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StubHub Hit With Class Action Lawsuit

Legal
Jason Tate

Ashley King, writing for Digital Music News:

A shareholder class action lawsuit has been filed against StubHub following its post-IPO stock price plunge. The lawsuit alleges the company made materially false or misleading statements, failing to disclose “material adverse information” regarding its business and cash flow.

The complaint, filed in New York federal court on Monday, is one of at least three lawsuits stemming from StubHub’s lackluster quarterly earnings report. It was filed by investors who bought into StubHub’s $758 million initial public offering (IPO) in September. At least four other law firms have announced that they’ve opened their own investigations into StubHub’s numbers.

FTC Sues Ticket Reseller

Legal
Jason Tate

Rolling Stone:

The complaint alleges that between Nov. 1, 2022 and Dec. 30, 2023, the defendants bought at least 379,776 tickets for approximately $57 million. A portion was allegedly resold on secondary marketplaces for approximately $64 million. 

To scoop up all those tickets, the FTC alleges that the defendants used “thousands of fictitious Ticketmaster accounts, thousands of virtual and traditional credit card numbers, proxy or spoofed IP addresses, and SIM banks to bypass or otherwise avoid security measures, access control systems, or other technological controls or measures on Ticketmaster’s websites that would have otherwise blocked or prevented them from violating Ticketmaster’s posted ticket purchase limits.” 

Spotify Investigating Playlist Bribery in Turkey

Jason Tate

Digital Music News:

Turkish authorities have responded to the allegations, with the Turkish Competition Authority (RK) opening a formal investigation on July 4. That investigation will look into Spotify’s market practices, including allegations of playlist bribery, manipulation of royalties, and unfair advantages granted to certain artists or labels. The probe is broad and examines both anti-competitive behavior and broader content issues raised by these artists.

Anthropic Apologizes After One of Its Expert Witnesses Cited a Fake Article

Legal
Jason Tate

Maxwell Zeff, writing for TechCrunch:

A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company’s Claude AI chatbot in its ongoing legal battle with music publishers, according to a filing made in a Northern California court on Thursday.

Claude hallucinated the citation with “an inaccurate title and inaccurate authors,” Anthropic says in the filing, first reported by Bloomberg. Anthropic’s lawyers explain that their “manual citation check” did not catch it, nor several other errors that were caused by Claude’s hallucinations.

Anthropic apologized for the error and called it “an honest citation mistake and not a fabrication of authority.”

DOJ Probes Live Nation, AEG for Covid-Era Refund Collusion

Legal
Jason Tate

Reuters:

The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a criminal antitrust probe of Live Nation and AEG’s response to concert cancellations at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Live Nation confirmed while denying any collusion on Thursday. The probe is focused on whether the live-event companies colluded on refund policies for canceled concerts, according to an earlier report by Bloomberg News.

Collusion with competitors can be a criminal offense under antitrust laws. Probes do not always result in charges.

Trump Fires Top US Copyright Official

Jason Tate

Ashley King, writing at Digital Music News:

“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” said Morelle. “It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

Morelle also linked to a pre-publication draft of a US Copyright Office report released last week—the third part in a longer report—that focuses on copyright and artificial intelligence. The report outlines that, while each case’s outcome cannot be pre-judged, there are limitations on the amount that AI companies can count on “fair use” as a defense when training their large language models (LLMs) on copyrighted work.

Warner Music Group Files Lawsuit Against Crumbl Cookies

Legal
Jason Tate

Warner Music Group is suing Crumbl Cookies:

“Defendants have misappropriated at least 159 of the most popular and valuable sound recordings and musical compositions in the market, using those creative works to build [Crumbl’s] brand profile and drive massive sales to Defendants without any compensation to [WMG],” the lawsuit reads.

“The audio track generally runs the full length of the Crumbl Videos and includes the most familiar portion of the sound recording and underlying musical composition, such as the hook or chorus,” WMG claims. The music giant cites examples such as Lil Mosey’s “Blueberry Faygo” played over a video promoting blueberry cheesecake cookies, another promoting yellow sugar cookies to Coldplay’s “Yellow,” and a third promoting Kentucky butter cake to BTS’ “Butter.”

No Fakes Act Reintroduced in Congress

Jason Tate

Variety:

The Recording Academy’s Grammys on the Hill Advocacy Day culminated on Wednesday with a press conference on Capitol Hill with Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Reps. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) and Maria Salazar (R-Fl.) to announce the reintroduction of the “NO FAKES” Act, standing for “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe.” The bipartisan, bicameral bill is intended to advance creators’ rights by protecting their voices and likenesses from the unauthorized creation and use of digital replicas. Also at the press conference were stakeholders from the Human Artistry Campaign – where the Academy is a founding member – along with Google, MPA, RIAA, SAG-AFTRA, and YouTube.

Former Eminem Employee Charged With Selling Unreleased Music

Eminem
Jason Tate

The FBI has charged a former Eminem employee for selling his unreleased songs for bitcoin:

In a statement shared with Variety, Eminem’s longtime spokesperson Dennis Dennehy said that the rapper is pleased with the latest development in the case. “Eminem and his team are very appreciative of the efforts by the FBI Detroit bureau for its thorough investigation which led to the charges against Joe Strange,” he said. “The significant damage caused by a trusted employee to Eminem’s artistic legacy and creative integrity cannot be overstated, let alone the enormous financial losses incurred by the many creators and collaborators that deserve protection for their decades of work. We will continue to take any and all steps necessary to protect Eminem’s art and will stop at nothing to do so.”

Judge Tosses Part of a Lawsuit Against The 1975

The 1975
Jason Tate

Associated Press:

Members of the British band The 1975 cannot be held personally liable for losses of a Malaysian music festival that was shut down by authorities after lead singer Matty Healy kissed a male bandmate on stage, a London judge ruled Monday. 

The organizer of the Good Vibes Festival is seeking 1.9 million pounds ($2.4 million) in losses after Healy criticized the country’s anti-homosexuality laws and then kissed bassist Ross MacDonald at the Kuala Lumpur show in July 2023.

Greg Nori and Deryck Whibley Sue Each Other

Sum 41
Jason Tate

Greg Nori and Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley are suing each other.

Court documents reveal the Treble Charger frontman is seeking damages from Whibley for libel, in addition to “breach of confidence, intrusion upon seclusion, wrongful disclosure of private facts, and placing the plaintiff in a false light.”               

Whibley has countered with his own notice of action against Nori, claiming $3 million in damages for “defamation and placing the plaintiff in a false light,” after the prominent Sault musician publicly accused him of being a liar once the allegations of sex abuse against Nori surfaced.  

All Time Low Drop Libel Lawsuit; Say Probe Found “Smear Campaign”

All Time Low
Jason Tate

Rolling Stone have published an update on the All Time Low legal case. It’s behind a paywall, but some of the reporting has been shared:

According to a new statement from the band’s lawyer, a lengthy probe involving subpoenas and court orders determined that Doe 2 was actually multiple people who “spun an elaborate, fabricated story posing as a fan who incredibly and falsely claimed to have traveled with the band for more than 10 years.”

“There is no such person and no such incidents occurred. Rather, an investigation revealed that Doe 2 was an orchestrated smear campaign by multiple individuals posing as a fake fan. The investigations identified individuals behind the anonymous post who went to great lengths to hide their identities,” lawyer Michael B. Garfinkel of Venable LLP said Friday in the statement to Rolling Stone. “All Time Low has chosen to handle the matter privately and protect the identities of those behind Doe 2, instead of pursuing further litigation at this time.”