Sam Lipshie Quoted in Law.com on George Clinton Lawsuit to Recover Song Rights

Bradley attorney Sam Lipshie was quoted in Law.com on the recent lawsuit filed by acclaimed music pioneer George Clinton.

The Parliament-Funkadelic singer-songwriter filed the copyright lawsuit in the Northern District of Florida on Tuesday against his former music producer, Armen Boladian, and his entertainment companies. Clinton alleges that Boladian is a known “copyright troll” whose companies acquire copyrights to various catalogs and then files lawsuits when the works are sampled, including against Clinton for “sampling his own work.”

In the early 1990s, Boladian and Bridgeport Music filed suit against more than 400 defendants in a Nashville federal court, alleging misuse of Clinton’s music, according to Lipshie, who represented a film company named in the suit. Lipshie said his client was sued for using a recording comprising just two notes of a Clinton song. “It was virtually indistinguishable. You could not tell there was a sample in there,” he said.

The scope of the case “paralyzed the federal court for awhile,” Lipshie said. District Judge Thomas Higgins “was not happy about it,” Lipshie said of the now-deceased jurist. Higgins broke up the claims into individual cases, Lipshie explained, adding that his client reached a settlement worth a “nominal” amount.

Lipshie, who is not involved in the suit filed Tuesday, said he would like to see Clinton prevail.

“I've always sympathized with Mr. Clinton because he was a great artist and he signed away a lot of rights,” Lipshie said. “I've always been on the side of the creatives and the artists, so I hope that he gets his copyrights back and he gets some money to compensate him for what he apparently was not paid by the defendants.”

The full article, “Alleging Decades of Deceit, Funk Music Icon George Clinton Sues to Reclaim Rights to Catalog,” was published by Law.com on March 11, 2025.