{"id":894,"date":"2024-05-21T21:54:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T21:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/spotify-lawsuit-earth-wind-fire-tm-graceland-case-more-law-news\/"},"modified":"2024-05-23T17:57:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T17:57:30","slug":"spotify-lawsuit-earth-wind-fire-tm-graceland-case-more-law-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/spotify-lawsuit-earth-wind-fire-tm-graceland-case-more-law-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify Lawsuit, Earth Wind & Fire TM, Graceland Case & More Law News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tThis 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 the fun stuff in between. <\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tThis week: Spotify faces a lawsuit over allegations that it \u201cunlawfully\u201d chose to reduce royalty payments to publishers and songwriters; Earth, Wind & Fire reaches a settlement over how much it\u2019s owed in damages by an unauthorized tribute band; Elvis Presley\u2019s granddaughter sues to protect Graceland from a \u201cfraudulent\u201d foreclosure; and much more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\tTHE BIG STORY: Spotify Taken To Court Over Royalties<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n

\n\tWeeks after Billboard <\/em>estimated that Spotify would pay roughly $150 million less to songwriters and publishers over the next year, the streaming giant is facing a legal battle over the move.<\/p>\n

In a lawsuit filed last week, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) claimed Spotify had \u201cunilaterally and unlawfully\u201d chosen to cut its royalty payments nearly in half by \u201cerroneously recharacterizing\u201d the nature of its streaming services to secure a lower rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe financial consequences of Spotify\u2019s failure to meet its statutory obligations are enormous for songwriters and music publishers,\u201d the MLC wrote. \u201cIf unchecked, the impact on songwriters and music publishers of Spotify\u2019s unlawful underreporting could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

At issue in the lawsuit is Spotify\u2019s recent addition of audiobooks to its premium subscription service. The streamer believes that because of the new offering, it\u2019s now entitled to pay a discounted \u201cbundled\u201d royalty rate under federal law. But the MLC says Spotify\u2019s interpretation is legally incorrect and represents a \u201cclear breach\u201d of its requirements under the law.<\/p>\n

This is the second lawsuit of the past six months for the MLC \u2014 an entity created by Congress in 2018 to collect royalties under the Music Modernization Act. After the MLC filed a similar case against Pandora in February, that streamer argued that the group was supposed to operate as a \u201cneutral intermediary\u201d and was \u201cnot authorized to play judge and jury\u201d or pursue \u201clegal frolics.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the full breakdown of the new case against Spotify \u2014 including industry reactions and access to the full complaint filed in court\u00a0\u2014 go read Kristin Robinson\u2019s entire story here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

\n\tTRADEMARK TRIAL AVERTED <\/strong>\u2013 Earth, Wind & Fire reached a settlement<\/a><\/strong> with a tribute act that used the R&B group\u2019s name without permission, avoiding a looming trial over how much the unauthorized group would have to pay in damages. The agreement came months after a federal judge ruled that the tribute act\u00a0\u2014 \u201cEarth, Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion\u201d \u2014 had infringed the band\u2019s trademarks.<\/p>\n

LIVE NATION CASE EXPLAINED<\/strong> \u2013 With an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation from the U.S. Department of Justice expected soon, Billboard<\/em>\u2018s Dave Brooks dove deep<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 breaking down the particulars of the looming case, explaining how it might affect Live Nation and recounting recent federal efforts to crack down on anti-competitive practices at tech giants like Google and Apple.<\/p>\n

COURTHOUSE ROCK<\/strong> \u2013 Elvis Presley\u2019s granddaughter Riley Keough filed a lawsuit<\/a><\/strong> aimed at blocking a \u201cfraudulent\u201d foreclosure sale of the late singer\u2019s historic Memphis home Graceland. Keough\u2019s lawyers say the sale foreclosure was triggered by phony claims that her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, borrowed $3.8 million and used Elvis\u2019 famed mansion as collateral.<\/p>\n

UMG DROPPED FROM DIDDY CASE <\/strong>\u2013 Universal Music Group (UMG) and CEO Lucian Grainge<\/strong> were dismissed from a lawsuit<\/a><\/strong> claiming they \u201caided and abetted\u201d Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs in his alleged sexual abuse \u2014 a move that came after the lawyer who filed the case admitted there had been \u201cno legal basis for the claims.\u201d The sudden reversal came as UMG\u2019s lawyers argued that the accusations were so \u201coffensively false\u201d that they planned to take the unusual step of seeking legal penalties directly against the accuser\u2019s lawyer.<\/p>\n

SAMPLE SETTLEMENT <\/strong>\u2013 Kanye West reached a settlement<\/a><\/strong> with the estate of Donna Summer to resolve a copyright lawsuit that accused him of \u201cshamelessly\u201d using her 1977 hit \u201cI Feel Love\u201d without permission in his song \u201cGood (Don\u2019t Die).\u201d The case, filed in February, claimed that West \u201carrogantly and unilaterally\u201d used her music even though he had been explicitly refused a license.<\/p>\n

NAME GAMES \u2013<\/strong> Members of the 1980s new wave band The Plimsouls won a legal ruling<\/a><\/strong> against the group\u2019s guitarist over the trademark rights to the band\u2019s name. The case was the music industry\u2019s latest battle over the names of classic rock groups, including Journey, Stone Temple Pilots, Jefferson Starship, the Rascals, the Ebonys, The Commodores and The Platters.<\/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":895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,1101,1103,1236,153,303,310,1217,1102],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-earth","tag-fire","tag-graceland","tag-law","tag-lawsuit","tag-news","tag-spotify","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","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=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":956,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}