Songwriters Braindon Cooper and Drum’n Skillz, who sued Chris Brown and Drakein 2021 for copyright infringement over the use of the phrase “you got it” in their hit song “No Guidance,” have now dropped the Toronto rap star from the suit entirely.
Drizzy and Breezy initially scoffed at the lawsuit, calling it “baseless” and previously requested a federal judge to dismiss it. As the suit dragged on into the new year, lawyers for the hitmakers issued a new filing in March 2021 aimed at Cooper, who has continued to allege “No Guidance” was illegally pulled from his 2016 song “I Love Your Dress.”
As reported by Billboard, it remains unclear why Drizzy has since been dropped from the lawsuit. Neither side’s attorneys returned requests for comment from the outlet. Lawyers for Drake and Brown have continued to claim there was no way the pair could have heard Cooper’s 2016 track and argued the phrase “you got it” was too obscure to warrant a legitimate copyright infringement suit. Cooper’s lawyers pushed back at this argument in February, calling it “egotistical and without any legal basis whatsoever” to assume the platinum-selling pair hadn’t heard Cooper’s song.
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Brown’s lawyer, James G. Sammataro, rebutted by saying it was egotistical to assume his client had listened to all “82 million songs on Spotify.”
“This is not a close call,” Sammataro wrote in the March filing obtained by Rolling Stone. “Posting a song on the internet — such that the song is 1 out of 82 million songs on Spotify or posted by one of Instagram’s 1 billion users — and a one-time public performance do not constitute widespread dissemination as a matter of law.”
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“No Guidance” was off of Chris Brown’s ninth album Indigo and dropped on June 8, 2019. The single spent 46 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 5. The song was later nominated Best R&B Song at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. A Florida judge has yet to rule on the dismissal.
Listen to both tracks below.
