{"id":6098,"date":"2025-05-28T04:30:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T04:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/beastie-boys-lawsuit-diddy-trial-lil-wayne-case-more-music-law-news\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T04:30:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T04:30:39","slug":"beastie-boys-lawsuit-diddy-trial-lil-wayne-case-more-music-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/beastie-boys-lawsuit-diddy-trial-lil-wayne-case-more-music-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Beastie Boys Lawsuit, Diddy Trial, Lil Wayne Case & More Music Law News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tTHE BIG STORY: <\/strong>The Beastie Boys and Universal Music Group both reached settlements to end copyright lawsuits in which they accused Chili\u2019s of using their songs in videos posted to TikTok, Instagram and other platforms \u2013 part of a flood of recent litigation over music on social media.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cases, filed last year, claimed the restaurant chain featured copyrighted music in what amounted to advertisements on social media. The UMG case involved songs by Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg and dozens of other artists, but the problem was particularly galling for the Beastie Boys, a group that\u2019s long been famously opposed to their music appearing in ads.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it comes to music, social media has increasingly become a legal minefield for brands. TikTok, Instagram and other services provide their users with huge libraries of fully licensed songs to play over their videos, but those tracks are strictly for personal use<\/em> and cannot be used for commercial videos. That kind of content requires a separate \u201csynch\u201d license, just like any conventional advertisement on TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat distinction appears to have been lost on many brands. Sony filed a lawsuit against Marriott<\/a> last year for allegedly using nearly 1,000 of its songs in social media posts, and Kobalt and other publishers sued more than a dozen NBA teams over the same thing a few months later. In March, Sony sued the University of Southern California for allegedly using Michael Jackson and AC\/DC songs on in videos hyping its college sports teams. Then last month, Warner Music filed a case against cookie chain Crumbl, claiming it used songs by Lizzo, Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande and Beyonc\u00e9 without clearing them.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat comes next? For music owners, you should take a swing through TikTok and see if any big companies are profiting off your songs. For brand owners, experts tell Billboard<\/em> they need to be taking \u201cproactive steps\u201d to fix the problem before it turns into a costly lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re reading 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. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, go subscribe here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

\n\tDIDDY TRIAL GOES ON <\/strong>\u2013 The Diddy trial continued in its second week, with blockbuster testimony from Kid Cudi about how he believes that the indicted mogul once broke into his house and ordered someone to torch his Porsche with a Molotov cocktail. To get up to speed on the trial, go read our full recap of the first two weeks.<\/p>\n

\n\tLIL WAYNE LAWSUIT<\/strong> \u2013 Darius \u201cDeezle\u201d Harrison, a producer on Lil Wayne\u2019s hit album 2008\u2019s Tha Carter III, <\/em>\u00a0sued Universal Music Group over allegations that he\u2019s owed more than 10 years\u2019 worth of royalties from the chart-topping record \u2013 a figure he says totals more than $3 million. His lawyers say he has not been paid royalties from the album in over a decade.<\/p>\n

\n\tHITTING BACK<\/strong> \u2013 Months after hip-hop producer Madlib filed a lawsuit against his former manager and business partner Eothen \u201cEgon\u201d Alapatt, the exec sued him right back \u2014 blasting him for \u201chaving the audacity to bring this mean-spirited personal action.\u201d The countersuit accused Madlib of a wide range of \u201cmisconduct\u201d following the sudden end of their long partnership, including promising to release music by the late Mac Miller that he doesn\u2019t own.<\/p>\n

\n\tIS IT OVER NOW?<\/strong> \u2013 Justin Baldoni dropped his subpoena of Taylor Swift in his messy legal battle against her friend Blake Lively \u2013 that Swift\u2019s reps had fiercely criticized as \u201ctabloid clickbait.\u201d Baldoni\u2019s lawyers had sought communications between the Swift and Lively teams, citing anonymous accusations that Lively asked Swift to delete text messages and demanded a statement of support. But a judge quickly struck those claims from the case docket as improper, irrelevant and \u201cpotentially libelous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLILES CLAIMS EXTORTION<\/strong> \u2013 Record exec Kevin Liles claimed that a rapper named Lady Luck was trying to extort him by falsely accusing him of sexual assault in the 2000s. He said her lawyers threatened to publicize the \u201cutterly false and horrendous allegations\u201d if he didn\u2019t pay them $30 million: \u201cI intend to vigorously fight any complaint she may file and will take whatever legal action is necessary against her and the attorneys who have participated in this attempted shakedown.\u201d The new dispute is unrelated to another sexual assault lawsuit against Liles filed by an unnamed woman earlier this year, which he is seeking to have dismissed.<\/p>\n

\n\tMEGAN BLASTS TORY <\/strong>\u2013 Megan Thee Stallion\u2019s legal team fired back at recent claims of new evidence that would exonerate Tory Lanez, who was convicted in 2022 of shooting the rapper. Lanez\u2019s supporters say there\u2019s new surveillance footage and a new witness who can ID a different shooter, but Megan\u2019s lawyers issued a detailed report rejecting those claims: \u201cOne by one, their misleading statements unravel and all that is left is the simple truth: he was convicted by overwhelming evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBOWLING ALLEY BRAWL<\/strong> \u2013 DaBaby won a court order tossing out assault and battery claims over a 2022 bowling-alley brawl with Brandon Curiel, the brother of his ex-girlfriend DaniLeigh, after a judge ruled that the rapper had not been properly served for years. Though the case against DaBaby was dismissed, the rapper could still be on the hook financially as the case continues against the bowling alley where the attack allegedly occurred.<\/p>\n

\n\tFORTNITE PATENT VERDICT<\/strong> \u2013 Epic Games, the company behind the video game Fortnite, defeated a $32.5 million patent lawsuit over animated in-game concerts put on by Travis Scott and Ariana Grande. A company called Utherverse Digital claimed Epic infringed its virtual reality patents when it staged the virtual concerts for tens of millions of Fortnite gamers during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a jury in Seattle said neither the Scott nor the Grande concert used Utherverse\u2019s technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BIG STORY: The Beastie Boys and Universal Music Group both reached settlements to end copyright lawsuits in which they accused Chili\u2019s of using their songs in videos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2467,2468,294,296,153,303,1916,593,310,342,6057],"class_list":["post-6098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-beastie","tag-boys","tag-case","tag-diddy","tag-law","tag-lawsuit","tag-lil","tag-music","tag-news","tag-trial","tag-wayne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6098","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=6098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}