Kanye West has been accused of “blatant theft of musical property” in a new copyright lawsuit over a sample used on his 2021 album ‘Donda’.
On Wednesday (July 17), Artist Revenue Advocates (ARA) filed a case on behalf of Khalil Abdul-Rahman Hazzard, Sam Barsh, Dan Seeff, and Josh Mease in Los Angeles federal court. The company stated that Ye used elements from a song called ‘MSD PT2’ on ‘Moon’ and ‘Hurricane’ from his 10th studio record – both tracks peaked in the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2021.
According to a Billboard report, ARA – the company that owns the copyrights to ‘MSD PT2’ – claimed that they refused to give West the license to use the song and called the rapper-producer’s actions “blatant theft of musical property”.
“This lawsuit is about more than defendants’ failure to pay a fee,” Oren Warshavsky and the other attorneys at BakerHostetler (the law firm representing the plaintiffs) wrote in a statement.
“It is about the rights of artists, musicians, and songwriters to determine how their works are published and used. Intellectual property owners have a right to decide how their property is exploited and need to be able to prevent shameless infringers from simply stealing.”
In the filing, they said Ye crediting the song’s original creators on his track was an act of “blatant brazenness” after they refused to work with him. Hazzard, Barsh, Seeff and Mease enlisted ARA’s help after they “unsuccessfully attempted to collect their share of the proceeds from these songs” for nearly three years.
At the time of writing, Ye nor a representative of his has commented on ARA’s lawsuit.
This April, an underground producer named TSVI also claimed West used a sample of his song ‘12345678’ on ‘Believe What I Say’ from ‘Donda’. In a tweet, he wrote: “Why am I finding out about this only now????? I need to get paid asap”.
There hasn’t been an update on whether TSVI ever sued or settled his issue with the Chicago star out of court.
West recently settled his dispute with Donna Summer’s estate after Summer’s husband Bruce Sudano said Ye and Ty Dolla $ign didn’t get permission to sample her 1977 disco hit ‘I Feel Love’ on their collaborative album, ‘Vultures 1’. It was alleged that representatives of West asked for permission to use the song on ‘Good (Don’t Die)’, but was denied as they “wanted no association with West’s controversial history”.
In 2022, Ye was also sued for allegedly sampling a song by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions without permission for his song ‘Life of the Party’. In another case, there were allegations that he didn’t clear a snippet of Marshall Jefferson’s 1986 house track ‘Move Your Body’ for the song ‘Flowers’.
In 2019, West and Pusha T were sued for sampling George Jackson‘s ‘I Can’t Do Without You’ on ‘Come Back Baby’ from the latter’s ‘DAYTONA’ album. In the same year, Ye found himself in more legal trouble over using a soundbite of a young girl praying in his 2016 song ‘Ultralight Beam’.
The news comes over two weeks after Ye was hit with another lawsuit that alleged he and his former chief of staff, Milo Yiannopoulos, created a hostile work environment and referred to employees as “new slaves”.
In addition, they have been sued for forcing adult and minor employees – some as young as 14 – to work long hours without pay or sleep. The lawsuit claimed West hired the employees to develop the ‘YZYVSN’ app – his answer to major streaming platforms like Tidal, Spotify, and Apple Music.
In other news, Rich The Kid recently shared a text that showed Ye allegedly declaring he would be “retiring from professional music” soon.