Opinion ID: 2977607
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendants’ creation of “Family Affair”

Text: “Family Affair” is the second song on Blige’s album entitled No More Drama, which was released for commercial sale by Universal on August 28, 2001 and registered with the Copyright Office on September 17, 2001. Blige is a nationally known artist, and No More Drama was a commercial success, selling more than two million copies. The musical (non-lyrical) portion of “Family Affair” was created by Andre Young, a producer and performer of rap and hip-hop music publicly known as “Dr. Dre.” Young was originally named as a defendant in this case, but the district court dismissed the claims against him for lack of personal jurisdiction, a ruling that Plaintiffs do not appeal. As a producer, Young typically creates musical tracks in a studio with several other musicians and then provides those tracks to other artists who record vocals over them. Young created an initial version of the musical portion of “Family Affair” on September 13, 2000, as evidenced by a studio log and a recording bearing that date. Young testified that he created this initial version in a studio with a bass player and a keyboard player. The studio engineers working with Young entitled this version of the song “Fragile” for record-keeping purposes. Several months later, on January 10, 2001, “Fragile” was transferred from digital to analog format and, by that point, had been renamed “Family Affair.” Young testified that either Blige or her brother, songwriter Nos. 07-1051/1566 Jones et al. v. Blige et al. Page 5 Bruce Miller, supplied the new name. The January 10, 2001 version of the non-lyrical portion of “Family Affair” was in near-final form. Young and Blige had previously agreed to collaborate on a song, and near the end of 2000, Young sent her the music-only version of “Family Affair.” Blige recorded vocals over the music. At Young’s suggestion, Blige later added a bridge—a transitional passage that connects two parts of a song. Blige testified that she wrote the lyrics for the bridge, while her brother and a team of writers (which would have included defendants Lewis and Lodge) wrote the rest of the lyrics to “Family Affair.” She stated that she created her contribution of the lyrics to “Family Affair” in late May or early June of 2001.