Kanye West sued over King Crimson ‘Power’ sample
Kanye West's sampling of the prog-rock band King Crimson in the rapper’s 2010 single “Power” has sparked a lawsuit in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales.
The song was the lead single for West’s acclaimed album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, which was released by Def Jam Recordings and the now-defunct Roc-A-Fella Records in November 2010.
Universal Music Group (UMG) has been sued by the rightsholders for King Crimson’s catalogue, Declan Colgan Music (DCM), for “failure to pay royalties related to West’s sampling of King Crimson’s song “21st Century Schizoid Man”.
The band’s founder Robert Fripp said on Facebook that the dispute “has been dragging on for several years, unnecessarily”.
According to Variety, West originally sampled the song “without a license” prior to uploading the song to YouTube in 2010, where it has since amassed more than 133 million views. Upon learning of this, DCM and UMG reportedly signed a licensing agreement two months later for a 5.33% royalty payment for each copy of “Power” sold.
However, the dispute now centres around streaming royalties. DCM claims that UMG has been underpaying streams of the track, arguing that the royalty amount for streams should be equivalent to the rate for physical CD sales.
Fripp added: “There is a longer story to be told, and likely to astound innocents and decent, ordinary people who believe that one is paid equitably for their work, and on the appointed payday.”
He also added that the barrister representing DCM is Blackstone Chambers Ian Mill QC, the same barrister who secured a high-profile win for Ed Sheeran in the recent copyright dispute over the artist's single “Shape of You”.
Mark Kramer, Mark Nichols, Georgia Carr of Potter Clarkson unpacked Sheeran’s notable win in the infringement case launched by grime artist Sami Chokri earlier this month.
West’s sampling was also the topic of a 2020 lawsuit from a Chicago pastor, a recording of whom was featured in Kanye West’s 2016 song “Father Stretch My Hands Pt.1”. The pastor, Thomas Barret, claimed that he hadn’t granted his own label permission to distribute his music outside of a limited vinyl run.
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