{"id":920,"date":"2024-05-22T20:02:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T20:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/beyonce-hit-with-lawsuit-over-break-my-soul-song-sample\/"},"modified":"2024-05-23T17:51:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T17:51:08","slug":"beyonce-hit-with-lawsuit-over-break-my-soul-song-sample","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/beyonce-hit-with-lawsuit-over-break-my-soul-song-sample\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyonc\u00e9 Hit With Lawsuit Over ‘Break My Soul’ Song Sample"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tBeyonc\u00e9, Sony Music and others are facing a copyright lawsuit over her chart-topping hit \u201cBreak My Soul,\u201d filed by a New Orleans group that says she sampled from a Big Easy rapper who had illegally lifted lyrics from their earlier song.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a complaint filed Wednesday (May 22) in Louisiana federal court, members of Da Showstoppaz accuse Beyonc\u00e9 (Beyonc\u00e9 Knowles Carter) of infringing their 2002 song \u00a0\u201cRelease A Wiggle\u201d on \u201cBreak My Soul,\u201d which spent two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\tRather than stealing their material directly, the group alleges that Beyonc\u00e9 infringed their copyrights by legally sampling the 2014 song \u201cExplode\u201d by the New Orleans rapper Big Freedia. That track, they say, illegally borrowed several key lyrics from their song.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile Mrs. Carter \u2026 and others have received many accolades and substantial profits \u2026 Da Showstoppaz\u2019s have received nothing\u2014no acknowledgment, no credit, no remuneration of any kind,\u201d the group\u2019s attorneys wrote, also naming Big Freedia (Freddie Ross) as a defendant.<\/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

\n\tAt the center of the new dispute is 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\t\u201cThe infringing phrase \u2018release yo\u2019 wiggle\u2019 and several other substantially similar phrases are featured prominently in the song and evenly spread out across Explode\u2019s two-minute and forty-seven second runtime,\u201d the group\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u201cAny reasonable person listening to \u2018Release A Wiggle\u2019 and \u2018Explode\u2019 would conclude that the songs are substantially similar.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\n\tBut the group\u2019s lawyers aren\u2019t concerned, saying they \u201chave a copyright to their unique and distinctive lyrics\u201d that was clearly infringed by Big Freedia: \u00a0\u201cThe coined term and phrase \u2018release a\/yo wiggle\u2019 has now become closely synonymous with Big Freedia, thereby contributing to Big Freedia\u2019s fame. However, Big Fredia did not compose or write the phrase, and Big Freedia never credited Da Showstoppaz as the source.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the lawsuit, Da Showstoppaz first learned about Big Freedia\u2019s song when they heard \u201cBreak My Soul.\u201d They say they notified Beyonc\u00e9 and others of the alleged infringement infringement last month, but that she has refused to take a license.<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Beyonc\u00e9 and Sony Music did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyonc\u00e9, Sony Music and others are facing a copyright lawsuit over her chart-topping hit \u201cBreak My Soul,\u201d filed by a New Orleans group that says she sampled from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1304,1305,1067,303,1307,986,1306],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-beyonce","tag-break","tag-hit","tag-lawsuit","tag-sample","tag-song","tag-soul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","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=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":943,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}