{"id":6260,"date":"2025-06-03T23:29:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T23:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/a-i-music-lawsuits-lizzos-appeal-eminem-case-more-music-law-news\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T23:29:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T23:29:24","slug":"a-i-music-lawsuits-lizzos-appeal-eminem-case-more-music-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/a-i-music-lawsuits-lizzos-appeal-eminem-case-more-music-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"A.I. Music Lawsuits, Lizzo’s Appeal, Eminem Case & More Music Law News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tTHE BIG STORY: <\/strong>Is the music industry\u2019s billion-dollar legal battle over artificial intelligence suddenly going to be over before it starts? I wouldn\u2019t count on it just yet.<\/p>\n

\n\tNews broke this weekend that Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music were each in talks to license their songs to Suno and Udio for use in training AI models to spit out new songs \u2013 less than a year after the music companies filed blockbuster copyright cases accusing the AI startups of stealing music on an \u201cunimaginable scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth sides have framed those cases as an existential fight over the future of music. The labels says Suno and Udio are \u201ctrampling\u201d the rights of real musicians in an effort to replace them; the startups argue back that the music giants are abusing intellectual property to crush a new technology that threatens their market share.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs an actual deal imminent? I\u2019d lean toward no. Low-boil settlement talks are a common and continuous feature of almost any litigation, and it\u2019s unclear exactly how far they\u2019ve gotten here. The labels have long said they\u2019re open to listening, but striking a final deal \u2013 rather than just discussing one in broad strokes \u2013 will require solving a long list of incredibly complex problems, as my colleague Kristin Robinson writes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe choice confronting the music giants in these talks \u2013 to strike a deal or fight it out in court \u2013 is one facing all creative industries amid the rise of artificial intelligence. If you sell your content to AI firms, you earn short term profits\u2026by empowering a technology that might destroy you in the long run. If you fight it out, you risk being left behind amid a technological revolution, all for what could be a losing cause.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the music business, history makes that an especially grueling choice. Nobody wants a replay of the 2000s, when labels chose to fight an ascendant new technology in court rather than harness and exploit its potential for profit. Only when the majors opted to partner with streamers like Spotify \u2013 in equity stake deals eerily similar to those being discussed with Suno and Udio \u2013 did the industry begin the long climb to recovery.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut digital music merely represented a new distribution system, and one where the tech partners would ultimately always need to pay real musicians for their output. If the labels end these lawsuits by handing over their catalogs for AI training now, those new partners might one day no longer need them at all.<\/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\t\tOther top stories this week\u2026<\/strong>\t<\/h3>\n

\n\tLIZZO\u2019S APPEAL<\/strong> \u2013 Lizzo\u2019s lawyers launched an appeal aimed at ending a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by her former backup dancers, calling it an \u201cattack\u201d on her \u201cFirst Amendment right to perform her music and advocate for body positivity.\u201d Lizzo\u2019s attorneys say her behavior toward the dancers was clearly part of her artistic approach \u2014 and thus shielded by constitutional protections for free speech.<\/p>\n

\n\tSHADY FACEBOOK MUSIC?<\/strong> \u2013 Eight Mile Style, a company that owns much of Eminem\u2019s catalog, filed a copyright lawsuit against Meta over accusations that Facebook and Instagram made \u201cLose Yourself\u201d and other iconic tracks available to billions of users without permission. The case claimed that the social media giant added Eminem\u2019s songs to its music library without the necessary licenses, violating copyright law on a \u201cmassive\u201d scale in the pursuit of \u201cobscene monetary benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOFFENSE AS DEFENSE<\/strong> \u2013 Smokey Robinson filed a countersuit against four longtime housekeepers who recently accused him of rape, claiming the allegations were part of an \u201cextortionate scheme\u201d by the women and their attorneys. The Motown legend accused the women and their lawyers of defamation, invasion of privacy, civil conspiracy and even elder abuse over the \u201cfabricated\u201d allegations.<\/p>\n

\n\tYOUNGBOY PARDONED<\/strong> \u2013 President Donald Trump granted a pardon to YoungBoy Never Broke Again, who was released from prison in April after pleading guilty last year to a single count of possession of firearms by a convicted felon. The rapper, who has faced legal trouble for years, thanked the president on social media: \u201cThis moment means a lot. It opens the door to a future I\u2019ve worked hard for and I am fully prepared to step into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTRAFFIC DEATH <\/strong>\u2013 Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer reached a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid prison time after striking and killing 47-year-old Israel Sanchez with his car in Los Angeles last year. Under the terms of the deal, the rocker pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence and was sentenced to one year of informal probation and 60 days of community labor.<\/p>\n

\n\tSPOUSAL SUPPORT<\/strong> \u2013 Offset updated his divorce filings to demand that his estranged wife Cardi B pay him spousal support after their split is finalized. In an amended version of his answer to Cardi\u2019s divorce petition, the Migos star added a request for an unspecified amount of alimony, but remains unchanged otherwise. The pair of superstars are one year into an increasingly acrimonious divorce case following six years of marriage.<\/p>\n

\n\tBILLION WITH A B <\/strong>\u2013 The Justice Department urged the U.S. Supreme Court to tackle a billion-dollar lawsuit over music piracy filed by the major labels against Cox Communications, warning that a \u201csweeping\u201d ruling could force internet providers to cut off service to many Americans. The case, in which the labels won a $1 billion verdict in 2019, saw a lower court hold Cox itself liable for widespread illegal downloading by its users. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFIVIO PLEA DEAL<\/strong> \u2013 Brooklyn rapper Fivio Foreign took a plea deal to end a criminal case stemming from allegations he pulled a gun on a New Jersey woman after she asked him to jump her car while pulled over. Under the terms of the deal, Fivio admitted to one count of third-degree terroristic threats in return for prosecutors dropping four other charges, including unlawful possession of a weapon and aggravated assault.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BIG STORY: Is the music industry\u2019s billion-dollar legal battle over artificial intelligence suddenly going to be over before it starts? I wouldn\u2019t count on it just yet. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6174,366,294,3310,153,317,6175,593,310],"class_list":["post-6260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-a-i","tag-appeal","tag-case","tag-eminem","tag-law","tag-lawsuits","tag-lizzos","tag-music","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6260","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=6260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}