Lady Gaga's legal battle over hit song ‘Judas’ still ongoing

From The Daily Mail:

"Lady Gaga is hoping Usher can help her to win a plagiarism lawsuit filed against her. 

Vocalist Rebecca Francescatti is suing the singer and claiming Gaga's song Judas is a rip-off of her own 1999 tune Juda, filing a lawsuit in 2011 at federal court in a bid to win damages from the multi-millionaire star, but Gaga believes a similar lawsuit involving Usher could be the key to her winning this battle. 

"I'm the queen of the universe every day."

      

A source told RadarOnline that Gaga filed documents this week arguing, 'if the title lyrics of the two songs at issue are the same, and even if those lyrics are repeated in a chorus, they are not eligible for copyright protection if common phrases or words. 

'The only lyrical similarity that Francescatti alleges in this case is in the title character – the repeating of "Juda" in her song and "Judas" in Lady Gaga’s song (the expression of which in each work is entirely different, in all events).' 

The papers filed go on to mention Usher's case where Zacharia Edwards, Mitch Moses and Vince McClean alleged his song Caught Up was written by them.  

According to Gaga's filing: 'As in Edwards, which found the lyrics "caught up" to be unoriginal, the lyric "Judas," whether as a song title or lyric, is too common to be protectable.'

Gaga is asking that the lawsuit be dismissed based on the same ruling which led to the case against Usher being dropped. 

In 2011 Fancescatti claimed the similarities between the two songs are not a coincidence because her former bass player Brian Gaynor was employed by a music company that wrote 17 songs on Gaga's Born This Way album. 

Rebecca is seeking unspecified damages.

Her lawyer Chris Niro told TMZ: ‘Though the songs are different styles, the composition is the same and the chorus is the same melody.

"[Rebecca] is seeking recognition for what she created."

END OF ARTICLE



Court documents can be viewed HERE.

What do you think? Do you think "Judas" is a ripoff of "Juda"? Or do you think Francescatti has no case?

Rob Fusari now fronts EDM group Cary NoKey

Rob Fusari is well known as the man who discovered Lady Gaga. He was a co-producer for her debut album "The Fame" and also helped pen "Paparazzi", "Brown Eyes", and "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" for the album, as well as bonus/unreleased tracks "Again Again", "Disco Heaven", "Vanity", "Glitter & Grease", and "Retro Dance Freak". He is also Lady Gaga's ex-boyfriend.



He is now the front man of his own pop project, Cary NoKey, who released their debut single "B Who U R" on June 6th. The sound seems seems to have a similar style to "The Fame" era Lady Gaga. It's a "be yourself" anthem, styled as "power punk glam to the max".

According to Next Magazine, Cary Nokey will open for RuPaul's Drag Race breakout star Adore Delano at The Gramercy in NYC on Friday, June 13th at 9pm and also at the Drag Race LogoTV Pride Party at Liberty on Sunday, June 28th.

As the sound is very "The Fame" Gaga, I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is: "will they ever collaborate"? Will Gaga go back to her Fame days since ARTPOP seems to be killing her career?

The answer seems to be a resounding NO. After Fusari sued Gaga in 2010 for $30.5 million, they have had an irreparable falling out. "There is not a relationship," he says. "[The settlement] was a real parting ways. I’m a huge fan. I could still be a fan, but people say, 'Will you guys ever work together?' It was that time! It was just that moment in time."

The full interview with the NEW Rob Rusari is available here.

Note that in the interview he doesn't claim to have invented Gaga's look, nor does he take credit for it. Likely he is not allowed to admit to creating the Lady Gaga character, because of the sealed court documents. As Gaga has based her career around being "self-invented" it would potentially harm her career if he admitted otherwise - though he does say that she used to show up in loose sweatshirts and tights and he told her she needed to glam it up. I guess he's leaving it up to us to interpret that however we want.

But judging by his new look and sound, it was all Fusari.

Rob Fusari - then and now

What do you all think? Will Cary Nokey be a big new name in pop?


Thanks to PJ for the link!

Lady Gaga's Triumphant Return to the artRAVE

Lady Gaga postponed two of her stops on the artRAVE tour last week due to "severe bronchitis". Luckily she's aaaaall better 3 days later and back on the road. She's in San Diego, California today, playing at the Viejas Arena.

But wait, where's the fanfare? All I could find was ONE 85 word article about her arrival in CA, and it didn't even mention anything about how she was sick.
 
This is usually the sort of thing the media pounces on. What's going on? Is the media darling losing her appeal?

For anyone wondering if her bout of sickness would affect her ticket sales, the answer seems to be no. Her tickets for tonight's show do not appear to be selling any better or worse than before the cancellation of her last two shows.

Official Ticketmaster

                                       Secondary tickets available for as low as $31 on Vividseats

                                                326 Tickets on Stubhub starting as low as $43



So what does this mean for the rest of the artRAVE?

Will another mysterious illness develop overnight and cause her to cancel the whole damn thing?

Lady Gaga Wants Scooter Braun to Save Her Career

Lady Gaga's album sales have been a disappointment, tickets to her tour aren't selling out, and her latest single G.U.Y. only made it to a dismal 76 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

According to The Hollywood Gossip, Gaga's shopping around for a new manager and has her eyes on Scooter Braun.

"If anyone can help Gaga now, it's Scooter," a source tells Huffington Post. "He's one of the smartest blokes in the music industry and made Bieber the biggest pop star on the planet. There are few options for her right now, but Scooter is one of them."

                                


"Gaga's next album will be make or break," says the insider. "At the moment she's still to decide who will manage her."

Gaga and her old manager Troy Carter split late last year, citing "creative differences" as the cause for their terminated partnership. She hired Bobby Campbell (who used to work for her original team) to replace him.



What do you think?

Could working with Justin Bieber's manager save Gaga's career? Or has that ship already sunk?

The tickets don't lie—Gaga's fading

CNBC posted a video today with Chris Tsakalakis, the president of StubHub. For all those who don't know, StubHub is an online marketplace owned by eBay which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sporting events, concerts, theatre, and other live entertainment. It has grown from the largest secondary-market ticket marketplace in the United States into the world's largest ticket marketplace.

What is a secondary-market ticket marketplace? Essentially people can buy tickets from official sources like Ticketmaster, and then resell them on StubHub. Sometimes people sell their ticket to a show if they can't go, but many others make a business out of it by scooping up as many tickets as possible for an event that is in high demand, and then reselling the tickets at a marked up price and keeping the difference.

When an act is very popular, tickets can sell on StubHub for twice, three times, even four times or more of the face value of the ticket. For example, Lana Del Rey's tour sold out in seconds, and tickets were appearing on StubHub for $700 or more.

As I stated in this article, resellers have been unable to sell Gaga's tickets, even when they are set at ridiculously low prices. The interview with Chris Tsakalakis has confirmed that what I said in that article was true. The demand for tickets is just not there, as tickets for Gaga's current tour have not even broken into the top-10 list of StubHub's most popular events.

He is quoted as saying: "One Direction is still in the top 10 for concerts on StubHub but Lady Gaga is not, and that's a little bit surprising this year. Even though she's touring and generally doing a lot of concerts she's not in our top 10 this year."

It's also worth mentioning that tour executives have denied reports that tickets were not selling well. Live Nation's Arthur Fogel told Billboard in late March that ticket sales were already at 80 percent of capacity at that time, with $26 million in gross revenue to date.

Of course this may be true if they're going by official numbers. But if people are buying out sections of the show for the sole purpose of reselling the tickets secondhand, then it's not really representative of actual demand or audience size. Kind of like when Gaga goads fans into buying multiple copies of her records.

                                  

Tonight Gaga is playing in Seattle, WA. The lowest price as of now is $38.05 on StubHub.

Ticketmaster still has plenty of tickets still available officially, though.

STORY SOURCE HERE

Thanks to all those that posted the link in the comments.

 

UPDATE:

Looks like she won't have to worry about selling those tickets after all.