George Clinton has filed a $100 million copyright lawsuit against former business partner Armen Boladian and his Bridgeport Music company, alleging that Boladian fraudulently obtained copyrights to approximately 90 percent of his catalog.
In the suit, filed today in Florida District Court and reviewed by Variety, Clinton claims that Boladian and Bridgeport, as well as Westbound Records, Nine Records, Southfield Music and Eastbound Records, unlawfully continue to profit off of his music. Clinton held a press conference outside of the Apollo Theatre to announce the suit along with his attorney Ben Crump and fellow counsel, stating that he intends to reclaim ownership of his catalog to provide generational wealth to his family.
“These songs we’re talking about is my history,” said Clinton. “I have to fight for them, I have to make sure that I did not do all of this my whole life and have my family here, not get what’s due to them, what they inherit. We don’t have a chance to pass down 40 acres and mules to our families. We do not have the copyrights for the songs. So I’m here along with Ben and partners to make sure that Armen does not get what we worked so hard for.”
The suit claims that Boladian, Clinton’s longtime business partner, withheld millions of dollars in royalties and engaged in deceptive and fraudulent practices over the years. Clinton alleges that between 1982 and 1985, Boladian fabricated multiple versions of agreements designating additional rights to his catalog and added fake names and pseudonyms to copyright registrations to dilute shares in his royalties.
In the past, Boladian has been litigious over commercial use of Clinton’s music, filing hundreds of lawsuits in 2001 against musicians who sampled his work. The suit filed today notes that Clinton was not included as a plaintiff in those lawsuits and did not receive any of the millions Boladian got from them.
Attorney Richard Busch, who represents Boladian and Bridgeport, rebuffed the suit in a statement to Variety. “This is just the latest in a series of lawsuits that Mr. Clinton has filed against Bridgeport and Armen Boladian over the last 30 years raising the same exact issues,” reads the statement. “He has lost each and every time, including in the very courthouse in which he has filed this latest lawsuit. We will obviously therefore be moving to dismiss this lawsuit and will be seeking sanctions.”
Clinton and Boladian have been locked in legal warfare for years, with Clinton losing a copyright lawsuit against him in 2001 after a Florida judge ruled that music written from 1976-83 belonged to Boladian’s Bridgeport Music. In 2021, Boladian lost a defamation suit against Clinton over claims that the musician made in his 2014 autobiography “Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?: A Memoir.” In the book, Clinton claimed that Boladian had “fabricated documents,” “robbed” him of his songs and “fraudulently backdated and altered” contracts between them.
“I will continue to speak truth to power and to fight against the forces that have separated so many songwriters from their music,” Clinton said at his press conference. “I encourage all my fellow artists to investigate, interrogate, litigate, unseal, reveal. If we don’t get this right, then they win, and I refuse to let them win. This is about my family and the family of the other legacy artists and us being able to give generational wealth to our family from our intellectual property.”
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