Dancehall

Shenseea Settles “Foreplay” Lawsuit With Stephanie Sarley

Shenseea and Stephanie Sarley reached a settlement in her "Foreplay" music video copyright lawsuit

Shenseea
Shenseea / YouTube

Shenseea has settled her second lawsuit for the year as a notice of settlement was filed in the copyright infringement case brought by creator Stephanie Sarley.

Sarley is well known for her popular fruit porn videos where she uses fruits to simulate acts of penetration using her finger on the fruits. The artistic videos are meant to mirror masturbatory acts and she sued Shenseea in late 2022 after snippets of one of her videos appeared in the music video for Shenseea’s song “Foreplay” without her permission.

On Wednesday, the plaintiff’s lawyers filed a joint statement referencing an out-of-court settlement by Shenseea. The details of the settlement have not been disclosed.

Sarley was represented by attorneys Pietz & Shahriari, LLP, who revealed that the claim will not go forwards to trial because a “settlement to resolve all claims at issue in this case has been reached,” but that the settlement has not been formalized yet. The attorneys also sought the court’s jurisdiction to enforce the said settlement should the artist fail to comply with her undertaking.

Shenseea is presently signed to Interscope Records, which was named as a party to the lawsuit filed by Sarley. The claim had initially listed damages at S$450,000. The director of the music video, Marco Ruiz, also known as FrameXGod, was also added as a defendant as Shenseea and Interscope sought to indemnify themselves against him. Both defendants had denied culpability and blamed it on the music director as a third party expressing his own creative direction.

This is Shenseea’s second lawsuit for the year that she has settled. Back in March, she also settled another copyright infringement lawsuit brought over her “Lick” song with Megan Thee Stallion.

Producer Anastas ‘Pupa Nas-T’ Hackett had sued the rapper for the “Work” sample. Her manager Romeich Major had said that she received clearance from Denise Belfon to use the link “put yuh back in it, just a little more.”

However, it seems that the song was jointly owned by Belfon and Pupa Nas T, who claimed US$10 million in damages, profits, and legal fees.

It’s unclear how much money was received in that settlement, and the producer has not revealed the amount due to an NDA clause in the settlement agreement.