Shenseea Demands Jury Trial In ‘Lick’ Lawsuit, Says Any Alleged Copyright Infringement Was “Innocent”

shenseea
Shenseea

Shenseea and her label UMG Recordings, Inc. (Interscope) have demanded a jury trial to settle Anastas ‘Pupa Nas-T’ Hackett’s lawsuit, arguing that there was an implied agreement for the use of the producer’s song in Lick with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, and that any alleged copyright infringement was “innocent.”   

The Can’t Anymore singer’s first official answer to the lawsuit came on Thursday (January 19), ten months after the complaint was filed in a New York District Court.  

Hackett had demanded over $10 million USD in copyright and wilful infringement damages, claiming that Lick, which sampled elements from his song Work, was released without his consent.  Court filings later revealed that a deal had been reached for the use of the sample in exchange for a $5,000 fee, but, according to Hackett, the written agreement was not signed and the money was not paid before the song was released on January 21, 2022.

In their answer to Hackett’s complaint, which was obtained by DancehallMag, Shenseea and UMG denied the majority of the New York-based producer’s claims but asserted that any alleged use of elements from Work was “impliedly and/or expressly licensed.”

Without admitting to any infringement, the response also claimed, among other things, that Hackett’s “damages, if any, are limited because the alleged infringement was innocent.”

“Plaintiff’s (Hackett) alleged damages, if any, are the sole and direct result of forces, acts and omissions independent of Defendants, and were not proximately caused by the alleged use of Work,” Shenseea and UMG’s response also claimed.

Hackett had produced and co-wrote Denise ‘Saucey Wow’ Belfon’s Work in 1999.  

pupa nas t
Pupa Nas T

Court records seen by DancehallMag show that Interscope had contracted DMG Clearances, Inc, in September 2021 to do the leg work of clearing the sample with Hackett.  According to an email sent to DMG later that month, the producer—through his music publisher ATAL Music Limited and their rep Alexandre Escolier—initially agreed that he would approve the sample if he were paid a $5,000 USD advance, 3% royalty on wholesale sales (PPD), and 15% royalty on Shenseea’s net streaming on the song.

However, DMG only sent the final written agreement to Escolier, for Nas-T’s signature, on February 2, 2022, 12 days after Lick was already released on streaming platforms on January 21, 2022.  By then, Pupa Nas-T had ‘fired’ Escolier from representing his music catalog and his production company after he learned of the song’s release from “colleagues who…had reached out to congratulate” him.

In June 2022, defendants ATAL and Escolier were dismissed from the lawsuit, after Hackett failed to provide to the Court proof of service on them. 

On December 28, 2022, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil dismissed Hackett’s company, Traveling Man Productions, LLC, from the lawsuit, citing his failure to meet a deadline to appoint a new attorney in the matter.  

However, Hackett’s manager Steven Thomas told DancehallMag that they intended to hire new legal representation this month.

“We plan to engage a new litigating attorney-at-law in the new year,” Thompson said in December.

“We have not settled, they [Interscope] haven’t done anything to resolve the issue, and they continue to steal Mr. Hackett’s material. In essence, the integrity of Caribbean artists is at stake, they (record companies) claim that they are fair, but their actions show that they continue to treat artists unfairly.”

Shenseea and UMG, who are being represented by the New York law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, have demanded a jury trial to settle the matter, along with costs of the suit, including attorney fees and other relief that the Court deems just and proper. 

The two sides have been ordered to appear in a pretrial conference on February 17, 2023.

Lick, which appeared on her debut album Alpha, is Shenseea’s highest-charting song in the United States, as a lead artist. It peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.