A US judge has ruled that a line used in 50 Cent's 2003 hit 'In Da Club' was not lifted from a 1994 track from former 2 Live Crew frontman Luther Campbell.
As previously reported, 50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, was sued at the start of the year by Lil Joe Wein Music, who own the copyright on Campbell's track 'It's Your Birthday'. They claimed that Fiddy had stolen the line "Sheila, it's your birthday" from that track, and used it as "Shorty, it's your birthday" in 'In Da Club'. At the time a lawyer representing Campbell told reporters: "It's the melody, it's the pace, the style - everything about that one line is the same. We're entitled to a portion of the profits".
However, US District Judge Paul C Huck last week disagreed, saying that the phrase in question was a "common, unoriginal, non-copyrightable element of the song", adding that the line only represented eleven seconds of a track that last three minutes. He said no reasonable jury would conclude that, overall, the two songs had "substantial similarities", nor would the average person confuse the two songs. On that basis, he dismissed the case against 50 Cent.
Neither side in the legal case have, as yet, commented.