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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Kanye West Cleared of Claims Over Film Title

(CN) — Rapper Kanye West and music producer Damon Dash did not violate a Latin band's trademark when they made a movie called "Loisaidas," a federal judge ruled.

Michael Medina started an urban bachata band called Loisaidas in 2008. The name refers to residents of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, or "Lower East Siders."

The band has a nationwide following, and its music has been ranked on Billboard magazine's Latin Tropical Airplay chart. Medina trademarked the Loisaidas name in 2012.

West and Dash produced a movie called "Loisaidas" in 2015, along with a musical soundtrack. The movie's logo includes the capitalized word "Loisaidas" depicted as a skyline above a handgun.

In his trademark infringement lawsuit, Medina claimed market confusion, stating that West and Dash's work is a series of music videos by a competing band with the same name as his own.

West and Dash argued that their "Loisaidas" is an eight-episode story about a turf war over the drug business.

Rappers Murda Mook and Smoke DZA act as characters in the movie, but they also perform songs.

The Southern District New York Federal Court granted West and Dash's motion to dismiss on Thursday, noting that "Loisaidas" is used in their film as a place, not as a group of people.

"In the third episode, the narrator refers to being 'downtown in Loisaidas' and states that 'Loisaidas was the place to be," Judge Katherine B. Forrest wrote. "The seventh episode ends with Murda Mook rapping that he's 'from Loisaidas.'"

She added that the term "Loisaidas" was "artistically relevant" and "not explicitly misleading."

"The complaint is devoid of concrete allegations that defendants attempted to suggest that plaintiff's duo produced the work; to the contrary, as evidenced by Exhibit D to the operative complaint, materials promoting the film prominently informed the reader that it was 'Executive Produced: Dame Dash & Kanye West,'" Forrest wrote.

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