Greensleeves claims that Chris Brown “used it prominently” in Privacy “without permission”
Superstar singer Chris Brown has been sued for copyright infringement over his track 'Privacy', released in March 2017 and taken from his album 'Heartbreak on a Full Moon', according to Music Business Worldwide.
The lawsuit is from a UK-based music publishing company called Greensleeves Publishing Ltd.
The company alleges that Brown ripped off 'Tight Up Skirt', a 1997 dancehall track to create his track, 'Privacy'.
Tight Up Skirt, performed by Red Rat, was released in 1997, first in the UK.
Red Rat, who is not mentioned in the legal document filed by Greensleeves, said in 2017 following the release of 'Privacy' that he was “getting many calls left and right from many people asking me about my thoughts regarding the sampling 'Tight Up Skirt', and all I can say is, ‘Give God all the glory.”
Greensleeves claims that Chris Brown “took the core musical feature” of the track and “used it prominently” in Privacy “without permission”. The company also said it owns exclusive music publishing rights in the US to the copyright of the song.
In the lawsuit, it is claimed that the songs “share a similar primary identifying feature”.
The lawsuit referred to some parts of the track: ‘Hey you girl inna di tight upskirt’ and ‘Hey you girl without a tight up skirt’, were referred to in the suit as Phrase A, and that they are identical.
Greensleeves said the Phrase A occurs in Brown's 'Privacy' for 18 times and is the main hook of the song.
The lawsuit also claimed: “Phrase A in the infringing work is also very distinctive in the song because it contrasts with and musically deviates from a material preceding and following it musically, lyrically, and vocally.
“Further, the instrumental accompaniment is significantly altered for the first two iterations of Phrase A to specify the full accompaniment including prominent percussion stops, abruptly here, reduced the musical activity to only the similar vocal phrase with a very sparse instrumental accompaniment.”
Therefore, Greensleeves, among other things, is requesting actual damages and profits “in an amount in excess of $1.5m to be determined at trial, plus interest.”
