R & B star wins in Michigan court

R & B star Mary J. Blige has again won a lawsuit filed in Michigan court claiming copyright infringement for her 2001 song Family Affair. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling from the federal district court in Ann Arbor that Blige and Universal Records had not stolen the song from Michigan producers. See the full ruling here.

The suit was filed by music producers Leonard Jones and James White, claiming that the song, from Blige’s 2001 album No More Drama, was taken from a song they had recorded with a local rap artist. That song was called Party Ain’t Crunk. The producers had sent a copy of that song as a demo to an executive at Universal Records, Blige’s record company, in May, 2001. Blige’s album was released in August of that year.

The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, Blige and the record company, because the producer of the track, Dr. Dre, had documented with studio logs and recordings that he had created the music for the track in nearly its final form in January, 2001. The court also concluded that “no reasonable juror could find the lyrics of the two songs to be substantially similar.”