This is The Legal Beat, a weekly music law newsletter from Billboard Pro, bringing you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, landmark decisions and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Martin Shkreli argues he wasn't required to hand over personal copies of a rare Wu-Tang Clan album to prosecutors. A litigious rock photographer is suing Warner Records in the latest of 50 copyright lawsuits. The new judge in Young Thug's gang trial is facing a flood of new sentences. and more.
THE BIG STORY: The Plot Thickens In Wu-Tang album Case
when Martin Shkreli convicted of securities fraud and ordered to forfeit copy of Wu-Tang Clan's Once upon a time in Shaolin to federal prosecutors, was he allowed to keep personal copies?
PleasrDAO — a digital art collective that bought the one-of-a-kind album from the government in 2021 — certainly thinks it wasn't. The team sued Shkreli in federal court last month, accusing him of violating that seizure order by withholding copies and then threatening to leak them to the public, a move he says would destroy the rare album's value.
But in a new response last week, Shkreli's lawyers told a very different story.
Everyone knows that when the disgraced “Pharma Bro” bought his only copy of the Wu-Tang album in 2014, the deal came with strange contractual requirements – namely that he couldn't release it to the general public until 2103.
But Shkreli's lawyers are saying the deal allowed to make personal copies for private use. And when he turned over the physical CD to the government, his lawyers say he was under no obligation to turn over those private copies: “The defendant still has the right to use them to this day.”
A month after the trial, two visions of a duel appear. Pleasr is relying on the seizure order, citing a passage that prohibited Shkreli from taking any action that would “affect the availability, marketability or value” of the album. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, point to the government's sale to Pleasr, arguing that the feds provided no assurance that the original CD was the only copy of Shaolin into existence.
“Plaintiff was well aware that the purchase of assets from the company did not involve any promise or expectation of 'exclusivity' or 'uniqueness,'” Shkreli's lawyers wrote. “He purchased a copy of a musical work which he knew was not unique and cannot now claim that he is irreparably harmed by the existence of its non-uniqueness.”
For more, read on our full story in the Shaolin case — and stay tuned for the judge's upcoming decision on whether to grant a preliminary injunction against Shkreli.
Other top stories this week…
LEGAL REPORT? – Neil Zloswer, a veteran rock photographer who took photos of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and many other bands, has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Warner Records, accusing the company of using his photo of Tom Petty in a Facebook post without permission. It turns out that the case is almost the first for Zlozower, who has filed 57 copyright lawsuits since 2016, targeting Universal Music Group, Spotify, Ticketmaster, Mötley Crüe and many others for alleged unauthorized use of his images.
CONCERT GUYS – Chris Brown and Live Nation were sued again about an alleged melee that took place backstage at a concert in Fort Worth last week, this time by a security guard who says he was beaten “brutally and savagely” when he tried to break up the fight. The lawsuit, which cites Brown's high-profile 2009 assault on his then-girlfriend Rihanna that led to a felony conviction, comes after the alleged victims themselves filed their own separate case.
YSL CASE UPDATE – The new judge in Young Thug's Atlanta gang trial, Judge Paige Reese Whittakerhas welcomed a flood of the new movements, including a new demand that the rapper be freed from the “torturous conditions” he faced while in prison for more than two years. Judge Ural Glanvillewho was it was removed from the case earlier this month, following revelations of a secret meeting with prosecutors and a key witness, he had repeatedly refused such requests.
ARRESTS OF FIRES – There were three men was arrested in Jacksonville in connection with the fatal shooting of rapper Julio Foolio last month. Sean Gathright, 18, Alicia Andrews, 21, and Isaiah Chance Jr., 21, were charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, among other charges, in the June 23 killing.
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