Three 6 Mafia, $uicideboy$ Settle Massive $6.4M Lawsuit

Photo Credit: Three 6 Mafia by Jay West / CC by 3.0

Three 6 Mafia has settled their massive copyright infringement lawsuit with $uicideboy$ over the alleged sampling of 35 songs without permission.

Juicy J and DJ Paul of Three 6 Mafia have settled their $6.4 million copyright lawsuit with Scrim of $uicideboy$, originally filed in September 2020. The lawsuit alleged the unlicensed sampling of 35 songs.

Three 6 Mafia has served as the cornerstone inspiration for numerous artists since the early 1990s. But the group felt it went beyond mere inspiration when 35 different samples from their music were used by New Orleans rap duo $uicideboy$, allegedly without permission.

But now, according to a recent court filing, the artists can finally put the five-year legal battle behind them. Both parties have reached a settlement, and “this case has been settled in its entirety […], and all claims and all issues and controversies […] have been resolved in their mutual satisfaction,” the documents read.

It’s notable that Juicy J has worked with $uicideboy$ before. Regardless, when Three 6 Mafia first filed the lawsuit, $uicideboy$ (Ruby da Cherry and Scrim) claimed that the group doesn’t even own the copyrights over which they were suing. They further alleged that Juicy J never even paid them for their work on his mixtapes, instead relying on a verbal agreement that the duo could sample Three 6 Mafia’s work in exchange for the mixtape work.

Back in 2016, producer and EDM artist Deadmau5 accused $uicideboy$ of copyright infringement following the success of their song “Antarctica,” which samples his track “I Remember” with Kaskade. At the time, the DJ spoke out on social media about the matter, accusing the duo of “publicizing other people’s intellectual property without consent.”

Ultimately, the rappers removed the song from both YouTube and SoundCloud after millions of plays, and no further action was taken. In September 2021, the song was cleared for streaming after nearly four years, just in time for their Grey Day Tour.