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: TikTok – and the music industry – wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the app’s fate; Megan Thee Stallion wins a new civil restraining order against Tory Lanez; Travis Scott and SZA face a copyright lawsuit over their collab hit; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: TikTok’s Future Hangs In The Balance
The U.S. Supreme Court could rule at any moment on the future of TikTok – a key cog in the modern music industry. And it doesn’t look good for TikTok.
At arguments on Thursday, justices on both sides of the high court’s ideological divide seemed to signal that they plan uphold a law requiring the app’s Chinese-owned parent ByteDance to either sell TikTok to a U.S. company or face a total ban on January 19. TikTok and groups of users argued that the law violates the First Amendment’s protections for free speech, but the justices appeared more concerned about national security concerns cited by the government.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said China could use internal TikTok data to “develop spies, to turn people, to blackmail people.” Justice Elena Kagan noted that the First Amendment doesn’t even apply to a foreign firm like ByteDance. Chief Justice John Roberts pointedly asked TikTok’s lawyer if the court was “supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?”
Following the hearing, courtwatchers weren’t optimistic about TikTok’s chances: “I think it’s more likely than not that TikTok & TikTok users lose this case 9-0,” wrote Leah Litman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, in a post on Bluesky.
Many legal battles have big stakes for the industry, but few are on the scale of the TikTok case. With more 170 million American users, the app has become a key part of the modern music ecosystem – a core promotional tool for labels and a jumping off point for many new artists, albeit one that has occasionally butted heads with rights owners and can sometimes prove difficult to harness into lasting success.
As Billboard‘s Elias Leight writes, record labels are already gearing up for the potential of life without TikTok — an outcome that executives tell him is hard to even imagine: “Where is new artist discovery happening in 2025 if this app completely disappears?” The live music business is also preparing to lose the platform, Billboard’s Dave Brooks writes, since festivals and other promoters have increasingly relied upon TikTok in recent years to reach ticket buyers.
The wild card in all of this, of course, is President-elect Donald Trump – who was very famously For It Before He Was Against It when it comes to the TikTok ban but has now said he wants to “negotiate a resolution” to save the platform.
Trump is set to take office on Jan 20, just hours after the ban is scheduled to go into effect. Stay tuned.
Other top stories this week…
“WON’T LET ME FORGET IT” – Megan Thee Stallion won a civil restraining order against Tory Lanez after tearfully testifying before a Los Angeles judge that she was scared he’ll “shoot me again” when released from prison and “maybe this time I won’t make it.” The order came more than two years after Lanez was convicted of shooting the superstar rapper in the foot during a drunken incident in the Hollywood Hills. Lanez is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence, but Megan warned the judge that he has continued to harass her from behind bars: “It just seems like I have to relive it every day. The person who shot me won’t let me forget it.”
COPYRIGHT CLASH – Travis Scott, SZA and Future were hit with a copyright lawsuit by Victory Boyd (a singer signed to Jay-Z‘s Roc Nation record label) over allegations that they stole key elements of their 2023 hit “Telekinesis” from her 2019 song “Like The Way It Sounds.” Boyd says she initially shared her song with none other than Kanye West, who then allegedly shared it with Scott.
UNMASKING ORDER – K-hip-hop star Jay Park asked a U.S. court to force Google to identify an anonymous YouTube user so he could sue the person in Korean court, citing allegedly defamatory internet videos linking him to drug traffickers and disparaging Korean-Americans. The case isn’t entirelys surprising: As K-pop has exploded in global popularity — and with it an intense online fan culture — superstar acts like BTS and BLACKPINK have repeatedly turned to Korea’s strict libel laws to target statements made on the internet. Last year, NewJeans filed a similar U.S. case seeking to reveal a YouTuber’s identity.
RELEASE DATE – YoungBoy Never Broke Again (a.k.a. NBA YoungBoy) will be released from prison in July, according to federal inmate records — far sooner than indicated by his formal two-year sentence handed down last month. The rapper (real name Kentrell Gaulden) received the sentence after taking a plea deal last year to resolve federal gun possession charges in Louisiana and Utah. The likely explanation: YoungBoy is being credited with time-served for jail stints while he awaited trial.
CASE CLOSED (FOR NOW) – An anonymous Jane Doe accusing Diplo of sharing “revenge porn” dropped her lawsuit against the DJ, just weeks after a federal judge ruled she would need to reveal her identity if she wanted to proceed with the case. The move to end the suit was filed “without prejudice,” meaning she could still refile her lawsuit at some point in the future.
CARDI v. TASHA CONTINUES – Years after Cardi B won a multi-million dollar defamation verdict against gossip blogger Tasha K, the superstar is still battling to get that money. In a court filing last month, Cardi accused Tasha of using bankruptcy as part of a “fraudulent scheme to shield debtor’s assets and income from creditors.” Tasha then fired back last week, arguing that the rapper is trying to “sabotage” her career and “silence” her.