Young Thug Plea, Ed Sheeran Win, Metro Boomin Case and more legal news

This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Progiving you a one-stop cheat sheet with big news, important quotes, and all the fun stuff in between.

This week: Young Thug ends his yearlong YSL RICO case with a guilty plea that carries no jail time; UMG accuses distributor TuneCore of “copyright infringement on an industrial scale”; Ed Sheeran Wins Case Over ‘Let’s Get It On’; Metro Boomin is facing a sexual abuse lawsuit; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: Young Thug goes home

And just like that, it was all over for Young Thug. More than two years after the Grammy-winning rapper was arrested as part of a sweeping gang case in Atlanta, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to just 15 years of probation with no jail time — a stunning end to a legal saga that has rocked the music industry put. .

Pitching prosecutors in America’s rap capital against one of hip-hop’s biggest stars, the case against Thug and his alleged “YSL” gang raised big questions: about the fairness of the criminal justice system; about violent characters in modern hip-hop; and about prosecutors using rap lyrics as evidence.

Thug, a rapper and producer who helped shape the sound of hip-hop in the 2010s, was accused of being the kingpin of a violent gang that wreaked “havoc” in the Atlanta area for nearly a decade. But the case was a mess from the start, with endless witness lists, procedural errors, a prison stabbing and a bizarre episode in which a judge was removed from the case.

How did Young Thug go from that mess – the trial had no end in sight and would last well into 2025 – to a free man? Read my deep dive on the YSL endgame to find out.

Other top stories this week…

“Unbridled Piracy” – Universal Music Group has filed a lawsuit against TuneCore and parent company Believe over allegations of “massive” copyright infringement, accusing the digital distributor of serving as a “hub” for the widespread distribution of pirated copies of songs on streaming platforms and social media services, including those of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga and many others. UMG is seeking as much as $500 million in damages, claiming that TuneCore pursued “rapid growth” of its DIY distribution services by turning a blind eye to “rampant piracy” among its users: “Believe is a company built of copyright infringement on an industrial scale,” the lawsuit states. In a statement, Believe and TuneCore said they “strongly refute these claims” and “would fight them” in court.

“MUSICAL BUILDING BLOCKS” – Ed Sheeran won a ruling in a federal appeals court affirming that his “Thinking Out Loud” did not infringe on the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” effectively ending one of several cases over the sonic similarities between the two hits. The lawsuit alleged that Sheeran had copied a chord progression and rhythm from Gaye’s iconic song, but the appeals court said the two songs share only “basic musical building blocks” that are “ubiquitous in pop music” – and that granting a “monopoly” on it for any songwriter ‘threatened to stifle creativity’.

METRO MOVEMENTS – Superstar producer Metro Boomin was hit with a civil lawsuit over allegations that he raped and impregnated a woman named Vanessa LeMaistre during a drug and booze-fueled incident at a recording studio in 2016. The lawsuit alleged that the alleged assault was referenced in a song he produced – a surprising accusation, considering Metro doesn’t write lyrics or rap themselves and the lyrics in question were by 21 Savage and Offset.

TEKASHI ARRESTED – Tekashi 6ix9ine (Daniel Hernandez) was arrested and indicted on allegations that he violated a plea deal with prosecutors when he infamously testified against his former gang members in Brooklyn in 2018. The provocative rapper had just six months left on the five-year supervised release he received under that deal, but prosecutors accused him of traveling to Las Vegas without permission and failing to pass a drug test for meth. Tekashi denied the charges during a hearing, but the judge – the same one who signed the plea deal – called it a “complete disregard for the law” and ordered him held until his next court hearing later this month.

MEGAN U Plaintiff – Megan Thee Stallion has sued a YouTuber and social media personality named Milagro Gramz (Milagro Elizabeth Cooper), accusing her of “spreading untruths” about the criminal case arising from the 2020 incident in which Tory Lanez shot Megan in the foot . Calling Gramz a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Lanez, the superstar seemed intent on using the case as a warning shot to other bloggers allegedly sharing false information about the high-profile case: “Enough is enough.”

“Opaque and dishonest” – A federal appeals court has ruled that Live Nation and Ticketmaster must face a class action alleging they abused their dominant position to charge “extremely high” prices to hundreds of thousands of ticket buyers. In doing so, the court rejected Live Nation’s argument that fans had signed agreements requiring them to resolve disputes through private arbitration. The court called these agreements not only ‘unconscionable and unenforceable’, but also ‘opaque and unfair’; “poorly drafted and full of typos”; and ‘so dense, complicated and internally contradictory as to be almost incomprehensible.’

CASSIE VIDEOCLASH – Prosecutors in the case against Sean “Diddy” Combs told a federal judge that they were not behind the leak of the infamous 2016 surveillance video of the rapper assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, arguing that such accusations were merely gamesmanship on Diddy’s part defense team with the goal of trying to “suppress a damning piece of evidence.”

DIDDY ACCUSER EXPOSED – A federal judge in one of several civil cases against Combs ruled that one of his accusers cannot use a “Jane Doe” pseudonym, saying her right to avoid “public scrutiny” and “shame” is no greater than Diddy’s right to defend themselves against such “heinous” accusations. The ruling is not binding on other judges, but could affect how they handle the issue of numerous other cases brought by Doe plaintiffs against Combs.

MADLIB v EGON – Hip-hop producer Madlib has filed a lawsuit against his former manager Eothen “Egon” Alapatt over allegations of ‘self-dealing by rank’, alleging that the director abused his role to claim unnecessary profits from Madlib’s music and commit other alleged misdeeds. The suit claims that Egon believes he can “continue to benefit from Madlib’s work and goodwill because Madlib cannot do anything about it” and demands that the artist “buy him out” if he wants to end the relationship.