Source: Emma McIntyre / Getty
Bad Bunny made a huge mistake when he released his single “Safaera” without getting the proper clearances for the sample-heavy track. It was snatched off of streaming services after DJ Playero filed a lawsuit against him alleging direct and copyright infringement for “unauthorized incorporation” of his songs “Besa Tu Cuerpo,” “Chocha Con Bicho,” and “Sigan Bailando” into “Safaera,” according to Billboard. But DJ Playero isn’t the only one whose music was used without his permission.
“Safaera” also has an unauthorized sample of Missy Elliott’s 2001 hit “Get Your Freak On.” Once Elliott learned that her song was used without authorization, she filed her own lawsuit against Bad Bunny and other authors of the song, Jowell & Randy, his label Rimas Entertainment and the producer DJ Orma Tainy.
During an interview, Jowell told Molsuco TV in Spanish that Elliott asked for millions of dollars in compensation for sampling her song and a deal was negotiated that ended up in the songwriters’ royalties from the song dropping down to a measly 1%. He said that the song was supposed to be one of the biggest songs of his career but because of the negligence regarding sampling it wasn’t.
“Many people think that I was made into a millionaire with ‘Safaera’ but no,” he said in Spanish.
The lawsuit filed by DJ Playero stated that the musicians involved in the song knew that there were samples that had to be cleared because they listed the artists behind the sampled songs as songwriters in the credits.
“On information and belief, Defendants were well aware of the need to ‘clear’ the various third-party works sampled on ‘Safaera’ by obtaining licenses to each, as demonstrated by the fact that, for example, Melissa Elliott p/k/a Missy Elliot is credited as a writer on ‘Safaera’ due to its sampling of her hit song ‘Get Ur Freak On’,” the lawsuit read.
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