neil mathis's List: TRUTH HURTS ADDICTIVE SAMPLE CLEARANCE

• Universal Music Group, to the tune of more than $500 million over the use of an unlicensed sample on “Addictive,” the first single from Truth Hurts’ debut LP, Truthfully Speaking.
• A lawyer retained by Calcutta’s Saregama India Limited filed a copyright infringement lawsuit — which also names as defendants the album’s producer, Dr. Dre, and his Aftermath Records imprint — in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, on September 12.
• Addictive” uses a sample of the 20-year-old song “Thoda Resham Lagta Hai” by the popular Indian artist Lata Mangeshkar without permission from copyright holder Saregama India Ltd., attorney Dedra S. Davis claims
• Not only was a snippet of Mangeshkar’s soaring vocals borrowed, but the hook, melody and rhythm were also lifted, Davis alleges.
• Davis said she issued Universal Music Group a cease-and-desist letter prior to filing the suit, which the label conglomerate ignored. Additionally, Seregama India Ltd.’s copyright manager asked UMG to stop using the sample because the lyrics of “Addictive,” in which rapper Rakim drops the F-bomb in his rhymes and Truth sings the lines “I like it rough” and “He makes me scream,” were potentially offensive to some Indians’ cultural and religious sensibilities.

• Coincidentally, UMG’s foreign subsidiary Universal India sought and was granted permission to license the song for an unrelated use as a cover 12 days before Truthfully Speaking was released June 26, furthering the suit’s claim that “the defendants clearly and admittedly knew their activities were, and currently are, infringing on [Seragama's] copyrighted work.”

   
• The 90-year-old production and distribution company is seeking monetary damages based on profits from the sale of Truthfully Speaking, the single “Addictive,” attorney’s fees and punitive damages amounting to $500 million. Truthfully Speaking has sold more than 273,000 copies, according to SoundScan.
• “I woke up one morning, … I turned on the TV and landed on this Hindi channel and just turned it up real loud,” Quik explained this past summer. “There was a commercial on, and I just got up and went into the bathroom and started brushing my teeth. I’m brushing, and before I knew it, I was grooving. … [The beat on the TV] was just in my body. I went back in there and looked at the TV — there was a girl on there bellydancing, just like real fly. So I pushed record on the VCR.”

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• A famed Indian composer has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the recent hit single "Addictive" by Truth Hurts featuring Rakim borrowed heavily and without permission from a 20-year-old Hindi song.
• The lawsuit also charges American producers, including hip-hop impresario Dr. Dre, with practicing a form of "cultural imperialism" by not crediting Third World artists.
  
• the defendants named in the lawsuit include Aftermath parent Interscope and the Universal Music Group.
• Lahiri claims that the producers of "Addictive" lifted four minutes of the original recording by Indian artist Lata Mangeshkar of the song "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai."
• They literally superimposed their own drum track and lyrics over the beat," said Lahiri's lawyer Anthony Kornarens. "It's not just a small loop."
• Truth Hurts' album has sold about 600,000 copies since it was released in June, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "Addictive," produced by DJ Quik, was released as a single and reached No. 2 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart and No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Saregama India Ltd., the Bombay-based film and music company that produced the original recording of Lahiri's song, filed its own suit last month in federal court in Houston, seeking $500 million in damages.
  

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• "Addictive" is a 2002 single recorded by Truth Hurts for Dr. Dre's Aftermath label.
• The song was her only one to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number nine, and selling over 600,000 copies in the US.
• $500 million lawsuit against Aftermath.
• It was also a top five hit in UK, France and Switzerland, and went gold in several countries.
• Quik sampled for its instrumental track a Hindi-song he heard on television early one morning.
• Steve "Static" Garrett wrote the song's lyrics, and the record was produced by DJ Quik.
• The sample turned out to be "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai", a 1981 song by Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar, which Aftermath neglected to clear the rights to.
• On September 12, 2002, Saregama filed a $500 million lawsuit against Aftermath and parent company Universal Music Group, and filed an injunction to prevent further performances or broadcasts of the "Addictive" song.^[2][3]
• Though very little was changed from "Kaliyon Ka Chaman", Truth Hurts' version was more marketable for mainstream Western release and therefore became more popular across the Western world whilst the original cover version was largely unknown in English-speaking markets.

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