The lawsuit that could bring reggaetón to its knees

By Enrico Bonadio, City, University of London, Bryan Khan, Università di Torino, Sonjah Stanley Niaah, The University of the West Indies

There is a landmark copyright case looming in the music world. In late May 2024, a federal court in California issued a decision to continue a litigation involving the lucrative reggaetón genre. This legal action could have a lasting negative impact on such a genre as more than 160 defendants are being sued by the Jamaican company Steely & Clevie Productions for alleged copyright infringement.

Among the defendants are several well known artists from the reggaetón scene and beyond, including Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Karol G, Justin Bieber, Drake, Luis Fonsi, Pitbull, Stefflon Don and Puerto Rican singer Rauw Alejandro. Several publishing companies and record labels are also being sued.

Steely & Clevie Productions manages the repertoire of the Jamaican dancehall production duo consisting of the late Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson and Cleveland Browne. The company claims that around 1,800 reggaetón songs illegally used and benefited from – directly and indirectly – elements of the duo’s Fish Market rhythm.

Fish Market (1989) was a Steely & Clevie tune which became famous worldwide after being legally sampled in the track Dem Bow by Jamaican dancehall artist Shabba Ranks in 1990. It was also lawfully used in Pounder Riddim (1990) by the reggaetón producer and sound engineer Dennis Halliburton.

According to the legal complaint, the defendants have sampled and “mathematically copied” for decades what in the meantime had become the Dem Bow rhythm. It’s a percussion-heavy, slightly syncopated beat that originated in Jamaican music genres reggae and dancehall. It has since become the characteristic beat of reggaetón – a sound marked by strong percussion and catchy (usually Spanish) lyrics.

Is the Dem Bow rhythm copyrightable?

The complainant claims that the beat in question is original in part because the drum tones used to construct the beat are “synthesised” (electronically generated signals transformed to create percussive sounds).

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