BY RICHARD JOHNSON—
Senior staff reporter—
FLOURGON…I’m really thankful for the hard work of my lawyers—
Amidst reports of a huge payout for Jamaican deejay Flourgon following a settlement in the lawsuit against American pop star Miley Cyrus, his attorneys from the New York-based law firm Drummond and Squillace are downplaying the matter which has gone viral on both social media as well as mainstream news outlets.
In an interview with the Jamaica Observer, attorneys Stephen Drummond and JoAnn Squillace referred to reports of a US$300-million pay out for their client, whose given name is Michael May, as being exaggerated and speculative, but confirmed that the case had been resolved.
“The case has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties. To the extent that there are any reports that Mr May received a monetary windfall in connection with the settlement, those reports are highly exaggerated and speculative,” said the attorneys.
Meanwhile, there are concerns for the safety of the artiste following the reports of the settlement. Flourgon has reportedly been receiving calls from all over the world since the story broke.
On Friday, a Reuters news agency report detailed that Cyrus had settled the copyright infringement lawsuit in which she was accused of stealing for her 2013 hit We Can’t Stop from Flourgon’s song We Run Things, which he recorded a quarter century earlier, in 1988.
Cyrus and her label RCA Records were accused of misappropriating material including the phrase We run things. Things no run we, as carried in Flourgon’s 1988 song, which she sang as We run things. Things don’t run we on her track. Cyrus’ song was written and produced by a team which included Rock City, an American musical duo from St Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The duo consists of brothers Theron “Uptown AP” Thomas and Timothy “AI” Thomas.
In a interview with the Observer two weeks ago, the deejay and his legal team steered clear from any definitive answers regarding the settlement of the case.
“I’m really thankful for the hard work of my lawyers… Mr Drummond and his team. I’m really grateful for what has happened; I am really happy because my lawyers worked very hard. What I did was to make sure that other artistes in Jamaica may try their best to protect their thing. Whenever time people try to use our music we must go forward and protect our thing and collect what we are supposed to collect because we work hard. They take it as a habit to just use Jamaican music without permission. So Flourgon has put out the work with my team and I want other artistes to do the same. So when people see our music they must deal with it proper so we can have what we work for,” Flourgon said.
Speaking then, the Jamaica-born Drummond noted that he was optimistic of the outcome, but declined to say whether the settlement was reached via the courts or through mediation.
“In light of everything that has taken place, we are looking forward to an amicable settlement, one that will see all sides being pleased,” he told the Observer.
Produced by Redman International, We Run Things was one of the biggest dancehall songs of 1988. However, Flourgon did not register it until 2017, four years after Cyrus released her song.
Cyrus and her team had responded with at least three arguments why Flourgon’s claim was invalid. They argued that a single lyric is not protected by copyright, that Cyrus’s use of it was fair, and that the deejay’s lyric in We Run Things is not original. However, Flourgon and his team earned a lifeline when American magistrate Robert Lehrburger suggested that his colleague Lewis Kaplan, the district judge assigned to hear the matter, not dismiss the case on summary judgement as recommended by Cyrus’s legal team, even though her “fair use” defence is probably sound.
Lehrburger said that Kaplan should halt the motion by Cyrus’s team to have the matter dismissed immediately. He added that Kaplan might want to limit any damages claimed by Flourgon to just the three years before he filed his lawsuit last year.
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