{"id":8169,"date":"2025-10-14T21:28:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-lawsuit-maverick-city-case-taylor-swift-songs-music-law-recap\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T16:56:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:56:33","slug":"drake-lawsuit-maverick-city-case-taylor-swift-songs-music-law-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/drake-lawsuit-maverick-city-case-taylor-swift-songs-music-law-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Lawsuit, Maverick City Case, Taylor Swift Songs: Music Law Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE BIG STORY: <\/strong>Less than a year after Drake filed a stunning lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d a federal judge tossed it out of court. Her reason? That context is crucial<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s case claimed that UMG defamed him by releasing Lamar\u2019s scathing diss track, which tarred his arch-rival as a \u201ccertified pedophile.\u201d He believed that millions of people took that lyric literally, severely harming his reputation.<\/p>\n

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That might have been true, said Judge Jeannette Vargas, if Kendrick called him a pedo in a context where people expect to hear \u201csober facts,\u201d like a news story. But in a series of diss tracks? Where Drake himself had suggested Kendrick wasn\u2019t the father of his own son? In that setting, the judge said, people expect to hear bombastic insults rather than hard facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recording was published as part of a heated public feud, in which both participants exchanged progressively caustic, inflammatory insults and accusations,\u201d Judge Vargas wrote. \u201cThis is precisely the type of context in which an audience may anticipate the use of epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole rather than factual assertions.\u201d<\/p>\n

That outcome should surprise nobody. Back in May 2024, months before Drake sued, I asked experts whether such a case would make sense \u2014 even though it felt unthinkable at the time that a rapper would ever sue over a beef. Those lawyers told me that such a lawsuit stood little chance of success, and for precisely the reasons Judge Vargas gave last week.<\/p>\n

But the case isn\u2019t over yet. Despite widespread criticism and hefty legal bills, Drake seems intent on fighting this one out til the bitter end: \u201cWe intend to appeal today\u2019s ruling, and we look forward to the Court of Appeals reviewing it,\u201d a rep said after the decision. That means we could still be talking about the Drake v. Kendrick beef in 2026 or beyond. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

You\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<\/em><\/p>\n

Other top stories this week\u2026<\/h3>\n

MAVERICK MELEE <\/strong>\u2013 Days before Maverick City Music co-founder Chandler Moore announced his abrupt departure from the Grammy-winning worship collective, he sued the group and chief executive Norman Gyamfi<\/strong> for fraud, claiming they stole millions of dollars\u2019 worth of royalties from him. The group strongly denied the claims as \u201cwildly untrue,\u201d alleging that Moore is just trying to \u201cstrong-arm\u201d his way out of his contracts with Maverick City.<\/p>\n

\u201cSTOP DEMONIZING\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 Amid a debate over whether Taylor Swift\u2019s new songs sound like old classics by The Jackson 5 and The Pixies, Charlie Puth took to social media to seemingly offer indirect support for his superstar pal. Though he never mentioned Taylor directly in his TikTok post, Puth told fans that \u201cthere\u2019s only 12 notes in a scale\u201d and that there are \u201cbound to be similarities\u201d to old songs when songwriters craft new ones. \u201cWe have to really stop demonizing this when it happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

RISE UP \u2026 IN COURT <\/strong>\u2013 Andra Day and Jeff Evans, her manager of more than a decade, filed dueling lawsuits against each other, with each accusing the other of hoarding more than their fair share of royalty payments. Evans sued first, claiming Day was refusing to honor contract provisions that entitle him to a 40% royalty on her publishing and a 20% commission on other profits. Day then sued him back, claiming the manager had stolen more than $1 million in royalties: \u201cEvans abused his role as a fiduciary to scam Day with blindless greed,\u201d her lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n

A SWIFTIE SCORNED<\/strong> \u2013 A Taylor Swift fan filed a class action against StubHub over allegations that the company refuses to honor its \u201cFanProtect Guarantee,\u201d leaving her with clearly \u201cinferior\u201d seats after she dropped $14,000 on Eras Tour tickets. The woman claims her pricy tickets were voided on the day of the show and StubHub offered new tickets worth only $3,600 located with \u201csharply angled side view of the stage\u201d as a replacement. The case, seeking to represent potentially millions of fans, says that StubHub routinely fails to honor the FanProtect promise.<\/p>\n

IT\u2019S GETTING HOT<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge said Nelly should be reimbursed for hefty legal bills he spent defeating a \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201cfrivolous\u201d lawsuit filed by his former St. Lunatics bandmate Ali. The case claimed that Nelly owed his childhood friend a cut of royalties from the rapper\u2019s debut album Country Grammar<\/em>, but the judge said it \u201cshould have been patently obvious\u201d that the case had \u201cno chance of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

DIDDY IN REHAB<\/strong> Judge Arun Subramanian approved Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs request to participate in the federal prison system\u2019s in-house drug abuse rehab (Residential Drug Abuse Program) while serving his sentence for prostitution crimes. As Billboard<\/em>\u2018s Rachel Scharf explains here, graduates of the RDAP treatment program can shave up to a year off their prison sentences \u2014 but there\u2019s a catch.<\/p>\n

CAN ZACH BRYAN SUE?<\/strong> The Trump administration\u2019s Department of Homeland Security used Zach Bryan\u2019s \u201cRevival\u201d in a promotional video on social media as a trolling jab at the country star after he released a song criticizing ICE raids. So Billboard<\/em> wondered: Can he sue them for copyright infringement? The answer is yes, with some big qualifications.<\/p>\n

AI LITIGATION UPDATE<\/strong> \u2013 A federal judge refused to allow music publishers to add claims of piracy to their lawsuit against Anthropic over copyrighted lyrics used to train the company\u2019s Claude chatbot. The issue was important because the legality of how AI services acquire training materials \u2014 separate from the legality of using them at all \u2014 has become a key new front in the wide war over AI training.<\/p>\n

SIA DIVORCE CASE <\/strong>\u2013 The singer\u2019s estranged husband Dan Bernad demanded spousal support in their ongoing divorce case, arguing he\u2019s owed more than $260,000 per month. Bernad said he\u2019s \u201cfinancially dependent on Sia\u201d and that the pair live a \u201cluxurious and upper-class lifestyle,\u201d including private jet travel, fine dining and full-time staffers. Bernad, who was a radiation oncologist when he met Sia, also claimed the star convinced him to stop working because she disliked his long hours at the hospital.<\/p>\n

TOUR TIFF<\/strong> \u2013 Rod Wave fired back at a lawsuit filed by promoter Grizzly Touring over his Last Lap<\/em> tour, which claimed last month that the star owes $27 million in unrecouped advances after he failed to finish the tour. In his response, Rod said he was \u201cwas left with no option\u201d but to cancel several dates because of massive scheduling and production issues caused by Grizzly \u2014\u00a0and that the lawsuit is trying to force him to keep working with the company.<\/p>\n

BREAK YA CASE <\/strong>\u2013 Busta Rhymes filed defamation counterclaims against a former assistant, Dashiel Gables, who sued the rapper earlier this year. Gable claims the rapper assaulted him by punching him in the face for using his phone on the job, but says that claim was false and defamatory. Statements made in court are typically shielded from such claims, but Busta\u2019s lawyers are trying to get around that rule by claiming Gables shared his case with the press and encouraged media reports about it.<\/p>\n

Billboard\u2018s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information,<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Billboard<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE BIG STORY: Less than a year after Drake filed a stunning lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar\u2019s \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d a federal judge tossed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,384,441,153,303,6855,593,4280,3790,3029,3028],"class_list":["post-8169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-city","tag-drake","tag-law","tag-lawsuit","tag-maverick","tag-music","tag-recap","tag-songs","tag-swift","tag-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169","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=8169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8197,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions\/8197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}