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Miami-based Slip-N-Slide Records is $9.1 million richer, thanks to a federal court settlement on Wednesday (March 14).
The Miami Herald reports that the label, which is home to Trick Daddy, Trina and Rick Ross, will receive $2.3 million in compensatory damages and $6.8 million in punitive damages from TVT Records, the nation’s largest independent record label.
The jury decision marks the end of a two-year legal battle between Slip-N-Slide and TVT over TVT's blocking of Slip-N-Slide's release of rapper Pitbull's album Welcome to the 305.
The dispute stemmed from claims that TVT acted inappropriately when they sent over 90 desist and cease letters addressed to Slip-N-Slide’s distributors and wholesale buyers.
In those letters, the New York-based label, which claimed to own the rights to Pitbull’s logo and trademark, expressed that the purchase of Welcome to the 305 would break its contractual and trademark rights it owns relating to the popular Miami rapper.
Pitbull was discovered by Jullian Andres Boothe, who recorded songs featured on Welcome to the 305 in 2001 and 2002, pursuant to a contract with the rapper.
Pitbull later released two albums through TVT, M.I.A.M.I. Money Is A Major Issue and El Mariel.
Boothe then brought Welcome to the 305 to Slip-N-Slide through his own company Rude Bwoy Entertainment for distribution.
Wednesday’s decision in the 11-day trial was summed up in three words by Slip-N-Slide CEO Ted Lucas as he told the Herald that “God is Good”.
“The jury accepted that Slip-N-Slide did everything properly when we attempted to distribute “Welcome to the 305” through our distributor,” he said.
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