Kanye West is facing another intellectual property battle, this time for songs in his 2021 album ‘Donda’. The songs ‘Moon’ and ‘Hurricane’ have been accused recently of copyright infringement.
A lawsuit was filed on Wednesday 17 July by Artist Revenue Advocates (‘ARA’) in Los Angeles on behalf of Khalil Abdul-Rahman Hazzard, Sam Barsh, Dan Seeff, and Josh Mease. The filing claims that West has committed a ‘blatant theft of musical property’ in his creation of the two songs. It continues to allege that the rapper stole pieces of the claimants’ song ‘MSD PT2’ in his two songs, both of which peaked in Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 in 2021.
ARA own the copyrights to the ‘MSD PT2’ song, and state in the claim that West had previously reached out to use their song under a licence agreement and that, after refusing, Mr West continued to use parts of their song despite being denied permission to do so.
The filing continues to state that it is not just about the defendant's failure to pay a fee, but that it is about the rights of artists, musicians, and songwriters to determine how their works are published and used. The claimants’ lawyers, Oren Warshavsky, has said that Intellectual Property owners should have a say in how their rights are used and should be able to prevent stealing of their works.
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