You (formerly Kanye West) has settled a copyright lawsuit accusing him of using an undisclosed sample from the groundbreaking rap group Boogie Down Productions in his song “Life of the Party.”
In court documents filed Monday, lawyers for both sides agreed that Ye should be dismissed from the case, with each side paying its own legal bills. No other terms of the deal were publicly disclosed, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
The Boogie Down lawsuit was one of more than a dozen such cases filed against Ye over claims of unauthorized sampling or interference during his production career. The controversial rapper has faced nine such infringement cases since 2019 alone, including a high-profile battle with property Donna Summer which was settled earlier this year.
Filed in November 2022, the current lawsuit was filed by Phase One Network, the group that owns the copyright to Boogie Down, over allegations that Ye had incorporated key aspects of the 1986 song “South Bronx” into “Life of the Party”, which was released on Donda's 2021 album.
Echoing several other sampling lawsuits against Ye, Phase One claimed the rapper's reps had approached him about using the Boogie Down song legally – but then released it anyway when no deal was ever made.
“The notices confirmed that 'South Bronx' had been incorporated into the infringement, even though West had not yet received such permission,” Phase One's lawyers wrote. “Despite the fact that final permission to use 'South Bronx' on the infringing track was never granted, the infringing track was nevertheless reproduced, sold, distributed, publicly performed and exploited.”
Last summer, Ye's lawyers countered with an unusual argument: That Boogie Down founder KRS-One had publicly promised all future rappers that they “won't sue you” for sampling the group's catalog. They cited a 2006 documentary called The Art of 16 Barsto which KRS-One said “I give all the MCs my whole catalog.”
Phase One later called it a “strange argument,” noting that, when the documentary was made, KRS-One did not actually own the music it claimed to be placing in the public domain: “The Movants cite no law to support such a theory . KRS-One also could not have placed the Work in the public domain, as he did not own it.”
Following Monday's settlement, Ye and his Yeezy LLC will drop the suit, but the case will continue against several other defendants, including the company behind the Stem Player platform on which the song was allegedly released.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/kanye-west-ye-settles-boogie-down-productions-life-of-the-party/
