{"id":7522,"date":"2025-08-27T03:20:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T03:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/prince-lawsuit-missy-elliott-case-lil-nas-x-charges-music-law-recap\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T03:20:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T03:20:29","slug":"prince-lawsuit-missy-elliott-case-lil-nas-x-charges-music-law-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/prince-lawsuit-missy-elliott-case-lil-nas-x-charges-music-law-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Lawsuit, Missy Elliott Case, Lil Nas X Charges: Music Law Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tTHE BIG STORY<\/strong>: The Prince estate is facing yet another legal battle \u2013 only this time not from his heirs, but from a co-star in his 1984 film Purple Rain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the music legend died of a fentanyl overdose in 2016 without a written will, his affairs spent more than six years in probate court, as heirs, advisors and others battled over how the valuable estate would be managed in the future. Even after that case wrapped up, another battle erupted between allegedly \u201cdisgruntled\u201d heirs and a pair of managers.<\/p>\n

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\n\tNow, the estate is facing a new fight over trademark law from the singer and actress Apollonia, a Prince protegee who rose to fame playing a character of the same name in Purple Rain and has since used the moniker for years in her own career.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a lawsuit filed last week, Apollonia (Patty Kotero) said Prince himself never had an issue with her using the name, but that his estate is now trying to use legal means to \u201csteal\u201d the name \u201ceven though it has no legal right to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor its part, the Prince estate said that it never meant to cause her any sorrow. In a post to social media, the estate responded that it had \u201cnever instructed her to cease using her adopted professional name\u201d and merely wanted to \u201cpreserve Prince\u2019s assets and legacy\u201d by cancelling Apollonia\u2019s own trademarks over a name that came from a Prince movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEEP DIVE<\/strong>: After YNW Melly\u2019s double murder trial was postponed until January 2027 \u2013 roughly eight years from when he was first arrested \u2013 I dove deep into how we got here. Experts told me it was partly the unique factors of the case, including a mistrial and a long death penalty appeal, but that an eight-year wait for a verdict is less unusual than you might think: \u201cOur system tolerates a great deal of punishment before trial and without trial.\u201d<\/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\t<\/h3>\n

\n\tFELONY CHARGES<\/strong> \u2013 Lil Nas X was charged with four felonies over accusations that he attacked police officers and resisted arrest last week during a bizarre incident in which he was filmed wandering naked in Los Angeles. At an arraignment hearing, the \u201cOld Town Road\u201d rapper pleaded not guilty to three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting executive officer over the alleged incident \u2013 charges that could carry years in prison.<\/p>\n

\n\tLAST-MINUTE DEAL<\/strong> \u2013 Missy Elliott reached a settlement to avoid a jury trial and end a long legal battle with Terry Williams, a music producer who claimed that he and Elliott collaborated on numerous songs in the 1990s but that she refused to credit him as a co-writer. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed in court docs, but Elliott\u2019s lawyer shared key details with Billboard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tSAMPLE SNAFU<\/strong> \u2013 Rauw Alejandro was hit with a lawsuit accusing him of sampling multiple tracks by reggaeton legend DJ Playero on his hit 2022 album Saturno<\/em> without proper licenses. In a statement to Billboard<\/em>, Alejandro said he \u201cbelieved these songs were cleared properly by my previous label, but it seems the person who claimed the rights might not have actually controlled them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRADIO RATES<\/strong> \u2013 ASCAP and BMI both reached settlements with the Radio Music License Committee to resolve long-running lawsuits over the licensing rates paid by thousands of radio stations to songwriters and publishers. The details of BMI\u2019s deal, which it called a \u201chistoric\u201d win for songwriters, were publicly filed in federal court; the terms of ASCAP\u2019s agreement were not revealed.<\/p>\n

\n\tIDOL KILLINGS<\/strong> \u2013 Raymond Boodarian, the man accused of killing longtime American Idol<\/em> music supervisor Robin Kaye and her husband last month, appeared in court for his initial hearing on murder and burglary charges. But a Los Angeles judge suspended the prosecution after the accused killer was repeatedly unresponsive in court, instead ordering a mental health review to determine whether he\u2019s competent enough to face criminal charges.<\/p>\n

\n\tDISMISSAL EXPLAINED<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge issued a detailed ruling explaining why he sided with Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs and dismissed a $60 million civil sexual assault lawsuit filed by Making the Band 2<\/em> contestant Sara Rivers. The lengthy ruling said the case \u2013 claiming sexual harassment and groping during the filming of the 2000s MTV reality show \u2013 was clearly filed years after the statutes of limitations had expired.<\/p>\n

\n\tDIDDY THE DIRECTOR<\/strong> \u2013 Elsewhere in Diddy world, federal prosecutors urged a judge to reject the rapper\u2019s bid to overturn his criminal prostitution convictions ahead of sentencing, including his argument that \u201cfreak-offs\u201d were just \u201camateur pornography\u201d protected by free speech: \u201cThe defendant was anything but a producer of adult films entitled to First Amendment protection \u2014 rather, he was a voracious consumer of commercial sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTYLER TRIAL DELAYED<\/strong> \u2013 A judge postponed a jury trial in a lawsuit accusing Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler of sexually assaulting a minor in the 1970s. Lawyers for plaintiff Julia Misley, who claims Tyler \u201cgroomed\u201d and \u201cmanipulated\u201d her as a teenager decades ago, sought the continuance over \u201cunavoidable delays\u201d in preparing for trial; Tyler\u2019s lawyers objected, saying he wanted his \u201cday in court\u201d rather than have the case \u201ccontinue to drag on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMIAMI CLUB BULLIES?<\/strong> \u2013 Dance music company Insomniac Events filed a lawsuit against three Miami club operators that it claims are trying to \u201cbully\u201d their way into total control of two of the city\u2019s dance venues, including the city\u2019s famed Club Space and an upstart club called Factory Town.<\/p>\n

\n\tYOUNG DOLPH ACQUITTAL<\/strong> \u2013 A man accused of organizing the hit that killed rapper Young Dolph in 2021 was found not guilty on first-degree murder and murder conspiracy charges over accusations that he hired two men to fatally shoot the rapper at a bakery in Memphis. One shooter was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison; the other is cooperating with prosecutors of a lenient punishment.<\/p>\n

\n\tSUPERTRAMP DECISION<\/strong> \u2013 A federal appeals court ruled that former Supertramp lead singer Roger Hodgson needs to share royalties from the 1970s rock band\u2019s hit catalog with his fellow band members. \u201cPlaintiffs ask that defendants continue to \u2018Give A Little Bit,\u2019 the judge wrote. \u201cDefendants believe that \u2018From Now On,\u2019 they are no longer obligated to share royalties.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BIG STORY: The Prince estate is facing yet another legal battle \u2013 only this time not from his heirs, but from a co-star in his 1984 film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,1907,3199,153,303,1916,3198,593,6012,2427,4280],"class_list":["post-7522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-charges","tag-elliott","tag-law","tag-lawsuit","tag-lil","tag-missy","tag-music","tag-nas","tag-prince","tag-recap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7522","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=7522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}