A United States District Court Magistrate Judge recently granted a preliminary injunction to Slip-N-Slide Records that prohibits TVT
Records from interfering with the distribution and/or release of Pitbull’s Welcome to the 305.
The two labels were embroiled in a legal battle over the release of
Welcome to the 305, an album that contains material Pitbull recorded
before signing with TVT.
In March 2005, TVT sent a letter to Slip-N-Slides distributors indicating that the sale of 305 violated TVT’s rights and that TVT
would seek redress for violation of those rights.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Brown ruled that “TVT’s statement and
letter that Slip-N-Slide’s actions in promoting and distributing 305,
were a violation’s of TVT’s rights (under a contract with Pitbull), was a misrepresentation which was made with knowledge and was clearly intended to cause the recipients of the letters to not purchase 305.”
The Court further found that “Slip-N-Slide’s business relationships with it’s distributors had been damaged by the TVT letter.
Although Slip-N-Slide had already received 100,000 pre-orders of 305, they were unable to release the album because virtually every distributor that received the letter refused to sell it.”
The Slip-N-Slide recordings were tracked in 2001, before Pitbull signed to TVT.
Slip-N-Slide owner Ted Lucas claimed Pitbull signed over all rights to the recordings when they granted the rapper a release in 2003 to sign with TVT.
On the contrary, TVT President Steven Gottlieb said that Slip-N-Slide was exploiting the investment they had made to make Pitbull a worldwide star and that Pitbull told TVT to block the
release.