{"id":2446,"date":"2024-08-29T18:25:14","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/playboi-carti-umg-didnt-abuse-dmca-takedown-system-judge-rules\/"},"modified":"2024-08-29T18:25:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T18:25:14","slug":"playboi-carti-umg-didnt-abuse-dmca-takedown-system-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/playboi-carti-umg-didnt-abuse-dmca-takedown-system-judge-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Playboi Carti & UMG Didn’t Abuse DMCA Takedown System, Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA federal judge says Universal Music Group and Playboi Carti<\/a> didn\u2019t abuse the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when they issued a takedown notice \u2013 erroneously, it turns out \u2013 against another rapper\u2019s song that used the same beat.<\/p>\n

\n\tA rapper named G-Baby<\/strong> (Jordan White) sued the label and artist last year after they red-flagged his song \u201cOi!\u201d for using the same underlying beat as Carti\u2019s \u201cRight Now.\u201d The takedown turned out to be wrong \u2014 G-Baby had legally licensed the same beat that Carti had, and he had actually released his song first.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit claimed that the move violated the DMCA\u2019s safeguards against improper takedowns, but a judge dismissed those claims Tuesday \u2013 citing previous decisions that such restrictions only prohibit intentionally<\/em> false use of the takedown system.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause the DMCA requires only a good faith belief that material is infringing, a copyright holder is not liable for misrepresentation under the DMCA if they subjectively believe the identified material infringes their copyright, even if that belief is ultimately mistaken,\u201d Judge Analisa Torres<\/strong> wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn G-Baby\u2019s case, the judge noted that he had effectively conceded that the UMG employee who flagged \u201cOi!\u201d as a copyright infringement did not know that the rapper had properly licensed the beat: \u201cThis admission alone dooms White\u2019s claim against UMG,\u201d Torres wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Tuesday\u2019s decision, G-Baby paid $250 to producer Pi\u2019erre Bourne<\/strong> (Jordan Timothy Jenks) in 2017 for a non-exclusive license to an instrumental track, which he later used as the basis for \u201cOi!\u201d The next year, Carti (Jordan Terrell Carter) used the same beat in \u201cRight Now,\u201d a track on the album Die Lit<\/em>, which reached Number 3 on the Billboard 200.<\/p>\n

\n\tShortly after Carti\u2019s song was released, a UMG \u201ccontent protection specialist\u201d flagged two posts on Twitter in which G-Baby had shared his song. Eventually, the Recording Industry Association of America filed a DMCA takedown, which succeeded in getting the track pulled down from Twitter.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lawsuit, G-Baby claimed that UMG had intentionally sought out his song because of animosity from Carti, who he claimed was unhappy that the same beat had been used by someone else.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCarter and Jenks knew that \u2018Oi!\u2019 was properly licensed and not infringing, yet decided to conspire with Universal,\u201d the rapper wrote in his complaint. \u201cCarter, Jenks, and Universal sought the take-down of White\u2019s song with the specific intent of harming White.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Tuesday\u2019s ruling, Judge Torres ruled that even if Carti and Jenks knew that G-Baby\u2019s song was properly licensed, there is no evidence that this information was ever communicated to the UMG staffer who flagged the song for removal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhite cites no caselaw for the proposition that one employee\u2019s knowledge that a use may be non-infringing should be imputed to another employee who independently issues a takedown notice on behalf of the company,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Carti himself, Judge Torres ruled that there was no evidence that the rapper had any involvement in or knowledge of the takedown process \u2013 meaning he, too, could not have violated the DMCA\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlthough Carter may well have been aware of (and displeased with) White\u2019s license to use the beat, White has failed to establish that Carter had any part in the takedown notices,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tAttorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge says Universal Music Group and Playboi Carti didn\u2019t abuse the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when they issued a takedown notice \u2013 erroneously, it turns out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[362,3224,2949,3225,423,3223,351,3227,3226,1109],"class_list":["post-2446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-abuse","tag-carti","tag-didnt","tag-dmca","tag-judge","tag-playboi","tag-rules","tag-system","tag-takedown","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446","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=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}