A US judge last week slashed back a lawsuit filed against Kanye West over allegedly uncleared samples on tracks ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Moon’ from his ‘Donda’ album. However, she allowed claims relating to demo versions of ‘Hurricane’ to go ahead on the basis West had commercialised those earlier iterations of his track, including at one of the big listening parties that preceded the launch of ‘Donda’ in 2021.
Despite West publishing his big statement in January - ahead of the release of his next album - apologising for all his past antisemitic and racist statements and conduct, his lawyers continue to deal with plenty of litigation.
Some of that relates to the antisemitism, with former employees suing for workplace discrimination. His lawyers also made a filing in one of those cases last week too, insisting West’s improper remarks were protected by free speech rights.
But some of the ongoing lawsuits relate to good old fashioned uncleared sampling, like the ‘Hurricane’ case, in which West is accused of sampling a track called ‘MSD PT2’ without permission. Those claims have been made by a company called Artist Revenue Advocates, which controls the earlier track.
According to Judge Michelle Williams Court, ARA alleges that West and his company were “paid considerable sums by Apple and others” in relation to the earlier versions of ‘Hurricane’, which were shared on social media and at the listening party. And, ARA’s musicologist - Berklee College Of Music’s Joe Bennett - is adamant those earlier versions directly sampled ‘MSD PT2’.
Which means there is “a genuine dispute of material fact as to copyright infringement” regarding the earlier versions of West’s tracks, which should be considered by a jury and therefore cannot be ruled on through summary judgement.
Musicologist Bennett concedes that the final version of ‘Hurricane’ and connected ‘Donda’ track ‘Moon’ do not actually sample ‘MSD PT2’, but argues that they still interpolate the melody of the earlier work. If West recreated substantial enough elements of ‘MSD PT2’ on his tracks, he would probably need a licence covering the copyright in the composition, even if he didn’t make use of the original recording.
West’s team had their own musicologist who disagrees with Bennett and argues there are not sufficient melodic similarities between ‘MSD PT2’ and ‘Donda’ and ‘Moon’.
However, that argument didn’t need to proceed because of doubts over whether or not ARA actually owns the copyright in the composition of ‘MSD PT2’. Because of those doubts, ARA’s claims in relation to the composition copyright were dismissed.
ARA does control the copyright in the ‘MSD PT2’ recording, but by its own expert’s admission, the recording was only sampled in the earlier versions of ‘Hurricane’. Hence why only that part of the dispute will continue to proceed in court.
Elsewhere in Kanye West legal news, last week his lawyers had another go at getting a lawsuit filed by a former employee dismissed on free speech grounds, arguing that the rapper’s provocative language was protected freedom of expression, even when delivered via private text messages.
West has been sued by an assortment of former employees in recent years. In this lawsuit, an unnamed former worker, who is Jewish, sued for workplace discrimination, claiming she was subject to “antisemitic vitriol” while working on the rapper’s ‘Vultures 1’ album. Among other things, her lawsuit cited texts in which West allegedly wrote “I am a Nazi” and “welcome to the first day of working for Hitler”.
A judge previously rejected claims from West’s lawyers that the lawsuit should be dismissed on free speech grounds, but that hasn’t stopped them making another filing insisting that - because West’s public persona is “intentionally provocative and thematically charged” - his use of ‘Nazi’ and ‘Hitler’ in text messages are protected artistic expression.
The latest legal filing follows West’s big apology in January in which he blamed his past antisemitic conduct on his bipolar disorder, adding that he is “deeply mortified by my actions”.