Bad Bunny Won’t Get $500K Legal Bill Repaid After Failed Lawsuit: ‘Would Send the Wrong Message’

A federal judge says Bad Bunny doesn’t deserve to be reimbursed nearly $500,000 he spent defeating a copyright lawsuit over an allegedly uncleared sample on Un Verano Sin Ti , ruling that such a penalty “would send the wrong message.” Bunny (Benito Martínez Ocasio) demanded Empawa Africa repay his hefty legal bill after it dropped a case he said “should never have been brought.” His lawyers said the sample was obviously cleared and that Empawa just wanted “an undeserved, multimillion-dollar settlement.” Related Bad Bunny Wins Dismissal of Lawsuit Claiming Uncleared Sample on ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’ Track HYBE Pledges Over $300k for Colombia Earthquake Recovery BE:FIRST Is Ready for the World: Inside the J-Pop Superstars' Long-Planned U.S.

Breakthrough But in a ruling Thursday (Aug.

20), a federal judge rejected those arguments, ruling that Empawa had filed an “objectively reasonable” lawsuit that might have succeeded if he had continued to litigate it — and that there was no evidence of any “ulterior motive.” “Defendants offer little besides conjecture to support their allegation that Empawa brought this action with ill-motive,” Judge Otis D.

Wright II wrote in a decision obtained and first reported by Billboard .

Filed last year, the case claimed Bunny’s “Enséñame a Bailar” off Un Verano Sin Ti included an uncleared sample of a 2019 track called “Empty My Pocket” by a Nigerian artist named Dera (Ezeani Godfrey).

The lawsuit was a big deal because Bunny’s album was a big deal — spending 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and more than 150 weeks total on the chart.

The star quickly argued he had done nothing wrong, saying he had properly cleared the sample with production company Lakizo Entertainment, another rightsholder on “Empty My Pocket.” Faced with that defense, Empawa effectively abandoned the case this spring.

But the superstar wasn’t ready to walk away that easily.

His lawyers demanded that Empawa reimburse the whopping $465,612 in attorney’s fees he and other defendants had racked up fighting the case, calling the lawsuit “meritless from the beginning” and aimed at generating “bad publicity” to win a payout.

Unlike most types of U.S. lawsuits, such “fee shifting” is available to people who win copyright cases.

Judges can award reimbursement when they feel an infringement lawsuit was particularly groundless, or filed with an improper motive.

But in Thursday’s decision, Judge Wright said Empawa’s lawsuit against Bunny was hardly such a case.