DaBaby and Roddy Ricch have been hit with an infringement lawsuit over their 2020 hit “Rockstar.” Copyright infringement is when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the copyright owner’s permission. To prove copyright infringement, a copyright holder must establish a valid copyright and that the original material was used illegally. The plaintiff can produce a copyright certificate or other proof showing the date the copyrighted material was created.
A Florida producer has sued the rapper Craig Mims, who is publicly known as JuJu Beats. He claims DaBaby took the beat from his song “Selena” to create his Roddy Ricch-featuring single “Rockstar” without his knowledge. JuJu Beatz claims he sent the moment in a digital file and believes the rapper’s camp accessed the file more than 40 times between 2019 and the beginning of 2020. JuJu said he was not compensated for using his song’s beat. He claimed he’s reached out to DaBaby to settle the dispute, but the rapper won’t “cooperate or accept responsibility for blatant and willful copyright infringement.” Therefore, he is now seeking $150,000 worth of statutory damages per infringement.
Five examples of copyright infringement are illegally downloading music files; uploading someone else’s copyrighted material to an accessible web page, downloading licensed software from an unauthorized site, modifying and reproducing someone else’s creative work without making significant changes; or recording a movie in a theater.
The lawsuit states, “plaintiff provided his musical composition known as ‘Selena’ to defendants in 2019, who then used ‘Selena’ to create a sound recording entitled ‘Rockstar.’ The Defendants accessed plaintiff’s ‘Selena’ on more than 40 occasions in late 2019 and early 2020”.
Earlier this week, Mim’s lawyer told Rolling Stone, “It is unfortunate that these types of situations occur almost daily within the music industry; the unequal balance of power and money in the industry is sometimes used to silence the real individuals who truly deserve a piece of the action and money.” He added, “It is too easy for the labels and mainstream artists and producers to cut out the ones who really matter the most, it is disheartening because there is enough money in the industry to change everyone’s lives, but the money usually ends up in the hands of the few.”
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