Pitbull’s label Mr 305 Inc has been sued by a New York-based music publisher which alleges that his 2021 track ‘I Feel Good’ incorporates elements of an earlier song that it controls called ‘Samir’s Theme’.
The two songs, says a lawsuit filed by All Surface Publishing, “have significant similarities, including but not limited to melody, harmony, melodic structure, tempo, musical arrangement and percussion”. Not only that, but the two works “are performed at practically identical tempos. ‘I Feel Good’ is performed at 125 bpm and ‘Samir’s Theme’ is performed at 126 bpm”.
All Surface Publishing and its director, composer Aaron LaCanfora, reckon that the large creative team behind ‘I Feel Good’ got access to ‘Samir’s Theme’ via DJ White Shadow, aka Paul Blair, a co-writer and guest artist on the Pitbull track.
The lawsuit says that, all the way back in 2011, LaCanfora contacted Blair and gave him access to ‘Samir’s Theme’. The producer allegedly responded with the statement “I love this song”, meaning, “Blair had specific access to a full copy of the musical work as of May 2011”.
The theory then goes that Blair sat on LaCanfora’s track for a decade before incorporating elements of it into ‘I Feel Good’. Which means the Pitbull song “incorporates copyrighted elements” of the earlier work without permission. Which is copyright infringement.
The legal filing goes into more detail about the alleged similarities between the two songs. For example, “after the introductory passage, the respective instrumental melodies of both songs begin with a melodic line that features two notes that descend stepwise before landing on the tonic, which completes the three-note introductory phrase of the melodies”.
Make of that what you will. US courts have generally set the bar quite high when it comes to proving that a new song infringes the copyright in an old song when two songs share similar elements but are not exactly the same. Much of the legal debate usually centres on whether the shared elements are sufficiently substantial to be protected by copyright in isolation.
Of course, for that debate to be had, the court would first have to buy the theory that the ‘I Feel Good’ writers got access to ‘Samir’s Theme’ via Blair.
Blair is also named as a defendant on the lawsuit, as is Universal Music, which distributed ‘I Feel Good’.
