{"id":4928,"date":"2025-03-26T21:38:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T21:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/kanye-faces-lawsuit-from-singer-who-refused-sample-over-antisemitism\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T21:38:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T21:38:32","slug":"kanye-faces-lawsuit-from-singer-who-refused-sample-over-antisemitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/kanye-faces-lawsuit-from-singer-who-refused-sample-over-antisemitism\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanye Faces Lawsuit From Singer Who Refused Sample Over Antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tY<\/span>e (formerly Kanye West) is facing a lawsuit claiming he sampled a song by German singer-songwriter Alice Merton despite her refusal to license it \u2014 a move she says \u201cshocked and humiliated\u201d her because she\u2019s the descendant of Holocaust survivors.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a copyright case filed Monday (March 26) in federal court, attorneys for Merton say Ye prominently used clips from her 2022 track \u201cBlindside\u201d in his 2024 song \u201cGun to My Head\u201d with Ty Dolla $ign and Kid Cudi, even after she had expressly refused to clear the sample.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen contacted by Ye\u2019s reps last year, Merton says she and her publisher told them that they were denying him a license because \u201cthe artist\u2019s values are contrary to our values\u201d \u2014 a reference to the star\u2019s antisemitic statements over the years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlthough defendants\u2019 use of plaintiffs\u2019 song could potentially bring in significant revenue, [she] was unwilling to compromise her personal beliefs and wanted not to be associated with Ye in any Manner,\u201d her lawyers write. \u201cMerton is a German resident who has close ties to the Holocaust through Jewish family members who survived its horrors, and as such feels closely connected to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMerton\u2019s new lawsuit is one of more than a dozen such cases filed against Ye during his career over claims of unlicensed sampling or interpolating. The controversial rapper has faced nine such infringement cases since 2019 alone, including a high-profile battle with the estate of Donna Summer that settled last year.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Monday\u2019s complaint, Merton says she is the \u201cdirect descendant of Holocaust survivors\u201d \u2014 and that she was thus \u201cunderstandably shocked and humiliated\u201d when the song was released featuring his music: \u201cMerton\u2019s name was suddenly appearing everywhere, with claims that the song was a collaboration between YE, Cudi, and Merton.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking matters worse, Merton says that when the song was not included on Ye\u2019s Vultures 2 <\/em>album, fans blamed her and began harassing her to approve the sample.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiff Merton began receiving death threats and abuse from Defendants\u2019 fan base,\u201d he lawyers write. \u201cDefendant did nothing to stop the abuse, allowing his fans to intimidate and harass Plaintiff Merton.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Ye could not immediately be located for comment on Wednesday (March 26).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ye (formerly Kanye West) is facing a lawsuit claiming he sampled a song by German singer-songwriter Alice Merton despite her refusal to license it \u2014 a move she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2411,458,1627,303,626,1307,1805],"class_list":["post-4928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-antisemitism","tag-faces","tag-kanye","tag-lawsuit","tag-refused","tag-sample","tag-singer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928","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=4928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}