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Shabba Ranks

Shabba Ranks performing at Reggae Land at Milton Keynes Bowl, Milton Keynes, UK on 3 August 2024.David Corio/Redferns

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1990s Jamaican dancehall star Shabba Ranks has launched a court battle over his publishing rights.

Shabba (born Rexton Gordon) sued the publishing arm of reggae label Greensleeves Records on Friday (Sept. 11). The lawsuit, obtained and first reported by Billboard, aims to reclaim compositions including the Billboard Hot 100 hits “Slow and Sexy”, “Housecall”, “Mr. Loverman” and “Let’s Get It On.” Shabba’s catalog also includes the 1990 song “Dem Bow”, the namesake for reggaetón’s iconic “dembow” rhythm that is currently at the center of a long-running copyright infringement lawsuit entangling the entire genre.

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Friday’s lawsuit, meanwhile, centers on copyright termination — the provision of U.S. copyright law that enables authors to claw back their intellectual property decades after signing it away. Labels and publishers have a habit of fighting back when musicians invoke this right, often leading to litigation.

Such is the case here. Shabba first notified Greensleeves in 2023 that he wanted to exercise his termination right, but the publisher said no. According to Greensleeves, Shabba’s 1989 publishing deal stipulated that his compositions were “works made for hire,” which are explicitly excluded from the copyright termination statute.

Shabba, however, is contesting the validity of that work-for-hire provision, and he wants a judge to declare that his copyright termination is effective regardless.

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“The compositions are not and could not have been works made for hire under the U.S. Copyright Act, regardless of the language of the assignment,” wrote Shabba’s attorneys at Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt. “Gordon was never at any time an employee of [Greensleeves], and musical compositions are not recognized in the U.S. Copyright Act as a type of work that can be deemed a work made for hire simply by agreement between the hiring party and a non-employee author.”

Reps for Shabba and Greensleeves did not immediately return requests for comment on the lawsuit Friday.

Copyright termination is a hot topic in music law right now. Salt-N-Pepa is battling Universal Music Group (UMG) over the provision in a case that has caught the industry’s attention. Meanwhile, all three major labels are currently trying to get the Supreme Court to reverse a controversial recent ruling that extended the termination right overseas.