{"id":155155,"date":"2026-09-03T07:22:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T11:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/bad-bunny-wins-key-lawsuit-over-dembow-rhythm-copyright\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T07:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T11:22:26","slug":"bad-bunny-wins-key-lawsuit-over-dembow-rhythm-copyright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/national\/bad-bunny-wins-key-lawsuit-over-dembow-rhythm-copyright\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny wins key lawsuit over dembow rhythm copyright"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Legal victory for Bad Bunny and urban genre stars in copyright lawsuit<\/h2>\n\n<p>Reggaeton breathes a sigh of relief following a landmark court ruling in the United States. Federal Judge Andr\u00e9 Birotte Jr. has dismissed a lawsuit that threatened dozens of artists, including Bad Bunny, Karol G, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Drake, and Luis Fonsi, regarding the alleged intellectual property of the rhythm known as dembow.<\/p>\n\n<p>The legal dispute, which had been active since 2021, was initiated by Jamaican producer Cleveland \u201cClevie\u201d Browne and the heirs of Wycliffe \u201cSteely\u201d Johnson. The plaintiffs argued that they owned the rights to the fundamental rhythmic structure of reggaeton, attempting to link it to their previous musical productions.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A ruling that redefines the limits of copyright<\/h3>\n\n<p>The resolution reverses a previous decision from July, in which the court considered that a jury should evaluate whether the claimed musical arrangement deserved protection. However, following the motion for reconsideration filed by Bad Bunny&#8217;s defense, Judge Birotte Jr. concluded that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate ownership of the rights to the rhythm in question.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">You cannot register a rhythm by reverse-engineering it from three different songs once you are already in court.<\/p>\n<cite>Kenneth Freundlich, Bad Bunny&#8217;s lawyer<\/cite>\n\n\n<p>The court determined that the plaintiffs&#8217; strategy consisted of an artificial construction \u2014described by the defense as a copyright &#8220;Frankenstein&#8221;\u2014 by attempting to combine elements from three distinct songs to create a protectable work that, in reality, does not exist as a single registered creation.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The impact on the urban industry<\/h3>\n\n<p>This ruling on Alofoke Deportes is key to understanding the future of urban music, as it sets a precedent regarding which elements can be subject to copyright:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Dembow is an essential rhythmic pattern that, according to the court, cannot be monopolized through the retrospective combination of elements.<\/li><li>Copyright protection cannot be established over musical components that are used recurrently as part of a genre.<\/li><li>The decision protects more than 150 artists and producers who were facing legal risks for thousands of songs.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n<p>With this resolution, a chapter of legal uncertainty is closed that sought to condition the evolution of one of the most influential genres in the Caribbean and Latin America, reaffirming that fundamental rhythmic patterns cannot be the exclusive property of individuals under legal reconstruction schemes.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legal victory for Bad Bunny and urban genre stars in copyright lawsuit Reggaeton breathes a sigh of relief following a landmark court ruling in the United States. Federal Judge Andr\u00e9 Birotte Jr. has dismissed a lawsuit that threatened dozens of artists, including Bad Bunny, Karol G, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Drake, and Luis Fonsi, regarding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12809],"tags":[8636,14154,13280,13745],"class_list":{"0":"post-155155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-national","8":"tag-bad-bunny","9":"tag-copyright","10":"tag-dembow","11":"tag-reggaeton"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}