The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has ruled that Bad Bunny’s ex-girlfriend can continue suing the star for allegedly featuring her voice saying the phrase “Bad Bunny baby” on the chart-topping album Un Verano Sin Ti without permission.
In a Wednesday (July 8) ruling, obtained by Billboard and translated from Spanish by the service DeepL, a majority of justices on the island’s highest court upheld a series of previous rulings that sustained Carliz De La Cruz Hernández’s claims over the use of her voice on the 2022 song “Dos Mil 16”. However, the court said De La Cruz Hernández waited too long to sue over the same vocal sample on Bad Bunny’s 2015 track “Pa Ti,” and these claims are barred by the statute of limitations. The lawsuit will now move forward as to “Dos Mil 16” only.
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De La Cruz Hernández dated Bad Bunny (Benito Martinez Ocasio) on and off for several years beginning in 2011, and in 2015 she recorded a voice memo saying the tagline “Bad Bunny baby” at his request. She sued the singer and his label, Rimas Entertainment, in 2023, alleging she had not given permission or gotten proper financial compensation for the use of this recording on his songs.
The lawsuit’s key claims are brought under Puerto Rico’s right of publicity law. Just like in many other U.S. jurisdictions, this statute protects an individual’s voice from being used without their consent in a commercial setting. Traditionally, this has meant that people can only sue over the use of their voices in advertisements, and sound recordings are exempt.
In this specific case, however, a Puerto Rico judge ruled in 2024 that De La Cruz Hernández’s voice on “Dos Mil 16” was actually a form of advertising. That’s because, according to the judge, the sample’s circulation on social media fueled fan speculation about whether Un Verano Sin Ti would explore De La Cruz Hernández and Bad Bunny’s romantic relationship, thus driving album sales.
This finding was upheld in an initial appeal last year. On Wednesday (July 8), Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court agreed as well that the various lower courts got it right when they declined to dismiss De La Cruz Hernández’s right of publicity claims: “They did not err in determining that the facts presented regarding the commercial or business exploitation of Ms. De la Cruz Hernández’s voice were sufficient to draw attention to the product in question or to inform the public about it through the media,” wrote Justice Mildred G. Pabón Charneco for the majority.
In addition to these claims over the use of her voice, De La Cruz Hernández will also be allowed to keep pursuing copyright claims against Bad Bunny for allegedly infringing her rights to the “Bad Bunny baby” voice memo. This part of the lawsuit was dismissed in 2024, but the Supreme Court majority revived it on Wednesday after finding that the recording was potentially copyrightable.
“To the extent that such a performance using her voice is fixed in a tangible medium, we recognize that copyright may arise in the recording,” wrote Justice Pabón Charneco. “Ms. De la Cruz Hernández alleged in her complaint that the recording of her personal, distinctive and incomparable rendition of the phrase was misused and that it was used without proper attribution. Therefore, we conclude that the plaintiff has presented sufficient facts to eventually offer evidence justifying this claim.”
Not all the justices on Puerto Rico’s top court agreed with these findings. Justice Angel Colón Pérez filed a dissent saying he and other justices would have dismissed both the copyright and right of publicity claims against Bad Bunny: “It seems clear to us that, in the context of the present litigation, none of the causes of action invoked by Ms. De La Cruz Hernández is legally valid under any [law] available in our jurisdiction,” wrote Justice Colón Pérez.
Reps for both De La Cruz Hernández and Bad Bunny did not immediately return requests for comment on the decision on Friday (July 10).
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