{"id":5721,"date":"2025-05-09T16:40:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/bad-bunny-lawsuit-says-un-verano-sin-ti-song-stole-sample\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T16:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:40:06","slug":"bad-bunny-lawsuit-says-un-verano-sin-ti-song-stole-sample","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/bad-bunny-lawsuit-says-un-verano-sin-ti-song-stole-sample\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny Lawsuit Says ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’ Song Stole Sample"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tBad Bunny<\/a> is facing a lawsuit over allegations that a track from his chart-topping Un Verano Sin Ti<\/em> featured an unlicensed sample from a Nigerian artist \u2013 and that the superstar\u2019s reps later \u201cstonewalled\u201d efforts to resolve the problem.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a copyright case filed May 2 in Los Angeles federal court, attorneys for the artist Dera (Ezeani Chidera Godfrey) claim that Bad Bunny\u2019s \u201cEns\u00e9\u00f1ame a Bailar\u201d illegally sampled from a 2019 track called \u201cEmpty My Pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDera\u2019s lawyers say they\u2019ve raised the issue with reps for Bad Bunny and others behind the song, but that they\u2019ve \u201cturned a blind eye\u201d and left him with \u201cno choice but to file this lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is not very often that a musical artist of Bad Bunny\u2019s caliber and sophistication uses someone else\u2019s music without permission, and then ignores the person\u2019s efforts to resolve the problem,\u201d writes Dera\u2019s attorney Robert A. Jacobs<\/strong>, a litigator at the top music law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips. \u201cSuch a response is especially surprising when the unauthorized use pervades the entirety of the musical artist\u2019s work. Unfortunately, these are the circumstances here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit also names as defendants The Orchard, which distributed the album, and Bad Bunny\u2019s Rimas Entertainment, among others. Representatives for both Bad Bunny and The Orchard did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tReleased in 2022, Un Verano Sin Ti<\/em> was a mega-hit \u2013 spending 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and more than 150 weeks total on the album chart. \u201cEns\u00e9\u00f1ame a Bailar\u201d was a hit in its own right, charting on the Hot 100 for two weeks and earning 72 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lawsuit, Dera says Bad Bunny\u2019s song was essentially built on top of his \u201cEmpty My Pocket\u201d \u2013 that the usage is so \u201cextensive\u201d that the sampling itself is \u201cbeyond question.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiffs\u2019 works comprise virtually the entirety of the musical bed and a portion of the lyrics in the infringing recording and infringing composition, and, as such, account for a significant portion of the appeal of the infringing works,\u201d his lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey claim access to Dera\u2019s song was provided by a producer named Lakizo (Lekan Adesina), but that he had no authority to clear the use of the sample: \u201cLakizo \u2026 is not an author of \u2018Empty My Pocket\u2019 \u2026 and does not have \u2013 and never had \u2013 the right to prepare or authorize others to prepare derivative works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the lawsuit, when Dera discovered the unauthorized sample he tried to negotiate a good-faith resolution with Bad Bunny\u2019s team, saying he wanted to \u201caddress past unauthorized uses\u201d but also \u201callow future uses.\u201d He says he also \u201cunconditionally complied\u201d with requests to substantiate his claim, including sharing documents showing that Lakizo had not been authorized to clear the sample.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDespite plaintiffs\u2019 cooperation, these defendants stonewalled plaintiffs after receiving the requested information, making clear that plaintiffs\u2019 only option for obtaining redress for the violation of their rights would be through the courts,\u201d Dera\u2019s lawyers write.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad Bunny is facing a lawsuit over allegations that a track from his chart-topping Un Verano Sin Ti featured an unlicensed sample from a Nigerian artist \u2013 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[784,1519,303,1307,5868,986,471,5867],"class_list":["post-5721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bad","tag-bunny","tag-lawsuit","tag-sample","tag-sin","tag-song","tag-stole","tag-verano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5721","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=5721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}