{"id":4912,"date":"2025-03-25T21:29:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T21:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/miley-cyrus-flowers-drake-v-umg-mariah-carey-more-music-law-news\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T21:29:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T21:29:56","slug":"miley-cyrus-flowers-drake-v-umg-mariah-carey-more-music-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/miley-cyrus-flowers-drake-v-umg-mariah-carey-more-music-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Miley Cyrus Flowers, Drake v. UMG, Mariah Carey & More Music Law 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: Miley Cyrus can\u2019t escape a copyright lawsuit claiming she stole her \u201cFlowers\u201d from a Bruno Mars song; more drama in Drake\u2019s lawsuit against UMG over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us\u201d; Mariah Carey wins a copyright lawsuit over \u201cAll I Want For Christmas Is You\u201d; and much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTHE BIG STORY: Miley Can\u2019t Wreck \u201cFlowers\u201d Copyright Case\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tWhen Miley Cyrus <\/a>was sued last year, accused of ripping off her chart-topping \u201cFlowers\u201d from the Bruno Mars song \u201cWhen I Was Your Man,\u201d it wasn\u2019t Mars or any of the song\u2019s co-writers who filed the case. Instead, it was a financial entity called Tempo Music Investments, which had bought out the rights of co-writer Philip Lawrence.<\/p>\n

\n\tDoes that matter? Miley\u2019s attorneys certainly thought it did, arguing in a motion to dismiss that it represented a \u201cfatal and incurable defect\u201d in the lawsuit. But in a ruling this week, a federal judge rejected that argument, calling it \u201cincorrect\u201d and a \u201cmisunderstanding\u201d of legal precedent.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn doing so, the judge warned that restricting entities that buy partial copyrights from enforcing them in court \u2014 a major issue in the music industry after a years-long catalog acquisition bonanza \u2014 would be a radical shift in the legal landscape with major economic consequences.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSuch a limitation would diminish the value of jointly owned copyrights, because buyers would be less interested in purchasing a copyright that they cannot enforce, thereby disincentivizing co\u2010authorship and collaboration in works,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cThis would undermine Congress\u2019s intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor more on the ruling, go read our entire story here, including the full ruling issued last week.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tMORE DRAKE v. UNIVERSAL<\/strong> \u2013 UMG asked a judge to halt all discovery in Drake\u2019s defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s diss track \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d arguing that he was unfairly demanding \u201chighly commercially sensitive documents\u201d \u2014 including Lamar\u2019s record deal. The star\u2019s lawyers fired back just days later, arguing discovery should continue because they would likely win the case, noting that \u201cmillions of people\u201d around the world think Kendrick was literally calling Drake a pedophile.<\/p>\n

\n\tCHRISTMAS CAME EARLY<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Mariah Carey that accused her of stealing key elements of her perennial holiday classic \u201cAll I Want for Christmas is You\u201d from a little-known 1989 song of the same name by an artist named Vince Vance. In doing so, the judge endorsed reports by musicologists who said the two tracks were \u201cvery different songs\u201d that shared only \u201ccommonplace Christmas song clich\u00e9s\u201d that had been used in many earlier tracks.<\/p>\n

\n\tLIMP LITIGATION <\/strong>\u2013 A federal judge shook up Limp Bizkit\u2019s $200 million lawsuit against UMG, sending much of the contentious legal battle to state court but reviving some of its key accusations. In an earlier ruling, the judge had outright rejected the band\u2019s \u201crescission\u201d demand seeking to void its contracts with the music giant; in the new decision, the judge left that question open for a future ruling by a state court. The ruling means that the band\u2019s copyright infringement allegations, which carry the potential for a large damages award, are also back in play.<\/p>\n

\n\tLIVE NATION SETTLEMENT<\/strong> \u2013 The concert giant agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it failed to warn investors about the kind of anticompetitive behavior that ultimately led to the Justice Department\u2019s sweeping antitrust case. Plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers say the deal provides a \u201cfair, reasonable, and adequate result\u201d from the lawsuit, which claimed Live Nation saddled shareholders with significant losses because it didn\u2019t disclose the \u201cregulatory risks it was currently facing\u201d before news of the big antitrust case was made public.<\/p>\n

\n\tDIDDY DECISION<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge dismissed racketeering accusations and other claims against Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs in a civil lawsuit filed by former collaborator Rodney \u201cLil Rod\u201d Jones, ruling that the music producer failed to meet the legal requirements to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. But the judge also allowed other parts of Jones\u2019 sexual abuse lawsuit to move forward, including claims that Combs sexually assaulted him.<\/p>\n

\n\tBUZBEE WITHDRAWAL <\/strong>\u2013 Elsewhere in the world of Diddy, attorney Tony Buzbee<\/strong> withdrew from 15 abuse lawsuits in New York federal court, two days after telling a judge he had \u201cmade an error in judgment\u201d by failing to disclose that he was not admitted to practice law in that court. Buzbee, who has filed more than 20 Combs cases and fought an acrimonious battle with Jay-Z, said his admission problems had \u201cbecome a distraction\u201d from the allegations in his cases.<\/p>\n

\n\tDERULO TRIAL AHEAD <\/strong>\u2013 A federal judge ruled that Jason Derulo must face a jury trial over allegations that he improperly failed to credit or pay a co-writer named Matthew Spatola on the chart-topping hit \u201cSavage Love.\u201d Seeking to dismiss the case, Derulo had argued that Spatola didn\u2019t deserve a stake in the copyright just because he was present for a few studio sessions, but the judge said jurors might see things differently. A trial is tentatively scheduled for May.<\/p>\n

\n\tCASE DISMISSED<\/strong> \u2013 Showtime won a ruling dismissing a lawsuit by a woman who claimed George & Tammy<\/em> \u2014 a TV series about country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette \u2014 unfairly turned her late husband George Richey, who was previously married to Wynette, into \u201cthe villain.\u201d The show might have been \u201cunflattering\u201d to him, the judge said, but the accuser didn\u2019t meet the legal requirements for her to sue Showtime for unjust enrichment: \u201cNormally, a plaintiff who cries unjust enrichment must have actually enriched somebody,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tEMINEM LEAK CHARGES<\/strong> \u2013 Federal prosecutors charged Joseph Strange, a longtime former employee of Eminem, with criminal copyright infringement over allegations he leaked the rapper\u2019s unreleased music on the internet. In charging documents, the feds said Strange played or distributed over 25 songs online without Eminem\u2019s or his label\u2019s consent: \u201cThe significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem\u2019s artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated,\u201d the rapper\u2019s spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMAFIA-LIKE ORGANIZATION\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 Eugene \u201cBig U\u201d Henley Jr.<\/strong>, who helped launch the late Nipsey Hussle\u2018s career, was hit with a federal criminal case that claims he ran the Rollin\u2019 60s Neighborhood Crips as a \u201cmafia-like\u201d group despite outwardly posing as an anti-gang activist and music executive. Among other allegations, the feds say Henley was responsible for the murder of a 21-year-old aspiring rapper who was signed to his Uneek Music label.<\/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":4913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2943,1942,441,5188,153,2942,3475,593,310,1109],"class_list":["post-4912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-carey","tag-cyrus","tag-drake","tag-flowers","tag-law","tag-mariah","tag-miley","tag-music","tag-news","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912","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=4912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}