{"id":59842,"date":"2026-03-11T15:10:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/11\/bad-bunny-wins-dismissal-of-sample-clearance-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T15:10:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:10:28","slug":"bad-bunny-wins-dismissal-of-sample-clearance-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/11\/bad-bunny-wins-dismissal-of-sample-clearance-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny Wins Dismissal of Sample-Clearance Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A Nigerian singer who accused <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/artists\/bad-bunny\/\">Bad Bunny<\/a> of improperly sampling his work has had his lawsuit dismissed after failing to pursue the claim. Dera <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/news\/bad-bunny-accused-of-copyright-infringement-over-alleged-joeboy-interpolation-in-ensename-a-bailar\/\">alleged<\/a> in 2023 that Bad Bunny\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/bad-bunny-un-verano-sin-ti\/\"><em>Un Verano Sin Ti<\/em><\/a> track \u201cEns\u00e9\u00f1ame a Bailar\u201d featured an unlicensed sample of a 2019 track called \u201cEmpty My Pocket.\u201d Dera and his record label, emPawa Africa, eventually <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/bad-bunny-lawsuit-un-verano-sin-ti-song-uncleared-sample\/\" class=\"external-link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/bad-bunny-lawsuit-un-verano-sin-ti-song-uncleared-sample\/&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/bad-bunny-lawsuit-un-verano-sin-ti-song-uncleared-sample\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">filed<\/a> a lawsuit last spring, but in January, their legal representatives, Manatt Phelps and Phillips LLP, said they had parted ways with their clients due to \u201cirreparable differences.\u201d Bad Bunny\u2019s legal team maintains that the sample was cleared.<\/p>\n<p>Dera and emPawa\u2019s litigation of the case came to a standstill after the lawyers dropped out, according to <em>Billboard<\/em>. The label was subsequently dropped from the lawsuit; Dera, the federal judge said at the time, had \u201cnot filed any papers or otherwise appeared in this case.\u201d He was given until March 6 to resume the prosecution process, but failed to do so, <em>Billboard<\/em> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Karen L. Stetson, representing Bad Bunny for the law firm GrayRobinson, told Pitchfork, \u201cAs we stated when the case was filed, my client bought the rights to use the music at issue and was never provided evidence of the plaintiffs\u2019 contrary claims of ownership.\u00a0 When plaintiffs were forced to provide evidence in the lawsuit, they chose instead to abandon the case, resulting in the dismissal and final judgment in favor of defendants.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/news\/bad-bunny-wins-dismissal-of-sample-clearance-lawsuit\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Nigerian singer who accused Bad Bunny of improperly sampling his work has had his lawsuit dismissed after failing to pursue the claim. Dera&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}