Bridgeport Music has filed lawsuits for copyright infringement via sampling against hundreds of defendants under the federal copyright statute, 17 U.S.C., leading to them to being often described as a "Sample troll".
[2] Among others, Bridgeport has sued for sampling infringements in popular music produced by Public Enemy, N.W.A, Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G.
It was seeking declaratory judgement, injunctive relief, and damages in around 500 different claims against approximately 800 defendants.
[5] Notable cases include: There has been some controversy over the rights of the George Clinton and Funkadelic catalogs.
Clinton himself has claimed that the rights to the musical works were obtained fraudulently, by using a forged document from 1983 dealing with the transfer of the Malbiz catalog of songs.