Bad Bunny Wins Round One, But Lawsuit Battle Continues

In what amounts to a partial victory for reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny, Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court has tossed some claims from his ex-girlfriend while keeping others alive. The decision, handed down Wednesday, dismisses allegations tied specifically to the 2017 hit“Pa Ti”—but that’s not quite the clean win it might sound like.

Here’s where it gets interesting: former girlfriend Carliz De La Cruz Hernández had claimed that Bad Bunny used her voice without permission on the track. Specifically, she said she’d recorded the phrase“Bad Bunny, baby”on her phone back in 2015 in a bathroom, and that same vocal snippet ended up in the song. The court ruled those“Pa Ti”claims are time-barred, meaning they’re too old legally to pursue. That’s a relief for Bad Bunny on that particular track.

But the case isn’t dead—not by a long shot. While the“Pa Ti”allegations are dismissed, De La Cruz’s surviving claims are moving forward beyond the early dismissal stage and will continue to be litigated before the Puerto Rico Court of First Instance. And here’s the kicker: that same“Bad Bunny, baby”recording apparently also appears in another Bad Bunny song called“Dos Mil 16,”which opens the door for the dispute to continue on different legal ground.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of another voice-use lawsuit Bad Bunny is facing. Earlier this year, a woman named Tainaly Serrano Rivera filed suit alleging that Bad Bunny used her voice on tracks“Solo de Mí”and“EoO”without authorization. So while Bad Bunny escaped one courtroom battle this week, he’s far from in the clear when it comes to questions about how his music uses other people’s voices.

The bigger picture here speaks to an ongoing tension in hip-hop and reggaeton production: who owns a vocal moment? Is a fleeting exclamation fair game for sampling and embedding, or does it require explicit permission? Bad Bunny’s cases suggest courts and the industry itself are still working through those boundaries.