Songwriter, Mason Hall, filed a lawsuit against Lionsgate and Interscope LeBron LLC on Tuesday, September 6, 2011, in Georgia Federal Court stating he is the author of a copyright composition entitled, “We Ready.” This alleged copyright infringement lawsuit against Lionsgate, et al is over a piece of music that was allegedly used without permission (a license) in a documentary entitled “More Than A Game”, which chronicles the rise to stardom of LeBron James beginning with his high school years in Ohio. The original song that Hall wrote was performed by Archie Eversole.
According to Eriq Gardner, Hall is seeking an injunction to prevent further damage, which includes barring the distribution of the film by Lionsgate. Additionally, he is requesting punitive damages and profits from the movie in excess of $1million, or the maximum statutory damages allowed for copyright infringement. (Hollywood Reporter, 2011)
Hall has an tough battle ahead to prove these allegations. First, he has to prove that the song that was used in this documentary is the song he authored. Although the chant, “We Ready”, used by LeBron and his teammates is similar, the song performed by YaBoy is clearly different.
According to Ben Golliver, “YaBoy can definitely make a solid argument that his song was inspired by James and his team's actions rather than the Eversole song itself, considering he references the players in his lyrics. Perhaps most important: the beats in the two songs are different, the verse lyrics in YaBoy's version are totally new and the chorus, while very similar, isn't a word-for-word rip off.” (CBSSports.com, 2011)
Next, Hall would have to provide supporting evidence that he obtained a license from Steam to use their famous melody. This is important to know because with the theory of “clean hands”, Hall could not sue for the infringement of two words if he did not obtain a license for the famous notes taken from Steam’s song, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye."
According to Glenn, because the phrase “We Ready” is a common vernacular of the English language, copyright law may not protect it. Even if the court should find that it is protected as a part of Hall’s song, the court may still decide that the phrase was so minimal (de minimis) in comparison to the entirety of the work that the average person could not know the original source of the phrase and therefore it would not be protected. (Sports and Entertainment Law Blog, 2011)
I also believe the Georgia Federal Court will be faced with the task of balancing the scales when determining policy considerations for discouraging copyright infringements claims with the decision to grant copyright infringement claims because this could open the door to other possible frivolous, insignificant infringement claims, also known as the “slippery slope.” On the other hand, this could have all been avoided if the legal team at Lionsgate would have done their “due diligence” by conducting a comprehensive search to determine whether the song was licensed by someone else and paid to license the song, which would have been far less expensive than the costs associated with litigation, especially time and money. If the case is ultimately dismissed, expenses will still be incurred to defend their position.
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