Judge Cites B.I.G., Kanye, Neil Young in Tossing Future Copyright Suit

A man suing Future for copyright infringement simply had his lawsuit kicked to the curb by a choose — who apparently is aware of her hip hop … ‘trigger her opinion is filled with traditional references.

Judge Martha Pacold dismissed a swimsuit filed by a person named DaQuan Robinson — who sued Future 2 years in the past for what he claimed was a variety of lifted parts from the man’s music “When I Think About It” … which he says mirrored his personal observe, “When U Think About It.”

Robinson alleged he’d emailed a draft of the music to Future’s workforce earlier than the official model got here out — and claims Future’s observe ended up being eerily much like his unique tune.

Specifically, Robinson claimed Future’s music touched on a variety of the identical content material his observe did — particularly, weapons, cash and jewellery — however Judge Pacold minimize him off there … saying these common themes should not protected by copyright — and are omnipresent all through rap.

To make her level, she cites numerous examples the place these subjects are addressed … similar to Biggie‘s ‘Machine Gun Funk,’ ‘Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ and even Kanye‘s ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone.’ In all of these, she says, these references exist … and due to this fact, they’re a part of the bigger hip hop nicely of content material that nobody particular person can declare copyright to in a given music.

The choose did not even get to the purpose about Robinson claiming he despatched his tune to Future beforehand as a result of the court docket discovered the 2 songs weren’t considerably related sufficient for it to matter anyway.

There’s extra musical shout-outs past this, too — together with a nod to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Neil Young, that’s). Specifically, the choose mentions their music “Our House” to dispute Robinson’s declare about Future’s alleged misuse of a “core lyric” that he thought was the identical as his.

Basically, she says core lyrics are one more primary factor of songwriting … and never topic to copyright safety in and of itself.

Bottom line … there is not sufficient there to assert copyright infringement — and the choose dominated in Future’s favor — tossing Robinson’s declare with prejudice. He can attraction if he needs to.