Judge Nathan Is Still Dope, Likes to Party and Bullshit

Judge Alison Nathan is staking a claim to the title of most hiphop jurist. Much like MC Shan she is down by law. The last time G:TB checked in with Judge Nathan was when she let the Beastie Boys off the hook on a copyright infringement claim. Once again (back is the incredible!) Judge Nathan decided a case involving a hiphop legend arising under 17 U.S.C. §§ 101 et seq.

Abiodun Oyewole wrote a song called "When the Revolution Comes" in 1968 and released it as a member of the group The Last Poets.



Around 2:10 the song goes "But until then you know and I know n****s will party and bullshit and party and bullshit and party and bullshit and party and bullshit and party ...." Fans of hiphop might recognize this from Biggie Smalls's song "Party and Bullshit."



Even if you don't recognize it, Mr. Oyewole did and he sued Biggie's estate. Mo money mo problems indeed! While he was at it he sued Rita Ora too because her song "How We Do (Party") also starts with the lines "party and bullshit."



Mr. Oyewole is aggrieved by both songs's use of the phrase "party and bullshit" from an IP perspective but also from a political perspective. According to his complaint, Biggie and Rita Ora used the phrase "party and bullshit" "in contravention" of Mr. Oyewole's original purpose, which was to "encourage[e] people to NOT waste time with 'party and bullshit."

Unfortunately for Mr. Oyewole, he hired what appears to be the worst lawyer admitted to the Southern District of New York. Seriously--she spelled her name wrong at least once in her online bio. If your lawyer can't spell her name correctly you can't expect her to lawyer correctly. Predictably, Biggie and Rita Ora (and the other big-time defendants including EMI and a Sony affiliate) won. In some cases, brutally.

For example, Kobalt Music and Downtown Music won under FRCP 12(b)(5), which is insufficient service of process. I've never seen this before. To prevent your case from being dismissed under Rule 12(b)(5), you just have to download the summons form and serve it with your complaint on the defendant. The form includes blanks for the name of the court, the names of the plaintiffs and defedants, the name and address of the plaintiff's attorney, and a place where you get the clerk of the court to sign it when you file the complaint. Somehow or other, Mr. Oyewale's attorney didn't fill out the blanks for some of the summonses. She also used some jackass process server who didn't serve the summonses on people authorized to receive service, like an officer or director of the company or their registered agent. It is stunning. Yet another reason why you shouldn't use a lawyer with a gmail address.

Judge Nathan dismissed the claims against the other defendants as fair use, turning the complaint against Mr. Oyewole because it alleged that Biggie and Rita Ora used the phrase "party and bullshit" "in contravention" of Mr. Oyewole's original purpose, which was to "encourage[e] people to NOT waste time with 'party and bullshit." Thus he admitted that their use was transformative and therefore constituted fair use. Again, really bad lawyering.

More remarkably, the 21 page opinion uses the word "bullshit" 60 times. That's almost three bullshits per page! It also uses the N word three times, exclusively while quoting lyrics, and with the final letters of the word replaced with asterisks. I think this shows good judgment--failure to do so would've been bullshit. Puns!