{"id":2059,"date":"2024-07-30T20:20:54","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T20:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/martin-shkreli-wu-tang-clan-fight-young-thug-more-music-law-news\/"},"modified":"2024-07-30T20:20:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T20:20:54","slug":"martin-shkreli-wu-tang-clan-fight-young-thug-more-music-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/martin-shkreli-wu-tang-clan-fight-young-thug-more-music-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Shkreli Wu-Tang Clan Fight, Young Thug & More Music Law News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tThis 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. <\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tThis week: Martin Shkreli argues he wasn\u2019t required to turn over personal copies of a rare of Wu-Tang Clan album to prosecutors; a litigious rock photographer sues Warner Records in the latest of more than 50 copyright lawsuits; the new judge in Young Thug\u2019s gang trial faces a flood of new motions; and more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTHE BIG STORY: The Plot Thickens In Wu-Tang Album Case<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tWhen Martin Shkreli <\/strong>was convicted of securities fraud and ordered to forfeit his copy of Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin<\/em> to federal prosecutors, was he allowed to retain personal copies?\u00a0<\/p>\n

PleasrDAO \u2014 a digital art collective that bought the one-of-a-kind album from the government in 2021 \u2014certainly thinks he wasn\u2019t. The group sued Shkreli<\/strong> in federal court last month, accusing him of violating that forfeiture order by retaining copies and then threatening to leak them to the public, a move it says would destroy the value of the rare album.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in a new response last week, Shkreli\u2019s attorneys told a very different story. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Everyone knows that when the disgraced \u201cPharma Bro\u201d bought the only copy of Wu-Tang\u2019s album in 2014, the deal came with bizarre contractual requirements \u2014 namely, that he couldn\u2019t release it to the general public until 2103.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Shkreli\u2019s lawyers say the deal did allow<\/em> him to make personal copies for private use. And when he turned over the physical CD to the government, his lawyers say he wasn\u2019t required to hand over those private copies: \u201cDefendant continues to have the right to use them to this day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A month into the lawsuit, two dueling visions are coming into view. Pleasr is leaning on the forfeiture order, citing a passage that banned Shkreli from taking any action that would \u201caffect the availability, marketability or value\u201d of the album. Defense lawyers, on the other hand, point to the government\u2019s sale to Pleasr, arguing that the feds made no assurances that the original CD was the only copy of\u00a0Shaolin <\/em>in existence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiff was well aware that its purchase of assets from did not include any promise or expectation of \u2018exclusivity\u2019 or \u2018uniqueness,\u2019\u201d Shkreli\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u201cIt bought a copy of a musical work that it knew was not unique, and cannot now claim to be irreparably harmed by the existence of its non-uniqueness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For more, go read our full story<\/a><\/strong> on the Shaolin <\/em>case \u2014 and stay tuned for a looming ruling from the judge on whether to impose a preliminary injunction against Shkreli.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\n\tLEGAL EXPOSURE?<\/strong> \u2013 Neil Zlozower<\/strong>, a veteran rock photographer who\u2019s snapped images of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and many other bands, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Warner Records, accusing the label of using his photo of Tom Petty in a Facebook post without permission. It turns out the case is hardly the first<\/a><\/strong> for Zlozower, who has filed a whopping 57 copyright lawsuits since 2016, targeting Universal Music Group, Spotify, Ticketmaster, M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce and many others over alleged unauthorized use of his images.<\/p>\n

CONCERT MELEE <\/strong>\u2013 Chris Brown and Live Nation were sued again<\/a><\/strong> over an alleged melee that took place backstage at a concert in Fort Worth last week, this time by a security guard who says he was \u201cbrutally and severely\u201d beaten when he tried to break up the fight. The lawsuit, which cites Brown\u2019s high-profile 2009 attack on his then-girlfriend Rihanna that led to a felony conviction, comes after the alleged victims themselves filed their own separate case.<\/p>\n

YSL CASE UPDATE <\/strong>\u2013 The new judge in Young Thug\u2019s sprawling Atlanta gang trial, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker<\/strong>, has been greeted by a flood of new motions<\/a><\/strong>, including a renewed demand to release the rapper from the \u201ctorturous conditions\u201d he\u2019s faced while sitting in jail for more than two years. Judge Ural Glanville<\/strong>, who was removed from the case<\/strong> earlier this month after revelations of a secret meeting with prosecutors and a key witness, had repeatedly denied such requests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SHOOTING ARRESTS<\/strong> \u2013 Three men were arrested in Jacksonville<\/a><\/strong> in connection with the deadly shooting of rapper Julio Foolio last month. Sean Gathright, 18, Alicia Andrews, 21, and Isaiah Chance Jr., 21, were each charged with premeditated first degree murder with a firearm, among other charges, over the June 23 killing.<\/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":2060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1859,835,153,1855,593,310,1856,1095,1858,1094],"class_list":["post-2059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-clan","tag-fight","tag-law","tag-martin","tag-music","tag-news","tag-shkreli","tag-thug","tag-wutang","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059","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=2059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}