A new lawsuit claims that Pitbull's 2021 dance hit “I Feel Good” was copied from an older track created more than 15 years earlier.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, a company called All Surface Publishing alleged that Pitbull's song — which spent 27 weeks on Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart — infringed on the copyright of a song by 2006 called “Samir's Theme” with “significant” similarities.”
“The infringement is an exact copy of a distinct portion of the plaintiff's musical work that was copied,” the suit alleges.
The accusers claim the two songs have similarities in melody, harmony, melodic structure, rhythm, musical arrangement and percussion – including a “three-note introductory phrase” in which the notes descend the musical scale.
“When played in real time, the descending lines of both songs appear to be nearly identical,” claim the accusers.
The lawsuit does not name Pitbull personally as a defendant, but targets his record label Mr. 305 Inc., as well as DJ White Shadow (Paul Edward Blair), who produced the track and also appeared on it as an artist.
A key part of most copyright lawsuits is proving that the accused infringer had enough “access” to the original to have had the opportunity to copy it. In the case of “I Feel Good,” the lawsuit alleges that All Surface owner Aaron LaCanfora sent “Samir's Theme” directly to DJ White Shadow in 2011.
“I love that song,” the DJ allegedly replied, according to the lawsuit.
The representatives of both Mr. 305 and DJ White Shadow did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit also names Universal Music Group as a defendant, alleging that Mr. 305 Inc. is “the wholly-owned subsidiary of UMG”, although it is unclear if this is true. Mr. 305 signed a distribution deal with Ingrooves in 2019, shortly after the company was acquired by UMG, but Pitbull's label describes itself as an “independent record label” owned by the star himself.
A spokesman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.
