Bad Bunny Legal Team Fires Back Against ‘Frankenstein’ Reggaeton Infringement Suit, Says a Copyright Claim Cannot Be ‘Stitched Together from Three Separate Songs’

Entertainment Half a decade ago, a trio of copyright suits accused all manner of artists and companies of infringing on reggaeton releases including “Fish Market.” Now, having come up short in their summary judgment push, Bad Bunny and Rimas Entertainment are asking the court to reconsider its decision or allow them to kick off an appeal.

Bad Bunny and Rimas made their request official in a motion for reconsideration, which different defendants, among them a number of Pryor Cashman-repped professionals as well as the separately represented DJ Snake and Empire Distribution, subsequently endorsed.

As many already know – and as others have surmised in light of the defendants’ multiple legal teams – there’s quite a lot happening in the case, which technically consists of three consolidated actions.

Just in passing, those fending off the long-running complaint include but definitely aren’t limited to Drake, Concord, Sony Music, Justin Bieber, Daddy Yankee, Diplo, Anuel AA, Anitta, and Cinq.

In brief, the reggae-pioneer plaintiffs, and specifically Cleveland Constantine Browne and Wycliffe Johnson as Steely & Clevie, wrote and recorded a track entitled “Fish Market” in 1989.

The “groundbreaking” instrumental work and a follow-up “hit” (including vocals this time around) entitled “Dem Bow” then set the stage for a derivative release, “Pounder Riddim,” that pulled from both of the older efforts. From there, “Pounder Riddim” powered additional derivative creations yet.

Overall, “Pounder” is said to have achieved largescale success – and seen its “distinctive” elements sampled far and wide without authorization, hence the complaint.

How far and wide are we talking about? Well, in keeping with the lengthy defendants list, the plaintiffs are pointing to over 1,000 allegedly infringing songs. These defendants have rather unsurprisingly been pushing back against the suit from the outset; previously, they were successful in dismissing (later-repleaded) contributory and vicarious infringement claims.

But as mentioned, their summary judgment motion failed to bring about the desired result – though the presiding judge also rejected a distinct summary judgment motion from the plaintiffs.

“Given the Court’s [expert-testimony] rulings above,” Judge André Birotte Jr. determined at July’s start, “the Court concludes that the record presents genuine disputes of material fact regarding the identification, characterization, and protectability of the Fish Market Elements, precluding summary judgment in either side’s favor.

“These disputes go directly to the core questions of originality and protectability that define this phase of the case. Critically, they are driven almost entirely by competing expert analyses,” he continued.

Evidently, the summary judgment rejection isn’t sitting right with Team Bad Bunny and different defendants. Attorneys for the “DtMF” artist and Rimas, repped here by Freundlich Law, asked the court to reconsider or certify “the issue for immediate appeal to the Ninth Circuit.”

The way they see the situation, questions about the copyright protectability of the relevant musical elements aside, the court didn’t directly consider “whether a single work even exists that contains all of the so called ‘Fish Market Elements’ claimed by Plaintiffs to constitute their selection and arrangement.”

“The defense extensively briefed, argued, and pressed that question,” the Bad Bunny defendants continued, “and the undisputed record conclusively establishes that Plaintiffs are asserting exclusive rights in a ‘Frankenstein’ combination pieced together from three different works (including one work, ‘Pounder,’ that is solely a sound recording copyright), none of which contains all of the required seven ‘Fish Market Elements.’”

This all-important question, they added for good measure, must be answered by concrete copyright-registration facts as opposed to “a contest between musicologists.”

Driving the point home, Bad Bunny’s attorneys emphasized their belief that the “supposedly original selection and arrangement” at the case’s core “nowhere exists” in the allegedly infringed works.

“Simply put, the two-bar chart at Paragraph 188 of the SCAC [Second Consolidated Amended Complaint] that Plaintiffs hold out as a transcription of their supposedly original selection and arrangement nowhere exists in any of Plaintiffs’ Claimed Works,” they stated.

With that, all eyes are on the court’s reconsideration decision and the possible summary judgment appeal. Wherever the cards ultimately fall, as demonstrated by a smaller-scale courtroom confrontation also involving Bad Bunny, it’s safe to say that the litigants are racking up sizable legal bills.