Chris Brown Album Gets Red Light + 50 Cent Sued Over Mixtape Sample?!

SOHH Whatcha Think: Chris Brown Album Gets Red Light + 50 Cent Sued Over Mixtape Sample?!

Sunday, Apr 22, 2012 2:00AM

Written by Jeezis Peace

As the kid 50 tries to get his album into stores, he was recently hit with a suit filed by a band claiming the G-Unit boss borrowed their sound without going through the proper channels.

[Editor's Note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of SOHH.com]

According to a report that hit the web this past weekend, a member of the R&B group The Persuaders wants 600K from Curtis Jackson for sampling his band's music for a track that appeared on a 2009 mixtape.

Famed rapper and all-around tech businessman 50 Cent is being sued by Robert Poindexter of the R&B band The Persuaders for allegedly sampling one of his band's tracks and then not paying for the sample. It was TMZ that first espied the legal papers.They reportedly refer to the rapper as "50 Cents." The song in question, "Love Gonna Pack Up And Walk Out," was allegedly sampled on a 2009 track called "Redrum" and then included on a mixtape called "War Drum" that 50 Cent posted online for free. Poindexter is demanding $600,000 in punitive damages, as well as statutory damages of an unexpressed amount.(Cnet)

Media outlets are reporting that 50 feels he should not pay up, since the song made him zero dollars, at it was part of a noncommercial project.

He said in the sui! t: "Fift y Cents [sic] has not denied the infringement, but appears to be basing his defense solely on a frivolous and immaterial claim that the illegal version is not being commercially exploited, but is given away for free."(NME)

This case raises an interesting question: With mixtapes being so popular nowadays, should free albums be safe from litigation, even if they sample music from a commercial artist?

In other news ... Chris Brown came off one hell of a year in 2011. But some are wondering if his recent album pushback announcement has anything to do with the recent phone snatching incident that occured in Florida.

Bad news for Team Breezy. Chris Brown has pushed back the release date of his fifth album 'Fortune' until the summer. The R&B crooner went on his Twitter page today (April 22) to announce that he will delay its release by two months. Brown gave no reason why he wanted to push back the release date. The singer was on a roll for the past several weeks, dropping a slew of tracks from the 'Fortune' album. The last songs, 'Til I Die' and 'Sweet Love,' garnered major hits on the Internet ... We wonder if the delay has anything to do with the iPhone-snatching incident a couple of months ago. Prosecutors are still investigating the case. Who knows?(Pop Crush)

Miami officials are still looking into the incident, in which a Breezy fan claims her phone was snatched by the Grammy winning artist after she took one too many candid photos outside a club.

[Editor's Note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of SOHH]