Rick Ross Loses Claim Over 'Everyday I'm Shufflin'' T-Shirts
Rick Ross just lost a large portion of his lawsuit against LMFAO.
A Florida judge shot down Rozay’s copyright infringement claim regarding the phrase “Everyday I’m shufflin’.” In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams concluded that LMFAO did not break the law by merchandising the lyric from their “Party Rock” single, despite similarities to the MMG rapper’s “Everyday I’m hustlin’” line from the 2006 single “Hustlin’.”
CLICK FOR MUSIC STARS AND LAWSUITS
"The question presented, however, is not whether the the lyrics of Hustlin', as arranged in their entirety, are subject to copyright protection," Wiliams wrote, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “The question is whether the use of a three word phrase appearing in the musical composition, divorced from the accompanying music, modified, and subsequently printed on merchandise, constitutes an infringement of the musical composition Hustlin'. The answer, quite simply, is that it does not."
Further, Williams states that the average person “would not confuse T-shirts bearing the phrase 'everyday I'm shufflin’ with the musical composition Hustlin’,” and would therefore not “recognize the merchandise as having been appropriated from Hustlin'."
Williams went on to point out that Ross didn’t create the phrase “everyday I’m hustlin’,” and noted other cases in which popular phrases like “you got the right one, uh-huh," "holla back," "we get it poppin'" and "caught up" failed to meet the marker of originality when divorced from the music.
BET.com is your No. 1 source for Black celebrity news, photos, exclusive videos and all the latest in the world of hip hop and R&B music.
(Photos from Left: Ethan Miller/Getty Images, Dominic Chan/ WENN.com)