By Anthony Falzone on May 9, 2007 at 4:06 pm
After a very long saga, BT has been vindicated in his fight againt New York Musician Ralph Vargas and Vargas's producer, Bland-Ricky Roberts, who together alleged that BT copied a drumbeat from Vargas's album. Today, the Court held Vargas and Roberts presented no credible evidence that BT had done so, granted summary judgment in BT's favor, and dismissed the case in its entirety.
Read the decision here.
This case is about much more than whether one artist copied a particular drumbeat from another. Basic drumbeats and rythm patterns should not be subject to copyright protection at all. If one musician can sue another and impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs just because one short drumbeat happens to sound a bit like another, that threatens creative freedom in a profound way. We hope this discourages Vargas and others from pursuing spurious claims like this.
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