In the federal district court case, Newton claimed that the group infringed his copyright on the composition by making use of the three-note sequence embodied in the sampled sound recording. The group argued that copyright law treats sound recordings and the underlying compositions as separate entities with different thresholds for originality; a six-second audio clip must be licensed from the record company, but under the "de minimis" doctrine, a mere three notes of a composition need not be licensed from the composer or publisher.