Lawsuits Against Sony Music and Elektra Entertainment Group
In March 2003, Debra Laws sued Sony Music Entertainment/Epic Records in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, over the use of samples from "Very Special" in Jennifer Lopez's recording of "All I Have" on her album This Is Me... Then. Although Sony had been granted permission to use the samples by Elektra Entertainment Group, which held the copyright to the song, Laws claimed that the use of her voice without her consent nonetheless violated her statuory and common law right of publicity under California law. In November 2003, Judge Lourdes Baird granted Sony Music's motion for summary judgment on the ground that Laws's state law claims were preempted by Section 301 of the United States Copyright Act. In 2006, that decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 2004, after losing the lawsuit against Sony Music, Laws and her production company, Spirit Productions, Inc. (which is owned and controlled by her brother, Hubert), sued Elektra Entertainment Group (as well as Elektra's parent company, Warner Music Group, and former parent, Warner Communications, Inc.), claiming that Elektra was contractually obligated to obtain their the Laws's consent before agreeing to allow the "Very Special" sound recording to be used in "All I Have (song)." Laws's claims were dismissed early in the case on res judicata grounds, and Spirit's claims settled in early 2007 on undisclosed terms.
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