Bad Bunny and his label, Rimas Entertainment, have asked a US federal judge to reconsider a ruling that is keeping them in a copyright lawsuit over reggaeton’s “dembow” rhythm.
In a motion filed on Wednesday (July 15), which you can read in full here, the two defendants asked the US District Court for the Central District of California to reconsider its July 1 order, or, failing that, to certify the question for immediate appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
The July 1 order, from Judge André Birotte Jr., denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and found that only a jury could decide whether the plaintiffs’ claimed rhythm is original and protectable.
The plaintiffs, led by Cleveland “Clevie” Browne of the production duo Steely & Clevie, allege infringement of a “combination of many rhythms on different instruments acting all in concert to form an entire protectable section of music.”
The defendants – Bad Bunny and Rimas – argue that no single musical work owned by the plaintiffs contains that combination.
They say the plaintiffs have assembled a “Frankenstein” from three separate works: two compositions, Fish Market and Dem Bow, and a sound recording, Pounder (Dub Mix II).
None of the three, the motion says, contains all seven of the elements the court has labeled the “Fish Market Elements.”
The Rimas defendants stress that one of the three works, Pounder, is claimed only as a sound recording.
They cite Section 114(b) of the US Copyright Act, which they say means a sound recording copyright guards only against copying of that exact recording, not the composition beneath it.
The motion leans on a comment Judge Birotte made at the start of the summary judgment hearing.
“I think there’s no single work that contains all of the ‘Fish Market’ elements,” Birotte said, according to the transcript quoted in the motion.
“So how do you reconcile that with the notion that we need to have a coherent pattern? It seems to be problematic,” Birotte added.
The motion argues that the July 1 order sidestepped that question, ruling on whether the plaintiffs’ arrangement is original without first deciding whether it exists in any single work they own.
The filing also points to an admission by Browne, who it says acknowledged that the timbale loop at the center of the claim was “taken from two different segments of Fish Market.”
Those two segments, the motion states, sit 20 bars apart.
The Rimas defendants add that even a ruling in their favor would leave the plaintiffs’ separate sound recording infringement claims to be litigated.
If the judge declines to reconsider, the motion asks him to certify the question for immediate appeal to the Ninth Circuit under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).
Bad Bunny‘s lawyers argue the issue is a controlling question of law on which judges could disagree, and say resolving it now could spare the parties a “substantial similarity analysis of over one thousand works.”
The lawsuit names more than 150 artists, including Karol G, Daddy Yankee, Drake, Luis Fonsi and Justin Bieber, as well as units of Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group.
A second phase of the case will test whether songs such as Despacito, Tití Me Preguntó and Dame Tu Cosita copied Steely & Clevie‘s Fish Market.
The plaintiffs say their 1989 track Fish Market is the source of the “dembow” beat that runs through reggaeton.
Bad Bunny ranked as the No. 2 artist in the US by on-demand audio streams through the first quarter of 2026, according to Luminate data reported by MBW.
The motion is scheduled to be heard on August 14.Music Business Worldwide
