As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop, it is time to reexamine the ways in which lyrics are used in legal proceedings by examining the bias held for the art form. While the birth of hip hop has spurred international conversations about the realities of living in under-resourced communities, it has also been [...]
Search Results for: lyrics
In the summer of 1983, ethnic violence swept the island nation of Sri Lanka. Known as Black July, the outbreak of communal violence between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority communities left thousands dead and hundreds missing. Four decades later, the legacy of the violence lives on, searing Sri Lanka‘s social and political landscape. JURIST [...]
Hong Kong government applies for injunction against protest song 'Glory to Hong Kong'
The Hong Kong Department of Justice applied to the High Court on Monday for an injunction to prohibit any activity in relation to the song “Glory to Hong Kong” with unlawful intent. The Hong Kong government asserts that the song contains secessionist lyrics and is an insult to the Chinese national anthem, since “Glory to [...]
The Ghent Court of Appeal Monday refused to extradite Spanish rapper José Miguel Arenas Beltrán to Spain. Arenas, known by his stage name Valtònyc, was due to serve a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for insulting the Spanish Royal Family and praising the Basque terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), but he fled to Belgium before starting [...]
Federal appeals court rules in favor of Google in song lyrics copyright lawsuit by Genius
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Thursday ruled in favor of Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a suit filed by Genius alleging unfair competition and breach of contract pertaining to the misuse of Genius’s transcribed lyrics in its search engine. The lawsuit claims that Google used Genius’s song lyrics transcriptions in its [...]
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales convicted Sahayb Abu on Friday for attempting to carry out a terrorist attack after he created pro-Islamic state music videos and purchased weaponry online. The police first began investigating Abu last March when his “extremist mindset” drew their attention. Throughout the next few months, Abu “purchased a [...]
La detención del rapero español Pablo Hasél por presuntamente glorificar el terrorismo e insultar a la monarquía provocó protestas a las que asistieron miles de personas en toda España el martes. Los cargos de Hasél están relacionados con una serie de sus tweets y letras de canciones. Hasél se atrincheró junto a sus seguidores el [...]
Spain protesters take to streets in response to arrest of rapper over tweets and lyrics
The arrest of Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél for allegedly glorifying terrorism and insulting the monarchy sparked protests attended by thousands of persons across Spain on Tuesday. Hasél’s charges are in relation to a series of his tweets and song lyrics. Hasél barricaded himself alongside supporters on Tuesday inside the University of Lleida to avoid his [...]
Social media platforms function as marketplaces of ideas in which the democratic tenets of participation, liberty, and community-building are designed to thrive. The recent onslaught of objectively false information about the COVID-19 pandemic, election security concerns, and the reignited fervor of the Black Lives Matter movement, however, has awakened the public to ways in which [...]
America's Presidential Election is Gravely Necessary, But Insufficient
“The enemy is the unphilosophical spirit which knows nothing and wants to know nothing of truth.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) Even in this grievously faltering United States, presidential elections are praised as essential evidence of a law-based democracy. This ritualized practice continues although “We the People” are suffering at [...]