{"id":2314,"date":"2024-08-20T14:45:53","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/kanye-west-settles-copyright-lawsuit-over-life-of-the-party-sample\/"},"modified":"2024-08-20T14:45:53","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T14:45:53","slug":"kanye-west-settles-copyright-lawsuit-over-life-of-the-party-sample","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/kanye-west-settles-copyright-lawsuit-over-life-of-the-party-sample\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanye West Settles Copyright Lawsuit Over \u2018Life of the\u00a0Party\u2019 Sample"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tYe<\/strong> (formerly Kanye West) has reached a settlement in a copyright lawsuit that accused him of using an uncleared sample from the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions in his song \u201cLife of the Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn court documents filed Monday, attorneys for both sides agreed that Ye should be dismissed from the case, with each side to pay their own legal bills. No other terms of the agreement were disclosed publicly, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Boogie Down lawsuit was one of more than a dozen such cases that have been filed against Ye over claims of unlicensed sampling or interpolating during his prolific career. The controversial rapper has faced nine such infringement cases since 2019 alone, including a high-profile battle with estate of Donna Summer<\/a> that settled earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\n\tFiled in November 2022, the current lawsuit was lodged by Phase One Network, the group that owns Boogie Down\u2019s copyrights, over allegations that Ye had used incorporated key aspects from the 1986 song \u201cSouth Bronx\u201d into \u201cLife of the Party,\u201d which was released on his 2021album Donda.<\/p>\n

\n\tEchoing several other sampling lawsuits against Ye, Phase One claimed that the rapper\u2019s representatives had reached out to legally clear the use of the Boogie Down song \u2013 but then released it anyway when a deal was never struck.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe communications confirmed that \u2018South Bronx\u2019 had been incorporated into the infringing track even though West had yet to obtain such license,\u201d Phase One\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u201cDespite the fact that final clearance for use of \u2018South Bronx\u2019 in the infringing track was never authorized, the infringing track was nevertheless reproduced, sold, distributed, publicly performed and exploited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLast summer, attorneys for Ye fought back with an unusual argument: That Boogie Down founder KRS-One<\/a> had publicly promised all future rappers that \u201cyou will not get sued\u201d over sampling the group\u2019s catalog. They cited a 2006 documentary called The Art of 16 Bars<\/em>, in which KRS-One said \u201cI give to all MCs my entire catalogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPhase One later called that a \u201cbizarre argument,\u201d noting that, when the documentary was made, KRS-One didn\u2019t actually own the music he was claiming to place in the public domain: \u201cMovants cite to no law to support such a theory. KRS-One also could not have placed the Work in the public domain as he\u00a0 did not own it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing Monday\u2019s agreement, Ye and his Yeezy LLC will be dropped from the lawsuit but the case will continue against other several defendants, including the company behind the Stem Player platform on which the song was allegedly released.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ye (formerly Kanye West) has reached a settlement in a copyright lawsuit that accused him of using an uncleared sample from the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[429,1627,303,926,1307,322,3053,1628],"class_list":["post-2314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-copyright","tag-kanye","tag-lawsuit","tag-life","tag-sample","tag-settles","tag-theparty","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}