Baldwin was on trial for his role firing a gun and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 while filming western film”Rust,” which he starred in and was a producer on. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer granted the defense’s request for a dismissal after it emerged that authorities and prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence in the case, with the mystery of how real bullets got into Baldwin’s gun still remaining.

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“The state’s discovery violation has injected a needless incurable delay into the jury trial. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice,” the judge said.

Though Baldwin has been cleared criminally, he still faces civil lawsuits pertaining to Hutchins’ death. Hutchins was killed when the prop gun Baldwin was using discharged and fired a live round during rehearsals.

Attorney Gloria Allred and Hutchins’ family have pledged to continue to fight Baldwin in New Mexico’s civil courts. Allred, who represents Hutchins’ parents Olga Solovey and Anatolii Androsovych and her sister Svetlana Zemko, described Judge Sommer’s decision as a “devastating blow” to all three.

“It does not change the fact that Alec Baldwin killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of ‘Rust.’ It does not change the fact that he fired a loaded gun while pointing it at a human being,” Allred explained.

Baldwin should also “just have the human decency to say ‘I’m sorry’ in a phone call or Facetime to the parents … It’s not all about Alec Baldwin. There are victims in this case. They are not celebrities — they matter,” Allred said.

Following the dismissal, Brian J. Panish, attorney for Hutchins’ husband Matthew Hutchins, said, “We respect the court’s decision. We look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr. Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna Hutchins.” 

Producers on “Rust,” including Baldwin, were criticized for replacing workers with non-union members while filming. Had the film’s team been made up of unionized members, they would have been required to follow the Actors’ Equity Association’s rules and safety tips for using firearms in productions.

The rules include advice that actors should “Treat all guns as if they are loaded and deadly” and that “The property master or armorer should carefully train you in the safe use of any firearm you must handle. Be honest if you have no knowledge about guns. Do not overstate your qualifications.” It is unclear if Baldwin had any prior training or if he was offered training on set.

“Never point a firearm at anyone including yourself,” the tips also state. “Always cheat the shot by aiming to the right or left of the target character. If asked to point and shoot directly at a living target, consult with the property master or armorer for the prescribed safety procedures.”

Baldwin faced up to 18 months in prison if he had been convicted.

The post Alec Baldwin Comments on ‘Rust’ Shooting Trial’s Dismissal: ‘There Are Too Many People to Thank’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the manslaughter charges after evidence emerged that police and prosecutors deliberately withheld live bullets from the defense, which were ostensibly relevant to the case (because the case was dismissed with prejudice, it cannot be re-tried).

“We respect the court’s decision. We look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr. Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna Hutchins,” Brian J. Panish, an attorney for Matthew Hutchins, said in a statement to TheWrap on Friday.

“The late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings. The defense is not in a position to test the state’s theory as to the source of the live rounds that killed Ms. Hutchins,” Judge Sommer ruled. “The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide this discovery to the defendant. The state unilaterally withheld the supplemental report. [The] Santa Fe County Sheriff’s officer made the decision — and apparently also with the prosecutor, as pursuant to [Cpl. Alexandria] Hancock’s testimony — that the evidence was of no evidentiary value and failed to connect the evidence to the case.”

“Ms. [Kari] Morrissey was aware of the new evidence and yet did not make an effort to disclose it to defense. The state’s willful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate. If this conduct does rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching,” she continued. “The state’s discovery violation has injected a needless incurable delay into the jury trial. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice. Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted.”

Following the cinematographer’s tragic death on Oct. 21, 2021, the shooting has resulted in numerous legal proceedings with the film’s production companies, armorer and Baldwin; both civil and criminal.

Hutchins’ family previously settled a wrongful death suit in October 2022 before filing another suit in February 2023. The cinematographer’s widower Matthew Hutchins received an executive producer credit on the project in the initial settlements. In June, the family filed another civil suit against Baldwin for playing “Russian Roulette with a loaded gun.”

Meanwhile, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is currently serving 18 months in prison for her role in Hutchins’ death.

“You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon,” the judge ruled in April. “But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive. A husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother.”

Baldwin’s team did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

The post Halyna Hutchins’ Husband Still Plans to Hold Alec Baldwin Accountable After ‘Rust’ Case Dismissal appeared first on TheWrap.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that “Defendant Danny Elfman peddled appalling lies for publication to Rolling Stone about Nomi, who had previously in an earlier lawsuit truthfully relayed facts corroborating his penchant to sexually abuse women. Why? As part of a harebrained ‘zero sum’ scheme by Elfman to prop up his checkered reputation by destroying Nomi’s credibility.”

“Defendant Elfman lied about Nomi, branding her as a scorned woman attempting to break up his marriage, and as someone who initiated nude photography,” the document also states. “As a result of Elfman and his representatives’ defamations, Nomi has suffered humiliation, both personally and professionally, within their shared composing industry, and online, and harm to her professional reputation and her occupation as a composer, musician, and educator.”

The lawsuit also states, “Elfman’s scheme involved him and his representatives communicating the following lies, among others, to Rolling Stone: (i) that Elfman did not engage in sexual misconduct towards Nomi; (ii) that Elfman never masturbated in front of her; (iii) that Elfman never inappropriately touched Nomi; (iv) that Elfman never placed his bodily fluids in a martini glass he presented to Nomi; (v) that Nomi is a scorned woman seeking revenge and money to make Elfman ‘pay for having rejected her’; and (vi) that Nomi invited Elfman’s misconduct, including by requesting that he take nude pictures of her.”

Abadi’s initial suit was first covered by Rolling Stone after she filed it in 2018. The outlet found that Abadi had told several friends about Elfman’s conduct and also filed an extensive police report.

Elfman denied the claims at the time and said in a statement that he “allowed someone to get close to me without knowing that I was her ‘childhood crush’ and that her intention was to break up my marriage and replace my wife. When this person realized that I wanted distance from her, she made it clear that I would pay for having rejected her.”

She and Elfman ultimately reached a settlement of $830,000 and an NDA. In 2023, Abadi sued Elfman for failing to make a payment toward that settlement amount.

Abadi’s newest lawsuit was filed by Amber Heard’s former lawyer Eric George. Elfman has hired Camille Vasquez, who famously worked for Johnny Depp in Heard and Depp’s televised 2022 Virginia trial.

Elfman was sued for sexual harassment by a second woman last October. The woman, identified as Jane Doe XX, accused Elfman of walking around nude while with her and against her wishes and masturbating without her consent as she lay sleeping full clothed in the same bed.

The post Danny Elfman Sued for Defamation by Composer Who Accused Him of Sexual Misconduct appeared first on TheWrap.

“CBS decided that there were too many white males at CBS, and it acted
accordingly. It needed to solve its ‘white problem’ by firing successful white males,” the Monday filing, which was obtained by TheWrap, states.

Vaughn’s lawyers allege he was “excluded and ostracized in numerous ways,” including being left out of CBS News’ coverage of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the November 2021 “Chips for Kids” charity event and the Rams Super Bowl Victory Parade in February 2022.

He also claims CBS News had “illegal quotas for race and sex in the hiring of employees.”

A few days prior to his exit, the lawsuit argues that CBS manager Joel Vilmenay asked to extend Vaughn’s contract through the holidays of 2022 and that they “couldn’t find the ‘right person’ to fill his position.”

“Mr. Vaughn agreed in hopes that, ultimately, Vilmenay would reconsider
and decide to keep him on the team. Mr. Vaughn wanted to keep his job. But Vilmenay made himself completely unavailable to meet with Mr. Vaughn,” the suit adds. “He would not talk with him on the phone, let alone meet with him in person. Vilmenay intentionally avoided contact with Mr. Vaughn in the office.”

It goes on to say that CBS held auditions for Vaughn’s positions in July 2023 and that the contenders who were brought in were “younger, racial minorities.”

“Despite Mr. Vaughn’s attempts to negotiate, and despite his high ratings, CBS removed him when they finally found the ‘right person’ … To make matters worse and to further humiliate Mr. Vaughn, Vilmenay asked him to publicly announce that he was saying goodbye and that it was his own decision to leave,” the suit continues. “He was never given a reason for his firing. But it was obvious. He was too old, and not a member of the right race, sex or sexual orientation category for CBS’ retention policy.”

The lawsuit follows a similar complaint from “SEAL Team” writer Brian Beneker filed in March, which CBS has moved to dismiss.

Vaughn is represented by America First Legal Foundation, a conservative group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Representatives for Paramount Global did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.

The Hollywood Reporter was first to report this news.

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.

The post Former CBS Anchor Sues Network for Discrimination Over Supposed Race, Sex Quotas appeared first on TheWrap.

The suit, filed Sunday in New York state Supreme Court and obtained by TheWrap, claims that “The Trial of Hunter Biden” — which first came out in 2022 and has since been removed from the platform — “intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context and invents dialogue intended to entertain.”

Biden is suing for infliction of emotional distress and for any profits made from the miniseries due to unjust enrichment. His team also accused the network of participating in “revenge porn” in their filing.

While the series stated the web show did not reflect a “real proceeding” — with its opening statement clarifying “Hunter Biden has not been implicated in or charged in any crimes arising from his alleged activities, alleged activities” — the suit claims viewers were unable to “decipher what is fact and what is fiction.”

Fox News subsequently called the suit “entirely politically motivated” and “devoid of merit” in a Monday statement to TheWrap, highlighting the program’s removal.

“The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024,” a Fox News spokesperson told TheWrap. “The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon. Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.”

In the series, Biden is on trial for whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) and whether he committed bribery, which the suit notes Biden “has not been implicated in or charged in any crimes arising from his activities, alleged activities.”

Additionally, the suit claims the series “unlawfully publishes numerous intimate images,” which depict Biden both in the nude and involved in sex acts. “Fox published and disseminated these intimate images to its vast audience of millions as part of an entertainment program in order to humiliate, harass, annoy and alarm Mr. Biden and to tarnish his reputation.”

The Hill was first to report the news.

The post Hunter Biden Sues Fox News Over Fictional Mock Trial Series appeared first on TheWrap.

The men named in the suit are Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi and rock memorabilia dealer Edward Kosinski; previous criminal charges against both were dropped in a separate trial in March.

Henley’s lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, said in a Friday media statement, “These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit.”

In the civil suit, obtained by TheWrap, the two defendants are facing charges of conspiring to possess stolen property after trying to auction off the pages.

Inciardi and Kosinski, along with rare-books dealer Glenn Horowitz (who is not named in the new suit) obtained the lyrics from author Ed Sanders, who was hired by the iconic Southern California band to write a book about them. The book was never finished and he never returned the lyrics to Henley or the late Glenn Frey, who died in 2016.

The musician is also asking for the return of the lyric sheets, which are still in the custody of the District Attorney’s Office in New York (DANY). Per the lawsuit, Henley did not realize that the lyrics, which were written across five legal pads, were missing until he saw four pages listed for auction on a site operated by Kosinski.

The lawsuit alleges that “throughout his career, Kosinski has trafficked in music memorabilia of dubious provenance” and that he an Inciardi began a nearly
five-year campaign to profit from Henley’s lyric sheets by selling or auctioning them off song by song, forcing Henley to intervene each time, including by notifying law enforcement.”

Henley is asking for a jury trial “for all issues so triable.”

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.

Rolling Stone first reported this story.

The post Don Henley Sues for Return of Stolen ‘Hotel California’ Lyrics After Criminal Trial Dead End appeared first on TheWrap.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and details allegations of copyright violations as well as how “artificial intelligence’s written summaries of articles threaten publishers.”

“OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material,” CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting Monika Bauerlein said in a statement. “This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.” 

“For-profit corporations like OpenAI and Microsoft can’t simply treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers as free raw material for their products,” Bauerlein continued. “If this practice isn’t stopped, the public’s access to truthful information will be limited to AI-generated summaries of a disappearing news landscape.”

The Center for Investigative Reporting is the oldest nonprofit newsroom in the country, having registered copyright for nearly fifty years. Mother Jones has been publishing since 1972 and each issue has copyright protections. 

This comes as publishers are reckoning with either litigating for copyright violation damages or partnering with AI firms to license content for a fee. 

Similar lawsuits have been filed in recent months against the AI companies including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, The Intercept, AlterNet, Raw Story, and more. 

The post The Center for Investigative Reporting Launches Lawsuit Against OpenAI, Microsoft Over Copyright Infringement  appeared first on TheWrap.

The Court struck down a lawsuit, in a 6-3 vote, against the White House over its efforts to curtail Covid-19 misinformation, which the administration alleges was spread across social media platforms. 

“To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek.  Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, who wrote the opinion for the majority.

The plaintiffs, which included two red states and five social media, no longer have legal standing to pursue a case against federal officials over their communications with the platforms, on the basis of First Amendment violations.

The decision allows the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other federal agencies to continue to flag misinformation posts on social media platforms to the companies themselves, in an effort to have them removed. 

“Without proof of an ongoing pressure campaign, it is entirely speculative that the platforms’ future moderation decisions will be attributable, even in part, to,” the government officials who were named as defendants, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson were in the 6-3 majority.

The lawsuit launched in 2022 by Republican officials in Missouri and Louisiana alongside five social media users, argued that the Biden administration overreached when attempting to have deceptive posts removed from the platforms. The plaintiffs also highlighted the suppression of coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020 as evidence of unconstitutional influence.

The post Supreme Court Rules Feds’ ‘Misinformation’ Talks With Social Media Platforms Did Not Violate First Amendment appeared first on TheWrap.

RIAA filed lawsuits against both Uncharted Labs, Inc., the developer of Udio AI, and Suno, Inc., the developer of Suno AI on Monday. In response to the suit, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman rebuffed the plaintiff’s claims and said that the company prizes “originality” in a statement.

“Our technology is transformative; it is designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content,” Shulman continued. That is why we don’t allow user prompts that reference specific artists.”

“We would have been happy to explain this to the corporate record labels that filed this lawsuit (and in fact, we tried to do so), but instead of entertaining a good faith discussion, they’ve reverted to their old lawyer-led playbook,” the Suno CEO added. 

In response to the statement, an RIAA spokesperson said “If there is any takeaway from Udio’s meandering ‘response,’ it is that Udio is attempting to construct an alternate reality where being pro-artist means stealing artists’ work for profit.”

“Supporting real creativity means getting permission before using someone’s work and developing technology that partners with and supports human artists instead of cutting them out and replacing them,” RIAA added. 

The association additionally noted that “Udio now seems to admit their model copied ‘a large collection of recorded music.’ That’s a startling admission of illegal and unethical conduct, and they should be held accountable.”

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs which include Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Warner Records, argue that the AI firms have “flouted the rights of copyright owners in the music industry as part of a mad dash to become the dominant AI music generation service. Neither [these services] nor any other generative AI company, can be allowed to advance toward this goal by trampling the rights of copyright owners.” 

The two lawsuits are seeking for the AI firms to admit that they infringed upon copyrighted sound recordings owned by the plaintiffs, injunctions barring the organizations from infringing on copyrighted material in the future, and damages of up to $150,000 per work, along with other fees.

The lawsuits follow previous legal action filed by UMG, Concord and ABKCO in Oct. against Anthropic, which focused more on copied lyrics.

The post RIAA Says AI Firm’s Response to Copyright Lawsuit Is a ‘Startling Admission of Illegal and Unethical Conduct’ appeared first on TheWrap.

The blockbuster lawsuits have been filed by the music companies that hold the rights to recordings allegedly infringed upon including Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Warner Records. The case against Suno, Inc., the developer of Suno AI, was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and the other was filed against Uncharted Labs, Inc., the developer of Audio AI, in the Southern District of New York. 

The plaintiffs argue that the AI firms have “flouted the rights of copyright owners in the music industry as part of a mad dash to become the dominant AI music generation service. Neither [these services] nor any other generative AI company, can be allowed to advance toward this goal by trampling the rights of copyright owners.” 

“We can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us,” RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement. “Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio that claim it’s ‘fair’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own profit without consent or pay set back the promise of genuinely innovative AI for us all.”

“Suno and Udio are attempting to hide the full scope of their infringement rather than putting their services on a sound and lawful footing,” RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow added. “These lawsuits are necessary to reinforce the most basic rules of the road for the responsible, ethical, and lawful development of generative AI systems and to bring Suno’s and Udio’s blatant infringement to an end.”

The two lawsuits are seeking for the AI firms to admit that they infringed upon copyrighted sound recordings owned by the plaintiffs, injunctions barring the organizations from infringing on copyrighted material in the future, and damages of up to $150,000 per work, along with other fees.

AI models that generate music, based on copyrighted content, could “saturate the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, cheapen and ultimately drown out the genuine sound recordings on which [the services were] built,” the suits claim.

Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said in a statement that the company prizes “originality” and rebuffed the suits.

“Suno’s mission is to make it possible for everyone to make music. Our technology is transformative; it is designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content. That is why we don’t allow user prompts that reference specific artists.”

Shulman’s statement continued: “We would have been happy to explain this to the corporate record labels that filed this lawsuit (and in fact, we tried to do so), but instead of entertaining a good faith discussion, they’ve reverted to their old lawyer-led playbook. Suno is built for new music, new uses, and new musicians. We prize originality.”

The lawsuits follow previous legal action filed by UMG, Concord and ABKCO in Oct. against Anthropic, which focused more on copied lyrics.

Legal action against AI companies continues to mount as the technology embeds itself into the music industry as well as other areas of the creative space. Pulitzer-Prize winning fiction authors have banded together in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI and media companies like the New York Times have launched ambitious lawsuits against the tech giants.

The post Recording Industry Association Sues AI Companies for Copyright Infringement appeared first on TheWrap.