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

THE BIG STORY: Barry’s Brand

Barry Manilow’s lawyers have been busy. Last summer, they got into a trans-Atlantic brawl with Hipgnosis over $1.5 million in allegedly unpaid bonuses from his catalog sale. Now they’re launching an appeal to secure “Copacabana” trademarks.

The star’s attorneys are seeking protection over a number of brand names tied to the 1978 megahit, including like “Barry Manilow’s Copacabana Hotel & Casino” and “Barry Manilow’s Copa.” It’s unclear exactly what’s planned – and his reps wouldn’t say.

After a bit of digging, it turns out Manilow has actually been trying to get “Copacabana” trademarks for decades. But such efforts have so far been unsuccessful, thanks largely to one big problem: The name is already legally controlled by the owners of THE Copacabana, the legendary Manhattan nightclub referenced in Manilow’s song.

For the whole strange story, go read the entire article here.

Other top stories this week…

TEAR THE SUIT OFF – George Clinton won a federal court ruling throwing out a lawsuit that claimed the late Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell should be credited as a co-creator of the funk collective’s 1970s catalog. In response, his lawyer offered a legendary statement: “The Lord said, let there be funk — and no pretenders can shut it down or take it away.”

DAME DASH DEBT – Damon Dash filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, saying he has just over $4,000 to his name and owes more than $25 million in tax bills, child support and court judgments. Dash, who co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records with Jay-Z, auctioned off his one-third interest the label last year to help pay those mounting debts.

FAKE MERCH – Twenty One Pilots filed a lawsuit against the Chinese e-commerce giant Temu over allegations that the “unethical” company is flooding the market with cheap knockoffs of the band’s merchandise. The “Stressed Out” duo is the latest musical act to use the legal system to crack down on alleged sellers of counterfeit gear, following cases filed on behalf of Benson Boone and Tate McRae last month.

MUSIC LAW TRACKER – Billboard launched a handy legislative cheat-sheet to keep track of all pending bills before the U.S. Congress that could impact the music industry, including AI regulations, protections for rap lyrics, royalty reforms and more. The list, which will be updated regularly, features key details of each bill and its current status in the sometimes-confusing lawmaking process.

AI SETTLEMENT – Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit over allegations that the AI firm illegally used millions of books to train its AI models – a deal that came as major music companies and artists litigate their own similar suits against AI firms, including one against Anthropic. The deal was sparked by a key ruling this summer, which sided with Anthropic on crucial questions of “fair use” but also left the company facing billions in damages. The settlement, which will lock in the former and avoid the risk of the latter, was thus something of a strategic no-brainer for a company recently valued at $183 billion. But a judge has already expressed reservations about the deal.

LYRICS LITIGATION – A federal judge ruled that Musixmatch must continue to face an antitrust lawsuit over allegations that the company is trying to monopolize the market for providing lyrics to streamers like Spotify. Filed by rival LyricFind, the case claims Musixmatch inked an “unprecedented” exclusive deal with Warner Music Group, shutting out competing companies from that label’s huge catalog.

YNW PLEA DEAL – A co-defendant in rapper YNW Melly’s double-murder case, YNW Bortlen, took a plea deal from Florida prosecutors, avoiding a jury trial a day before it was set to begin. The lenient deal – which will see Bortlen serve less than 10 years in prison rather than a possible life sentence and won’t require him to testify against Melly — left even the judge impressed: “I’m not quite sure how your lawyers managed to do this.”

COPYRIGHTED CLICHÉ?– GloRilla asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit claiming she stole the lyric “natural, no BBL” from a viral catchphrase, arguing that nobody can copyright that kind of short and “cliched” expression. Her lawyers cited seven other songs that had each featured a similar phrase, a reference to “Brazilian butt lift” surgery.

FIREAID PROBE – After months of accusations and internet conspiracy theories, a new report said FireAid committed no misconduct in its distribution of $100 million raised during a pair of all-star benefit concerts after the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January. The report, the result of an independent investigation by the law firm Latham & Watkins, said the money went to organizations that directly aided fire victims.

DAMAGES DEMAND – One of Jimmie Allen’s alleged victims asked a federal judge to award her nearly $1.8 million in damages, a month after the country singer was held legally liable for sexually assaulting and secretly filming her in a Las Vegas hotel room: “Defendants’ predatory conduct … is not the kind of conduct tolerated in a civilized society,” her lawyers wrote.

THA SETTLEMENT – Darius “Deezle” Harrison, a producer on Lil Wayne’s hit 2008 Tha Carter III, reached a settlement with Universal Music Group to resolve a lawsuit claiming the music giant owed him more than a decade’s worth of performance royalties for the chart-topping album.

“FLAWED INTERPRETATION” – SoundExchange launched its appeal of a ruling last month that, somewhat shockingly, said the organization doesn’t have the power to file lawsuits to enforce its royalty demands. It has big implications: SoundExchange has regularly employed litigation for years to secure hundreds of millions of dollars from those who allegedly failed to pay up for sound recording royalties. In a statement, the group said the appeal would overturn an “erroneous ruling and flawed interpretation” of federal copyright law.

THEFT SHOP – A 29-year-old man named Patrick Maisonet was charged with ten felonies over his alleged robbery of Macklemore’s Seattle home in June, as well as a slew of other burglaries targeting the houses of legendary Seattle athletes like baseball Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki and retired football star Richard Sherman.

PRISCILLA SUIT UPDATE – Priscilla Presley’s ex-business partners added more claims to their lawsuit against her, including about the late Elvis Presley. The filing, which came in a case that claimed she “pulled the plug” on her own daughter, alleged that Prscilla “exerted undue pressure on Elvis, pushing him to his death.” Her lawyers quickly mocked the claims, likening them to conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination and the moon landing: “Take off the aluminum foil hat and face reality.”

SAMPLE SPAT – Ye (formerly Kanye West) was hit with a lawsuit claiming he sampled a 1975 soul song without permission on the song “Lord Lift Me Up” from his 2022 album Donda 2. Such claims are nothing new for Kanye: The controversial rapper has been sued more than a dozen times for failing to clear samples or interpolations, including a high-profile case from the estate of Donna Summer.

AI LAWYERING? – Fat Joe accused a lawyer for his former hypeman Terrance “T.A.” Dixon of sloppily using artificial intelligence to write legal briefs in their ongoing courtroom battle – including by citing “hallucinations” of legal cases that “simply don’t exist.” The allegations were made against the same opposing lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn, who was arrested this summer for allegedly hitting Fat Joe’s process server with his car.

DANCE DANCE RESOLUTION – Kelley Heyer, a TikTok influencer who says she created the viral dance to Charli xcx’s hit song “Apple,” reached a settlement with Roblox to resolve claims that the gaming platform sold her choreography to its users without permission. The case was one of many filed over short dance moves featured as so-called “emotes” in video games.