Whoomp! Who Owns It?

The question of who owns “Whoomp! (There It Is),” a song that anyone who attended a sporting event in the ’90s is all too familiar with, will go to trial this August after a decade of litigation and a related bankruptcy.

Judge Richard A. Schell of the U.S. District Court in Sherman, Texas, scheduled a throwdown in court on Aug. 27, when, court papers show, a jury will be selected for a trial over which of two music companies is the true owner (h/t Courthouse News Service).

Alvertis Isbell’s Bellmark Records released “Whoomp! (There It Is),” by one-hit wonder Tag Team, in 1993. According to Isbell, the record label owned the sound recording of the song, while its affiliated publishing company, Alvert Music, owned the composition rights to the song’s written form.

Enter DM Records, which in 1997 licensed “Whoomp! (There It Is).” Bellmark filed for bankruptcy protection the same year, and it later sold most of its assets—including its sound recording rights—to DM Records in 1999. According to Isbell, the composition rights weren’t included in that sale because they are an asset of Alvert, which wasn’t in bankruptcy.

But according to Isbell—better known as Al Bell, a famous record executive who once served as president of Motown Records—DM has been wrongly claiming ownership of both the song’s sound and composition rights. He’s seeking a ruling that Alvert Music still owns the composition rights, and he also wants damages for DM’s alleged infringement on his ownership rights.

DM Records, however, says written agreements don’t mention him or Alvert Music by name and therefore don’t distinguish between the two types of song rights. As a result, both were assets of Bellmark and therefore included among the assets DM Records bought from Bellmark’s bankruptcy.

After a decade of litigation, the parties asked Schell to rule on the dispute without a trial. The judge denied the request Friday, court papers show.

“Because there are genuine issues of material fact surrounding ownership of the subject composition copyrights, the court denies both DM and Isbell’s motions for summary judgment,” he wrote.

Released in 1993, “Whoomp! (There It Is)” was one of those ubiquitous pump-up-the-crowd songs played during sporting events,  a status cemented by its inclusion on the first volume of “Jock Jams.” It was later declared the 65th-worst song ever, surrounded by such other ’90s gems as “How Bizarre” by OMC, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something and “Supermodel (You Better Work)” by RuPaul.

Eventually, the song faded into the annals of pop culture until the summer of 2010, when Gawker asked whether an extra in the video was…wait for it…none other than President Barack Obama. The man, who wore sunglasses, a hat and held a bulky cellphone to his ear, did bear a strong resemblance to our 44th president. The rumor blew up online and on television until both Tag Team and the White House denied it.