andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

Hip-Hop star JAY-Z’s New York nightclub is being sued by MICHAEL JACKSON and R. KELLY for breaking music licensing laws.

The two music megastars and a dozen other music publishers filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against the 40/40 club because it entertained clubgoers with “unauthorized public performance of musical compositions.”

Broadcast Music Inc led the charge for Jackson and other artists and are seeking unspecified damages for copyright infringement from co-owners Desiree Gonzalez and Juan Perez.

Jackson’s songs Billie Jean and Don’t Stop, Thoia Thoing by R. Kelly and Kanye West’s Gold Digger were amongst the seven unlicensed songs playing during a surprise visit by a BMI researcher in 2006, reports The New York Post.

Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, is not named on the lawsuit.

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In the most bizarre story since Michael Jackson’s “Jesus juice,” former wrestler Diamond Dallas Page is suing rap mogul Jay-Z over a hand gesture.

When DDP wrestled for WCW and WWE, he put his thumbs and index fingers together to form a diamond, a sign he called the “diamond cutter.”

It’s a similar sign Jay-Z uses to promote anything to do with Roc-A-Fella Records. The whole Roc roster, including Kanye West, also uses the symbol.

DDP claims the sign is an extension of who he is, so he filed a lawsuit Friday in Los Angeles Federal Court, accusing Jay of trademark and copyright infringement as well as misappropriation of the hand symbol, according to MTV.

Page wants some money but is also looking for an injunction, meaning Jay-Z and friends would need to find a new symbol if he lost the case.

Page’s lawyer, George Gallegos, told MTV that he approached Jay-Z’s lawyers before he filed the suit, but ? and here’s the best part?his lawyers fired back, suggesting it was Page who stole Jay-Z’s sign!

Page retired from wrestling in 2002, posting a message with the announcement on his web page. That’s the same web page where you can find Page’s logo (the diamond cutter) and a picture of his latest book, which features Page wearing a shirt that has the logo.

R. Kelly and Jay-Z are at it again.

Their feud dates back to when the two toured together last year. R. Kelly sued Jay-Z for $75 million, claiming Hova intentionally tried to sabotage the lighting during his set.

He also included that Jay-Z tried to remove him from the tour with threats and violence.

These acts of violence included R. Kelly getting attacked at Madison Square Garden by Jay-Z’s friend Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith, when Smith allegedly sprayed him in the face with pepper spray. Jay-Z was on stage at the time and had no comment on the incident.

Jay-Z slapped a countersuit, saying it was “R. Kelly’s financial woes, insecurities, and unsafe and unpredictable behavior” that had him removed from the Best of Both Worlds tour.

This second suit from R. Kelly is just going over the details from the original suit. It also includes a suit against Tyran Smith over the pepper spray assault.

“Jay-Z failed to use any reasonable care in supervising Smith and failed to correct Smith’s violent acts by taking the actions of a responsible employer – disavowing Smith’s act, firing him and allowing R. Kelly to continue on the tour,” according to the suit, reports woai.com.

R. Kelly?s lawyers want to make sure that they don?t miss a thing the second time around, while Jay-Z’s countersuit was dismissed.

“It was done for legal reasons, to make sure that we had protected our right to bring a couple of claims that, theoretically, someone could have said weren’t properly brought in the first case,” he explained. “We think they were actually properly brought in the first case, we just did it to cross the T’s and dot the I’s,” reports MTV.