Miami’s 2 Live Crew expanded the law to define what hip-hop could be by using sexually charged and freedom of speech with lyrics that made it possible for artists to sue and win cases of obscenity.
But for past twenty years the hip-hop legends haven’t legally owned the rights to these records, selling them in bankruptcy Trials that followed the lawsuits of the 1990s.
Now a jury verdict is allowing surviving members of the group, and heirs of the two who have passed away, to reclaim five of their early records in a copyright battle against a record company. The company is still in the process of appealing.
“We won,” 2 Live Crew member Luther Campbell, also known as Uncle Luke, said having seen the video on social media on Wednesday. “All the albums! We got them all back!”
The copyright suit was initiated by Lil’ Joe Records that owns rights to the albums from 2 Live Crew when the former record label of the group declared bankruptcy in 1995.
In 2020, the members of 2 Live Crew, and the heirs wrote to Lil’ Joe informing them that they were cancelling the copyrights and explained that ownership for the albums had been transferred to the artists.
Lil’ Joe reacted by turning to court to seek its rights to the copyrights as stipulated under the bankruptcy agreement.
In Florida the federal jury ruled in favor of 2 Live Crew and the heirs. “This was a historic trial and our team is pleased to have been involved in it,” Burroughs told the Associated Press.
“Hopefully our overwhelming and total victory at trial will act as a signal for other artists to go through the legal process to reclaim their copyrights.”
Richard Wolfe, an attorney for Lil’ Joe, has challenged the allegations made by the group insisting that owing to the terms of the bankruptcy, his client has every right. He said the fighting is still on. “It’s round two of a 10-round fight,” Wolfe said.
“We have always said this case is not going not be decided at the trial court level. It’s going to be decided in the appeal stage or even the Supreme Court stage.”
Among the material that was the subject of a lawsuit is an album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be,” released in 1989, which contains “Me So Horny” and “The F— Shop” songs.
Everyone in South Florida from law enforcement officials to music critics found it so shocking, that one record store owner was arrested for selling it.
Campbell together with colleague Christopher Wong Won, better known as Fresh Kid Ice of 2 Live Crew, was also arrested for obscenity after dancing to songs from the album. In December 1992 a federal appeals court reversed a court decision which they considered had declared the album obscene.
Also at risk is the song “Pretty Woman” which was done using a sample of the 1964 Roy Orbison hit.
Litigation over the duet’s remix came to the supreme court in the US in 1994, whereby the supreme decided in 1994 that the 2 Live Crew’s use of the original material was fair use.
The first of those decisions was a truly exceptionless triumph of free speech that extends far beyond rap, University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson, an expert on hip-hop and law with childhood memories of 2 Live Crew music.
And the second helped bolster a foundational element of the genre’s sound: using previous music but to create something new out of the old music.
“I think it is impossible to overemphasize the importance of these rulings and the part 2 Live Crew played in establishing some parameters regarding what can and cannot be done in some areas of artistic freedom,” states Nielson.
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