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Another song-theft lawsuit against Chris Brown is settled
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 12 September 2022
Chris Brown’s lawyers had a productive week last week with not one but two song-theft lawsuits settled. Having brought to an end a dispute with music firm Greensleeves in relation to his 2017 track ‘Privacy’, the Brown legal team also told the courts that a separate lawsuit in relation to 2019’s ‘No Guidance’ was being dropped.
Singer Braindon Cooper and producer Timothy Valentine sued Brown last year claiming that ‘No Guidance’ rips off their 2016 track ‘I Love Your Dress’. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs said that “in addition to containing similar beat patterns, the melody and lyrics used in the chorus/hook of ‘No Guidance’ – ‘you got it, girl; you got it’ – are so strikingly similar to those used in the chorus of ‘I Love Your Dress’ that they cannot be purely coincidental”.
Responding to the litigation earlier this year, Brown’s lawyers said that Cooper and Valentine’s lawsuit was “premised upon the alleged similarity between the wholly generic lyrical phrase ‘you got it’ and the alleged similar (and unoriginal) theme of a hard-working, attractive woman”.
“No one”, the Brown team added, “can own or monopolise the non-copyrightable phrase ‘you got it’, and it should come as no surprise that this phrase appears in countless other works. Also, lyrical themes are simply unprotectable as a matter of law”.
Cooper and Valentine also sued Brown’s collaborators on the track, which included Drake and Noah Shebib. However, both of them were subsequently removed as defendants from the litigation. But the legal battle with Brown himself ploughed on.
Until last week. According to Billboard, a new legal filing in relation to the case stated: “The above-captioned action and all claims asserted therein are hereby dismissed with prejudice”. No details about any deal between Brown and the plaintiffs have been made public.
Also last week, it was confirmed that Greensleeves had settled a legal battle with Brown over the allegations that ‘Privacy’ ripped off the 1997 dancehall track ‘Tight Up Skirt’, which the UK-based music firm publishes.
