A new 33 page list of reggaeton songs have been brought into evidence to support the ongoing copyright infringement case against several latin artists, producers, publishing companies and record labels filed by Dancehall producer pioneers Steely and Clevie. The tracks which are alleged to have infringed upon the 80s dancehall riddim “Fish Market” produced by the duo are presented into evidence on the basis that they sample copies of the composition or simply copied the composition without permission.
Reggaeton King Daddy Yankee alone is accused of copying the Fish Market composition on over 43 songs including his 41x Latin Platinum hit Con Calma with Snow which interpolates Snow’s dancehall hit Informa.
Brazilian singer Annita, who was just released from Warner Music after she ranted on social media about wanting to leave the label has 14 songs on the evidence list named Exhibit A.
So far 107 summonses have been served to defendants this year alone as the trial is set to get under way but in a motion filed on Friday attorneys Jean G. Vidal-Font and Bradley J. Mullins who are reprenting latin superstar Juan Luis Morera Luna p/k/a Wisin and Drake real name Aubrey Graham, applied to dismiss requests for the artists to come to court to answer to the infringements on the grounds that they were not served at their right addresses.
Bad Bunny and Drake‘s MÍA which has 1.4 billion YouTube views has been named as one of the songs that copied the Fish Market riddim.
Drake and his OVO label lawyers requested in a motion filed on Friday states:
- Mr. Graham respectfully requests that the Court deny the Application in full noticed motion on the issue and set a briefing schedule
- To the extent Plaintiffs contend that Mr. Graham was properly served (he was not), Mr. Graham respectfully requests that the Court allow for a noticed motion on the issue and set a briefing schedule.
According to the documents obtained by WMV, evidence put forward showed that the Grammy winning duo of Wisin & Yandel are accused of sampling the Fish Market Riddim on almost 300 songs.
This is of the biggest US copyright lawsuit cases in the music indistry with over 120 laywers arguing their for their clients including 7 representing Steelie and Clevie. If the case if won by the plantiffs, the payout could suprass multi-millions from the big ticket artists, producers and record labels. The case was previously filed three different times; first in the California Central District court in April 2021, then resubmitted twice last year according to the court documents obtained by WMV.
Now with a second consulted amendment to the fourth filing on Friday, along with the submission of fresh evidence, it seems nothing will stop the impending jury Trial in the case Cleveland Browne, the estate of Wycliffe Johnson, who died September 1, 2009, STEELY & CLEVIE PRODUCTIONS LTD., and the estate of legendary sound system pioneer Ephraim Barrett who died in August 2020.
Last month 56 infringing songs were originally named in the original filing including : Luis Fonsi’s Despacito, Bésame, Calypso with Stefflon Don, Date La Vuelta with Sebastián Yatra, Nicky Jam’s Échame La Culpa, Imposible, Perfecta, Sola, and Vaciois and more.
WMV also discovered that the Fish Market riddim was not registered by Steely & Clevie until 2021.
That fact should be of no consequence however according to Reggaeton producer Maffio who escaped the lawsuit primarily because he said he never uses samples. The Miami resident told WMV that latin artists should pay homage to Jamaican dancehall pioneers because the evidence of use is obvious over the years.
“You gotta pay homage to Jamaica, you gotta pay homage to and respect to the people that really started this. Jamaica has a very solid music culture, so they don’t need to prove who made it or did it first, Jamaica is the root,” Maffio stated.
The Celebration singer who has produced the biggest song on YouTube by a Marley family member, “the latin culture needs to pay more homage to Jamaica and to the artist from Jamaica since the riddim that we do right now comes from there.”
“It’s a lack of knowledge, at that time they didn’t legally understand what they were doing. I don’t get loops from nobody I don’t sample, I create my own thing,” The Climax producer continued.
With a sigh of relief Maffio assessed that reggaeton artists are making a lot of money from the music they did not pay for. “You are making so much money from something someone else created and I don’t think that’s fair. Morally you don’t do that. Thank God I am out of that lawsuit, thank God,” he said.
“What probably will also be an issue in the Steelie and Clevie Case is there is(was) no copyright of Fish Market in the United States(prior to 2020-21) and in order to sue, you need a United States Copyright of the song that you are claiming that has been infringed upon, up until 2021, by law that’s going to limit their damages because the copyright came after the alleged infringement. That’s one challenge for them,” said New York attorney JoAnn Squillace in an interview with WMV.
JoAnn and her business partner Stephen Drummond Esq. filed a similar groundbreaking $300 million lawsuit against Miley Cyrus and got an undisclosed settlement back in 2018.
“It’s a long time 1989 till now is quite a lot of years, and in the world of someone taking, if between 1989 and now three other people took their work, and then later on someone took that work that was taken, you might have a challenge demonstrating that the final person who took it some 20 years or 30 years later actually took it from your original work and not from someone else,” said Stephen Drummond who was born in Hanover, Jamaica.
