Barry Manilow Trademarks, Damon Dash Bankruptcy, Twenty One Pilots Case & More Music Law

THE BIG STORY: Barry’s Brand

Barry Manilow’s lawyers person been busy. Last summer, they got into a trans-Atlantic brawl with Hipgnosis implicit $1.5 cardinal successful allegedly unpaid bonuses from his catalog sale. Now they’re launching an entreaty to unafraid “Copacabana” trademarks.

The star’s attorneys are seeking extortion implicit a fig of marque names tied to the 1978 megahit, including similar “Barry Manilow’s Copacabana Hotel & Casino” and “Barry Manilow’s Copa.” It’s unclear precisely what’s planned – and his reps wouldn’t say.

After a spot of digging, it turns retired Manilow has really been trying to get “Copacabana” trademarks for decades. But specified efforts person truthful acold been unsuccessful, acknowledgment mostly to 1 large problem: The sanction is already legally controlled by the owners of THE Copacabana, the legendary Manhattan nightclub referenced successful Manilow’s song.

For the full unusual story, spell read the full article here.

Other apical stories this week…

TEAR THE SUIT OFF – George Clinton won a national tribunal ruling throwing retired a suit that claimed the precocious Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell should beryllium credited arsenic a co-creator of the funk collective’s 1970s catalog. In response, his lawyer offered a legendary statement: “The Lord said, fto determination beryllium funk — and nary pretenders tin unopen it down oregon instrumentality it away.”

DAME DASH DEBT – Damon Dash filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, saying helium has conscionable implicit $4,000 to his sanction and owes much than $25 cardinal successful taxation bills, kid enactment and tribunal judgments. Dash, who co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records with Jay-Z, auctioned disconnected his one-third involvement the statement past twelvemonth to assistance wage those mounting debts.

FAKE MERCH – Twenty One Pilots filed a lawsuit against the Chinese e-commerce elephantine Temu implicit allegations that the “unethical” institution is flooding the marketplace with inexpensive knockoffs of the band’s merchandise. The “Stressed Out” duo is the latest philharmonic enactment to usage the ineligible strategy to ace down connected alleged sellers of counterfeit gear, pursuing cases filed connected behalf of Benson Boone and Tate McRae past month.

MUSIC LAW TRACKER – Billboard launched a useful legislative cheat-sheet to support way of each pending bills earlier the U.S. Congress that could interaction the euphony industry, including AI regulations, protections for rap lyrics, royalty reforms and more. The list, which volition beryllium updated regularly, features cardinal details of each measure and its existent presumption successful the sometimes-confusing lawmaking process.

AI SETTLEMENT – Anthropic agreed to wage $1.5 billion to settee a suit implicit allegations that the AI steadfast illegally utilized millions of books to bid its AI models – a woody that came arsenic large euphony companies and artists litigate their ain akin suits against AI firms, including 1 against Anthropic. The woody was sparked by a cardinal ruling this summer, which sided with Anthropic connected important questions of “fair use” but besides near the institution facing billions successful damages. The settlement, which volition fastener successful the erstwhile and debar the hazard of the latter, was frankincense thing of a strategical no-brainer for a institution precocious valued astatine $183 billion. But a justice has already expressed reservations astir the deal.

LYRICS LITIGATION – A national justice ruled that Musixmatch indispensable proceed to face an antitrust lawsuit implicit allegations that the institution is trying to monopolize the marketplace for providing lyrics to streamers similar Spotify. Filed by rival LyricFind, the lawsuit claims Musixmatch inked an “unprecedented” exclusive woody with Warner Music Group, shutting retired competing companies from that label’s immense catalog.

YNW PLEA DEAL – A co-defendant successful rapper YNW Melly’s double-murder case, YNW Bortlen, Read Entire Article