Music At SCOTUS, Johnny Cash Voice Case, Diddy Threatens Netflix & More Top Music Law News

THE BIG STORY: It’s almost 2026. Music lawyers are grappling with streaming fraud, deepfakes and trillion-dollar battles over artificial intelligence. And the U.S. Supreme Court is talking about … file sharing?

Nearly 30 years after the industry-shaking debut of Napster, online piracy is no longer the existential threat it once was. (Don’t worry: We’ve got robot musicians to worry about now.) Are a commercially significant number of people really still illegally downloading music files when humanity’s full corpus of recorded music is available for $12?

But litigation moves at a glacial pace — and in the mid-2010s, piracy was still a big enough deal that the industry began cracking down on the internet service providers that enabled it. The biggest such case, filed in 2018 by Universal, Warner and Sony against Cox, eventually saw a jury award the labels a whopping $1 billion over piracy by Cox subscribers.

Nearly seven years later, that case is now before the Supreme Court – something of a legal time capsule from an earlier technological era, but one that the justices are worried could lead to “extreme” outcomes for our current one.

For more, go read our full breakdown of the case and this week’s big oral arguments at the high court.

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Other top stories…

TALK THE LINE? The estate of Johnny Cash is suing Coca-Cola over ads that allegedly mimic the country legend’s voice – the first ever case to be brought under Tennessee’s recently enacted ELVIS Act aimed at prohibiting voice cloning in the A.I. era.

MEGAN THEE PLAINTIFF – A jury issued a verdict siding with Megan Thee Stallion in her defamation lawsuit against celebrity gossip blogger Milagro Gramz, who the star claims acted as Tory Lanez’s “mouthpiece” to spread misinformation after he shot Megan in 2020.

DIDDY V. NETFLIX – Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs sent Netflix a cease-and-desist letter warning of litigation if the streamer releases a 50 Cent-produced docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning.

CAN’T SHAKE IT OFF – A federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by hundreds of Taylor Swift fans over Ticketmaster’s botched sale of Eras Tour tickets three years ago, allowing the case to move ahead.

TAKE IT EASY – A judge rejected a civil lawsuit against Don Henley and Irving Azoff over the criminal prosecution of three men who allegedly tried to sell stolen Eagles lyrics – a case that ended in a spectacular collapse in 2024.

DOING TIME – Fugees rapper Pras Michel was sentenced to 14 years in prison following his conviction on illegal foreign lobbying and conspiracy charges linked to Jho Low, the Malaysian financier who masterminded the 1MDB corruption scandal.

RESTAURANT ROW – Usher is suing music producer Bryan-Michael Cox and other organizers of a failed Atlanta restaurant project, claiming they misused money he loaned and still owe him $700,000.

MJ BIOPIC – Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris fired a legal broadside at the executors of her father’s estate, claiming a looming Michael movie and other projects are designed to “enrich and aggrandize” them rather than build wealth for the family.

FEE FIGHT – Nelly is demanding that a lawyer for one of his former St. Lunatics bandmates repay more than $78,000 he spent in legal bills to defeat her “frivolous” lawsuit over the rights to his debut album Country Grammar.

“STRONG WORDS” – Live Nation and Ticketmaster filed a long-awaited motion for summary judgment seeking to end the Justice Department’s sweeping antitrust case – claiming the feds used “strong words” that do not have “a lick of truth to them.”

MORE ACCUSERS – Two more of Smokey Robinson’s former employees — a woman and a man — came forward with claims that the 85-year-old Motown singer sexually assaulted them, adding to four earlier accusers.

LYRIC LITIGATION – GloRilla won a ruling dismissing — for now, at least — a lawsuit that accused her of stealing a social media personality’s viral catchphrase “all natural, no BBL” with the lyrics to her 2024 song “Never Find.”

CASE DROPPED – An appeal filed by Making the Band contestant Sara Rivers aimed at reviving her $60 million sexual assault lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs was abruptly dismissed — a move that came after her lawyers failed to file basic court forms.

CASE TOSSED – A judge dismissed a civil lawsuit filed against Kevin Liles by an anonymous executive assistant who claimed she was sexually assaulted by the legendary record executive at Def Jam in the early 2000s.

GOING PUBLIC – StubHub is facing a class action claiming it hid key details from investors ahead of its $758 million initial public offering (IPO) in September.

TRIAL SET – Aaron Carter’s family will head to trial next year in a wrongful death lawsuit against doctors and pharmacies that allegedly gave the late singer access to Xanax pills before he drowned in a bathtub in 2022.