{"id":7787,"date":"2025-09-12T04:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T04:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/star-says-nobody-can-copyright-viral-catchphrase\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T04:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T04:31:10","slug":"star-says-nobody-can-copyright-viral-catchphrase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/star-says-nobody-can-copyright-viral-catchphrase\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Says Nobody Can Copyright Viral Catchphrase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tG<\/span>loRilla wants to end lawsuit claiming she stole the lyric \u201cnatural, no BBL\u201d from a viral catchphrase, telling a judge that nobody can copyright that kind of short and \u201ccliched\u201d expression.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case, filed this summer, claims that an Instagram user named Natalie Henderson coined the phrase \u2014 a reference to \u201cBrazilian butt lift\u201d surgery \u2013 and that GloRilla (Gloria Woods) later stole it for use in her 2024 song \u201cNever Find\u201d without permission.<\/p>\n

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\n\tBut in a Monday motion asking the judge to dismiss the entire case, the rapper\u2019s lawyers say there\u2019s one big problem with the lawsuit: That copyright law doesn\u2019t even cover such a \u201ccommonplace\u201d series of words.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe phrase \u2018natural[e], no BBL\u2019 \u2014referring to a person with a natural body who has not undergone the \u2018Brazilian Butt Lift\u2019 cosmetic procedure\u2014is too common, everyday, trite, and cliched to be protectable by copyright,\u201d her lawyers write in the filing, obtained Billboard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tGloRilla\u2019s attorneys cites seven other songs that have featured similar expressions about BBLs over the past two years, including by rapper Real Boston Richey: \u201cThe phrase at issue in plaintiff\u2019s song is not original and thus not copyrightable.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd even if Henderson\u2019s alleged catchphrase was copyrightable, GloRilla\u2019s lawyers say her song didn\u2019t copy it. They say there\u2019s no evidence that she ever heard Henderson\u2019s phrase, and that she used a markedly different one in \u201cNever Find\u201d: \u201cAnyone who listens to the two songs should easily reach the conclusion that these songs are not substantially similar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNever Find,\u201d featuring K Carbon, was featured on GloRilla\u2019s debut studio album Glorious, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and ended up as the top-selling female rap album last year. The song itself, a bonus track, did not chart.<\/p>\n

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\n\tHenderson (@slimdabodylast on Instagram) filed her lawsuit in June, citing not only her viral phrase but also a song that she wrote, which featured the lyric \u201cAll natural, no BBL\/ Mad hoes go to hell.\u201d GloRilla\u2019s lyric reads: \u201cNatural, no BBL\/ but I\u2019m still gon\u2019 give him hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are unmistakable similarities between the two works,\u201d Henderson\u2019s attorney wrote at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as Billboard<\/em> reported at the time, such claims always likely faced an uphill battle in court. Copyright law does not cover short phrases, including slogans and taglines, nor does it cover commonplace material that\u2019s been widely used by others. That\u2019s exactly the argument that GloRilla\u2019s lawyers made on Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver her brief career, the star has already faced several copyright cases \u2013 something of a rite of passage for any rising artist.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2023, she was hit with a lawsuit claiming she used unlicensed samples in her hit songs \u201cTomorrow\u201d and \u201cTomorrow 2\u201d; the case was dismissed last year. And last year, she was sued alongside Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B and others over claims that the 2024 song \u201cWanna Be\u201d featured an uncleared sample from Plies\u2019 2008 track \u201cMe & My Goons.\u201d That case was voluntarily dropped earlier this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GloRilla wants to end lawsuit claiming she stole the lyric \u201cnatural, no BBL\u201d from a viral catchphrase, telling a judge that nobody can copyright that kind of short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6352,429,839,5835],"class_list":["post-7787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-catchphrase","tag-copyright","tag-star","tag-viral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7787","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=7787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}