A weird (and potentially dangerous) plagiarism lawsuit is moving to the next stage.
This is very, very concerning.
Back in 1989, Jamaican duo Steely & Clevie released a single entitled “Fish Market.” It appeared as a B-side of a 7-inch single released on their own Kingston-based indie label Steely & Clevie Records. So yeah, it’s pretty obscure. Take a listen.
You’ll probably recognize that beat. It’s called a “dembow” (also sometimes spelled as “Dem Bow”) rhythm and is now found throughout Latin American pop including in songs by Daddy Yankee (the “Despacito” Guy) and Bad Bunny, one of the top artists in the world right now.
Last year, the estate of Jamaican production duo Cleveland ‘Clevie’ Browne and Wycliffe ‘Steely’ Johnson brought for a lawsuit in US Federal Court that claims a ton of reggaeton artists and approximately 1,800 songs have infringed copyright by copying that beat.
The lawsuit describes the beat like this: “A programmed kick, snare, and hi-hat playing a one bar pattern; percussion instruments, including a tambourine playing through the entire bar, a synthesized ‘tom’ playing on beats one and three, and timbales that play a roll at the end of every second bar and free improvisation over the pattern for the duration of the song; and a synthesized Bb (b-flat) bass note on beats one and three of each bar, which follows the aforementioned synthesized ‘tom’ pattern.”
Going a bit deeper, we learn that the original Clevie & and Steely “riddim” was sampled by Shabba Ranks for a 1990 track entitled “Dem Bow,” giving the beat its name. Also in 1990, Dennis “The Menace” Halliburton, a Jamaican producer, went back to the well to creating a drum matter for what he called his “Pounder” rhtyhm. When reggaton took off in Puerto Rico, producers sampled heavily from Halliburton’s “Pounder Dub Mix I.” Since then, the dem row beat has become the foundtation of reggaton.
A judge ruled this week that the lawsuit can proceed to the discovery stage. I quote (via Stereogum):
“While it does not follow that a defendant inevitably infringes the ‘Fish Market’ copyright because the defendant allegedly copied ‘Dem Bow,’ ‘ Pounder Riddim,’ or ‘Pounder Dub Mix II,’ the copying of material derived from protected elements of ‘Fish Market’ will constitute an infringement of the ‘Fish Market’ copyright regardless of whether the defendant copied directly from ‘Fish Market’ or indirectly through a derivative work”
Translation: The “Fish Market” beat is original enough to qualify for copyright protection.
I repeat: This is very concerning.
There are a couple of musical things that are not subject to copyright and trademarking: (1) Song titles; (2) chord changes; and (3) basic beats and rhythms.
Beats and rhythms have to be copyrightable. If they were, the most fundamental building block of music composition would inaccessible to everyone. We’d be screwed. The Latin American genre know as reggaton would be completely wiped out.
And that’s not all. If this beat is ruled copyrightable, what other beats are in danger of becoming legally toxic?
