C+C Music Factory Founder Hits Freedom Williams With $30 Million Trademark and Fraud Lawsuit

Robert Clivillés, one of the co-founders of C+C Music Factory, is suing rapper Freedom Williams over control of the 1990s dance group’s name.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday (Aug.

14) and obtained by Billboard , seeks $30 million in damages for claims including trademark infringement, fraud and defamation against Williams and indie label Big Mac Entertainment.

An attorney for Williams says there is not “any merit to the lawsuit whatsoever.” Related C+C Music Factory Rapper and Vanilla Ice Defend Playing Great American State Fair Show: ‘Super Honored To Do This Concert’ Clivillés co-founded C+C Music Factory alongside David Cole in 1990.

Williams rapped as a featured artist on a number of the group’s biggest hits, including the 1991 chart-topper “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” as well as “Here We Go” and “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm,” which hit No.

3 and No.

4 on the Billboard Hot 100 the same year.

Williams now performs solo under the C+C moniker, which he’s legally owned since registering it as a trademark in 2005.

This has long frustrated Clivillés, who first petitioned the U.S. federal trademark tribunal to cancel Williams’ trademark in 2016.

That case was dismissed due to a missed deadline by Clivillés’ then-lawyer.

Now he’s taking the matter into his own hands by filing a new federal lawsuit pro se, meaning without an attorney, that seeks to claw back the trademark from Williams.

In the Friday lawsuit, Clivillés alleges he became the sole owner of the C+C name after Cole died in 1995.

He claims that Williams fraudulently obtained his trademark by falsely claiming on application paperwork that the name belonged to him.

“These statements were materially false,” writes Clivillés in the complaint.