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| by rocafan on 5/07/2004 10:04:00 AM |
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Time 2 Stand Up In Court
 Last week, a New Jersey indie label filed a shocking lawsuit in the
courts against Ludacris and super-producer Kanye West, alleging that
the chorus for "Stand Up" was jacked from one of their songs.
Though unable to elaborate on the suit for legal reasons, the label's
representatives, Jeff Billingsley and "Black", spoke exclusively to
SOHH.com on the incident. Billingsley, CEO of the New Jersey based
record label BMS Entertainment, claims Ludacris was handed a copy of
"Straight Like That," a song by BMS Entertainment recording artist
I.O.F, several times between August 2002 and May 2003. He also states
that Kanye West, the producer of Luda's hit "Stand Up," also received
a copy.
"We gave him the CD four times in well publicized places... BET
studios, MTV studios. Two members of IOF gave [Ludacris] the song
twice in the same place," Billingsley told SOHH.com via phone.
"Everybody from Method Man to Nore to Kevin Liles got CDs."
While "Stand Up" was released last fall, BMS stresses that "Straight
Like That" was recorded and copyrighted in 2000. According to BMS, the
resemblance between the tracks is so striking that heads initially
mistook Luda's cut for a revamped collaboration between the two parties.
"Somebody called us from down south and they were like, "Did you do a
song with Luda?" And then more and more people kept coming to us
asking us about it," Billingsley explained. "We sat down with the
group. We went and got a musicologist, who's worked with everyone from
Micheal Jackson to Julio Iglesias, in order to determine whether we
had a claim. We had to make sure we did this even before we got a lawyer."
Meanwhile, Black hopes to set a precedent with the suit by showing
that unsigned artists don't have to be victimized.
"This happens to a lot of unsigned artists," Black shared obviously
bothered. "It's not just us. We're trying to start a worldwide
movement for these kids that don't have a lot of money and don't have
a chance to represent themselves."
Thus far, BMS has taken all the steps to insure they are properly
prepared to face the courts. However, they emphasize that their
intentions are motivated by their honest belief they've been wronged
-- not to take gratuitous shots at Kanye West and Ludacris.
"The reason we're doing this is that we don't do business in a form
that allows somebody to feel comfortable stealing somebody's music.
We're the type to confront the issue head on. And we're taking every
step to make sure that it's taken care of legally," Billingsley
revealed. "We want to let the court decide. If the song was
copyrighted in 2000 we want the judge to be able to prove it. We
respect Ludacris and Kanye West. We're not trying to get at them just
cause they're getting some shine
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