{"id":3208,"date":"2024-11-05T21:34:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T21:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/young-thug-plea-ed-sheeran-win-metro-boomin-case-more-legal-news\/"},"modified":"2024-11-05T21:34:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T21:34:13","slug":"young-thug-plea-ed-sheeran-win-metro-boomin-case-more-legal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/young-thug-plea-ed-sheeran-win-metro-boomin-case-more-legal-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Thug Plea, Ed Sheeran Win, Metro Boomin Case & More Legal 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tThis week: Young Thug ends his years-long YSL RICO case with a guilty plea that results in no prison time; UMG accuses distributor TuneCore of \u201cindustrial-scale copyright infringement\u201d; Ed Sheeran wins a case over \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On,\u201d; Metro Boomin faces a sexual assault lawsuit; and much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTHE BIG STORY: Young Thug Heads Home<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tAnd just like that, it was all over for Young Thug. More than two years after the Grammy-winning rapper was arrested as part of a sweeping Atlanta gang case, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve just 15 years probation with no prison time \u2014 a stunning end to a legal saga that rocked the music industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tPitting prosecutors in America\u2019s rap capital against one of hip-hop\u2019s biggest stars, the case against Thug and his alleged \u201cYSL\u201d gang raised big questions \u2014 about the fairness of the criminal justice system; about violent personas in modern hip-hop; and about prosecutors using rap lyrics as evidence.<\/p>\n

\n\tThug, a chart-topping rapper and producer who helped shape the sound of hip-hop in the 2010s, was accused of being the kingpin of a violent gang that had wrought \u201chavoc\u201d on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade. But the case was a mess from the start, featuring endless witness lists, procedural missteps, a jailhouse stabbing and a bizarre episode that saw a judge removed from the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did Young Thug go from that mess \u2014 the trial had no end in sight and was set to run well into 2025 \u2014 to walking away a free man? Go read my deep dive on the YSL endgame to find out.<\/p>\n

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

\n\t\u201cRAMPANT PIRACY\u201d <\/strong>\u2013 Universal Music Group filed a lawsuit against TuneCore and parent company Believe over allegations of \u201cmassive\u201d copyright infringement, accusing the digital distributor of serving as a \u201chub\u201d for the widespread dissemination of illegal copies of songs on streaming platforms and social media services, including those by Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga and many others. Seeking a whopping $500 million in damages, UMG claims TuneCore pursued \u201crapid growth\u201d of its DIY distribution services by turning a blind eye to \u201crampant piracy\u201d among its users: \u201cBelieve is a company built on industrial-scale copyright infringement,\u201d said the lawsuit. In a statement, Believe and TuneCore said they \u201cstrongly refute these claims\u201d and would \u201cfight them\u201d in court.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMUSICAL BUILDING BLOCKS\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 Ed Sheeran won a ruling at a federal appeals court confirming that his \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d did not infringe the copyright to Marvin Gaye\u2018s \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On,\u201d effectively ending one of several cases over the sonic similarities between the two hits. The lawsuit argued that Sheeran copied a chord progression and rhythm from Gaye\u2019s iconic track, but the appeals court said the two songs share only \u201cfundamental musical building blocks\u201d that are \u201cubiquitous in pop music\u201d \u2014 and that granting a \u201cmonopoly\u201d on them to any single songwriter would \u201cthreaten to stifle creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMETRO ALLEGATIONS<\/strong> \u2013 Superstar producer Metro Boomin was hit with a civil lawsuit over allegations that he raped and impregnated a woman named Vanessa LeMaistre during a drug-and-booze-fueled incident at a recording studio in 2016. The lawsuit claimed that the alleged assault was referenced in a song he produced \u2014 a surprising accusation, given that Metro does not write lyrics or rap himself and the lyrics in question were by 21 Savage and Offset.<\/p>\n

\n\tTEKASHI ARRESTED<\/strong> \u2013 Tekashi 6ix9ine (Daniel Hernandez) was arrested and charged over allegations that he violated a plea agreement struck with prosecutors when he infamously agreed to testify against his former Brooklyn gangmates back in 2018. The provocative rapper had just six months left on the five years of supervised release he secured under that deal, but prosecutors accused him of traveling to Las Vegas without permission and failing a drug test for meth. Tekashi denied the charges at an arraignment hearing, but the judge \u2014 the same one who signed off on the plea deal \u2014 cited a \u201cfull spectrum disregard for the law\u201d and ordered him held until his next court date later this month.<\/p>\n

\n\tMEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF<\/strong> \u2013 Megan Thee Stallion sued a YouTuber and social media personality named Milagro Gramz (Milagro Elizabeth Cooper), accusing her of \u201cchurning out falsehoods\u201d about the criminal case stemming from the 2020 incident in which Tory Lanez shot Megan in the foot. Calling Gramz a \u201cmouthpiece and puppet\u201d for Lanez, the superstar seemed intent on using the case as a warning shot to other bloggers who allegedly share false information about the high-profile case: \u201cEnough is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOPAQUE AND UNFAIR\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 A federal appeals court ruled that Live Nation and Ticketmaster must face a class action claiming they abuse their dominance to charge \u201cextraordinarily high\u201d prices to hundreds of thousands of ticket buyers. In doing so, the court rejected Live Nation\u2019s argument that fans had signed agreements that required them to resolve disputes via private arbitration. The court not only called those agreements \u201cunconscionable and unenforceable\u201d but also \u201copaque and unfair\u201d; \u201cpoorly drafted and riddled with typos\u201d; and \u201cso dense, convoluted and internally contradictory to be borderline unintelligible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCASSIE VIDEO CLASH <\/strong>\u2013 Prosecutors in the case against Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs told a federal judge that they had not been behind the leaking of the infamous 2016 surveillance video showing the rapper assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, arguing that such accusations were merely gamesmanship by Diddy\u2019s defense team with the goal of trying to \u201csuppress a damning piece of evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDIDDY ACCUSER UNMASKED<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge in one of the many civil cases against Combs ruled that one of his accusers cannot use a \u201cJane Doe\u201d pseudonym, saying her right to avoid \u201cpublic scrutiny\u201d and \u201cembarrassment\u201d does not trump Diddy\u2019s right to defend himself against such \u201cheinous\u201d allegations. The ruling is not binding on other judges, but it could influence how they handle the issue of numerous other cases that have been filed against Combs by Doe plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

\n\tMADLIB v. EGON<\/strong> \u2013 Hip-hop producer Madlib filed a lawsuit against his former manager Eothen \u201cEgon\u201d Alapatt<\/strong> over allegations of \u201crank self-dealing,\u201d claiming the exec abused his role to claim undue profits from Madlib\u2019s music and commit other alleged misdeeds. The case claims that Egon believes he can \u201ckeep profiting from Madlib work and goodwill because there is nothing Madlib can do about it\u201d and is demanding that the artist \u201cbuy him out\u201d if he wants to end the relationship.<\/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":3209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3773,294,136,3772,310,3066,3999,1095,834,1094],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-boomin","tag-case","tag-legal","tag-metro","tag-news","tag-plea","tag-sheeran","tag-thug","tag-win","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208","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=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}