A federal judge has ruled that a mass copyright claim filed against Bad Bunny and hundreds of other reggaeton artists uses an invalid definition of copyrighted work. This ruling marks a major victory for the singer in a sprawling, multi-year lawsuit.
On Tuesday, September 1, Judge André Birotte Jr. overturned his own previous decision and stated that Cleveland “Clevie” Browne and the family of Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson had failed to prove that they held valid copyright control over reggaeton’s signature dembow rhythm. The plaintiffs claimed that the rhythm originated in their 1989 song track “Fish Market,” but Birotte ruled that dembow came from multiple songs and that Browne and Johnson were attempting an improper “Frankenstein copyright” argument.
Birotte’s decision marks a reversal from a July 2025 decision in which the judge ruled that a jury ought to decide whether the dembow rhythm was itself copyrightable. On Tuesday, the judge admitted he had made a mistake in overlooking a key fact: the rhythm the plaintiffs cited does not exist entirely in the three songs they own.
In his decision, Birotte stated that the lack of “a single copyrighted work containing the alleged protectable selection and arrangement” meant the plaintiffs’ case was invalid. The ruling marks a key victory for dozens of artists, including Bad Bunny, Pitbull, and Drake, who were listed as defendants in the case.
In response to the win, Bad Bunny’s attorney Kenneth D. Freundlich stated, “Copyright protects what an artist actually created, not a collage assembled in litigation. That is what the court rejected today.” Future litigation will likely take place over songs the plaintiffs allege directly sampled Clevie and Steely’s works, but will be much more limited in scale.
