{"id":2185,"date":"2024-08-08T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/beyonce-lawsuit-over-break-my-soul-sample-dropped-by-accusers\/"},"modified":"2024-08-08T20:19:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T20:19:00","slug":"beyonce-lawsuit-over-break-my-soul-sample-dropped-by-accusers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/beyonce-lawsuit-over-break-my-soul-sample-dropped-by-accusers\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyonc\u00e9 Lawsuit Over \u2018Break My Soul\u2019\u00a0Sample Dropped by Accusers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\tA lawsuit against Beyonc\u00e9 and Sony Music over samples featured in her chart-topping hit \u201cBreak My Soul\u201d has been dropped, less than three months after the case was filed.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe voluntary dismissal will end an unusual case in which members of Da Showstoppaz, a little-known New Orleans group, claimed that Beyonc\u00e9 had used their music without permission in \u201cBreak My Soul\u201d \u2014 even though she legally<\/em> cleared the actual song she had sampled.<\/p>\n

\n\tCourt filings contained no mention of any kind of settlement agreement, and the case could have been dropped unilaterally. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment on the withdrawal of the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their May lawsuit, members of Da Showstoppaz accused Beyonc\u00e9 (Beyonc\u00e9 Knowles Carter) of infringing their 2002 song\u00a0 \u201cRelease A Wiggle\u201d on \u201cBreak My Soul,\u201d a smash hit that spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\tRather than alleging that Beyonce stole their material directly, the group said that the superstar had actually legally<\/em> sampled the 2014 song \u201cExplode\u201d by the New Orleans rapper Big Freedia. But that track, they claimed, had illegally borrowed several key lyrics from their song.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the center of those allegations was the phrase \u201crelease yo wiggle\u201d and several related variants, which Da Showstoppaz call \u201cunique phrases\u201d that they coined in their song. They say Big Freedia \u2014 a well-known rapper in New Orleans\u2019 bounce music scene \u2014 infringed their copyrights by using similar phrases in \u201cExplode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Billboard<\/em> reported at the time, such allegations would face long odds in court. Copyright law typically does not protect short, simple phrases, and a court could have potentially dismissed the case on the grounds that Big Freedia was free to use such lyrics even if The Showstoppaz used them first.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cExplode\u201d was one of several high-profile samples on \u201cBreak My Soul,\u201d which also heavily pulled from Robin S\u2018s house song \u201cShow Me Love.\u201d After the release of the song, Big Freedia thanked \u201cQueen Beyonc\u00e9\u201d and said she had been \u201chonored to be a part of this special moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lawsuit against Beyonc\u00e9 and Sony Music over samples featured in her chart-topping hit \u201cBreak My Soul\u201d has been dropped, less than three months after the case was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2044,1304,1305,2043,303,2897],"class_list":["post-2185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-accusers","tag-beyonce","tag-break","tag-dropped","tag-lawsuit","tag-soulsample"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185","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=2185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}