{"id":1169,"date":"2024-06-04T19:42:58","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T19:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/cher-lawsuit-win-the-dream-abuse-claims-more-legal-music-news\/"},"modified":"2024-06-04T19:42:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T19:42:58","slug":"cher-lawsuit-win-the-dream-abuse-claims-more-legal-music-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/cher-lawsuit-win-the-dream-abuse-claims-more-legal-music-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Cher Lawsuit Win, The-Dream Abuse Claims & More Legal Music News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tThis is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from <\/em>Billboard Pro offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Cher wins a closely-watched termination battle against Sonny Bono\u2019s widow; the massive copyright lawsuit against Bad Bunny and other reggaeton stars moves forward; R&B hitmaker The-Dream is hit with a sexual abuse lawsuit; and much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTHE BIG STORY: Copyrights & Divorces & Cher, Oh My<\/strong>!\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tCher emerged victorious last week in a long-running legal battle with Sonny Bono\u2019s widow that centered on the messy intersection between federal copyrights and state-level divorce law.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was the industry\u2019s latest test of copyright law\u2019s \u201ctermination right,\u201d which gives creators and heirs the power to reclaim control of works decades after they sold them away. Created by Congress in the 1970s, termination was designed to level the playing field for creators who faced an \u201cunequal bargaining position\u201d with big companies and sold their rights for cheap.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, record labels have faced class actions from artists seeking to win back their masters; musicians have pushed for a rule change to make sure songwriters can actually start collecting streaming royalties after they take back their copyrights; and individual artists like Dwight Yoakam, 2 Live Crew and KC & the Sunshine Band have all fought their own lawsuits over termination.<\/p>\n

Cher\u2019s case posed new and difficult questions. After using termination to take back control of Sonny\u2019s copyrights, Mary Bono argued that she was no longer required to honor Sonny and Cher\u2019s 1978 divorce settlement, which gave the superstar a permanent 50% cut of the publishing revenue from songs written before the couple split up.<\/p>\n

But in a ruling on Wednesday (May 29), Judge John A. Kronstadt<\/strong> sided with Cher, ruling that she must continue to receive publishing royalties for her catalog of songs created with Sonny, including \u201cI Got You Babe,\u201d \u201cThe Beat Goes On\u201d and \u201cBaby Don\u2019t Go.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more, go read our entire breakdown<\/a> <\/strong>of the ruling, including access to the judge\u2019s full written decision.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tOther top stories this week\u2026<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tREGGAETON CASE GOES ON<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge ruled that a sprawling copyright lawsuit can move forward<\/a><\/strong> with accusations that nearly 2,000 reggaeton songs \u2014 including hits by Bad Bunny, Karol G and dozens of others \u2014 all infringed a single 1989 song called\u00a0 \u201cFish Market\u201d that allegedly spawned the so-called \u201cdem bow\u201d rhythm. The stars had argued that the lawsuit aimed to \u201cmonopolize practically the entire reggaet\u00f3n musical genre,\u201d but a judge said it was too early to make that argument \u2014 and that he wasn\u2019t particularly receptive to it anyhow.<\/p>\n

\u201cA PROLONGED NIGHTMARE\u201d <\/strong>\u2013 The-Dream, a singer and producer who has worked with Beyonc\u00e9, Rihanna and others, was hit with a sex trafficking lawsuit<\/a><\/strong> that claims he subjected a young songwriter named Chanaaz Mangroe to an \u201cabusive, violent, and manipulative relationship\u201d that included an alleged incident of rape. The lawsuit claims the producer (Terius Gesteelde-Diamant) used promises of career advancement to lure a \u201cyoung and vulnerable artist\u201d into \u201ca prolonged nightmare\u201d filled with \u201cviolent sexual acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

MEGAN THEE STALLION HITS BACK<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The superstar rapper fired back<\/a><\/strong> at a lawsuit that claims she forced a cameraman named Emilio Garcia to watch her have sex with a woman inside a moving vehicle, filing a scathing first response that called those claims \u201cfalse and fabricated\u201d and labeled her accuser a \u201ccon artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

MADONNA SUED AGAIN<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Queen of Pop was hit with yet another class action<\/a><\/strong> over delayed concerts on her Celebration Tour, this time from a ticket buyer who also claims that the show \u2014 which allegedly featured \u201ctopless women\u201d who were \u201cengaging in simulated sexual acts\u201d \u2014 amounted to a form of \u201cpornography.\u201d<\/p>\n

STUBHUB JURY VERDICT<\/strong> \u2013 StubHub must pay more than $16 million in legal damages after a jury decided <\/a><\/strong>that the ticketing giant screwed over a smaller company called Spotlight Ticket Management \u2014 first by failing to pay millions in commissions, then by torpedoing the startup\u2019s lucrative concierge partnership with American Express.<\/p>\n

KANYE HARASSMENT SUIT<\/strong> \u2013 Kanye West was sued by<\/a><\/strong> a former assistant named Lauren Pisciotta over allegations of sexual harassment and wrongful termination. In a lawsuit that came with pages of graphic texts that the rapper allegedly sent to her, Pisciotta\u2019s attorneys claim she faced a \u201csystematic\u201d onslaught of \u201cunlawful harassment\u201d during her year of working for Ye.<\/p>\n

SPOTIFY SUED OVER \u201cCAR THING\u201d <\/strong>\u2013 A group of angry consumers filed a class action<\/a><\/strong> against Spotify over its recent decision to kill its short-lived \u201cCar Thing\u201d device, claiming that the streaming company\u2019s move left them \u201cwith nothing more than a paperweight that cost between $50 and $100\u201d.<\/p>\n

AEG CEO TALKS LIVE NATION CASE<\/strong> \u2013 In the wake of the DOJ\u2019s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, AEG chairman\/CEO Jay Marciano<\/strong> celebrated the case<\/a><\/strong> against its chief rival, saying it will bring \u201csweeping changes\u201d to the live music industry. In an internal memo, Marciano said he believes that Live Nation \u201cuses its monopoly power to impose its will on the live entertainment business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[362,1470,300,303,136,593,310,1629,834],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-abuse","tag-cher","tag-claims","tag-lawsuit","tag-legal","tag-music","tag-news","tag-thedream","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}