Judge Extends Deadline For Default Judgment Motion In Copyright Lawsuit Against Shenseea
Anastas ‘Pupa Nas-T’ Hackett now has until August 14 to file a motion for default judgment in his copyright lawsuit against Shenseea and her label Interscope Records after a judge granted the NY-based producer an extension, court records show.
The US $10 million lawsuit concerns the Jamaican singer’s Megan Thee Stallion collab Lick, which had sampled lyrics from Denise “Saucey Wow” Belfon’s soca song, Work. Hackett, who produced and co-wrote Work with Harkness Taitt in 1999, has claimed that Lick was released without his consent in January, after he refused an earlier request for clearance.
New York judge Mary Kay Vyskocil previously set a July 14 deadline for the motion, after Shenseea and her label failed to respond to the lawsuit.
In new court filings obtained by DancehallMag, Hackett’s lawyer, Courtney K. Davy, noted that they were prepared to file the default motion yesterday, however, they had failed to notify Shenseea and Interscope of their intention to do so.
“This oversight was unintentional, and I mean to make no excuse for it, however, counsel has been distracted after the tragic loss of a close family member on the morning of May 29, 2022, in a tragic incident in the city of New York,” Davy wrote in a letter to the court, dated July 14.
Davy apologized to the court for the oversight and asked for an extension of time to serve Shenseea and Interscope with the motion.
On July 15, Judge Vyskocil granted the request and extended the deadline to August 14, 2022.
Last month, on June 14, Vyskocil dismissed the lawsuit against the two other named defendants, ATAL Music Limited and Alexandre Escolier, after Hackett failed to file proof of service of a summons on them.
Hackett did, however, provide proof of service on Shenseea, whose real name is Chinsea Linda Lee, and Interscope Records on June 7. The court records show that the singer and her label were each served on April 22, 2022, via delivery of the 9-page complaint to Kartik Pandya, an “Intake Specialist” at Wolters Kluwer, who is supposedly authorized to accept service on behalf of Interscope and Shenseea at a New York address.
Shenseea and Interscope were required to respond to the complaint by May 13, 2022, and they did not seek an extension to that deadline, the court records show.
The lawsuit has demanded, among other things, that Hackett be awarded copyright infringement damages in the amount of $150,000; wilful infringement damages in excess of $10,000,000; and actual damages and profits from 43 sources including sales, ringtones, streaming, endorsements, and touring.
Lick, which appears on Shenseea’s debut album Alpha, is her highest-charting song in the United States, as a lead artist. It peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100.