Fat Joe's legal dispute over his 2016 hit song "All The Way Up" has become even more interesting hatched with a missing contract and a $5,000 payment made in an IHOP restaurant.

This is a major update in an ongoing story in which the song artist Eric "Fly Havana" Elliott applied to receive credit and royalties for his share of the song.

That ruling by a judge was the most recent in a series of developments ordered to keep Elliott's copyright claim alive — in which he has sought to prove to remain locked in battle convincingly over the status of co-authorship.

According to AllHipHop, while it wasn't able to pursue all the state law claims, including on a technicality involving lack of diversity jurisdiction, the court determined that his copyright case had sufficient ground to advance.

Songwriter Elliott, based in Miami, says he came up with "All The Way Up" in a four-to-five studio session with producer Shandel "Infared" Green at the end of 2015. Elliott states that he came up with the words, wrote the music, and came up with the hook of the song. He then says he intentionally let the song be sent on for Fat Joe and French Montana, thinking it would be a collaborative effort.

Elliott was apparently not credited as a contributor to the song when it was released in March 2016 and actually was not paid any royalties. Elliott says after calling out Fat Joe, the rapper stepped up and agreed to do right by him.

Elliott met up at an IHOP in Miami Beach, and Fat Joe allegedly handed Elliott a check for $5,000, with the check memo reading "write."

Elliott subsequently signed an agreement but claims that it only transferred limited rights and that neither side can find its signed copy of that document.

Referencing Fat Joe, Remy Ma, Warner Chappell Music, Universal Music Group, and Roc Nation as co-defendants, the lawsuit states that Elliott has no rights to the music at issue. Even if true, contend the plaintiffs, he is not a co-writer under copyright law.

Things got a lot more interesting in 2022 when, on appeal, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an earlier order that had thrown out Elliott's claims based on the nonappearance of the contract.

Revived Lawsuit

As a result of this ruling, he was able to pursue the right to co-authorship and ownership rights in relation to the Copyright Act.

Their latest victory — a ruling earlier this week from Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald — is viewed as an affirmation of the firm's position. While the court rejected his state law claims for fraud, unjust enrichment, negligence, and conversion, it preserved his copyright claims. This ruling indicates that Elliott has established sufficient evidence to make his case for co-authorship.

If Elliott can prove his contributions to the song, he may have a claim to a portion of the massive royalties that "All The Way Up" has generated, which is the most successful single from Fat Joe, going triple platinum, even earning Grammy nominations.

The case now enters the discovery phase, during which each side must unearth contracts, communications, and other evidence that might bolster or compromise Elliott's claims.

As Judge Buchwald ruled, missing from this list is the IHOP contract and the $5,000 payment, which will be one of the key foci in upcoming hearings.

Although the fight for the rights to "All The Way Up" isn't finished, that missing document could potentially decide if Elliott will be paid any of the hundreds of thousands of dollars the hit song has made in royalties.

However, it's worth noting that in 2019, the $5,000 was "not valid consideration for this particular agreement because Defendants were already obligated to provide this money to Elliott as their co-author and co-owner before the IHOP meeting."

Originally published on Music Times

Tags
Fat Joe, Celebrity lawsuits