{"id":5675,"date":"2025-05-07T10:20:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T10:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lil-durk-lyrics-diddy-trial-led-zeppelin-case-more-music-law-news\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T10:20:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T10:20:18","slug":"lil-durk-lyrics-diddy-trial-led-zeppelin-case-more-music-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/lil-durk-lyrics-diddy-trial-led-zeppelin-case-more-music-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Lil Durk Lyrics, Diddy Trial, Led Zeppelin Case & 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: Prosecutors delete Lil Durk\u2019s lyrics from his murder-for-hire case, jury selection begins in Diddy\u2019s sex-trafficking trial, Led Zeppelin\u2019s Jimmy Page is sued over a decades-old credits dispute and much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTHE BIG STORY: Rap On Trial \u2014 Or Not?\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tWhen federal prosecutors indicted Lil Durk on murder-for-hire charges last year, they quoted from one of his songs, claiming the lyrics were a direct reference to the alleged shooting and evidence of his guilt.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was a controversial choice. The use of rap music as evidence in criminal cases has drawn pushback in recent years, as critics argue it threatens free speech and can sway juries by tapping into racial biases. Some states have moved to restrict the practice, but many have not \u2014 and there are no such rules in federal prosecutions.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Durk\u2019s case, his lawyers strongly objected to the use of his music, arguing the song in question was written and recorded months before the shooting even took place. They called the lyric allegations \u201cfalse evidence\u201d that had been unfairly used to indict him and to deny him pre-trial release. In a public statement, Durk\u2019s family said he had been the latest rapper to be \u201ccriminalized for their creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors initially defended the move, arguing that Durk had \u201crepeatedly used his pulpit as a voice of violence.\u201d But in an updated version of the indictment released last week, they backed down \u2014 removing all reference to his lyrics and instead focusing on other allegations tying him to the shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case against Durk will continue \u2014 in a separate filing, the feds stressed that the new indictment still contains \u201csignificant allegations that show defendant\u2019s alleged role in the execution-style murder\u201d \u2014 but it will do so without his lyrics.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tDIDDY TRIAL, EXPLAINED<\/strong> \u2013 Jury selection is officially underway in the sex trafficking trial of Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, ahead of opening statements next week. To get you up to speed before the trial gets underway, I put together an exhaustive explainer on everything you need to know about the Diddy trial \u2014 from the exact charges he\u2019s facing, to key players in the courtroom, to the Cassie Ventura tape and much more.<\/p>\n

\n\tAIN\u2019T OVER YET <\/strong>\u2013 A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit claiming Sam Smith and Normani stole key elements of their 2019 hit \u201cDancing With a Stranger\u201d from an earlier track, ruling that a judge prematurely dismissed the case and should have sent it to a jury. That\u2019s a worrying ruling for any artist hit with a song-theft lawsuit; if such disputes must be litigated all the way to trial to be decided, they become dramatically more expensive.<\/p>\n

\n\tWHOLE LOTTA LITIGATION <\/strong>\u2013 Led Zeppelin\u2018s Jimmy Page was hit with a new lawsuit over the credits to \u201cDazed and Confused,\u201d reviving a decades-old dispute over the iconic track. Jake Holmes has claimed for years that he actually wrote the song, and he reached a legal settlement with Page back in 2012 to resolve those allegations. But in the new case, Holmes says Page is effectively ignoring the settlement and has released archival recordings that infringe Holmes\u2019 copyrights.<\/p>\n

\n\tSCENT SETTLEMENT <\/strong>\u2013 Revlon and Elizabeth Arden have fully settled a corporate espionage lawsuit, filed last year, that claimed several former employees \u201csabotaged\u201d the companies\u2019 decades-old fragrance partnership with Britney Spears and took the business to an upstart rival called Give Back Beauty. The settlements clear the way for Give Back Beauty to formally take over Britney\u2019s lucrative perfume brand, which reportedly earns tens of millions per year.<\/p>\n

\n\tJAY V. BUZBEE GOES ON <\/strong>\u2013 Jay-Z filed an unusual new allegation in his legal war with attorney Tony Buzbee<\/strong>, accusing the lawyer of ordering employees at his law firm to edit Wikipedia pages in an effort to damage the rapper\u2019s reputation. The new claim was the latest salvo in a bitter fight that started when Buzbee filed a shocking lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of raping an unnamed girl decades ago.<\/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":5676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,296,3891,153,815,1916,2272,593,310,342,5832],"class_list":["post-5675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-diddy","tag-durk","tag-law","tag-led","tag-lil","tag-lyrics","tag-music","tag-news","tag-trial","tag-zeppelin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5675","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=5675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}