“If fees are awarded to defendants in this case, such an award would send a chilling message to songwriters, artists, and other copyright owners,” Empawa’s lawyers write. “Awarding fees against Empawa for bringing a good faith lawsuit … would be completely antithetical to the goals and purpose of the Copyright Act.” To support that claim, Empawa says Bunny and his lawyers admitted he had used the sample, and that his only justification was that he had properly cleared it with somebody else. But Monday’s filing says the superstar never provided any evidence of such a deal.

“Ocasio has admitted sampling Empawa’s music, and, in almost three years, has not presented a scintilla of evidence that the sample was authorized,” the company’s attorneys write. “Empawa’s claims were brought and prosecuted in good faith.” The case, filed last spring, claimed Bunny’s track included an uncleared sample of a 2019 track called “Empty My Pocket” by a Nigerian artist named Dera (Ezeani Chidera Godfrey). Bad Bunny argued he had done nothing wrong, since he properly cleared the sample with another rightsholder on “Empty My Pocket,” a production company called Lakizo Entertainment.

The lawsuit was a big deal because Un Verano Sin Ti was a big deal — spending 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and more than 150 weeks total on the chart. “Enséñame a Bailar” was a hit in its own right, charting on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and earning 72 million views on YouTube. Related Here Are Latin Music’s Biggest Lawsuits & Legal Cases, Including Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee & More But earlier this year, Empawa and Dera’s lawyers withdrew from the case, citing “irreparable differences” with their clients.

Without lawyers, both Dera and Empawa abruptly stopped litigating the case, and a judge eventually dismissed it for lack of prosecution. Bad Bunny isn’t ready to close the case just yet, though. Last month, his lawyers argued that Empawa should not be allowed to walk away after filing “frivolous” accusations in court that forced the superstar to incur a huge legal bill to defend himself.

“This case was meritless from the beginning and should never have been brought,” his lawyers write. “Instead, Empawa filed and aggressively litigated it, apparently hoping that Bad Bunny’s wealth, prominence and desire to avoid attorneys’ fees and bad publicity would enable Empawa to extract an undeserved, multimillion-dollar settlement.” In Monday’s response, Empawa says there is “no merit whatsoever” to the argument that it tried to use the threat of media coverage to gain leverage. “It is undisputed that Ocasio is world-famous artist, considered one of the largest Latino artists of all time.

Quite obviously, any claim against such an artist would garner publicity,” the company’s lawyers write. “For defendants to suggest bad faith conduct on Empawa’s part simply for raising good faith infringement claims against a popular artist because it garnered publicity, is absurd.” In the American legal system, each side usually pays its own legal bills, even defendants who defeat a lawsuit that they feel they shouldn’t have faced. But such awards are more common under copyright law, which has a specific provision allowing for fee awards to deter bad lawsuits.

Mariah Carey, Nelly and other stars have recently used such requests in an effort to punish accusers. But Empawa argues Monday that its lawsuit doesn’t warrant such a penalty because it had good reasons to think Bad Bunny had infringed its copyrights. The filing includes a sworn declaration from the label’s former lawyer, Robert Jacobs, in which he says the star’s lawyers repeatedly refused to provide any proof that the sample had been validly cleared.

He also says his withdrawal had nothing to do with the validity of the case. “The merits of the lawsuit had nothing to do with the [withdrawal] motion, and … I believed more than