This is The Legal Beat, a weekly music law newsletter from professional billboardgiving you a comprehensive cheat sheet of great new cases, major failures, and everything fun in between.

This week: Young Thug ends his years-long YSL RICO case with a guilty plea that results in no prison time; UMG accuses distributor TuneCore of “copyright infringement on an industrial scale”; Ed Sheeran Wins Case Over “Let’s Get It On”; Metro Boomin faces sexual assault lawsuit; and much more.

THE BIG STORY: The young bully returns home

And so, it all ended for young thug. More than two years after the Grammy-winning rapper was arrested as part of a wide-ranging gang case in Atlanta, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve barely 15 years probation no prison sentence: a surprising end to a legal saga that shook the music industry.

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 successful rapper and producer who helped shape the sound of hip-hop in the 2010s, was accused of being the head of a violent gang that had wreaked “havoc” in the Atlanta area for nearly a decade. . But the case was a disaster from the start, with endless lists of witnesses, procedural errors, a jailhouse 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 was scheduled to last well into 2025) to walking out a free man? go read my Deep dive into YSL endgame to find out.

Other notable news this week…

“Rampant PIRACY” – Universal music group filed a lawsuit against TuneCore and its parent company Believe over allegations of “massive” copyright infringement, accusing the digital distributor of serving as a “hub” for the widespread dissemination of illegal 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, which is seeking a whopping $500 million in damages, claims 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 on industrial-scale copyright infringement,” the lawsuit said. In a statement, Believe and TuneCore said they “strongly refute these claims” and will “fight them” in court.

“MUSICAL BUILDING BLOCKS” – Ed Sheeran cattle a failure in a federal appeals court confirming that his “Thinking Out Loud” did not infringe the copyright of Marvin Gaye‘Let’s Get It On’, which effectively ends one of several cases over the sonic similarities between the two hits. The lawsuit argued that Sheeran copied a chord progression and beat from Gaye’s iconic song, but the appeals court said the two songs share only “fundamental musical blocks” that are “ubiquitous in pop music” and that granting them a “monopoly” to any composer “would threaten to stifle creativity.”

METRO ALLEGATIONS – Superstar producer Subway boom was hit with a civil lawsuit over allegations that he raped and impregnated a woman named Vanessa LeMaistre during a drug- and alcohol-fueled incident at a recording studio in 2016. The lawsuit claimed the alleged assault was referenced in a song he produced, a stunning allegation , since Metro does not write lyrics or rap himself and the lyrics in question were by 21 wild and Compensate.

TEKASHI ARRESTED – Tekashi 6ix9ine (Daniel Hernández) was arrested and charged over accusations that he violated a plea deal reached with prosecutors when he agreed to testify against his former Brooklyn gangmates in 2018. The provocative rapper had just six months left of the five years of supervised release he got under that deal, but Prosecutors charged him with traveling to Las Vegas without permission and failing a drug test for methamphetamine. Tekashi denied the charges at an arraignment hearing, but the judge, the same one who approved the plea deal, cited a “complete disregard for the law” and ordered him held until his next court date later. of this month.

MEGAN YOU PLAINTIFF – Megan Thee Stallion sued a YouTuber and social media personality named Milagro Gramz (Milagro Elizabeth Cooper), accusing her of “producing falsehoods” regarding the criminal case arising from the 2020 incident in which Tory Lanez He shot Megan in the foot. Calling Gramz “spokesperson and puppet” for Lanez, the superstar seemed determined to use the case as a warning to other bloggers who allegedly share false information about the high-profile case: “Enough is enough.”

“OPAQUE AND UNFAIR” – A federal appeals court ruled that Live Nation and Ticketmaster must face a class action lawsuit alleging that they abuse their dominance to charge “extraordinarily 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 not only described these agreements as “unconscionable and unenforceable” but also as “opaque and unfair”; “poorly written and riddled with typographical errors”; and “so dense, intricate, and internally contradictory that it borders on the unintelligible.”

CASSIE VIDEO SHOCK – Prosecutors in the case against Sean “Diddy” combs told a federal judge that they had has not been behind the leak of the infamous 2016 surveillance video showing the rapper assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Venturaarguing that such accusations were simply a ruse on the part of Diddy’s defense team aimed at trying to “suppress damning evidence.”

DIDDY ACCUSER UNMASKED – A federal judge in one of the many civil cases against Combs ruled that one of his accusers I can’t use a pseudonym “Jane Doe,” saying her right to avoid “public scrutiny” and “embarrassment” does not trump Diddy’s right to defend himself against such “egregious” accusations. The ruling is not binding on other judges, but it could influence how they handle the issue of many other cases that Doe plaintiffs have brought against Combs.

MADLIB vs. EGON – Hip-hop producer madlib filed a lawsuit against his former manager Eothen “Egon” Alapatt on accusations of “self-dealing” alleging that the executive abused his role to claim improper profits from Madlib’s music and commit other alleged misdeeds. The case claims that Egon believes he can “continue to benefit from Madlib’s work and goodwill because there is nothing Madlib can do about it” and demands that the artist “buy him out” if he wants to end the relationship.