LIL Flip Guilty

[bknot1]

Lil' Flip, Sony BMG Music guilty of copyright infringement
A jury in Houston Federal Court has found that Lil' Flip, a Houston-based hip-hop music star and Sony BMG Music Entertainment are guilty of willful copyright infringement and awarded the maximum statutory damages to a Shreveport music producer.

The jury verdict found that Suckafree Records, rapper Lil' Flip (Wesley Eric Weston), his manager Estelle Douglass Hobbs, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Columbia Records, Loud Records, Lucky Publishing and Hobbs Publishing willfully violated the copyrighted music of Tommy Granville when the Defendants included it on Lil' Flip's platinum-selling CD, Underground Legend.

Mr. Granville was represented at trial in Federal Court in the Southern District of Texas (Houston) by Dallas intellectual property attorney Scott Hemingway of Hemingway & Hansen. The suit alleged - and the jury agreed -- that the melody used on the song "Texas Boyz" was composed by Tommy L. Granville, a songwriter and music producer in Shreveport, LA, and was willfully taken by the Lil' Flip, Sony BMG Music, and the other Defendants.

The trial, which ended on Friday, January 20, concluded months of pre-trial wrangling that was marked by Sony's refusal to turn over financial documents to the plaintiff, despite court orders. Magistrate Judge Stacy finally fined Sony $12,000 for their failure to adhere to the court's orders to turn over financial documents. Being sanctioned for repeatedly ignoring a court order is a highly unusual event, Hemingway stated, but Sony was only sanctioned after repeatedly ignoring three separate orders to make certain documents available.

"We're very pleased that the jury agreed that Tommy Granville's music was illegally taken by these Defendants," said Scott Hemingway, attorney for the plaintiff, "Sony is one of the world's biggest enforcers of its copyright rights and it files thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits against Internet file-sharers to protect its rights. It is nice to see the jury tell Sony and the other Defendants that they should respect the copyrights of others the same way they want their own copyright rights respected."

The suit was the second copyright infringement suit against the same set of defendants. In a separate action in September 2004, NamCo America sued the same set of defendants for copyright infringement over the rapper's hit song, "Game Over." In that lawsuit filed in US District Court, Southern District of New York, Namco alleges their copyright was infringed upon, when sounds from the game "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" were included on "Game Over" and the remix to the song. That suit was settled prior to going to trial.

Posted by Greg Johnson at January 25, 2006 04:02 PM
http://www.beloblog.com/KHOU_Weather_Watch/

[bknot1]

ooh he had to only pay $150,000 for the 3 songs... so he still made out..

[33thirdcom]

guess that's why they stopped pushing the album... Karma is a mutha.

[bknot1]

I dont remeber them stoppin the promotion of the album..Sony does hip-hop marketing real different...its still went platinum I if I recall he had only 2 or 3 singles played on the radio..so it did well..

His new one drops Feb. 28th peep some of the songs on his site http://www.lilfliponline.com