Courts

Ye's Inspiration Looks A Little Too Much Like Theft

Let's have a suit for the douchebags!

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gavel scalesCollege Dropout. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Yeezus. Kanye West’s albums have been expert classes in creatively sampling prior work. But Ye could stand to be better about giving credit where credit is due. A recent lawsuit accuses West of taking other musicians’ work and using it on his album “Donda” without compensating them for it. Bloomberg Law has coverage:

Rapper and singer-songwriter Ye stole DJ Khalil’s and three other artists’ music for two tracks in his 2021 album “Donda,” according to a new federal lawsuit from a music royalty advocacy group.

The “blatant theft of musical property” occurred when Ye, previously known as Kanye West, used music composed and recorded by Khalil, Sam Barsh, Dan Seeff, and Josh Mease for the songs “Hurricane” and “Moon” after the artists denied permission for its use, according to the complaint filed by Artist Revenue Advocates LLC on Wednesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California. The complaint also named UMG Recordings Inc. and affiliates as defendants.
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Ye credited the artists in his album, but never obtained the copyrights to use the music, according to the complaint. ARA added that the inclusion of the credits is “effectively an admission of copyright infringement.”

Cases like these center on the plaintiffs proving that there’s an actual use of their work and not just a passing similarity to what the other artist made. That said, it’ll be hard to beat the Blame Game when all the artists have to do is point to the album credits to say I’m In It. The suit alleges that the songs have made ~$15M from streaming and ~$14M from merchandise revenue. This isn’t the first time that Ye has faced legal troubles, shame that it could have been avoided if he did a better job of sharing the wealth and recognition.

Rapper Ye Stole Artists’ Music for Two ‘Donda’ Tracks, Suit Says [Bloomberg Law]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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