copyright infringement
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Sam Smith and Normani have prevailed in a copyright lawsuit against their 2019 hit “Dancing With a Stranger” a California judge agreed to dismiss the case Wednesday (Sept. 6). Released in 2019 off Smith’s third studio album Love Goes, “Dancing with a Stranger” is one of their top-charting hits, peaking at No. 7 on the […]
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Future has one less thing to worry about thanks to a judge that is tune with the culture. Judge Martha Pacold referenced some classic works when dismissing a copyright lawsuit.
As spotted on TMZ the trapper turned rapper was sued about two years ago by DaQuan Robinson. The man claimed he created a song titled “When I Think About It” and sent the work to Future’s team. In 2017 Pluto released on the Beastmode 2 mixtape which featured his song “When U Think About It”. Robinson claims that Future lifted elements from his version and even spoke on a lot of the same content he did. Fast forward to 2023, Judge Pacold threw out his case citing that those themes are generally found in many Rap songs and are not protected by copyright.
The magistrate went on to further detail her ruling by referring to earlier works from The Notorious B.I.G., Kanye West and even the Wu-Tang Clan. She also cited Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s hit song “Our House” regarding Robinson’s “core lyric” copyright claim. “The core lyric, ‘our house is a very, very, very fine house,’ is used to support the entire rest of the song, which uses the house and its constituent elements as the setting for the narrator’s relationship,” said Pacold. “This songwriting technique is not unique to Robinson, nor mid-century Canadian-American bands that feature intricate vocal harmonies. The mere use of a ‘core lyric’ to support a song’s storyline is not protectable element because it is a frequently utilized technique in popular songwriting.”
Future has yet to comment on the favorable ruling.
Photo: PhotosByBeanz
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Lana Del Rey has reached a settlement to end a lawsuit claiming her music video for “Summertime Sadness” featured 17 seconds of material lifted directly from a copyrighted short film, weeks after a federal judge refused to dismiss the case.
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Lucas Bolaño sued Del Ray (real name Elizabeth Grant) and Universal Music Group last year, accusing them of “blatant disregard” of his rights. He claimed the 2012 video not only copied the footage from his short film “Sky,” but even stole audio of a voice saying “Remember, I will always love you, bye.”
But in a filing in California federal court on Tuesday, lawyers for both sides said they had reached an agreement for Bolaño to drop his case. Specific terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
The settlement came just a month after a federal judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit against Del Rey. The star’s lawyers had argued that Bolaño waited far too long to sue, but in a May 16 ruling, Judge Stephen Wilson sent the case to a jury trial — a risky proposition even for any defendant.
Bolaño sued in July 2022, claiming the first 17 seconds of the “Summertime Sadness” music video was copied directly from his film, with “only marginal differences” like cropping and color saturation: “These minor alterations do not make Defendants’ copying any less apparent or egregious.”
His lawyers claimed the video, which had more than 350 million views on YouTube when he filed his case, had “generated millions of dollars in royalties” for Del Rey and UMG. “Unfortunately, Plaintiffs have not seen a dime of these ill-gotten proceeds and have never even been credited for their work,” they wrote.
In April, attorneys for Del Rey asked a federal judge to toss the case out. They didn’t argue about whether or not the clip appeared in the music video, but said simply that Bolaño had waited years too long to sue. In particular, they pointed to a 2015 YouTube comment on his short film, in which a user said “this was used in Summertime Sadness!”
“The undisputed facts demonstrate that plaintiffs had actual knowledge of the music video and Del Rey’s use of their works no later than 2015,” the star’s lawyers wrote. “Ignoring clear, indisputable, and specific notice, plaintiffs waited an additional seven years to bring this suit.”
But Bolaño argued that he never saw that comment and didn’t notice Del Rey’s video until 2021. And last month, a Judge Wilson said a jury might believe that argument: “These arguments are more properly resolved before the jury.”
Lawyers for the RIAA are aiming to shut down a popular Discord server centered on artificial intelligence and voice models, the latest effort by music companies to rein in the disruptive new technology.
In an action filed last week in D.C. federal court, attorneys for RIAA obtained a subpoena demanding that Discord reveal the identities of users on “AI Hub,” a message board with 145,000 members that calls itself “a community dedicated to making AI voices and songs.”
In a letter to Discord presenting the company with the subpoena, the RIAA said those users had “infringed … copyrighted sound recordings” and that the tech company was required to hand over names, physical addresses, payment info, IP addresses and other identifying details.
The group’s lawyers also sent Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to Discord, first in late May and then again next week. The group demanded that Discord disable access to the server, remove or disable the infringing material, and inform the server’s users “of the illegality of their conduct.”
“This server [is] dedicated to infringing our members’ copyrighted sound recordings by offering, selling, linking to, hosting, streaming, and/or distributing files containing our members’ sound recordings without authorization,” the RIAA’s lawyers wrote in their June letter to Discord, which was obtained by Billboard. “We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorized activity.”
The subpoena against Discord was obtained under the DMCA’s Section 512(h), which enables rights holders like the RIAA’s members to unmask the identities of anonymous online infringers in certain circumstances.
Discord can fight back by seeking to “quash” the subpoena; Twitter won such a challenge last year, when a federal judge ruled that the First Amendment rights of a user trumped the need for an unmasking order. It could also refuse to honor the takedown, but that would put the site itself at risk of litigation.
As of Thursday evening (June 22), the main AI Hub server remained up on Discord; it was unclear if individual content or sub-channels had been removed. A spokesperson for the company did not return a request for comment.
In a statement to Billboard, an RIAA spokesperson confirmed that the group had taken the action against AI Hub. “When those who seek to profit from AI train their systems on unauthorized content, it undermines the entire music ecosystem – harming creators, fans, and responsible developers alike. This action seeks to help ensure that lawless systems that exploit the life’s work of artists without consent cannot and do not become the future of AI.”
The RIAA’s actions are just the latest sign that the explosive growth of AI technologies over the past year has sparked serious concerns in the music industry.
One big fear is that copyrighted songs are being used en masse to “train” AI models, all without any compensation going to the songwriters or artists that created them. In April, Universal Music Group demanded that Spotify and other streaming services prevent AI companies from doing so on their platforms, warning that it “will not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights.”
Another fear is the proliferation of so-called deepfake versions of popular music, like the AI-generated fake Drake and The Weeknd track that went viral in April. That song was quickly pulled down, but its uncanny vocals and mass popularity sparked concerns about future celebrity rip offs.
For RIAA, AI Hub likely triggered both of those worries. The server features numerous “voice models” that mimic the voices of specific real singers, including Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. And in the wake of the RIAA’s actions, users on the Discord server speculated Thursday that the takedowns were filed because users had disclosed that some of the models had been trained on copyrighted songs.
“We have had certain threats from record labels to takedown models, mainly because some posters decided to share datasets full of copyrighted music publicly,” one AI Hub admin wrote. “If you want to avoid unnecessary takedowns[,] most importantly, do NOT share the full dataset if you have copyrighted material in the dataset. The voice model itself is fine, but don’t share the dataset.”
A Florida reggae band has decided to drop a copyright case accusing Dua Lipa of copying her smash hit song “Levitating” from their earlier track, two days after a federal judge cast serious doubt on the lawsuit’s allegations.
The band, called Artikal Sound System, sued the star last year over accusations that her 2020 song — which spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — borrowed its core hook from their lesser-known 2017 tune, “Live Your Life.”
But in a filing on Wednesday (June 7), attorneys for both Artikal Sound System and Lipa filed a joint motion, asking the judge to permanently dismiss the case. There was no indication that Lipa had agreed to pay any money or change the credits to her song.
The filing came just two days after U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes ruled strongly for Lipa, saying that there was no sign that anyone involved in creating “Levitating” had had “access” to the earlier song — a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit.
That ruling technically dismissed the case against Lipa, but Judge Sykes gave Artikal Sound System another chance to refile an updated version of the case within two weeks. Instead, the band appears to have decided not to pursue further litigation against Lipa and the other “Levitating” co-writers.
In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday evening, Lipa’s attorney Christine Lepera confirmed that the band had chosen to walk away from the litigation unilaterally and that no settlement had been reached.
“Following the court’s decision dismissing their complaint, the plaintiffs voluntarily chose to discontinue the case with prejudice, without any consideration whatsoever from the defendants, who were prepared to vigorously defend any continuation of the case,” said Lepera, an attorney at the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.
An attorney for the band did not immediately return a request for comment.
Artikal Sound System’s decision to drop the lawsuit brings an end to one of two high-profile cases filed against Lipa last year over “Levitating,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 before securing the honor of being the longest-running top 10 song ever by a female artist on the chart.
The other case, filed by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, claims that Lipa lifted the melody to her track from their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and their 1980 song “Don Diablo.” That case is still pending but faces similar counter-arguments from Lipa’s lawyers about a lack of “access.”
Artikal Sound System is a reggae band based out of South Florida, founded in 2012 as a duo before later adding additional musicians and vocalist Logan Rex. The band released “Live Your Life” on its 2017 EP Smoke and Mirrors.
In their March lawsuit, the band said the songs sounded so similar that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” The lawsuit also named Dua Lipa’s label, Warner Records, as well as others who helped create the hit track.
In November, Lipa’s lawyers argued that Artikal Sound System had no proof that Lipa or the other writers ever heard “Live Your Life” before they wrote “Levitating.” They called the allegations “speculative,” “vague” and supported by little real evidence.
Artikal Sound System offered a complex theory for how such “access” might have happened, stating that one of Lipa’s co-writers had previously worked with a woman who was allegedly taught guitar by the brother-in-law of one band member.
But in her ruling on Monday Judge Sykes flatly rejected that argument: “These attenuated links, which bear little connection to either of the two musical compositions at issue here, also do not suggest a reasonable likelihood that defendants actually encountered plaintiffs’ song.”
Ed Sheeran is on a legal winning streak.
Less than two weeks after the star singer won a blockbuster trial over whether his “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” a federal judge has dismissed a second, closely-related copyright case accusing him of copying the same iconic song.
U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton had ruled last fall that Sheeran would need to face a jury trial in the second case, just like he did in last month’s showdown in Manhattan federal court. But on Tuesday (May 16), the judge issued a surprise decision reversing himself and dismissing the case without a trial.
The reason? The judge said he could rule himself, without the help of a jury, that the combination of simple elements that Sheeran allegedly stole (a chord progression combined with a harmonic rhythm) was not unique enough to be covered by copyright law in the first place.
“It is an unassailable reality that the chord progression and harmonic rhythm in ‘Let’s Get It On’ are so commonplace, in isolation and in combination, that to protect their combination would give ‘Let’s Get It On’ an impermissible monopoly over a basic musical building block,” Judge Stanton wrote, echoing the arguments that Sheeran’s attorneys made throughout last month’s trial.
Sheeran has spent years defending himself over “Thinking Out Loud.” Though the song was a commercial and critical success — it hit No. 2 on the Hot 100 before winning a Grammy award for song of the year — critics and the public quickly noticed similarities with “Let’s Get It On,” with one reviewer calling it an “incredibly obvious successor” to Gaye’s famed slow jam.
Sheeran was first sued by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On” with Gaye. It was that long-running case that last month culminated in a high-profile trial in Lower Manhattan, which featured passionate arguments from both sides and saw the singer himself playing the guitar from the witness stand. On May 4, the jurors returned a verdict that Sheeran and his co-writer Amy Wadge had not infringed the earlier song, clearing the star of millions of dollars in potential damages.
But even following that verdict, Sheeran was still facing another case filed by Structured Asset Sales, an entity owned by industry executive David Pullman that owns a separate one-third stake in Townsend’s copyrights. Last October, Judge Stanton ruled in that case that the pop star would need to face a jury of his peers. The judge said there was “no bright-line rule” for deciding whether Gaye’s selection and arrangement of common musical elements were creative enough to warrant copyright protection.
But on Tuesday, less than two weeks after the big verdict in the other case, Judge Stanton made the rare legal decision to “reconsider” his own ruling to send the case to trial.
Among other things, the judge cited the fact that the same combination of chords and harmonic rhythm had appeared in at least four other songs before “Let’s Get It On” was even released, including “Get Off Of My Cloud” by The Rolling Stones and “Georgy Girl” by The Seekers.
“Multiple songwriters have combined the two commonplace elements in the same manner for years,” Judge Stanton wrote. “If their combination were protected and not freely available to songwriters, the goal of copyright law … would be thwarted.”
The judge also cited a recent ruling that dismissed a case against Donald Glover over the Childish Gambino song “This Is America” on similar legal grounds, suggesting that the decision had changed the case law on how federal courts assess such combinations of unprotectable elements.
“To prevent manifest injustice, defendants’ motion for reconsideration is granted,” Judge Stanton wrote. “The Clerk of the Court is directed to close the case.”
In a statement to Billboard following the ruling, Sheeran’s lead attorney Donald S. Zakarin said his team and his client were “truly pleased” with the outcome: “Judge Stanton concluded that Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge did not infringe, a conclusion consistent with the jury determination that Ed and Amy independently created Thinking Out Loud. This is an important victory not only for Ed and Amy and all songwriters but also for the music loving public.”
Though Tuesday’s ruling is a key victory for the pop star, it’s not the end of the road for the “Thinking Out Loud” litigation. Both the verdict earlier this month and the new ruling can still be appealed, which could take years to resolve. And Structured Asset Sales is also pursuing a third, more novel case based on a different copyright covering Gaye’s more famous recorded version of the song.
In an interview with Billboard following the ruling, Pullman said his company would appeal Tuesday’s decision on multiple grounds. And he stressed that he would continue to litigate the third case, which has been paused while the other cases played out.
“In the new case, in front of a different judge, we have the sound recording in that case,” Pullman said. “Through all these years of litigation, the one thing the defendants have been petrified of is the sound recording. They don’t want to play it for the jury, because then they would see the similarities.”
Drake is facing a new copyright lawsuit claiming he used an unlicensed sample from the song of a Ghanaian rapper on his chart-topping 2022 album, Honestly, Nevermind.
In a case filed Tuesday (April 18) in Manhattan federal court, an artist named Obrafour (real name Michael Elliot Kwabena Okyere Darko) claims Honestly, Nevermind track “Calling My Name” features a short clip of a vocal phrase — “Killer cut, blood, killer cut” — that was pulled directly from Obrafour’s earlier song, “Oye Ohene.”
Unlike many such cases, Obrafour claims to have smoking gun evidence: An email from someone at Republic Records seeking to clear the clip. The June 2022 note allegedly admitted that Drake had already “used samples from the above referenced song” and wanted permission to release it.
But according to the lawsuit, Drake’s album and song — complete with the unlicensed sample — were released just nine days later, before Obrafour had a chance to respond to the email.
“Defendants continue to engage in infringement, despite acknowledging that they needed to secure rights and authorization from Obrafour,” lawyers for the Ghanaian rapper wrote. “Defendants have never accounted to, credited, or otherwise compensated Obrafour for their unauthorized use of the copyrighted work.”
Honestly, Nevermind, which was surprise-released on June 17, 2022, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spent 43 weeks on the chart, though “Calling My Name” was less successful; the track debuted at No. 20 on the Hot 100 but dropped off the following week.
According to his lawsuit, Obrafour received an email nine days earlier bearing the subject line: “Drake ‘Darkness’ (working title) contains samples from ‘Oye Ohene’ Ft Tinny written and performed by Obrafour.”
The sender told Obrafour that they were “currently working on a sample clearance for Republic recording artist Drake” and were seeking “consent for both the master rights and publishing rights” to the clip. On June 13, Obrafuour received a second email that read: “Hi confirming you received this email thanks.”
Then he, says, the album dropped.
“Obrafour had not yet responded to the June 8, 2022 clearance email or the follow-up June 13, 2022 clearance email at the point when Drake’s ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ album was released,” his lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Nonetheless, the infringing work is one of the songs appearing on the “Honestly, Nevermind” album, as released to the world by ‘surprise’ on June 17, 2022.”
Reps for Drake and Republic Records did not immediately return requests for comment.
Sony Music Entertainment has quietly been battling for more than two years against the creator of a popular TikTok song over allegations that he prominently sampled a 1986 track by Japanese composer Toshifumi Hinata without “paying a cent.”
In a lawsuit first filed in December and refiled this week, Sony claims that Trefuego (real name Dantreal Daevon Clark-Rainbolt) made “flagrant” use of Hinata’s “Reflections” in his own song “90mh” — a track that’s allegedly been featured in 155,000 videos on TikTok and been streamed 100 million times on Spotify since it was released in 2019.
“In copying the ‘Reflections’ musical composition and sound recording, Trefuego brazenly sought to ride the coattails of Hinata’s creativity and popularity without regard to the United States copyright laws or the rights of Plaintiffs,” the label’s attorneys wrote.
Sony says it first took action back in January 2021, notifying Trefuego of the “infringing nature” of his song. After he allegedly refused to remove the song himself, the company filed takedown requests in August 2022 to get it pulled from TikTok, YouTube and Spotify. The company first sued Trefuego in December in Arizona federal court but refiled the case on Monday (March 20) in Texas federal court.
A manager for Trefuego did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.
An instrumental featuring strings and piano, “Reflections” was released on a 1986 album but has made recent appearances in Netflix’s 2020 film Tigertail and in popular ambient music playlists on Spotify. Amid a “surge” in interest in such music on TikTok and other platforms, Sony says it’s been “highly selective” about allowing the song to be used, granting licenses “only for those projects that Hinata himself might endorse.”
But Trefuego “simply stole” the sample, Sony says.
“Trefuego took a very different approach,” the company claims. “He used and copied plaintiffs’ work without so much as asking, or paying a cent to plaintiffs, and he continued to exploit that music despite plaintiffs’ demand that he stop.”
In terms of the specific music borrowed, Sony claims that Trefuego sampled a 15-note melodic strings sequence accompanied by a looping chord progression played on the piano. That clip is looped throughout the entirety of “90mh,” Sony says.
“Trefuego’s infringement is blatant,” the company wrote. “[His] use of ‘Reflections’ permeates the entirety of the infringing works, and for many listeners, is the only reason they listen to them.”
An attorney for Sony did not immediately return a request for additional comment on the dispute with Trefuego.
The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were hit with a copyright lawsuit on Friday (March 10) claiming their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” — a rare new song from the rock legends — lifted material from a pair of little-known earlier tracks.
In a lawsuit filed in New Orleans federal court, songwriter Sergio Garcia Fernandez (stage name Angelslang) is claiming that Jagger and Richards “misappropriated many of the recognizable and key protected elements” from his 2006 song “So Sorry” as well as his 2007 tune “Seed of God.”
How would members of the iconic band have heard those songs, which have less than 1,000 spins on Spotify? Fernandez claims he gave a demo CD to “an immediate family member” of Jagger.
“The immediate family member … confirmed receipt … to the plaintiff via e-mail, and expressed that the musical works of the plaintiff and its style was a sound The Rolling Stones would be interested in using,” Fernandez’s lawyers wrote in Friday’s complaint.
A copy of the alleged email from Jagger’s relative was not included in public filings.
Released at the peak of the COVID-19 shutdowns in April 2020, “Living in a Ghost Town” was the first original material released by the Stones since 2012. The song, a blues-rock tune with reggae influences accompanied by a COVID-themed video, reached No. 3 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart in May 2020.
But Fernandez says the new song was created by borrowing key features from his songs, including the “vocal melodies, the chord progressions, the drum beat patterns, the harmonica parts, the electric bass line parts, the tempos, and other key signatures” from “So Sorry” and the “harmonic and chord progression and melody” from “Seed of God.”
“Defendants never paid plaintiff, nor secured the authorization for the use of ‘So Sorry’ and ‘Seed of God,’ his lawyers wrote.
A rep for The Rolling Stones did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday evening.
Lawyers for Ed Sheeran’s copyright accusers are firing back at the star’s efforts to ban an infamous YouTube clip from an upcoming trial over “Thinking Out Loud,” calling the video “among the most important and critical evidence in this case.”
With a trial looming in April over whether Sheeran’s smash hit infringed Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On,” a pre-game showdown is brewing over whether jurors will get to watch the YouTube video. In it, Sheeran draws cheers at a 2014 concert by seamlessly toggling between the two songs.
Earlier this month, the star’s lawyers argued that the clip will confuse jurors. While such a performance might appear to be evidence of illegal copying, Sheeran’s lawyers argued that it really only showed that both songs feature a common chord progression that’s “freely available to all songwriters.”
But in a response on Thursday (Feb. 23), lawyers for Sheeran’s accusers said the clip was obviously relevant to the core dispute in the case: whether “Thinking Out Loud” shares enough similarities with “Let’s Get It On” to constitute copyright infringement.
“The video of the medley at issue provides helpful guidance to highlight and/or illustrate those similarities and why they are significant,” attorney Patrick Frank wrote. “The medley which defendants belatedly seek to exclude from admission at trial … is among the most important and critical evidence in the case.”
The current case against Sheeran was filed way back in 2017 by heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote “Let’s Get It On.” Gaye’s heirs, who once famously sued Robin Thicke over accusations that his “Blurred Lines” was stolen from the legendary singer, are not involved in the case.
Sheeran’s lawyers have long argued that the star did nothing wrong, since “Thinking Out Loud” and “Let’s Get It On” share only “unprotectable and commonplace elements” that are not covered by copyright law. But Judge Louis D. Stanton has repeatedly refused to decide the case in their favor, ruling that the dispute is close enough that it must be decided by a jury.
In the lead-up to the trial, attorneys for the Townsend heirs filed a formal notice that they planned to play the YouTube clip for jurors. In the video — a six-minute snippet of a November 2014 concert in Zurich, Switzerland that’s been viewed nearly 300,000 times — Sheeran abruptly switches from “Thinking” to “Let’s” and back again, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.
In Thursday’s new filing, those same lawyers pointed out that the judge overseeing the case previously singled out the YouTube clip as potential evidence that might resonate with jurors, saying they “may be impressed” by the footage. “Presumably, if the court believed that the video … would be improper for a jury to view at trial, the court would have been reticent to state a jury’s possible interest in the same,” the Townsend lawyers wrote this week.
In seeking to exclude the clip, Sheeran’s lawyers argued earlier this month that allowing such evidence could have a broader “chilling effect” on the music industry and on medleys, which they called an “important, enduring aspect of live concerts.” But in Thursday’s response, the lawyers for the Townsend heirs sharply disagreed.
“Defendants have provided nothing beyond mere speculation that the inclusion of directly relevant evidence … would have any collateral impact on any aspect of the concert industry.”
An attorney for Sheeran declined to comment on the new filing. But earlier on Thursday, the star’s lawyers filed a motion arguing that the deadline for such a response had already expired; they can file a formal reply brief in the weeks ahead.