Jamaican dancehall production duo Steelie and Clevie have been dealt a massive legal blow after Bad Bunny and other major artists scored a key victory in the sweeping copyright lawsuit over reggaeton’s signature dembow rhythm.
In a rare move reversing his own earlier decision, U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. ruled that Cleveland “Clevie” Browne and the heirs of the late Wycliffe “Steelie” Johnson failed to establish that they control a valid copyright over the combination of musical elements they claim forms the foundation of reggaeton’s dembow rhythm.
The massive lawsuit, filed in 2021, targets nearly 2,000 songs by more than 150 artists, including Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Karol G, Drake, Pitbull, Luis Fonsi and Justin Bieber.
At the heart of the case is Steelie and Clevie’s 1989 recording “Fish Market,” which the plaintiffs argue is the ultimate source of the rhythm that later became central to reggaeton.
The case appeared headed toward trial after Judge Birotte ruled in July that a jury should determine whether the arrangement of musical elements making up the dembow rhythm could be protected by copyright.
However, the judge has now reversed course after reconsidering an argument raised by Bad Bunny’s attorneys.
The key problem, according to the court, is that the allegedly protected combination does not exist entirely within any single copyrighted work owned by Steelie and Clevie. Instead, elements from multiple songs were being combined to establish the claimed copyright — an approach Bad Bunny’s legal team described as creating a “Frankenstein copyright.”
The judge ruled that U.S. copyright law does not protect an abstract combination of elements taken from several independently existing works.
The decision eliminates a major portion of the lawsuit and represents a significant victory for Bad Bunny and the other artists fighting the claims.
However, the legal battle is not completely over. More limited claims involving songs accused of directly sampling Steelie and Clevie’s sound recordings can still proceed.
Bad Bunny’s attorney Kenneth D. Freundlich welcomed the ruling, arguing that copyright protects what an artist actually created, rather than a collection of musical elements assembled from different works during litigation.
