{"id":1180,"date":"2024-06-05T18:20:59","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T18:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/travis-scott-says-alright-alright-alright-cant-be-copyrighted\/"},"modified":"2024-06-10T17:56:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T17:56:00","slug":"travis-scott-says-alright-alright-alright-cant-be-copyrighted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/travis-scott-says-alright-alright-alright-cant-be-copyrighted\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis Scott Says ‘Alright, Alright, Alright’ Can’t Be Copyrighted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tTravis Scott is asking a federal judge to end a lawsuit accusing him of using unlicensed samples on songs from Utopia <\/em>and Astroworld, <\/em>arguing that nobody can claim a copyright on the words \u201calright, alright, alright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case was filed in February by Dion Norman and Derrick Ordogne, who claim that Scott and Sony Music illegally borrowed a portion of their song \u201cBitches Reply\u201d \u2014 an oft-sampled 1992 track that\u2019s previously been used by Lil Wayne, Cardi B, Kid Cudi and others.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday (June 3), lawyers for Scott and Sony argue that the allegations were centered on the \u201cuntenable\u201d claim to ownership over basic words \u2014 \u201calright, alright, alright\u201d \u2014 that everyone should be free to use.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe only alleged copyright infringement here is the alleged copying of the word \u2018alright\u2019,\u201d the star\u2019s attorneys write. \u201cBut the single word \u2018alright\u2019 and the short phrase \u2018alright, alright, alright\u2019 lack even the minimal creativity required for copyright protection both because these lyrics are too short and because they are commonplace, or stock, expressions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReleased in 1992 by DJ Jimi, \u201cBitches Reply\u201d has reportedly been sampled or interpolated in dozens of songs, including tracks by Megan Thee Stallion, Drake and OutKast. Most of those samples have come from a staccato burst of the word \u201calright\u201d shouted nine times at the beginning of the song.<\/p>\n

\n\tNorman and Ordogne, who say they co-wrote DJ Jimi\u2019s song and own the copyrights to it, claimed in their February lawsuit that Scott sampled from that portion of the track twice \u2014 first in his 2018 song \u201cStargazing\u201d off the Astroworld<\/em> album, and again in his 2023 \u201cTil Further Notice\u201d off Utopia.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tBut copyright law only protects \u201coriginal\u201d works, and that typically doesn\u2019t include short phrases that are already widely used. In Monday\u2019s response filing, Scott\u2019s lawyers say that a repetition of a common word like \u201calright\u201d in song lyrics was exactly that \u2014 too \u201ctrite\u201d and \u201ccliched\u201d to meet copyright law\u2019s basic requirements.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey cite numerous other songs that had featured the phrase before \u201cBitches Reply\u201d was even released, including \u201cRevolution\u201d by The Beatles, Elton John\u2019s \u201cSaturday Night\u2019s Alright\u201d and Earth, Wind & Fire\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Groove.\u201d They also cite a 2003 ruling in which a federal judge ruled that T-Pain\u2019s \u201cPut It Down\u201d didn\u2019t infringe copyrights by using phrases like \u201cI can\u2019t get enough\u201d \u00a0and \u201craise your hands in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Copyright Act does not protect \u2018stock\u2019 expressions,\u201d Scott\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cBecause the allegedly infringed phrase \u201cAlright, Alright, Alright\u201d is too commonplace to \u00a0be copyrightable, Plaintiffs\u2019 copyright infringement claims should be dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMonday\u2019s motion also made various other attacks on Norman and Ordogne\u2019s lawsuit, including that they failed to show that they own the proper copyright registrations and filed the claims over \u201cStargazing\u201d past the statute of limitations.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for Norman and Ordogne did not immediately return a request for comment. Their lawyers can file a formal response to Scott\u2019s motion in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travis Scott is asking a federal judge to end a lawsuit accusing him of using unlicensed samples on songs from Utopia and Astroworld, arguing that nobody can claim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1654,1740,1760,1731,1743,587,1739,1737,1746,1742,1741,1747,1745,1748,1759,1736,1732,1733,1735,1734,35,421,1738,1744,420,1770],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-alright","tag-bar-association-news","tag-breaking-news-updates","tag-case-law-analysis","tag-civil-rights-cases","tag-copyrighted","tag-corporate-law-news","tag-court-rulings","tag-criminal-law-updates","tag-employment-law-updates","tag-environmental-law-news","tag-family-law-cases","tag-immigration-law-updates","tag-intellectual-property-law-developments","tag-latest-law-updates","tag-legal-ethics","tag-legal-precedents","tag-legal-reforms","tag-legal-technology-advancements-legal-education-updates","tag-legislation-updates","tag-personal-injury-cases","tag-scott","tag-supreme-court-decisions","tag-tax-law-changes","tag-travis","tag-travis-scott-says-alright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}