On April 20, 2005, Greensleeves Records Limited, a U.K. record label specializing in Jamaican music, successfully defended claims of copyright infringement following a six-day jury trial before Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In Browne v. Greensleeves Records, the jury unanimously dismissed the claims of mixing engineer Hopeton Overton Browne, known as “Scientist”. Browne had claimed ownership of the recording and composition copyrights of five tracks from Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires, a reggae dub album originally released by Greensleeves in 1981.
Henry “Junjo” Lawes, a prolific Jamaican producer of the early eighties dancehall era, had originally produced the compositions and licensed them to Greensleeves in 1980. In 2002, Greensleeves licensed the tracks to video game publishers Rockstar Games/Take Two Interactive for use in the video game Grand Theft Auto III. Following the game’s release, Browne brought his copyright infringement claims alleging that he had not consented to the video game license. While both Henry Lawes and Osborne Ruddock, known as “King Tubby”, at whose studio the recordings were mixed, have both died and could not refute Scientist's claims, Lloyd James known as “King Jammy”, a producer, sound engineer and director of King Tubby's studio at the time the recordings were mixed, testified on behalf of Greensleeves.
Determined under Jamaican copyright law in place at the time of the recordings’ creation, Browne v. Greensleeves Records is the first case to decide the issue of who owns the copyright to sound recordings and compositions from Jamaica from that period. The verdict confirms the traditional custom and practice of the Jamaican music industry with the determination that such copyright resides with the producer.