{"id":793469,"date":"2019-02-27T08:08:59","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T15:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=800762"},"modified":"2019-02-27T08:08:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T15:08:59","slug":"nicki-minaj-denies-copyright-infringement-in-response-to-tracy-chapman-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/nicki-minaj-denies-copyright-infringement-in-response-to-tracy-chapman-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicki Minaj Denies Copyright Infringement in Response to Tracy Chapman Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nicki Minaj<\/a> has formally denied committing copyright infringement in response to Tracy Chapman\u2019s October 2018 lawsuit<\/a>. Chapman claims that Minaj\u2019s unreleased Nas collaboration \u201cSorry<\/a>,\u201d which interpolates the songwriter\u2019s 1988 cut \u201cBaby Can I Hold You,\u201d uses her material without permission.<\/span><\/p>\n

As The Blast<\/a> and Pitchfork<\/a> report, Minaj filed a formal response to the suit in California federal court on February 22nd. In the documents, she asserts that the interpolation is protected by the fair use doctrine, adding that Chapman \u201chas not properly registered her claim to the copyright in the Composition [\u2018Baby Can I Hold You\u2019].\u201d Therefore, she claims, Chapman does not own the \u201ccopyright in issue and therefore lacks standing to bring the claims alleged in the Complaint\u201d and is not entitled to damages.<\/span><\/p>\n

New York DJ Funkmaster Flex premiered<\/a> \u201cSorry\u201d on radio station Hot 97 in August 2018. Though the song was never officially released, audio from the broadcast still exists online. Chapman is seeking damages and aiming to stop Minaj from releasing the song.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the build-up to the release of Minaj\u2019s fourth LP Queen<\/em>, the rapper made a public plea on Twitter<\/a> for Chapman to clear the sample. \u201cSo there\u2019s a record on #Queen that features 1of the greatest rappers of all time,\u201d she wrote in a series of since-deleted tweets, referencing Nas. \u201cHad no clue it sampled the legend #TracyChapman\u2014do I keep my date & lose the record? Or do I lose the record & keep my date? \u200dDo we push #Queen back 1week? Ugh! I\u2019m torn, y\u2019all help. Tracy Chapman<\/a>, can you please hit me. omg for the love of #Queen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In another since-scrubbed tweet, Minaj appeared to confirm Chapman\u2019s response, writing, \u201cSis said no,\u201d with a shrug emoji. The song was left off the track list.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapman\u2019s suit claims that Minaj\u2019s team made \u201cmultiple requests\u201d to license \u201cBaby Can I Hold You\u201d and were denied. \u201cTracy Chapman very much protect her rights and she has a right to deny a license when requested,\u201d\u00a0Chapman\u2019s longtime lawyer Lee Phillips told\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that this is infringement. \u00a0If you ask what Nicki Minaj\u2019s defense going to be, we have no idea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Minaj, in her response, acknowledged that \u201cher representatives made several requests for permission to release a musical interpolation that used music and lyrics from [\u2018Baby Can I Hold You].’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicki Minaj has formally denied committing copyright infringement in response to Tracy Chapman\u2019s October 2018 lawsuit. Chapman claims that Minaj\u2019s unreleased Nas collaboration \u201cSorry,\u201d which interpolates the songwriter\u2019s 1988 cut \u201cBaby Can I Hold You,\u201d uses her material without permission. As The Blast and Pitchfork report, Minaj filed a formal response to the suit in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 17:48:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}