Bad Bunny has won a court order dismissing a lawsuit that alleged a track on his chart-topping Un Verano Sin Ti album featured an unlicensed sample from a Nigerian artist.
The case, filed last spring, claimed Bunny’s “Enséñame a Bailar” illegally sampled from a 2019 track called “Empty My Pocket” by an artist named Dera (Ezeani Chidera Godfrey). But on Monday (March 9), a federal judge tossed the case out of court because Dera essentially abandoned the lawsuit.
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Judge Otis Wright had given the accuser until Friday (March 6) to get things moving, but Dera “failed to timely respond” by that deadline. “Accordingly, the court dismissed this action and all claims asserted therein with prejudice,” the judge wrote, using the legal term for ending the case permanently.
Dera and his record label, emPawa Africa, filed the lawsuit in May, claiming the sample was not just featured in “Enséñame” but “pervades the entirety” of the song. They claimed Bad Bunny and others had been notified, but had “turned a blind eye” to the problem.
“It is not very often that a musical artist of Bad Bunny’s caliber and sophistication uses someone else’s music without permission, and then ignores the person’s efforts to resolve the problem,” Dera’s attorneys wrote at the time.
The lawsuit was a big deal because Un Verano Sin Ti was a big deal — spending 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and more than 150 weeks total on the chart. “Enséñame a Bailar” was a hit in its own right, charting on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and earning 72 million views on YouTube.
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Dera’s lawsuit was filed by attorneys from Manatt Phelps and Phillips LLP, a prestigious national law firm with a well-known music practice. But in January, the firm said it would withdraw from the case because of “irreparable differences” with its clients.
“As this lawsuit has progressed, disagreements with respect to legal strategy have emerged between Manatt and Plaintiffs,” Dera and emPawa’s lead attorney, Robert Jacobs, told the judge. “Due to these disagreements, the attorney-client relationship and communications have frayed. Plaintiffs and Manatt worked in good faith to resolve these issues, but, unfortunately, have been unable to do so.”
Without lawyers, both Dera and emPawa abruptly stopped litigating the case. The label was dismissed from the lawsuit for blowing deadlines last month, and Judge Wright warned the artist that he would face the same outcome if he didn’t respond by Friday.
“The court has become aware that [Godfrey], proceeding [without lawyers], has failed to diligently prosecute this case,” the judge wrote in February. “Indeed, since the Court relieved Godfrey’s former counsel, Godfrey has not filed any papers or otherwise appeared in this case.”
Neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
