Bad Bunny Lawsuit, Taylor Swift Ruling, Chris Brown Verdict: Music Law

THE BIG STORY: If you’ve ever listened to reggaetón, you’ve heard it: Boom-ch-boom-chick, boom-ch-boom-chick, boom-ch-boom-chick. That infectious percussion — called the dembow rhythm — is a “sonic signpost” that plays under almost every track in the genre.

For the past five years, it’s also been the subject of a truly sprawling lawsuit targeting Bad Bunny, Karol G and more than a hundred other artists over accusations that dembow was ripped from a single sample of a 1989 song. That extraordinary case, over a track called “Fish Market” by reggae duo Steely & Clevie, claims that nearly 2,000 tracks have thus infringed copyrights — essentially, that an entire genre is uncleared.

Lawyers for the defendants, which also include Pitbull, Drake, Daddy Yankee, Luis Fonsi, Justin Bieber and all three major music companies, have argued that dembow cannot be copyrighted in the first place — that it’s too basic and “exists in countless prior works.”

Both sides had asked the judge to grant them summary judgment, seeking a ruling ending the case in their favor. But in a decision last week, the judge refused to do so.

The decision was procedural; rather than ruling on the case, the judge more so declined to rule on it. But procedure matters. The decision sends the dembow lawsuit into a new phase of discovery, then toward an eventual jury trial — tasks that, given the remarkable scale of the litigation, will be immensely complicated and expensive. Will that push defendants to strike a settlement rather than fight on?

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Other top stories this week…

— A jury said Chris Brown must pay nearly $13 million to a woman who was mauled by the R&B star’s 200-pound dog while working as a housekeeper at his California home.

— Taylor Swift won a ruling dismissing a copyright case filed by a self-published Florida poet who claimed that the superstar stole lyrics from her poems for more than a dozen songs.

— Jermaine Dupri sued Sony Music over claims that the music giant owes him and his label more than $18 million in unpaid royalties for albums from Mariah Carey, Usher and others.

— Fuerza Regida frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz (JOP) and Rancho Humilde CEO Jimmy Humilde took their legal battle to social media, exchanging fiery messages over Instagram.

— Beyoncé’s company Parkwood Entertainment defeated a copyright lawsuit over an EDM sample that opens her hit 2022 Renaissance track “Alien Superstar.”

— Jermaine Jackson won an order voiding a $6.5 million default judgment and allowing him to defend himself against a lawsuit that claims he raped a session musician in 1988.

— Gossip blogger Tasha K agreed to pay Cardi B $60,000 for violating an earlier settlement by talking about her love life, including estranged husband Offset and NFL player Stefon Diggs.

— Suno was hit with another copyright lawsuit over the training data powering its successful AI music generator — this time by production music licensing library Jamendo.

— Latin star Ricardo Montaner sued Universal Music Group over the ownership of his early album masters, seeking to prove he can use his termination right to get them back.

— New evidence emerged in the case against Memphis rapper Pooh Shiesty over accusations that he forced Gucci Mane to sign his release from 1017 Records at gunpoint.

— The latest trial in a long-running battle pitting T.I. and Tiny Harris against toy company MGA ended in a loss for the power couple, but they still walked away with $18 million.

— Glam rock star Gary Glitter, already convicted of pedophilia and serving a 16-year prison sentence, was charged with additional counts of child sexual abuse in the U.K.

— Elton John and other British celebrities lost their lengthy trial against the Daily Mail newspaper, which they claimed illegally hacked and wiretapped them.