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A round of legal news on entertainment involving Justin Timberlake, Usher and others.
Grammy Award winning folk singer Tracy Chapman sues Nicki Minaj, claiming that she rejected the rapper's request to grant her a license for "Baby Can I Hold You", but that She had used it in "Sorry" anyway.
During the summer, Minaj and his representatives repeatedly asked for a license for Chapman's work, after recording "Sorry," according to a lawsuit filed Monday in California federal court. "Chapman, through the intermediary of his own agents and representatives, has repeatedly denied Maraj's requests to use the composition after the fact," lawyer Robert Jacobs writes in the complaint. Despite this, Chapman claims that Minaj gave a copy of the track, which includes Nas, on New York radio Funkmaster Flex, which teased the song on social media before broadcasting it on his station.
While applying for a license, Minaj's representatives confided that her track was inspired by Chapman's art, but the artist herself tweeted that she "had no idea from Chapman's sampled song. She then asked her Twitter followers if she should delay her next album. Queen in order to secure the license or publish the album without the track, according to the complaint. The album was released without "Sorry" on August 10th. Funkmaster Flex began playing the online title the next day and after playing it, "many internet users" have reproduced the song and have it published online.
Chapman sues for copyright infringement and asks the court for an injunction prohibiting Minaj or anyone working with her from exploiting "Sorry" and asking them to take reasonable steps to prevent third parties from l & # 39; use. (Read the complaint here.)
In other legal news regarding entertainment and music:
– Justin Timberlake and will.i.am can not escape a lawsuit for copyright infringement over their 2006 film "Damn Girl" after a New York federal judge dismissed their second request for dismissal of complaint. Disco artist's sister Perry Kibble filed a lawsuit against the duo in February 2016, claiming that the catch, rhythm, harmony and melody in their song had been copied from Kibble's song "A New Day Is Last Last ". Kibble's sister, Janis McQuinton, claims to have had no knowledge of the offense until nearly ten years after the publication of the song, but the artists claim that she should have known about it. by at least 2007 and has asked the court to dismiss any action related to an alleged offense prior to February 17, 2013.
On September 30, Vernon Broderick, US District Judge, found that the application of the three-year retraction period provided by the US Supreme Court in 2014 Furious bull the decision is inappropriate here. "This is not because a person could have bought the album or DVD, attended a concert tour or watched the special HBO show, that a a reasonable person exercising due diligence at McQuinton's position should have done one of these things, "writes Broderick. "Under the rule of discovery, when the offenses occur more than three years before the filing of the lawsuit, the claims relating to these offenses are still receivable when the plaintiff has discovered or should have discovered the offenses within three years of the trial, such claims would effectively impose the harm rule, as the plaintiff would be barred from obtaining compensation for offenses that occurred more than three years before the trial. "
– The next major litigation on music royalties is focused on international streaming revenues. Last month, class action lawsuits were filed against Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group by Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in Los Angeles, whose customers claim that proceeds from overseas sales is under-reported. The lawsuit against Sony is brought by the estate of Ricky Nelson in the federal court of New York; Meanwhile, the lawsuit against WMG is led by Lenny Williams of the 1970s funk band Tower of Power in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Each claim includes an allegation that the company unfairly assesses an "intra-company charge" for international sales and levies a percentage of that income before computing artists' royalties in violation of their agreements.
– The fight against the trademark opposing founding members of the group "Baby Come Back" Player is one step closer to the lawsuit, after a California federal judge dismissed a motion to dismiss the complaint. In May, Ronn Moss sued Peter Beckett, claiming that he had illegally sought to seize the group's name, even though group members had asked to jointly register the Player brand. "It is well established that, in the context of musical performance groups,
– A Pennsylvania jury awarded $ 27 million in damages to a songwriter for Bad Girl's 2004 hit Usher. In 2011, Daniel Marino sued his former co-writer William Guice and other people, claiming that he had written the song, but without compensation or credit. The songwriter also signed a last-minute deal with Destro Music Productions, which agreed to pay him $ 17.35 million more. Marino was represented by Francis Malofiy, who recently won a successful appeal against Led Zeppelin in a copyright infringement dispute over "Stairway to Heaven".
– A group of young lawyers from the Nixon Peabody office in Los Angeles are using a new podcast to tackle urgent issues such as immigration and diversity. Live and make the law in Los Angeles launched in February, and its second season began Thursday. The topics covered in the next episodes will include a LAPD launcher to discuss homelessness in L..A, a first-person account of volunteering at an immigrant detainee camp, and a discussion with THR Julian Petty, a power lawyer, about the lack of black executives in the hip-hop industry.
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