French Montana Scores Appeals Court Win in Copyright Lawsuit

French Montana. Photo Credit: Epic Records

Perhaps French Montana should have settled his “Ain’t Worried About Nothin’” infringement suit, as an appeals court has affirmed his victory while also opting against awarding nearly $300,000 in sought attorneys’ fees.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit just recently handed down the decision, thereby addressing appeals from both sides. Beginning with a bit of quick background here, the plaintiff, one Eddie Richardson (aka Hotwire the Producer), said he’d uploaded an effort called “*HOOD* Pushin’ Weight” to beats marketplace SoundClick back in 2012.

16 at the time, Richardson didn’t copyright the work out of the gate, but after noticing allegedly distinct similarities between it and Montana’s aforementioned “Ain’t Worried About Nothin’” (2013). It probably doesn’t need saying in light of the over half-decade courtroom confrontation, but the filing party didn’t authorize the alleged use of his creation (the complaint specifically mentioned producer Rico Love) in the newer track.

Unfortunately for the same party, he copyrighted the actual recording – not the underlying composition. The district court emphasized as much when dismissing the suit at the top of 2024 – while also acknowledging “apparent similarities” between the releases and spelling out that the “case might have been very different” with a compositional registration.

Despite the litigation’s not-great optics, French Montana (real name Karim Kharbouch) and his team plowed ahead with a request for legal fees, to the tune of an eye-watering $296,745.30.

But the presiding judge gave the green light to only $1,904.75 in costs (hence Team Montana’s appeal); Richardson, on the other hand, appealed the dismissal itself, including on local-rules grounds.

“There was no abuse of discretion here,” the appellate court explained on the local-rules front. “Both parties failed to adhere to the applicable rules and ran the substantial risk of their opponent’s proposed facts being deemed admitted. The district court refrained from enforcing the local rules against Richardson and Kharbouch. As such, the court’s decision benefitted Richardson as much as it did Kharbouch.”

Elsewhere in the decision, the appeals panel concurred with the district court’s recording-composition distinctions: “Evidence that the works contained the same generic sounds without specific facts about those sounds’ origins may be sufficient to show infringement of a musical composition copyright, but not a sound recording copyright.”

(The court also agreed “with Richardson that HPW’s beat, to the naked ear, seems indistinguishable from the beat in AWAN.”)

Finally, regarding attorneys’ fees, the appellate court backed the existing lower-court ruling on several levels.

“The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Kharbouch’s motion,” it wrote of one such angle. “The district court, which is closest to the factual record and the litigating parties, explicitly acknowledged the strong presumption in favor of fees and thoroughly explained why it concluded that the Fogerty factors disfavored an award in this case.”