This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: Prosecutors delete Lil Durk’s lyrics from his murder-for-hire case, jury selection begins in Diddy’s sex-trafficking trial, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page is sued over a decades-old credits dispute and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Rap On Trial — Or Not?
When federal prosecutors indicted Lil Durk on murder-for-hire charges last year, they quoted from one of his songs, claiming the lyrics were a direct reference to the alleged shooting and evidence of his guilt.
That was a controversial choice. The use of rap music as evidence in criminal cases has drawn pushback in recent years, as critics argue it threatens free speech and can sway juries by tapping into racial biases. Some states have moved to restrict the practice, but many have not — and there are no such rules in federal prosecutions.
In Durk’s case, his lawyers strongly objected to the use of his music, arguing the song in question was written and recorded months before the shooting even took place. They called the lyric allegations “false evidence” that had been unfairly used to indict him and to deny him pre-trial release. In a public statement, Durk’s family said he had been the latest rapper to be “criminalized for their creativity.”
Prosecutors initially defended the move, arguing that Durk had “repeatedly used his pulpit as a voice of violence.” But in an updated version of the indictment released last week, they backed down — removing all reference to his lyrics and instead focusing on other allegations tying him to the shooting.
The case against Durk will continue — in a separate filing, the feds stressed that the new indictment still contains “significant allegations that show defendant’s alleged role in the execution-style murder” — but it will do so without his lyrics.
Other top stories this week…
DIDDY TRIAL, EXPLAINED – Jury selection is officially underway in the sex trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, ahead of opening statements next week. To get you up to speed before the trial gets underway, I put together an exhaustive explainer on everything you need to know about the Diddy trial — from the exact charges he’s facing, to key players in the courtroom, to the Cassie Ventura tape and much more.
AIN’T OVER YET – A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit claiming Sam Smith and Normani stole key elements of their 2019 hit “Dancing With a Stranger” from an earlier track, ruling that a judge prematurely dismissed the case and should have sent it to a jury. That’s a worrying ruling for any artist hit with a song-theft lawsuit; if such disputes must be litigated all the way to trial to be decided, they become dramatically more expensive.
WHOLE LOTTA LITIGATION – Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page was hit with a new lawsuit over the credits to “Dazed and Confused,” reviving a decades-old dispute over the iconic track. Jake Holmes has claimed for years that he actually wrote the song, and he reached a legal settlement with Page back in 2012 to resolve those allegations. But in the new case, Holmes says Page is effectively ignoring the settlement and has released archival recordings that infringe Holmes’ copyrights.
SCENT SETTLEMENT – Revlon and Elizabeth Arden have fully settled a corporate espionage lawsuit, filed last year, that claimed several former employees “sabotaged” the companies’ decades-old fragrance partnership with Britney Spears and took the business to an upstart rival called Give Back Beauty. The settlements clear the way for Give Back Beauty to formally take over Britney’s lucrative perfume brand, which reportedly earns tens of millions per year.
JAY V. BUZBEE GOES ON – Jay-Z filed an unusual new allegation in his legal war with attorney Tony Buzbee, accusing the lawyer of ordering employees at his law firm to edit Wikipedia pages in an effort to damage the rapper’s reputation. The new claim was the latest salvo in a bitter fight that started when Buzbee filed a shocking lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of raping an unnamed girl decades ago.
