Four O+Z Partners Selected by Billboard as “Top Music Lawyers” for 2025

Washington, D.C. (April 28, 2025) — Billboard magazine’s Top Music Lawyers list for 2025 once again includes Oppenheim + Zebrak, LLP (“O+Z”) partners Jeff Gould, Alex Kaplan, Matt Oppenheim, and Scott Zebrak. The selection honors lawyers who are at the forefront of the music industry’s most pressing legal concerns.

This is the sixth consecutive year that O+Z has appeared on the list.

For the 2025 list, Billboard noted the firm’s ongoing case against the artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic on behalf of Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO. The case centers around Anthropic’s use of lyrics to train its AI models, and Billboard noted that “a judge approved an agreement in January saying Anthropic must maintain existing guardrails to train future AI models and music publishers may intervene when they suspect copyright infringement.”

Additional litigation battles that O+Z is engaged in on behalf of the music industry concern:

• ISPs turning a blind eye toward their subscribers’ downloading and distribution of pirated music on BitTorrent.
 
• Twitter (now X) assisting and facilitating known infringing activity on its platform.
 
• Internet Archive’s digitization of physical records containing pre-1972 sound recordings and subsequent online streamlining and distribution of that music.
 
• A dispute with SiriusXM over the amount of legally mandated compensation it owes to record companies and recording artists for its exploitation of their creative works.

The full Top Music Lawyers List in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard can be found at  https://www.billboard.com/pro/billboard-top-music-lawyers-2025-list/.

About Oppenheim + Zebrak, LLP
Founded in 2011, O+Z is a litigation boutique led by attorneys with extensive experience protecting content and brands. The firm’s practice is at the intersection of technology, new media, consumer behavior, and litigation. We have nearly 25 lawyers dedicated to representing clients in creative and innovative industries against mass infringement, piracy, and related disruptive threats. We routinely navigate these areas and bring to bear our unique knowledge, skills, and relentless focus. Our attorneys have litigated some of the most prominent copyright and internet matters of our time. While our offices are in Washington, DC and New York City, our practice is nationwide and at times even international.