protected materials. And the AI Act’s enforcement specifics remain a major focus in the EU.

Photo Credit: Lady Lotus / CC by 4.0

A Brazilian judge has ordered the Adele song “Million Years Ago” pulled worldwide from streaming services over a plagiarism complaint. Here’s the latest.

The injunction threatens Brazilian subsidiaries of Sony and Universal—Adele’s labels—with a fine of $8,000 per act of non-compliance with the order. The injunction was made by judge Victor Torres in Rio de Janeiro’s sixth commercial court, pending activity in the continuing plagiarism case brought forth by Brazilian composer Toninho Geraes. There does not seem to be an option to appeal the decision, either.

The complaint alleges that Adele’s 2015 song from her album 25 plagiarized the music of his samba classic “Mulheres (Women)” which was recorded by Brazilian singer Martinho da Vila in 1995. Geraes is suing for lost royalties, $160,000 in moral damages, plus he is seeking a song-writing credit on Adele’s work.

The preliminary injunction orders Sony and Universal to stop “immediately and globally from using, reproducing, editing, distributing, or commercializing the song ‘Million Years Ago’ by any modality, means, physical or digital support, from streaming or sharing platforms.”

“It is a landmark for Brazilian music, which has often been copied to compose successful international hits,” argues Fredimio Trotta, the Brazilian composer’s lawyer. “International producers and artists who… have Brazilian music ‘on their radar’ for possible parasitic use will think twice, given this decision,” the lawyer concludes.

Sony Brazil has not issued a statement about the injunction and the song still appears on the U.S. version of Spotify for now, where it has racked up more than 225 million listens since its release in 2015. This isn’t the only time Adele has faced plagiarism accusations for the song. Turkish music fans said the tune was too similar to a 1985 song by Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya called “Acilara Tutunmak (Clinging to Pain).” This case of plagiarism accusations never had a legal incident attached to it, so the Brazilian order is the first time the song has been challenged in court.

A Hershey Bears game. Photo Credit: Phillyfan0419

About three months after levying a copyright infringement complaint against the American Hockey League (AHL) and a number of its teams, Associated Production Music (APM) has moved to settle with multiple defendants.

The appropriate parties just recently informed the court of their “confidential settlement” agreements, though litigation is ongoing between Associated Production Music and the other defendants.

As we reported at the time of the suit’s September filing, those defendants include the companies behind AHL teams like the Ontario Reign and the Tucson Roadrunners, to name a couple.

In short, the defendant teams allegedly used Associated Production Music recordings in a multitude of social media promo videos without permission; communications between the plaintiff and the AHL, which was allegedly contacted “repeatedly,” evidently failed to bring about a resolution.

Once again in the interest of brevity, as many companies are finding out via litigation, social platforms’ song libraries are pre-cleared only for personal, not commercial, use. In general, brands (and their paid influencers) must obtain licenses for the use of compositions and recordings.

Running with the important point, APM has fired off several such infringement complaints on the year, including a September action targeting Johnson & Johnson’s alleged copyright violations on social services.

Meanwhile, different plaintiffs are seeking relief for the same type of alleged infringement. But as things stand, it appears that APM is ceasing litigating against two defendants.

The first of these defendants is Capital Sports & Entertainment, which, per the initial suit, owns and operates the AHL’s Belleville Senators. (Belleville Senators Inc., not Capital Sports, is the defendant’s proper name, according to the company.) And the second is Hershey Entertainment & Resorts, the owner of (besides Hersheypark and a whole lot else) the Hershey Bears.

Capital and APM submitted a settlement notice on the 6th, and Hershey as well as APM filed a settlement notice of their own on the 11th. The agreements’ terms are confidential, with both notices providing little detail.

However, the court went ahead and rejected a request from Capital and APM to pause the former’s pending dismissal deadlines (Capital/the Senators had already moved to toss the suit) for 45 days.

And as spelled out by the presiding judge, notice of settlement or not, APM had until today to “file its opposition, if any” to the dismissal push; at the time of writing, the docket hadn’t been updated with a related filing.

When it comes to APM and Hershey, an order yesterday reiterated that the parties “are not relieved of any deadlines or Court appearances until a dismissal of the action is filed.”

Although those partial dismissals are presumably forthcoming, a near-term settlement between the American Hockey League and Associated Production Music doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

The defendant responded to the suit with a testy answer earlier in December, communicating in more words the belief that it hadn’t been legally required to obtain licenses for the usages in question.

“But AHL denies that it infringed any of Plaintiff’s purported copyright interests,” the league wrote, “denies that it was required to obtain a license from Plaintiff for any work alleged in the Complaint, and denies that it engaged in any wrongdoing.”

Separately, and as previously mentioned, the AHL isn’t alone in facing copyright litigation alleging infringement on social media. Plaintiffs including Universal Music, Sony Music, and Kobalt have initiated similar suits in 2024 against an array of NBA teams, Marriott, and the parent company of Chili’s.

Photo Credit: Ed Sheeran by Stephen Lavoie / iRocktography

A federal court has officially denied a request to rehear an appeal of a copyright infringement complaint centering on Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit just recently handed down the corresponding order, after siding with Ed Sheeran and other defendants at the top of November.

One of multiple copyright complaints levied over Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” this particular action came from Structured Asset Sales (SAS). The company reportedly acquired an interest in the classic work from Clef Michael Townsend, the son of co-writer and co-producer Ed Townsend.

Technically distinct from the Townsend estate’s similar suit, the SAS litigation initiated in 2018 and was dismissed with prejudice in May 2023 – the same month in which Sheeran beat the Townsend action at trial.

The presiding judge chalked up the SAS dismissal to the allegedly unprotectable nature of the chord progressions in question. Besides affirming the unprotectable determination, the appeals court concurred with prior findings that the plaintiff could only allege infringement (and introduce related evidence) with regard to components of the “Let’s Get It On” sheet music submitted to the Copyright Office.

Among other things, that narrowed the case’s scope to exclude the recording’s bass line, which doesn’t appear in the Copyright Office submission.

“[W]e affirm the district court’s exclusion of evidence—including expert testimony—about anything beyond the four corners of the Deposit Copy,” the appellate court summed up in early November, “because the scope of a copyright in a musical work registered under the Copyright Act of 1909…is limited to the elements found in the copy of the work deposited with the Copyright Office.”

For obvious reasons, the finding didn’t sit right with SAS, which pushed for a rehearing across nearly 50 detail-oriented pages.

“Under the facts of this case,” the plaintiff company wrote, “it is particularly bizarre to contemplate that the scope of protection for the musical composition should be limited to the handwritten sheet music when the sound recording was already deposited at the U.S. Copyright Office a month before the handwritten sheet music deposit came in.”

Bizarre or not, the relevant appellate court is evidently uninterested in reviewing the decision. “The panel that determined the appeal has considered the request for panel rehearing,” the concise denial order notes, “and the active members of the Court have considered the request for rehearing en banc.”

Time will reveal how the order (and the undoubtedly costly suit at hand) affects the infringement-litigation landscape moving forward. As things stand, copyright complaints are continuing to pour in – though some defendant acts, like Mariah Carey, look to be proceeding towards relatively quick resolutions in their favor.

A live performance from Flavour, one of the songwriters allegedly contacted by Sony Music amid a legal battle with Ultra International Music Publishing. Said battle now includes an ongoing trial as well as a separate infringement action from Ultra Publishing. Photo Credit: Ameyaw Debrah

Sony Music Entertainment (SME) is “willfully committing blatant, ongoing, and massive piracy” – at least according to Ultra International Music Publishing, which has fired off a copyright complaint against the major label.

Ultra Publishing only recently submitted the straightforward suit to a New York federal court, filing specifically via the mentioned Ultra International Music Publishing as well as Ultra Music Publishing Europe. On the opposite side of the action, Sony Music proper, Ultra Records, AWAL, and a number of other subsidiaries are defendants.

Spanning a relatively short 15 pages, Ultra Publishing’s to-the-point complaint represents the newest development in a years-long dispute between the parties. Just to recap, SME bought 50% of Ultra Records (excluding the publishing unit) back in 2012.

From then until early 2022, when Sony Music scooped up the remaining stake, founder Patrick Moxey (in keeping with the terms of the appropriate agreement, which allegedly left name-licensing decisions up to Ultra Records) continued to operate the distinct Ultra International Music Publishing under its original name.

Following Ultra Records’ complete sale, the name overlap didn’t sit right with parent company SME, which moved to terminate the name-licensing arrangement and, in the absence of the desired outcome, subsequently sued to remove “Ultra” from the still-separate publisher. Several years and twists later, a jury trial in this courtroom confrontation officially kicked off earlier today.

Now, besides the trial, the ugly legal battle features another dispute yet – filed by Ultra International Music Publishing as opposed to Sony Music’s Ultra Records.

Ultra Publishing, the more recent suit claims, has for years “been engaged in an audit of Sony Music Entertainment and its affiliates to uncover” allegedly unpaid royalties for the use of its (the publisher’s) compositions.

In the end, said audit allegedly revealed concrete evidence of missing compensation, prompting the plaintiffs to cease licensing the works to the defendants, according to the action.

Nevertheless, Sony Music and others have allegedly opted to “engage in knowing, willful, and utterly inexcusable copyright infringement” on streaming platforms, via sync activities, and through physical releases, to name some areas.

ChaudhryLaw-repped Ultra Publishing says it’s “repeatedly demanded in writing” that Sony Music put a stop to the purported piracy – including via an early 2023 letter and then “numerous” follow-ups.

However, SME and its defendant divisions “flatly and unequivocally refuse to do so,” the legal text relays, and the showdown has apparently reached a boiling point.

On top of the alleged infringement itself – which the plaintiffs say extends to multiple works recorded by commercially prominent acts – Ultra Publishing is accusing SME of interfering with songwriter contracts.

“Because the Sony Defendants recognize that they have no licenses for the Ultra Compositions,” the relevant section reads in part, “they wrongfully engaged in direct negotiations with certain songwriters who are published by the Ultra Plaintiffs in an attempt to obtain licenses directly from those songwriters for compositions they wrote.”

Among these songwriters are Flavour, Allie Crystal, Purple Disco Machine, and Rudimental, per the suit, which spells out for good measure that the Ultra Publishing plaintiffs have allegedly suffered damages as a result of the described songwriter negotiations.

Photo Credit: Drake by The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0

Drake launches a second legal petition against UMG over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” accusing the company of defamation for allowing its release. This time, iHeartRadio parent iHeartMedia finds itself in the crosshairs.

Just a day after filing a legal petition in New York against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Drake’s company has filed a second claim in Texas court calling out UMG and iHeartRadio. The new filing, made public on Tuesday, claims UMG “funneled payments” to iHeartRadio as part of a “pay-to-play scheme” to promote the song on the radio.

According to Drake’s new filing, the Certified Loverboy alleges UMG knew that Kendrick Lamar’s song “falsely” accused him of being a “certified pedophile,” but chose to release it anyway. He accuses the music company of defamation for not preventing the song’s release and damaging his reputation.

“UMG […] could have refused to release or distribute the song or required the offending material to be edited and/or removed,” wrote Drake’s lawyers. “But UMG chose to do the opposite. UMG designed, financed, and then executed a plan to turn ‘Not Like Us’ into a viral mega-hit with the intent of using the spectacle of harm to Drake and his businesses to drive consumer hysteria and, of course, massive revenues. That plan succeeded, likely beyond UMG’s wildest expectations.”

Notably, neither filing is technically a lawsuit. Both are “pre-action” filings designed to take depositions from key figures at UMG and iHeartRadio to obtain more information that could support Drake’s allegations in a lawsuit. To that end, Drake’s attorneys say they already have enough evidence to pursue “a claim for defamation” against UMG, but they might be able to include claims of civil fraud and racketeering based on what they learn in discovery from the depositions.

“Before it approved the release of the song, UMG knew that the song itself, as well as its accompanying album art and music video, attacked the character of another one of UMG’s most prominent artists, Drake, by falsely accusing him of being a sex offender, engaging in pedophilic acts, harboring sex offenders, and committing other criminal sexual acts,” his lawyers write.

Neither company has immediately returned media requests for comment; Kendrick Lamar is not named in either filing and is not legally accused of any wrongdoing.

But even though neither filing has escalated to the point of a lawsuit, they represent a further rift between Drake and Universal Music, where the rapper has spent his entire music career. Lamar has also spent his career under UMG, and the two artists collaborated years ago before their feud began.

For fans, it also represents how much Lamar succeeded in the ongoing feud, as many already considered “Not Like Us” to be the winning blow as the two traded diss tracks. Drake legally admitting in the petitions that “Not Like Us” caused him great harm, fans point out, might constitute the biggest defeat in the history of hip-hop feuds.

Photo Credit: Bluesky

Washington, D.C.’s Robert F. Kennedy Building, which serves as the DOJ headquarters. Photo Credit: ajay_suresh

As both Cox Communications and the major labels seek a Supreme Court review in their marathon legal battle, the nation’s highest court has asked the Justice Department to weigh in.

That request emerged as part of a Supreme Court order list yesterday, about three weeks after the internet service provider defendant submitted a reply brief.

As many know, this newest chapter in the years-long dispute stems from a relatively straightforward copyright complaint spearheaded by the majors, which maintain that Cox failed to adequately address certain customers’ alleged repeat infringement even after receiving the appropriate notices.

Cox has pushed back against the claims from the outset. But a jury slapped the ISP with a staggering $1 billion damages verdict near 2019’s end, and unsurprisingly, the defendant company moved to reduce and/or toss the monetary penalty.

Multiple twists, turns, and years later, the effort paid off for Cox in February 2024, when an appellate court determined that the ISP wasn’t actually liable for vicarious infringement. In doing so, the court further overturned the jury’s $1 billion verdict (as it had factored for alleged vicarious liability) and ordered a fresh trial to recalculate damages.

The majors promptly pursued a rehearing, expressing the belief that Cox should remain on the hook for the full $1 billion, while the ISP likewise sought a rehearing, albeit to address the elements upheld by the appellate court as well as adjacent liability questions.

“Rehearing is also warranted to decide whether a secondary infringer can be adjudged willful,” Cox Communications indicated in a filing, “exposing it to dramatically enhanced statutory damages, merely because it had knowledge of an internet user’s direct infringement.”

In the end, though, the appellate court decided against reviewing the ruling it had just made – setting the stage for Cox and the majors to try and take their arguments to the Supreme Court. Now, as mentioned, the latter has asked the DOJ (and specifically the solicitor general) to submit a brief.

“The Solicitor General is invited to file a brief in these cases expressing the views of the United States,” the concise Supreme Court order reads.

The comparatively little-discussed solicitor general’s office, the relevant Justice Department webpage reiterates, works “to supervise and conduct government litigation in the” Supreme Court – with essentially “all such litigation…channeled through” the office.

Of course, the “views” featured in the brief will prove important – especially given the suit’s significance from a precedent perspective. On this front, despite a couple settlements, several rightsholder-versus-ISP infringement showdowns are ongoing. The majors levied one such action over the summer against Verizon, which in September filed to dismiss the “legally deficient” complaint.

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst during a live performance. Photo Credit: CarterSterling

The massive unpaid-royalties lawsuit filed by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst against Universal Music should be tossed – at least according to the major label itself, which says the complaint “is based on a fallacy.”

UMG laid out its qualms with the action, submitted by Limp Bizkit, Durst, and Durst’s Flawless Records, across 35 detail-oriented pages. We covered the original complaint shortly after its filing early last month.

Just to recap, though, Durst and the other plaintiffs allegedly failed to receive millions in due royalties from the major-label defendant. UMG, the filing parties’ initial suit explains at length, allegedly turned to “unsubstantiated costs” to make the relevant accounts appear unrecouped.

And despite ultimately receiving millions in payments under the deals in question – involving not only Limp Bizkit, but an Interscope-Flawless JV as well – the plaintiffs are seeking the pacts’ termination.

Of course, there are two sides to every story – and every legal battle. Enter Universal Music’s newly levied retort, filed in support of an expected dismissal-motion hearing on January 6th.

At the top level, the leading label says it most certainly didn’t work to conceal owed royalties via its payment software. Rather, contrary to the plaintiffs’ position that they learned of the allegedly missing compensation in April 2024, UMG is pointing to purported January 2023 conversations involving a royalties exec and the plaintiffs’ then-business manager.

“[O]ver a year earlier, a Senior Director in the Royalties Department at UMG had unilaterally and affirmatively reached out to that same business manager—Paul Ta at Level Four Business Management LLC—and advised him of the need to ‘set up a vendor profile for Limp Bizkit’ so that the company could ‘start making royalty payments’ to the band.

“In response,” this important section continues, “Mr. Ta stated that all members of Limp Bizkit but one (including Plaintiff Durst) had ‘sold/assigned their share’ of royalties to others, and that accordingly, no royalties were payable to Durst or the other identified members of the band. In other words, Plaintiffs’ entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is a fiction.”

Ta allegedly informed UMG of his rights-assignment misstatement in April 2024, and the mentioned multimillion-dollar payments purportedly reached the plaintiffs in August.

(Not helping the situation, UMG has confirmed an “‘embarrassing’ mistake in failing to earlier remit certain profit-split payments to Flawless Records,” which the plaintiffs have painted as an intentional effort to deprive them of royalties from various acts under the banner.)

Shifting to specific dismissal arguments, the Flip Records claims (extending to Limp Bizkit’s initial three albums) are “subject to a mandatory New York forum-selection clause” and must be dismissed because the case is being heard in California, per Universal Music.

Meanwhile, all the contract-termination claims fail because, among other things, the plaintiffs “have not alleged such a total failure to make payments under the agreements at issue,” according to the major.

Plus, the deals’ terms expressly prevent termination for royalty-accounting reasons, the text claims in many more words. When it comes to the plaintiffs’ allegations of inflated (and changing) advance balances, UMG says “positive balances in one account were offset by negative balances from another account” on certain “various occasions.”

As to where things go from here, evidence suggests that the plaintiffs will have a lot to say about UMG’s response, which, as noted, is setting the stage for an anticipated early January dismissal hearing before the court.

On the “lot to say” front, after this piece was published, a Limp Bizkit rep reached out with a statement accusing Universal Music Group of “desperately grasping at technicalities.”

“When someone is caught red handed,” the rep told us of the intensifying courtroom confrontation, “their first response is often to hire very expensive outside law firms who first, as a matter of course, try anything to dismiss the suit when they are in trouble with the facts.

“In this case, we believe UMG is using a typical, formulaic, well-trodden strategy of reaching for any escape route by desperately grasping at technicalities. We will rely on facts, the law, and the courts. We have no desire to prove a solid case in press releases.”

Photo Credit: Nelly by Adam Bielawski / CC by 3.0

Three of Nelly’s former St. Lunatics bandmates have dropped out of the lawsuit the group filed against him seeking royalties for his breakout album.

Three of Nelly’s former St. Lunatics bandmates have formally dropped out of the lawsuit the group filed against him back in September. The filing claimed the Lunatics contributed to the rapper’s breakout album, Country Grammar, but were cut from the credits.

The initial lawsuit was filed by Ali Jones, Murphy Lee, Kyjuan, and City Spud — but the latter three were quick to point out they never consented to their inclusion in the lawsuit and demanded they be removed from the case.

The updated version, filed on Friday, November 22, saw the attorneys behind the lawsuit omit Lee, Kyjuan, and Spud as requested, making the lawsuit solely a dispute between Ali and Nelly. Attorney Precious Felder Gates, representing Ali, told Billboard her client would “continue to pursue the unpaid royalties he is entitled to.”

The St. Lunatics, a group of high school friends from St. Louis, first hit the scene in the late 90s with “Gimme What U Got.” Their debut album, Free City, which was actually released a year after Nelly’s solo album, Country Grammar, reached #1 on the Billboard 200.

According to Ali’s lawsuit, Nelly “repeatedly manipulated” the group into thinking they’d be paid for their work on his solo album, but he never made good on those promises. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”

But despite the lawsuit alleging all four of Nelly’s former bandmates had been jilted, Spud, Kyjuan, and Lee never wanted to sue their friend. In fact, the three joined him on stage during his performance at the American Music Awards.

Notably, the updated version added HarbourView Equity Partners to the list of defendants per Nelly’s $50 million catalog sale to them last year. Ali’s attorneys suggest the deal helped spark the lawsuit, as it was a “substantial transaction.” But that seems odd, considering the company was absent from the initial version of the filing. HarbourView Equity Partners has not yet responded to media requests for comment.

Photo Credit: Miley Cyrus by Raph PH / CC by 2.0

Miley Cyrus and her attorneys argue the case wasn’t even filed by Bruno Mars or the song’s co-writers, but by an investment firm.

A lawsuit filed back in September alleging Miley Cyrus’ hit “Flowers” infringes the copyright to Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man,” has received its first response from Cyrus and her legal team. And they point out a rather significant “fatal” flaw — that Bruno Mars and his other co-writers aren’t the ones suing.

The case was actually filed by an entity called Tempo Music Investments, which bought out one of the co-writers to “When I Was Your Man.” In her response, Miley and her team assert the total lack of involvement from Mars or any of the song’s creators means that the lawsuit should be dismissed outright.

“Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of the musical composition’s four co-authors,” write Cyrus’ attorneys. “That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”

Cyrus’ team, led by Peter Anderson of Davis Wright Tremaine, argues that Tempo’s acquisition of “partial interest” from songwriter Philip Lawrence only entitles the company to “non-exclusive rights” to the song. And that, her lawyers say, doesn’t give them legal standing to sue under federal copyright law.

“Plaintiff brings this copyright infringement action alone — without any of that musical composition’s co-authors or other owners,” writes Anderson. “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”

But Tempo’s lead counsel, Alex Weingarten of the firm Willkie Farr, tells Billboard that the motion filed by Cyrus’ team is “intellectually dishonest,” and his clients absolutely had legal standing. “They’re seeking to make bogus technical arguments because they don’t have an actual substantive defense to the case,” he said.

The comparison between the two songs is not a new one; fans pointed out their similarities upon Cyrus’ release of “Flowers” in January 2023. Many believe the Cyrus track is intended as an “answer song” to Mars’ “When I Was Your Man,” with its obviously referential lyrics.

But Tempo’s lawsuit argues “Flowers” takes numerous elements from the earlier song aside from just its referential lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic” portions, “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.” Therefore, they argue, “Flowers” simply “would not exist” without the earlier Mars track.

Cyrus’ attorneys refute that too, arguing the two songs have “striking differences” in melody and other musical elements. But those which they do share, they claim, are not protected by copyright.

Regardless, attorneys for Miley Cyrus assert that only a song’s “exclusive” copyright owners can file infringement lawsuits, a rule that exists precisely for situations like this. “A single co-author of a copyright interest, acting alone, cannot assign or license exclusive rights, because those rights also are owned by the assignor’s or licensor’s co-authors.”

Whether the court will agree with Cyrus and her attorneys remains to be seen.

A 2009 performance from Whitney Houston. Photo Credit: Asterio Tecson

Sony Music Entertainment (SME) has officially dropped a missing-payments lawsuit filed against the production companies behind a Whitney Houston biopic.

The major label just recently moved to dismiss the action with prejudice, about nine months after first submitting the straightforward complaint. In a nutshell – and as we reported at the time – SME specifically took aim at the production companies on 2022’s Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

(The original suit confirmed a portion of these defendant entities’ individual producers by name, but opted against mentioning, directly or indirectly, Clive Davis’ production credit on the 146-minute release. Actor Stanley Tucci played a role based on Davis.)

Long story short, those companies allegedly entered into sync agreements to feature 24 Houston tracks (some subsequently licensed to Duolingo earlier this year) in the film. The plaintiffs redacted the pacts’ financial specifics, but given the action and the sizable collection of commercially prominent works at hand, the bill was presumably large.

In any event, multiple twists, turns, and fruitless communications later, the defendants allegedly failed to cough up the due sum by (and following) a cutoff in 2023, according to the filing parties. (All told, I Wanna Dance With Somebody reportedly made $59.4 million at the box office on a $45 million budget.)

Now, while it’s unclear exactly how Sony Music and the production-house defendants resolved the dispute, the courtroom confrontation is in the rearview.

Per the initially highlighted dismissal motion, SME has shelved the action with prejudice – albeit without shedding light on possible settlement terms or other supplemental details.

Unsurprisingly, even with this copyright case’s resolution as well as Ed Sheeran’s victory in a marathon complaint involving “Thinking Out Loud,” the stack of industry and industry-adjacent litigation has still gotten a bit taller during November’s initial 19 days.

Most notably, this stack includes the half-billion-dollar copyright complaint that Universal Music Group levied against Believe and TuneCore over alleged “rampant piracy” when it comes to distributing infringing works to DSPs.

Also underway is a unique showdown centering on an allegedly unauthorized sample within another sample yet. As described by rapper Plies, Soulja Boy interpolated “Me & My Goons” without permission in “Pretty Boy Swag.”

Then, that purported infringement set the stage for an additional unapproved usage when Soulja Boy allowed Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla to sample “Pretty Boy Swag” in “Wanna Be,” according to the suit.

Photo Credit: Gabriel Brito

After Musi developers filed a lawsuit for breach of contract and seeking the app to be reinstated to the App Store, Apple’s lawyers have responded to the lawsuit. They seek a denial of the preliminary injunction that would force Apple to allow Musi back onto the App Store. Here’s why.

Apple lawyers state that the decision was not made in a vacuum or quickly—citing evidence of a lack of interactions between Musi and YouTube. YouTube says it reached out to Musi developers several times about the nature of the app, which serves as a wrapper for YouTube content to serve up its own ads while removing those supplied by YouTube. Industry groups IFPI and NMPA have supported YouTube in its efforts to see Musi removed from the App Store.

“By removing the Musi app from its only viable distribution platform, Apple has exiled Musi from its customer base—thereby threatening the company’s survival,” Musi’s original lawsuit reads. “Musi is therefore entitled to a preliminary injunction to stop Apple from continuing to breach the developer agreement by refusing to list or otherwise making unavailable the Musi app.”

Apple’s lawyers responded to those complaints on November 15, opposing the request for a preliminary injunction. They argue that Apple’s developer program terms allow it to delist any apps “at any time, with or without cause.” But the lawyers also address Musi’s complaint that Apple responded in YouTube’s favor without consulting it.

The lawsuit contains the letter sent to Apple from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) that details how Musi utilizes free YouTube API tokens to avoid paying licensing fees—serving their own ads instead of YouTube ads (against YouTube’s own ToS).

“Musi uses multiple API tokens and applies users into buckets per token and then moves users once [that token] is banned by YouTube. This allows Musi to exceed YouTube rate limits and scale without needing a commercial API account,” the NMPA alleges. This would explain why Musi users regularly post in the Musi_app subreddit complaining about rate limits. The Musi_Support account will respond asking the user to ‘try again’ with the issue magically fixed.

“Musi interacts with YouTube’s API by hardcoding all of its requests from an iPhone 15 to ‘iPhone 12’ as the user agent. The YouTube API is an iframe of the video. There are a few libraries where an app can pull the underlying video. From there Musi lays its own ads over YouTube’s ads. Musi uses Applovin to overlay the video ads.”

Apple lawyers argue that because the Musi app is only pulled for new users, it can continue to generate revenue from those who downloaded it. The app generates millions of dollars of advertising revenue per month, with Apple arguing there is no evidence the app is in financial trouble.

“Public reporting suggests that Musi earned more than $100 million in advertising revenue between January 2023 and Spring 2024. [The app] employs ten people at most. If true (Musi provides no evidence that it is not), Musi is not at imminent risk of extinction,” the lawyers write.

Musi has yet to respond the new filing, though current Musi users in the subreddit appear to be seeking alternatives. New topics include users seeking to migrate their Musi playlists to Apple Music or YouTube Music—so the app removal is having the intended effect.

Photo Credit: Chris Brown by Eva Renaldi / CC by 2.0

Chris Brown earns his first Diamond cert thanks to his collaboration with Drake, ‘No Guidance,’ the subject of a major copyright infringement lawsuit.

Chris Brown and Drake’s 2019 collaboration, “No Guidance,” has been certified Diamond per the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Tuesday, November 12, having sold over 10 million units.

The honor, which is Chris Brown’s first Diamond cert, comes as the song is currently the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by artists Tykeiya Dore and Marc Stephens. The pair sued Brown and Drake for at least $5 million for the damages caused by the track being allegedly stolen from their 2016 song, “I Got It.”

Filed in New Jersey, the lawsuit claims that Drake, Brown, and other songwriters behind “No Guidance” actually took the song’s main lyric from “I Got It” and changed it to “You got it.” They allege that aside from this minor change, the track uses “the same chord progressions, tempo, pitch, key, melody, harmony, rhythm, structure, phrasing, and lyrics” as Dore and Stephens’ song.

“It’s impossible to not hear the two songs are substantially similar,” the complaint reads, citing a now-deleted YouTube video comparing the two.

In addition to Brown and Drake, the lawsuit names co-writers Velous, Nija Charles, and Michee Lebrun as defendants, alongside producers Noah “40” Shebib, Vinylz, J-Louis, and Teddy Walton. Several music publishers behind “No Guidance,” such as Brown’s label RCA Records, are also named in the suit.

Strangely, the lawsuit also requests damages from YouTube and parent companies Google and Alphabet for defamation against Stephens stemming from a dispute over a YouTube takedown notice. Stephens says YouTube deleted his channel earlier this year after he filed a takedown request over “No Guidance,” with the company replying that “some of the info in the takedown request may be fraudulent.”

This isn’t actually the first lawsuit to hit “No Guidance since its release in 2019. The song was also the subject of a separate copyright lawsuit in 2021, which was eventually dropped altogether.

GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller, whose society is suing OpenAI in Germany for alleged training-related copyright infringement. Photo Credit: GEMA

It turns out GEMA’s push to rein in generative AI giants isn’t limited to a comprehensive royalties framework, as the German society has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI.

GEMA formally announced the high-stakes legal action today, a little over one week after unveiling its “AI Charter.” A collection of 10 “ethical and legal principles for dealing with generative” AI, said Charter followed the October rollout of an aggressive royalties-model proposal for artificial intelligence platforms.

Now, the Berlin-based entity has upped the ante once again, this time with a complaint submitted to the Munich Regional Court. Naming as defendants U.S.-based OpenAI LLC and OpenAI Ireland Ltd., the lawsuit maintains that ChatGPT was trained on protected song lyrics (a portion written by GEMA’s approximately 95,000 members) without authorization, per the filing party.

Also according to GEMA, which has launched a dedicated webpage summarizing the suit, ChatGPT produces some of the lyrics when responding to user prompts. As many know, rightsholders are alleging the same type of infringement in multiple stateside cases against leading AI businesses.

But with these domestic legal battles plodding along as the underlying technology continues to advance by leaps and bounds, GEMA is taking the opportunity to tout itself as “the first collecting society worldwide to file a lawsuit against a provider of generative” AI systems.

And while it perhaps goes without saying given the size of the defendant – reportedly valued at an eye-watering $157 billion – GEMA isn’t hesitating to emphasize the case’s significance for the broader AI sector in Europe.

“GEMA will also consider whether to initiate legal action against other AI providers in the future,” the previously mentioned webpage spells out.

“The lawsuit is a test case to clarify numerous legal issues,” the text proceeds. “The aim is to specifically refute the AI system providers’ contention that training with and subsequent use of the generated content is free of charge and possible without the rights holders’ authorisation. … In addition, the lawsuit’s filing and the resulting media attention are intended to initiate a public discussion on copyright and AI.”

Running with the public-discussion point, GEMA has further teed up “a digital background discussion” on generative AI’s use of protected media, featuring CEO Tobias Holzmüller and additional “experts,” for November 19th.

In other words, the case and the corresponding debate could have a material impact on the AI landscape in Europe, where the AI Act is already going into effect. When contacted for comment, OpenAI pointed to ongoing “productive conversations” with creators and trade organizations.

“We are reviewing the allegations,” an OpenAI spokesperson told us of GEMA’s suit. “We respect the rights of creators and content owners, and believe they should benefit from AI technology. We’re having productive conversations with many creators and trade organizations around the world, and have been working cooperatively to understand and discuss their concerns. We’re optimistic we will continue to find ways to work together.”

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: 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.

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: 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.