THE BIG STORY: Snoop Dogg reached a confidential settlement with Trevor Lawrence Jr., a veteran studio musician who has been credited on songs by Bruno Mars, Alicia Keys, Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar and other top artists. Snoop and Lawrence were locked in litigation for close to a year over two backing tracks on the 2022 album BODR.
Lawrence claimed Snoop did not properly license his backing tracks before using them on the BODR songs “Pop Pop” and “Get This D–k,” and that the legendary rapper made matters worse by also releasing both songs as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) without his permission.
Snoop, meanwhile, said he had a deal with Lawrence and paid the producer $20,000 before releasing BODR. The rapper’s lawyers criticized Lawrence in court papers for seeking a “preposterous windfall” of millions of dollars through the litigation.
Snoop and Lawrence’s settlement, reached with the help of a mediator, allows the two men to avoid a costly trial that was scheduled to begin in September. But, even without going to trial, the lawsuit provided a glimpse at industry practices surrounding the use of backing tracks.
Lawrence alleged in his legal complaint that he often creates these instrumentals “on spec” and shops them around to prominent artists. Lawrence said he allows artists to “experiment” with the tracks in the studio for free, as he did in this case with Snoop Dogg, but that he expects a license to be negotiated before a song is commercially released.
You’re reading 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. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, go subscribe here.
Other top stories this week…
DIDDY DELIBERATIONS – After seven weeks of trial, a jury of 12 New Yorkers finally began discussing whether to find Sean “Diddy” Combs guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking and prostitution. Deliberations began after lengthy closing statements, during which the prosecution argued that the rapper ran a mob-like criminal syndicate to force women to participate in the marathon sex shows he called “freak-offs,” and the defense countered that Diddy and his girlfriends were just “swingers.” After two days of deliberations, the jury said they’d reached a partial verdict on some of the charges but remained deadlocked on racketeering. Their decision on all counts remains a mystery, and they were instructed to continue working.
A WIN FOR BUZBEE – A Los Angles judge struck down Jay-Z’s extortion and defamation lawsuit against Tony Buzbee, the personal injury attorney who filed a shocking rape lawsuit against the rap icon that has since been dropped. The judge made clear, though, that Jay-Z might be able to get his defamation claims revived on appeal if he can convince a higher court to consider evidence of the anonymous accuser supposedly admitting that Buzbee pushed her to fabricate the rape lawsuit.
BEAT BATTLE – Flo Milli, Babyface Ray and 42 Dugg were hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit from a man who claims to own the exclusive license to a beat called “Youu.” The man, named Shamar Deal, said the beat was illegally re-licensed to Ray and Dugg for their 2023 track “Ron Artest,” which Milli then sampled on her Billboard Hot 100 hit “Never Lose Me.” Deal’s lawsuit asked for more than $1 million in damages from all three rappers and also targeted distributors EMPIRE and Sony Music Entertainment.
ATTORNEY ARRESTED – Tyrone Blackburn, a lawyer who’s bringing salacious racketeering and underage sex claims against Fat Joe, was arrested for allegedly hitting the rapper’s process server with his car. After Blackburn pled not guilty to the charges and was released without bail, his criminal defense attorney told Billboard that the incident was either an accident or a set-up by Fat Joe amid their court drama. Legal Beat readers might remember Blackburn for trying (unsuccessfully) to drag Universal Music Group and its CEO Lucian Grainge into a sexual assault lawsuit against Diddy.
J. LO PHOTO CASES – Paparazzo Edwin Blanco and celebrity photo agency BackGrid USA dropped lawsuits alleging Jennifer Lopez posted pictures of herself outside a Golden Globes pre-party to Instagram and X without paying to license the images. The cases accused Lopez of violating the federal Copyright Act and carried possible damages of up to $150,000 per photo. Voluntary dismissals like this are often signs of settlements, but it was not clear whether the pop singer and actress paid to get the cases dropped.
ASSAULT LAWSUIT – Music producer Abe Diaw agreed to dismiss his civil lawsuit accusing Chris Brown of assaulting him at a London nightclub in 2023. As with the J. Lo case, it is not known whether Brown paid a settlement before the suit was dropped. Brown is still facing criminal charges in England over the incident at Tape nightclub, where the R&B singer allegedly struck Diaw multiple times with a bottle of Don Julio 1942 and then stomped on him until he fell unconscious.
PIRACY PRECEDENT – The Supreme Court agreed to review a $1 billion jury verdict won by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group over alleged music piracy by users of Cox Communications from 2019. In taking up the case, the justices set the stage to decide on a broad scale whether the country’s various internet service providers can be held liable if they fail to take action when subscribers download music illegally.
ERAS TOUR PLOT – German prosecutors charged a Syrian-born teenager with helping plan the foiled terrorist attack at Taylor Swift’s planned Eras Tour stop in Vienna last summer, saying a juvenile identified as “Mohammed A” translated bomb-making instructions for the main suspect and sent along the Islamic State oath of allegiance. Authorities in Austria previously made three arrests over the harrowing near-incident, which was discovered and thwarted, but still forced the cancellation of Swift’s planned shows at Ernst Happel Stadium.