{"id":678390,"date":"2026-03-24T13:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/678390\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:18:14","slug":"bad-bunny-seeks-466000-legal-bill-reimbursement-after-copyright-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/678390\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny Seeks $466,000 Legal Bill Reimbursement After Copyright Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBad Bunny<\/a> is asking a court to order record label emPawa Africa to pay $465,612 in legal fees after he triumphed in a copyright\u00a0case<\/a> over his\u00a0Un Verano Sin Ti<\/a>\u00a0track \u201cEns\u00e9\u00f1ame a Bailar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe\u00a0lawsuit was filed last May<\/a>\u00a0by the Nigerian producer Dera (Ezeani Chidera Godfrey), who alleged the song included an\u00a0uncleared sample of a 2019<\/a>\u00a0track he produced for the artist Joeboy, \u201cEmpty My Pocket.\u201d After Godfrey failed to appear at a Feb. 5 discovery hearing and missed a March 6 filing to continue the case, however, the presiding judge dismissed the suit on March 9.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe blown deadline and missed hearing came after Godfrey\u2019s lawyers withdrew from the case in January, citing \u201cirreparable differences\u201d over legal strategies (per\u00a0Billboard<\/a>). Godfrey\u2019s label, emPawa Africa, was dismissed as a plaintiff from the case in February for also missing deadlines.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a motion filed on Monday, March 23, and obtained by Rolling Stone, Bad Bunny\u2019s attorneys stated that the case was \u201cmeritless from the beginning and should never have been brought.\u201d They argued that \u201cEmpawa filed and aggressively litigated it, apparently hoping that Bad Bunny\u2019s wealth, prominence, and desire to avoid attorneys\u2019 fees and bad publicity would enable Empawa to extract an undeserved, multi-million-dollar settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Puerto Rican artist\u2019s legal team reiterated that the sample was obtained with permission from Lakizo Entertainment, which had distributed the song at one point. His lawyers claimed that when the label was asked to present evidence in the discovery process, emPawa Africa made \u201cfrivolous objections\u201d and stalled. Ultimately, the motion states that an ex parte application was filed by the label\u2019s counsel to withdraw from the case and emPawa Africa abandoned the suit rather \u201cthan hire new counsel and respond to the discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen faced with an imminent court order that would require it to explain how it owned Empty and Lakizo did not, Empawa chose instead to abandon its claims altogether,\u201d read Monday\u2019s motion. \u201cThat it did not find a replacement counsel to prosecute its claims after its original counsel withdrew speaks volumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBad Bunny\u2019s team claimed that the label attempted to \u201cconfuse the public about\u201d the singer\u2019s \u201cintegrity and the true ownership of Ens\u00e9\u00f1ame.\u201d His lawyers argued that without an award of the requested attorney\u2019s fees, emPawa Africa will \u201csuffer no consequence \u2013 and Moving Defendants will have been penalized substantially \u2013 as a result of Empawa\u2019s decision to file and pursue this meritless lawsuit in disregard of the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tBad Bunny is not seeking a fee award from Godfrey, who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit. A footnote in the motion elaborates on the decision: \u201cIt is Moving Defendants\u2019 belief that this co-plaintiff, Ezeani Chidera Godfrey p\/k\/a Dera, was not primarily responsible for the prosecution of the lawsuit, nor did he finance the lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for Bad Bunny and emPawa Africa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny is asking a court to order record label emPawa Africa to pay $465,612 in legal fees…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":678391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[71844,185,356,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-678390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-bad-bunny","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116284352963315671","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}