R. Kelly’s attorney on Monday (Mar. 18) urged a federal appeals court to overturn the singer’s sexual abuse convictions, warning that the case against Kelly stretched federal racketeering laws “to the point of absurdity” and could potentially turn college fraternities into illegal conspiracies.

At a hearing before the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, lawyer Jennifer Bonjean told a panel of judges that Kelly’s employees had just been “unwitting” staffers performing “anodyne” tasks for a famous person, not a group with a criminal “purpose” like the Mafia or a drug cartel.

Seeking to reverse Kelly’s conviction under the federal RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), Bonjean accused prosecutors of using that law in a “preposterous” new way.

“The government has extended the RICO statute to a set of circumstances that is so beyond what the framers intended, which was to get at organized crime,” Bonjean said. “Now, we’re talking about an organization with an alleged criminal, but not organized crime.”

After decades of accusations of sexual misconduct, Kelly was convicted in September 2021 on nine RICO counts related to accusations that the singer had orchestrated a long-running scheme to recruit and abuse women and underage girls. In 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

At Monday’s hearing, Bonjean repeatedly told the judges that the government had failed to prove that members of Kelly’s organization knew crimes were being committed, meaning the RICO law didn’t apply. She said, for instance, that staffers didn’t know any of the women were underage.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Kayla Crews Bensing, arguing back for the government, sharply rejected that claim: “The defendant had a system in place that lured young people into his orbit and then took over their lives,” she told the judges.

Bensing pointed to specific evidence that members of Kelly’s organization had been aware of the organization’s ill intent. She cited testimony that one victim had been approached by a member of Kelly’s entourage at a McDonalds, that she told him that she was only 16 years old and that he had then given her Kelly’s number and told her to call him. Another Kelly employee testified that he had answered phones for “Kelly’s girlfriends,” Bensing said, some of whom he identified as “mid-aged teenagers.”

“This is all evidence that the jury was entitled to infer that Kelly’s inner circle knew what was going on: that he was recruiting and maintaining underage women for sexual activity,” Bensing said.

Kelly faces long odds in his battle to topple his conviction, as federal appeals courts only overturn a small percentage of the convictions that are appealed each year. But Bonjean has had success in such cases in the past, most notably winning a 2021 ruling that overturned Bill Cosby’s 2018 sex assault conviction.

Following Monday’s arguments, the court will issue a ruling in the coming months.

Like in many appeals, large parts of Monday’s hearing were spent wrangling over in-the-weeds legal issues, like whether a single sexual act could fit the definition of “forced labor” under federal law, or whether Bonjean even had a procedurally proper way to fight her appeal since Kelly’s previous attorneys had failed to challenge the instructions given to the jury at trial.

On her main point about whether RICO requires an illicit “purpose,” Bonjean repeatedly faced pushback from the judges. The judges pointed out on multiple occasions that there is no written requirement that the law only be used against outright criminal organizations, and one judge specifically noted that labor unions had been repeatedly charged with violating RICO.

“RICO is looking at organizations, that are then used to commit criminal acts,” Judge Denny Chin said. “It doesn’t have to be a criminal organization. It could be a completely legitimate organization. But if it engages in racketeering activity, it violates RICO.”

But Bonjean remained adamant, arguing that the statute could not be brought to bear against an organization like Kelly’s, which she said merely had the purpose of promoting his musical career and personal brand.

“This was not a collection of people who had a purpose to recruit girls for sexual abuse,” Bonjean said. “Whether they turned a blind eye, whether some of them suspected that some of these girls were underage, that’s a whole different matter.”

“Once we get into that sort of territory, where we’re going say that that constitutes a RICO enterprise, we have a lot of organizations, we have a lot of frat houses, we have all types of organizations that are now going to become RICO enterprises,” Bonjean added.

Pushing the point further, Bonjean said that such an approach would have allowed federal prosecutors to charge infamous Ponzi scheme perpetraor Bernie Madoff with RICO violations rather than the slew of fraud charges he actually faced. At that point, Judge Richard J. Sullivan cut in.

“Well, he got 150 years,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think that it mattered.”

Jimmie Allen‘s former manager has agreed to dismiss her lawsuit claiming the country singer sexually assaulted her, ending the case less than a year after it was filed.

In court papers filed Thursday (Mar. 14), attorneys for Allen and his unnamed Jane Doe accuser — his former day-to-day manager — jointly asked a federal judge to dismiss her claims against the country singer. In the same filing, Allen also agreed to drop his counter-suit accusing the woman of defamation.

Jane Doe’s attorney, Beth Fegan at the law firm FeganScott, confirmed the agreement to Billboard: “FeganScott can confirm that Jane Doe and Jimmie Allen have reached a mutual accord as to Plaintiff’s claims and Mr. Allen’s counterclaims and have agreed to dismiss them The decision reflects only that both parties desire to move past litigation.”

Through a representative, Allen declined to comment.

Though the claims against Allen will be dropped, the case will continue against management firm Wide Open Music, where the Jane Doe plaintiff was employed, and its founder, Ash Bowers. In her lawsuit, the accuser says Wide Open and Bowers didn’t do enough to protect their employee from Allen’s abusive behavior and fired her when she complained about it.

The agreement also won’t fully end Allen’s legal woes. The country star will continue to face a second lawsuit, filed by another Jane Doe, who claims that the singer assaulted her in a Las Vegas hotel room and secretly recorded it. That case remains pending.

Allen was a rising star in the country music world at the start of last year, but in May and June he was hit with the pair of sexual abuse lawsuits in quick succession. Following the accusations, his label, booking agency, former publicist and management company all suspended or dropped him.

The first case, filed on May 11, alleged that Allen had “manipulated and used his power” over the woman on his management team to “sexually harass and abuse her” over a period of 18 months that elapsed from 2020 to 2022.

“Plaintiff expressed in words and actions that Jimmie Allen’s conduct was unwelcome, including pushing him away, sitting where he could not reach her, telling him she was uncomfortable and no, and crying uncontrollably,” the woman’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “However, Allen made clear that plaintiff’s job was dependent on her staying silent about his conduct.”

The second lawsuit, filed on June 9, accused Allen of battery, assault and other wrongdoing over an alleged July 2022 incident at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. Though the Jane Doe in that case says she had “willingly joined Allen in the bedroom,” she claimed she had “repeatedly told him she did not want him to ejaculate inside her” because she was not on birth control, but that Allen had done so anyway. She also claimed that he had secretly filmed the encounter on his phone despite the fact that she had “not consented to being recorded”

Allen strongly denied all the accusations, saying he would “mount a vigorous defense.” He later counter-sued both women — accusing the management employee of defaming him and claiming that the other woman had stolen the phone he allegedly used to record her.

The Black Eyed Peas and Daddy Yankee are facing a lawsuit over allegations that they illegally sampled from classic 90s song “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” — a case that claims the artists “simply lied” in order to “avoid paying a larger licensing fee.”

In a lawsuit filed March 8, the company that owns the rights to “Scatman” accuse will.i.am (William Adams), Daddy Yankee (Luis Ayala Rodríguez) and others of “clear-cut copyright infringement” over their use of Scatman John’s ear-catching 1995 track in their own 2022 song “Bailar Contigo.”

The current owners of “Scatman” (Iceberg Records AS) claim that they granted a “limited license” allowing the superstars to use the underlying written music, but explicitly warned that a license to actually sample from the sound recording  would cost more. The case claims the artists agreed to those terms, but that their “assurances turned out to be pretense.”

“After comparing the tracks, it is apparent that the derivative work and the song are so strikingly similar that defendants have used the sound recording of the song, rather than just the composition, as agreed,” attorneys for Iceberg write in their lawsuit. “Defendants simply lied to plaintiff about not using the sound recording in order to avoid paying a larger licensing fee.”

The new case highlights the distinction between sampling (the use of an actual recording of an artist’s performance) and interpolation (the use of the same music but re-performed by the new artists). Sampling licenses require paying the owners of both the master and publishing copyrights to a given song, and thus typically cost more than interpolation licenses.

In the case of “Scatman” and “Bailar Contigo,” Iceberg claims it inked an interpolation deal with the Black Eyed Peas and Daddy Yankee in October 2022 in return for 75 percent stake in the publishing rights to the new song and a 5 percent income stream from the new recording. But Iceberg, which also owns the master to the song, says the contract “made clear” that the agreement was not a sampling deal.

“Rights to the recording of the original work (so called master rights) are not subject of this approval and require separate licensing,” the 2022 agreement purportedly read.

But when the song was released in November 2022, Iceberg’s lawyers say it obviously included a sample, not just an interpolation: “Although it appears that defendants attempted to manipulate the sound recording slightly to hide their infringement, the work remains so strikingly similar to the song that it could not have been created without using the song’s sound recording.”

Reps for both the Black Eyed Peas and Daddy Yankee did not immediately return requests for comment on the allegations. In addition to naming will.i.am as a defendant, the lawsuit also named Black Eyed Peas members apl.de.ap (Allen Pineda Lindo) and Taboo (Jaime Luis Gomez); it did not name not Fergie, who left the group in 2018.

Faced with only being able to secure an interpolation deal and not an outright sample clearance, artists will sometimes re-record a song in ways that sound very similar to the original recording. But that practice can ruffle feathers with the owners of masters, and has led to disputes in the past.

Last year, Rick Astley filed a high-profile lawsuit against Yung Gravy over the rapper’s breakout 2022 hit that heavily borrowed from the singer’s iconic “Never Gonna Give You Up,” alleging that the new track — an interpolation that sounded a whole lot like an outright sample — broke the law by impersonating Astley’s voice. In that case, Gravy cleared the underlying music (which Astley does not own) but failed to secure a license to sample the master.

The lawsuit, premised on Astley’s likeness rights, raised big questions about sound-alike songs and sampling, but the dispute was settled on confidential terms in September.

A London appeals court on Thursday (Mar. 14) overturned the murder conviction of Jamaican dancehall star Vybz Kartel, ruling that the 2014 guilty verdict was tainted by allegations that one juror attempted to bribe others.

The ruling came more than a decade after Kartel — a popular Jamaican artist who has worked with Rihanna, Jay-Z and others — and three others were convicted in Kingston, Jamaica of the 2011 killing of an associate named Clive “Lizard” Williams, whose body was never found.

In the decision, the appeals court ruled that the judge overseeing the 2014 trial had made a “fatal” error: allowing the jury to proceed to a verdict despite news that one of the jurors had attempted to bribe others. That juror was not removed, and soon after the jury returned a guilty verdict.

“There should have been no question of allowing Juror X to continue to serve on the jury,” the appeals court wrote Thursday. “Allowing Juror X to continue to serve on the jury is fatal to the safety of the convictions which followed. This was an infringement of the defendants’ fundamental right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial court.”

The decision came from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a London court that decides last-resort appeals from certain countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations, including Jamaica.

The ruling overturned Kartel’s conviction and his 32-year prison sentence, but he could still face a retrial on the same accusations. The appeals court said that Jamaican courts would decide whether such a trial will take place.

Kartel — along with co-defendants Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St John — faced a 64-day jury trial in early 2014 over accusations that they had killed Williams after he failed to return two unlicensed firearms they had lent him.

But on the final day of the trial, the judge was told that Juror X had attempted to “persuade another member of the jury” to acquit the defendants by offering bribes of 500,000 Jamaican dollars (roughly $3,200 US).

After receiving that information, the judge was faced with an unusually difficult choice. Because another juror had already been discharged over a separate issue, the only choice was to end the trial entirely after weeks of testimony or allow the case to continue to a verdict.

“It might have been possible simply to discharge a miscreant juror and to allow the remaining members of the jury to return verdicts [but] that was not possible here,” the appeals court wrote Thursday.

Though the appeals court said it had “considerable sympathy with the judge’s dilemma,” it said the decision to proceed with the problematic juror had been a “serious irregularity” that would result in a “miscarriage of justice” if allowed to stand.

“In coming to this conclusion, the Board is mindful of the very serious consequences which may flow from having to discharge a jury shortly before the end of a long and complex criminal trial,” the appeals court wrote, noting that England has statutes aimed at dealing with such situations.

“However, in the absence of such a provision — and there is no such provision in Jamaica — there will be occasions on which, as in the present case, a court will have no alternative but to discharge a jury and end the trial in order to protect the integrity of the system of trial by jury,” the court wrote.

Kelly Clarkson’s ongoing legal battle with ex-husband Brandon Blackstock is expanding with a new lawsuit aimed at potentially going much further than the $2.6 million ruling she won against him last fall.

With Blackstock currently appealing that November decision, Clarkson filed a new case Monday in Los Angeles court, seeking a ruling that he and his father’s management firm had been violating state labor rules all the way back to the very start of their relationship.

Clarkson’s new lawsuit is seeking an order that would require the return of “any and all commissions, fees, profits, advances, producing fees or other monies” she paid to Blackstock’s father’s company, Starstruck Entertainment, dating back to 2007 – much further back than the earlier judgment, which only reached back to 2017.

The new case is the latest development in a sprawling legal battle between the two ex-spouses, who split in 2020 after seven years of marriage. The divorce itself was finalized in 2022, but that personal settlement didn’t resolve tricky business entanglements with Blackstock’s father’s firm, which managed her for years.

Shortly after Clarkson filed for divorce, Starstruck sued her for millions in allegedly unpaid fees, claiming it had “invested a great deal of time, money, energy, and dedication” into her and had “developed Clarkson into a mega superstar.”

Clarkson responded by filing a complaint with California’s Labor Commissioner, arguing that Blackstock and Starstruck had violated California’s Talent Agencies Act (TAA) by serving not just as her personal managers, but as unlicensed talent agents who booked business deals.

In November, Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower ruled that Blackstock had indeed procured a number of deals for Clarkson, including her lucrative role as a judge on The Voice, that should have been handled by her talent agents at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The decision ordered Blackstock to repay Clarkson more than $2.6 million in commissions she paid to him for handling those deals.

In December, Blackstock and Starstruck challenged that ruling in court, demanding that same questions be re-decided by a Los Angeles judge rather than by the Labor Commissioner. That case remains pending and is set for a hearing in August.

With her new lawsuit, Clarkson could win a ruling that would effectively confirm the findings of the Labor Commissioner. But the case could also give her a vehicle to expand the Commissioner’s decision – a ruling that went her way, but also rejected some of her core claims against Blackstock and Starstruck.

For instance, the commissioner rejected Clarkson’s claim that Blackstock was also required to pay back commissions he earned from helping to secure The Kelly Clarkson Show — which could have seen him owe much more. His involvement in that deal, including “strategizing” with her agents, was clearly “at the request of CAA” and thus not a violation of the law, the commissioner ruled.

An attorney for Blackstock did not immediately return a request for comment.

After a marriage of seven years, Clarkson filed for divorce from Blackstock in June 2020. The case was finalized two years later, with the singer agreeing to pay her ex-husband monthly child support of $45,601 for their two children, plus a one-time payment of just over $1.3 million.

A criminal case against YoungBoy Never Broke Again over federal gun charges must be put on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court decides a closely-watched Second Amendment battle this spring, a federal judge says — likely delaying a trial that had been scheduled to start in July.

In an order Wednesday (Mar. 13), U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick said she would wait to proceed until after the justices had issued their gun-control ruling, since the Supreme Court’s looming decision will likely touch on the same Second Amendment questions at play in NBA YoungBoy’s case.

YoungBoy’s lawyers say the law he’s accused of breaking — a ban on convicted felons possessing firearms — is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, which protects the right to “keep and bear arms.” The pending Supreme Court case, meanwhile, will decide the constitutionality of a similar federal ban on gun ownership for domestic abusers.

After years of house arrest, YoungBoy (Kentrell DeSean Gaulden) had finally been set for a trial in July. Wednesday’s order will likely delay that trial since it could be June before the high court even rules on the pending case. But the delay might be worth it: If the Supreme Court rules against the gun restrictions in that case, it could greatly help YoungBoy beat his charges altogether.

The rapper’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.

YoungBoy was indicted by federal prosecutors in March 2021 after he was allegedly found with two guns during a September 2020 incident in Baton Rouge, La. He was charged with violating a long-standing federal law that bans convicted felons from ever again possessing guns — a rule that applied to him because he was convicted in 2017 of aggravated assault with a firearm.

In a motion filed last month, attorneys for the rapper argued that the charges against YoungBoy must be dismissed without trial because that federal ban violates the Second Amendment. They cited a landmark gun control ruling issued by the high court in 2022, which struck down a New York state law that had placed strict limits on carrying guns outside the home.

Echoing the language of that ruling, YoungBoy’s lawyers said the federal felon-in-possession statute was similarly unconstitutional because it was “inconsistent with our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

 “This prosecution seeks to restrict and deny Mr. Gaulden’s Second Amendment right to possess a firearm based solely on his status a felon and his alleged failure to comply with bureaucratic regulations,” the star’s attorneys told the judge.

In a response this month, federal prosecutors sharply disagreed, arguing that the gun ban for convicts had already been upheld in “hundreds of cases” since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling. They acknowledged that a few judges had ruled otherwise, but that the “overwhelming majority of courts” had continued to enforce the law.

In Wednesday’s order, Judge Dick said she could not decide those arguments until the Supreme Court rules on United States v. Rahimi, the pending case challenging a federal law that prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic violence restraining orders. The case, argued last fall, is expected to be decided by June.

It’s difficult to predict how the Supreme Court might rule on a given case, but the tea leaves don’t look good for YoungBoy’s position. After arguments in the Rahimi case in November, Reuters reported that the court “appeared inclined to uphold the legality” of the domestic violence gun restrictions, with several justices suggesting the Second Amendment wouldn’t stop the government from banning “dangerous” people from owning guns.

Whenever the Supreme Court rules on the Rahimi case, YoungBoy and federal prosecutors will have 14 days to file briefs on how the case should proceed.

Drake is pushing to be dismissed from the sprawling litigation over the 2021 disaster at Travis Scott‘s Astroworld festival, arguing that he had nothing to do with planning the deadly event and can’t be sued for simply showing up for a brief guest appearance.

More than 2,500 people have sued over the 2021 disaster, during which a crowd of fans rushed toward the stage during Scott’s Nov. 5 performance, leaving 10 dead and hundreds injured. Though the lawsuits mainly target Scott, Live Nation and other organizers, Drake was also named as a defendant in some cases because he appeared on stage during Scott’s deadly performance.

But in a motion filed Friday (Mar. 8) in Houston court, attorneys for Drake (real name Aubrey Drake Graham) argued that the star should not be involved in the case at all. They said he had no involvement in Astroworld beyond being asked to take the stage — and that festival organizers had “confirmed under oath that Mr. Graham was not involved in any planning.”

They also say that Drake was unaware of any safety problems before he took the stage. “Mr. Graham did not receive any security briefings, was not informed of any crowd control issues, injuries or deaths in the crowd, or any stop show orders at any time either before or during his 14-minute performance.”

Instead, they say that Drake merely “arrived at the venue at approximately 7:30 PM and remained largely secluded backstage in a trailer until approximately 9:54 PM,” at which time he was “informed to take the stage.”  The star then “immediately took the stage as requested, performed for approximately 14 minutes, and then exited the stage at 10:08 PM.”

The lawsuits over Astroworld claim that organizers were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the event, including by failing to provide adequate security and emergency support. The cases, combined into one single large action in Houston, are seeking billions in potential damages. Much of the last two years has been spent in discovery, as the two sides exchange information and take depositions of key figures.

In Friday’s motion, Drake’s lawyers argued that the discovery process had resulted in “hundreds of hours” of depositions and “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents,” but that none of it had established that Drake could be held liable for negligence.

“Plaintiffs produce no evidence that Mr. Graham actually knew of any risk in the Festival site design and layout, competence or adequacy of Festival staffing and personnel, or emergency procedures such as show stop authority,” his lawyers wrote.

The alleged victims, represented by an array of plaintiffs law firms, will have a chance to respond to Drake’s motion in the weeks ahead.

This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.

This week: A stunning early end to the criminal trial over Eagles frontman Don Henley’s allegedly stolen notes; a copyright case filed by Bad Bunny against fan who posted concert footage to YouTube; Linkin Park hits back at a lawsuit filed by a man briefly in the band; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: The Curious Case of Don Henley’s Stolen Notes

Weeks into a blockbuster trial over accusations that three men conspired to sell stolen pages of notes created by Eagles frontman Don Henley while writing “Hotel California,” Manhattan prosecutors dropped a bombshell last week: Maybe the stolen notes had … never been stolen in the first place?

Of course, that had been the primary refrain of the defendants all along. Glenn Horowitz, a rare books dealer, Craig Inciardi, a former curator at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and Edward Kosinski, a memorabilia auctioneer, argued from the start that the notes had simply been given to a journalist in the 1970s as he was writing a book about the Eagles. At the start of the trial last month, one of their lawyers said prosecutors had “distorted the history” to charge three “innocent men” and would be “apologizing at the end of this case.”

At a stunning hearing on Wednesday — midway through the trial, after Henley and longtime manager Irving Azoff had already testified — the district attorney’s office didn’t quite apologize, but did alert the judge that it would drop the charges against the three men. What sparked the sudden reversal? A trove of new evidence that Henley had previously withheld under attorney-client privilege, some of which dealt directly with the core question about whether the notes had been stolen.

The judge was none too pleased, saying that Henley and Azoff had chosen to “obfuscate and hide information that they believed would be damaging to their position that the lyric sheets were stolen.” He also chided prosecutors for having been “manipulated” into bringing the charges, though he praised them for “eating a slice of humble pie” once new evidence had come to light.

Following the stunning collapse of the case and the judge’s statements, Henley’s attorney responded on his behalf, saying the rock star been “victimized by this unjust outcome” and would “pursue all his rights in the civil courts.” A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment.

For all the details, go read our full story — featuring the backstory of the case, all the key quotes from the judge, and what defense attorneys had to say about the sudden dismissal.

Other top stories this week…

TWITTER MUSIC CASE SURVIVES – A federal judge ruled that music publishers could move forward with a copyright lawsuit filed against X Corp. over allegations of widespread copyright infringement on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The judge dismissed major portions of the case, but allowed some of lawsuit’s core allegations — that X essentially enabled illegal behavior by its users by refusing to crack down on them — to move ahead.

SONY RESPONDS TO BIAS SUIT – Sony Music hit back hard at a lawsuit filed by a former assistant to Columbia Records chief executive Ron Perry over allegations that the company discriminated against white job applicants, arguing that the claims were “contradictory and false” and merely designed to “harass her former employer.” The new case came amid increased scrutiny of race-conscious corporate diversity practices in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that outlawed so-called affirmative action in college admissions.

LIZZO CASE ON ICE FOR NOW – The bombshell sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Lizzo by three of her former backup dancers is going to be on pause for the immediate future, after a Los Angeles judge halted all proceedings while the star appeals a recent ruling. Lizzo is challenging a decision earlier this year that refused to dismiss the case under California’s anti-SLAPP law.

BAD BUNNY’S CONCERT CASE – The superstar Puerto Rican rapper filed a lawsuit against a concertgoer who posted videos from a recent show to YouTube, arguing that he was essentially forced to sue after the alleged bootlegger demanded that YouTube keep the clips online. The case highlights the takedown process under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which allows an accused infringer to get their content reposted if they so choose – but also exposes them to a lawsuit like the one Bad Bunny filed this week.

IS YOUTUBE ‘UNION-BUSTING’? – There’s a dispute brewing over the sudden dismissal earlier this month of more than three dozen YouTube Music contract workers, who had voted last year to unionize. The staffers, who oversaw content for the music-streaming service’s 80 million subscribers, have called the move “union-busting” and illegal retaliation against their right to collectively bargain. But Google and subcontractor Cognizant say that “nobody was laid off” and that simply the contract with YouTube had “expired at its natural end date.”

HAGAR’S CANTINA CLASH – Sammy Hagar won a preliminary injunction barring an allegedly unauthorized Hollywood location of his Cabo Wabo Cantina from continuing to use the chain’s name and branding while their dispute plays out in court. The judge barred the alleged rogue franchisee from “representing to the public, in any way, that the restaurant is an authorized Cabo Wabo Cantina restaurant.”

TIME IS A VALUABLE THING – Linkin Park asked a federal judge to end a lawsuit that accuses the band of refusing to pay royalties to an ex-bassist who briefly played with the band in the late 1990s, arguing that the lawsuit is “rife with defects.” Chief among them? That such allegations have been repudiated for “over two decades” and the statute of limitations on it has thus “long since passed.”

Attorneys for Bad Bunny have filed a lawsuit against a fan who posted videos from a recent concert to YouTube, arguing the Puerto Rican rapper was essentially forced to sue after the alleged bootlegger demanded that YouTube keep the clips online.

In a complaint filed Friday in federal court, attorneys for Bad Bunny (Benito Martínez Ocasio) claimed Eric Guillermo Madroñal Garrone posted videos covering ten songs from a February concert in Salt Lake City to his YouTube channel “MADforliveMUSIC,” infringing copyrights and “luring” viewers to his page.

Worse yet, the lawsuit claims, when Bad Bunny submitted a takedown request to YouTube, Garrone responded with a formal counter-notice defending his right to post the clips. That move would legally require YouTube to repost them – unless, that is, Bad Bunny went to court to stop them.

“Defendants have objected to the removal of the unauthorized bootlegs from YouTube, refused to agree not to re-post the unauthorized bootlegs, and requested that YouTube reinstate the unauthorized bootlegs,” Bad Bunny’s attorneys wrote. “Unless enjoined by this court, defendants will continue to infringe Ocasio’s rights.”

Such disputes over online content happen all the time, but they’re usually handled without a lawsuit. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, artists like Bad Bunny can file a takedown request to online platforms like YouTube, requiring the site to pull down the allegedly infringing material. That’s typically the end of the story, especially in cases of extensive footage of full songs.

But the DMCA also empowers internet users to object to such requests if they believe that they’ve made a “fair use” of the materials in question – like, say, a news clip of a Bad Bunny concert that incidentally featured some of his music, or a parody video that mocked him by riffing on one of his songs.

In the case of Garrone’s footage, Bad Bunny’s representatives filed a takedown notice for all ten of the clips from the Salt Lake City concert, arguing that they featured unauthorized recordings of huge hits like “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Me Porto Bonito,” “Dakiti” and others. That notice initially succeeded in getting the clips pulled down.

But according to the lawsuit, Garrone then filed a DMCA counter-notice, requesting “reinstatement of the videos as soon as possible.” In a copy of the notice that was included in Bad Bunny’s lawsuit, Garrone argued that he had made “legitimate use of the content” and that the takedown notice “constitutes a serious detriment to my informative and outreach activities.”

“The removed videos also cover the start of the worldwide tour of Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Bad Bunny, with this being his first date out of the 47 planned across North America, constituting in itself a newsworthy event of high public interest and significant informative scope,” Garrone wrote. “In my opinion, the artist also benefits from the dissemination of the content in his own promotion, as his show is carefully captured, conveying the reality of the moment without alterations or post-production in the content.”

Under the DMCA, that move would require YouTube to repost Garrone’s footage unless Bad Bunny filed a copyright infringement lawsuit within ten days. In an email included in the lawsuit, YouTube warned Bad Bunny’s reps that “if we don’t get a response from you, the content at issue may be reinstated.”

“Your response must include evidence that you’ve taken legal action against the uploader to keep the content from being reinstated to YouTube,” the video site told Bad Bunny’s reps. “Usually, evidence would include a lawsuit against the producer which names the YouTube URLs at issue and seeks a court order to restrain the alleged infringement.”

On Friday, Bad Bunny’s lawyers did exactly that. They argued that Garrone’s videos “do not qualify as fair use” that would entitle them to reinstatement, and that they instead violated his rights.

“Each of the unauthorized bootlegs, both individually and collectively, negatively impacts the market for authorized uses of the Bad Bunny works by, among other things, luring YouTube viewers and associated advertising revenue away from authorized videos of the Bad Bunny Works,” the rapper’s attorneys wrote.

The lawsuit also accused Garrone of violating federal trademark laws by using Bad Bunny’s name in promoting the clips, and of violating a federal law specifically aimed at bootlegging.

Reps for Bad Bunny did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Garrone could not immediately be located for comment, because his YouTube page has been disabled.

A Los Angeles judge is pressing pause on a bombshell sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Lizzo by three of her former backup dancers, halting all proceedings while the star appeals a recent ruling that allowed the case to move forward.

In a decision Thursday, Judge Mark H. Epstein ordered the case “stayed” while Lizzo challenges his January ruling, which largely rejected her efforts to dismiss the lawsuit under California’s anti-SLAPP statute — a special law that makes it easier to quickly end meritless lawsuits that threaten free speech.

It’s unclear how long that process will take, but it will be at least several months before the case resumes.

Lizzo (real name Melissa Jefferson) was sued in August by dancers Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, who claim she and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. created a hostile work environment through a wide range of legal wrongdoing, including sexual harassment and religious and racial discrimination.

In one particularly vivid allegation, Lizzo’s accusers claimed she pushed them to attend a live sex show at a venue in Amsterdam’s famed Red Light District called Bananenbar, and then pressured them to engage with the performers, including “eating bananas protruding from the performers’ vaginas.” After Lizzo herself allegedly led a chant “goading” Davis to touch one performer’s breasts, the lawsuit says, Davis eventually did so.

Repped by Hollywood defense attorney Martin D. Singer, Lizzo fired back in October, arguing that Davis, Williams and Rodriguez filed the case seeking “a quick payday with minimal effort.” He said they had “an axe to grind” against the star because they had been reprimanded over “a pattern of gross misconduct and failure to perform their job up to par.”

Lizzo’s motion to dismiss the case cited the anti-SLAPP statute, which stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” Her lawyers called the harassment lawsuit “a brazen attempt to silence defendants’ creative voices and weaponize their creative expression against them.” 

But in his ruling in January, Judge Epstein ruled that the anti-SLAPP law didn’t quite fit all of the lawsuit’s allegations. He tossed out some claims – including a particularly loaded charge that Lizzo fat-shamed one of her dancers – but ruled that remainder of the case could go forward. 

Figuring out the proper balance – between protected speech and illegal discrimination – was “no easy task,” Judge Epstein wrote, but he said he had “tried to thread this needle.”

“It is dangerous for the court to weigh in, ham-fisted, into constitutionally protected activity,” the judge wrote. “But it is equally dangerous to turn a blind eye to allegations of discrimination or other forms of misconduct merely because they take place in a speech-related environment.”

It’s that ruling that Lizzo is now appealing. The coming appellate fight will aim to answer tricky questions about the anti-SLAPP statute – a provision that is often used to fight back against defamation lawsuits, not against discrimination lawsuit filed by former employees against their employer.

In statement Friday, the accusers’ attorney Ron Zambrano said: “This case now hinges on appeals. They’ll file, then we’ll cross-file, so the judge has stayed the case for the time being pending those appeals.” An attorney for Lizzo did not immediately return a request for comment.