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Kanye West Gets Sued Again With New Copyright Lawsuit For Sampling Music Without Proper Licenses
Kanye West, now known as Ye, faces yet another lawsuit for illegal sampling of music in his album Donda. Read on to know the details.
Kanye West is facing another lawsuit on the charge of illegal sampling, having included an instrumental track into two songs from Donda despite being explicitly told not to. The lawsuit was filed against him at the Los Angeles federal court by Artist Revenue Advocates (ARA), the company that owns the copyrights to the track Ye allegedly stole.
Kanye West is being dragged to court again for sampling
On Wednesday, July 17th, this lawsuit was filed in the federal court of Los Angeles. It stated that Ye had taken some elements of a song MSD PT2 in his tracks like Hurricane and Moon. Both of these tracks reached the top 20 on Hot-100 in 2021.
Filed by Artist Revenue Advocates (ARA), the owner company of MSD PT2, the lawsuit claims that Ye decided to use the track without authorization after being denied a license for it. The attorneys Oren Warshavsky and others from BakerHostetler, who represent the plaintiffs, said that apart from non-payment of fees, the lawsuit concerns something else.
They emphasize how artists and their works are protected by Intellectual Property Law, which allows them to have control over what gets produced regarding those works and through which channels these works are exploited.
As per Billboard, Warshavsky said, "It is about the rights of artists, musicians, and songwriters to determine how their works are published and used." This means that intellectual property owners can protect their works from unauthorized utilization. The case also alleges that Khalil Abdul-Rahman Hazzard, Sam Barsh, Dan Seeff, and Josh Mease refused to collaborate with Kanye on it.
Kanye West has a long history of facing copyright lawsuits
Kanye West is no stranger to copyright lawsuits. Despite his musical talent and many successful tracks, he has also dealt with a significant number of legal battles over unauthorized sampling and similar issues. Ye has been involved in multiple lawsuits over uncleared samples and interpolations in his music. Most recently, in 2022, he faced a case alleging that his song Life of the Party illegally borrowed from a Boogie Down Productions track.
He was also sued for using an uncleared snippet from Move Your Body, the 1986 house track by Marshall Jefferson, on Flowers. Additionally, he was sued by a Texas pastor for allegedly sampling his recorded sermon on Come to Life.
In 2019, West and Pusha T were sued for sampling George Jackson’s I Can’t Do Without You in the track Come Back Baby. That same year, he also faced allegations that there was an audio clip containing a young girl praying somewhere in Ultralight Beam. He has faced similar lawsuits over unauthorized samples in New Slaves, Bound 2, and My Joy.
Artist Revenue Advocates (ARA) went ahead and filed this matter after efforts made by the aforementioned four artists bore no fruit regarding earnings from the proceeds generated by these songs under Kanye West's name for close to three years.
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